DM Editors,
The premise of your “The dangerous appeal of Bernie Sanders” column misunderstands that a taxpayer with a $250,000 yearly income does not constitute “the wealthy” that “Bernie and his ilk” demand pay their fair share of taxes. The truly wealthy citizens and corporations, also known as “the 1 percent,” do not include the vast majority of these small business people who create most of the sustainable jobs in this country. Revenue losses in the United States from tax avoidance and evasion by corporations and billionaires are difficult to determine, but congressional sources estimate the annual cost of offshore tax abuses through the use of multi-national tax shelters exceed $100 billion per year. (See U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, Staff Report on Dividend Tax Abuse, Sept. 11, 2008.) The massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers and investors to the big banks and corporations that occurred in the 2008 financial crisis is not seen as a type of “socialism,” yet the mere mention of a transfer of wealth back to working Americans, both small business and wage-earners, brings visceral reactions from the most unexpected corners of the nation who have no liability at stake in today’s tax-equality movement.
The shame expressed by the column writer “when I beheld a sea of liberal arts students waving signs and chanting for a socialist septuagenarian” needlessly belittles older Americans and young voters who disagree and are fed-up with the “failed ideology” pushed on our people in order to protect the interests of the truly wealthy. Slogan arguments like “[t]he wealthy are the engines of our economy, not some mustachioed cadre out to extort us” are worn-out distortions promoted by the so-called “job creators.” Encouraging voters to “quit thinking about yourselves” only advances the status quo of protecting the accumulated wealth of billionaires and multi-national corporations who effectively stockpile their money from the pockets of honest taxpayers.
“However, blaming honest and profitable employers shows a knowledge of economics as thin as the paper this is printed on.” Newsprint is as thin as the basis and the conclusions of this piece.
Phillip W. Broadhead
Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Appeals Clinic
