It’s that time of year again! The time when we Americans see the two most American things: the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity and an impending government shutdown.
While the Republican party winning the 2021 Congressional Baseball Game will not affect the future of America or most Americans right now, the same cannot be said for the Republican party winning on this year’s government budget.
For decades, the Republican party has “starved the beast,” keeping money away from the American government, leading to the death of many necessary government services. One of the major reasons that our government does not work is because it does not have enough money to support its functions, which we can thank the Republican party for.
This year, just like many before, Congress has not been able to come to an agreement on our budget. While the budget was technically due last Thursday at midnight, President Biden signed a temporary funding bill to extend the current funding until Dec. 4. While this has taken this from an immediate crisis to a crisis we’ll deal with in two months, it is not fixed by any means.
Many economists and U.S. officials have said that a shutdown would be “catastrophic” for the American economy in the long term. While the damage caused by a shutdown is incalculable in the long term, starving the American government like we have been doing for years will be equally as harmful.
While it feels good for the American government to cut taxes for you, it is killing us by strangling the necessary parts of the government. Republicans have done an amazing job convincing people that taxes are your enemy and tax cuts are always good, but that is not true.
The money you pay to the government in taxes is pooled with the money of all other citizens to give your money more power. It is a basic economic concept that the more money an entity has, the more power they have. Pooling money is therefore giving your money more power. The government operates on this principle economically, pooling resources such as money to gain more leverage for you.
While you may not see the money that you have earned directly, the money you have earned is doing more for you when pooled with other money than what it would do for you alone. This is why a centralized-government-healthcare system is stronger and better able to negotiate for your interests.
I think one of the most important changes that we can implement today that would increase the budget of the United States without increasing your taxes in the future would be to implement a wealth tax. I understand that this is a scary phrase for many to read but it is not scary when you actually know what it is.
A wealth tax would allow the government to tax the money of the rich that is currently untaxable. Have you ever wondered how Jeff Bezos and other mega-billionaires pay less in taxes than you? The answer is: they don’t spend money, they only borrow money and then spend that, which makes that money untaxable by the government.
Implementing a wealth tax would allow the government to actually tax the money that the rich are hoarding without ever truly having to spend it.
This tax also probably would not affect you or your parents ever, unless you gain more than $32 million in wealth per Bernie Sanders’ plan or $50 million per Elizabeth Warren’s plan. Sanders’ plan would tax these people 1 percent and people worth over $10 billion at 8 percent. Warren would tax wealth at 3 percent and at 6 percent if they have over $1 billion.
So all in all, tax the wealthy, feed the beast and pass a tax bill soon.