Mitt Romney said a day or so ago he thought his tax bill amounted to about 15 percent of his income and, maybe, he’ll make his tax return(s) public in April.
In his campaign presentations he has said he favors leaving the present tax laws in place. Those statutes tax dividends and capital gains at 15 percent — and define capital gains broadly enough to include investment income, which formerly was considered ordinary income and carried a 35 percent tax rate.
None of the candidates for the Republican nomination, current or recent, have proposed raising those rates or changing those definitions back to the pre-Bush (G.W., that is) level.
Those rates and definitions are part of the reason the national debt and the annual federal deficits are as high as they are.
They also explain, in part, the Occupy Wall Street movement.
This is a conversation the nation needs to have in earnest as the time to elect a president for the next four years draws nearer.
To set the stage, go to your favorite research medium and look up U.S. income tax rates over time. You will discover that the upper tax rate in 1998 was 39 percent; in 1986 it was 50 percent and in 1980 it was 70 percent. During World War II, the rate shot up into the 90s and there was a luxury tax in addition. (Americans back then had the quaint notion that a war should be paid for while in progress rather than two or three generations later.)
The upper rate today is 35 percent. But, as Mr. Romney’s case demonstrates, for those whose income consists primarily of return from investments, the rate is 15 percent — or about half what the average working guy or gal must pay.
THIS IS NOT a criticism of Romney and his accountants. As was observed previously, anyone who doesn’t take advantage of the lowest applicable tax rate isn’t smart enough to be president.
It must certainly is a criticism of a tax structure that taxes the income of the very rich at about half the rate the other 99 percent of the population pays.
While there are political explanations for this gross injustice, there can be no moral justification for it. Such grotesque inequality not only makes a mockery of democracy, it also is one of the factors pushing the whole nation, rich and poor, deeper and deeper into debt.
The United States of America has the wealthiest economy on earth. It has the capacity to pay its bills. It only lacks the will to do so.
Reform of the tax structure should be the primary issue this fall. And the debate should be about the system, not the personalities of the candidates or the wealth of particular families.
This isn’t about class warfare, it’s about wacky decisions made by lawmakers. Above all, it’s about fairness and practicality. It is not fair to tax the ultra wealthy less than the average wage earner. It is not practical to tax an enormous part of the wealth the economy produces at the lowest rate on the books.
Confronting this cardinal issue should be at the top of the political agenda as we endorse a program of work for the next four years and elect a president to carry it out.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
