TAXING TO PAY FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES IS NOT STEALING
John Hood is the mouthpiece for the John Locke Foundation, a right-wing think tank funded by billionaire Art Pope. Hood is now allowed to opine almost every other day in the Wilmington Star-News in the Op/Ed section.
Below is a response that I wrote to his “GOT TO PICK A POCKET” Op/Ed that appeared in the Star-News on 30 June 2021. I seriously doubt that my response will ever get printed but you can still read it below
In a recent Op/Ed John Hood from the John Locke Society, implied that taxing the rich is next to stealing. He used characters from a Charles Dickens novel as allegory. He asserted that the government does not have the moral justification to take money from the rich. He further asserts, just like Fagin, and his troop of rogue children from David Copperfield, stealing is stealing no matter who does it, and stealing from the rich does not substantially change the economy for the greater good.
It is ironic that Mr. Hood has chosen as allegory, a Victorian beloved novelist who wrote about an economic system that allowed some to live lavish lifestyles while others lived in abject poverty. Any underpaid North Carolina high school teacher could instruct Mr. Hood, that the boyish rogues who worked for Fagin, did so because no one else offered them anything and that Dickens in his writing displayed a cruel economic system that had no social net for those at the bottom who lived in utter despair.
What we now have in this country is an attempt to do the same. We have gone from a progressive tax system to a regressive tax system. That is to say that we have gone from taxing those who are more able to pay taxes to those who are least able to pay them. We now have a system where the financial elites are avoiding any fiduciary responsibility to contribute to the social net. Just this last week it was reported that five multibillionaires have not paid a single cent in income tax. Here in North Carolina Republicans want to get rid of corporate income taxes.
Mr. Hood is giving us the smoke and mirrors of “trickle-down” economics, claiming that these billionaires create jobs and make life rosy for working families and the poor. We have had over half a century to prove that “trickle-down” economics doesn’t work and never will. Instead, money is gushing up to the top and the American Dream is being lost to working and poor families.
In the last election members of one party wore MAGA on their hats. That was supposed to stand for Make America Great Again. These poor misguided souls did not seem to know what made America great in the first place. It was because we had a roaring economy that evolved from a business climate dictated by trade unions. So whether you were in a union or not, you were paid good wages and good benefits. Unions forced corporate management to be competitive to acquire workers. The result was that the United States became the world’s greatest superpower with a vibrant middle class who could afford a home, a car, and to send their kids to college.
But for the last 48 years, the economic system has been rigged to favor those at the top. We cannot continue to squeeze those at the bottom so that those at the top can have more profits, without catastrophic results. And asking the wealthiest people in this land to contribute to the social network is not stealing. As Rev. William Barber is quick to point out, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is not a conservative or liberal issue. It is a right and wrong moral issue.
Herb Harton, President
North Carolina Democratic Party Labor Caucus
