No Taxes On Workers Or The Middle Class

Source: Rolling Stone

Richard Mellor GED
Editor
Facts For Working People
Afscme Local 444 retired *

I have on occasion made public statements about my opposition to any taxes on workers and the middle class. I am talking about once a year or so when city councils or school boards (or the federal government for that matter) support ballot measures or legislation that increases property or other taxes in order to pay for social, services like public education that they want to privatize, and other social necessities for ordinary folks.

In the wake of the discussion about defunding the police and the role of the police in general I was in a meeting with members of my community recently and the issue of raising taxes came up and there was a strong opposition to it if the increased revenue was used to fund the police. I think 43% of my city’s expenditure is on police. In Los Angeles I believe it is over 50%. I commented that I am opposed to raising taxes on workers and the middle class in period.

Some people have a problem with this. This is not uncommon. “We have to do something.” is the normal response to my raising this issue. “Are you against public education?”, someone once asked me. Of course not was my reply. But I don’t want to support a band-aid every year that doesn’t stop the general decline and eats further in to the disposable in come of the working class. Also, if taxes are raised on all property holders the large landlords, those who make a lifetime living out of it, will simply raise the rents of their victims. It’s just like price increases or anything else, the capitalist will get away with what the law allows.

We can build a public education system that is second to none, that actually works but we can only do that by helping to build a broad, working class, direct action movement that can win it. While relatively financially secure liberals will, the vast majority of people won’t join or support a movement that takes food from their table. It’s class interests that people react to in the main not moral appeals to do the right thing. The events of the past weeks show how right I am and I don’t want to go backwards.

Our expectations up to now have been too low. We must demand and fight for what we need as workers and as human beings, not what is acceptable to Wall Street, the labor hierarchy or their friends in the Democratic Party. We know the money is there, there are some 54 billionaires in California for example. The misnamed US defense budget has a lot of it. Not long ago it was estimated some $26 trillion of private capital is in offshore accounts free from taxation.

Just a small example of why we need to go after the source of the money we need rather than taxing ourselves and small community businesses. There is a strange animal called the US Global Jets exchange-traded fund.  All I can tell you is that this fund, “provides investors access to the global airline industry, including airline operators and manufacturers from all over the world.”, according to the latest edition of Business week. It’s a sort of vehicle, a portal that allows owners of capital a means through which they can invest capital in order to accumulate more capital. In layperson’s terms; getting money without working. In this example it is the airline industry.

According to Bloomberg Business Week this fund just “passed $1 billion in assets”.  A little over two months ago, in March of this year, US Global Jet had just $33 million in assets. “It has had 64 days of cash inflows”, says Business Week because “..day traders were looking to, ‘catch the bottom’ in airline stocks.”  $33 million to $1 billion in two months; go do the damn math. Some folks out there have lots of money they never worked for, never “earned”; we just have to go get it.

And alongside this cheerful news, Peets coffee, a prominent West Coast coffee shop seen as the alternative to the corporate Starbucks, attracted $2.3 billion from investors in its recent IPO as they think the company is a likely source of profits. I reiterate, some sections of society have a lot of money.

Draw the right conclusions form recent events. Racism is harmful to the interests of all workers and it is the beginnings of a united working class movement that is terrifying the 1% (old term now I know) and bringing some minor reforms. We have a global movement that is being drawn together by the centuries old struggle of Black America for freedom. Here in the US we must not miss this opportunity to build a national movement out of which an independent working class political party can arise.

What will help this process along is if the rank and file of organized labor overcome the obstacle of its present leadership and join this historic movement in the streets of the US ad around the world.

We create the wealth. We just don’t own it. 

* I put this up  this as part of another blog posting but it is better they are sepearate.