I didn't mistype the heading. I really do think that we need to raise taxes on people who can afford it, particularly those very well-to-do people who got the lion's share of the tax cuts under the Bush administration. That isn't me, by the way! But I do make enough money that I can afford a small tax increase, and if we want to cut the deficit and still have Social Security available in the future -- and we had better have it available, considering employers are ditching their retirement plans faster than I can down a bag of M&M's -- then we need to raise taxes.
But politicians only talk about cutting taxes, not raising them. Why? Because cutting taxes gets them reelected. This isn't about what's best for the country in the long-term, this is about their jobs, which frankly is all they seem to care about. Look at the European countries who are doing the tough thing to balance their budgets, meaning cutting services and raising taxes. It is impossible to balance this budget, with the deficit we face due to so many years of Republican rule where the wealthy and large corporations made out like bandits, without raising taxes.
Yes, there are a lot of people out of work. But they won't be hit by tax increases. There are people who are struggling, but tax increases can be structured so they won't get hit, either. Think about these recent headlines: 1.7 million iPhone 4's were sold in three days. 1 million iPads were sold in 28 days. You can't tell me there aren't people out there with disposable income who could stand a little tax increase. By the way, the Bureau of Economic Analysis recently reported that we now have the lowest tax rate since 1950. The lowest tax rate in 60 years!!
First, you let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Then you look at increasing the gasoline tax, big time. The gasoline tax has been 17 cents a gallon since a gallon of gas was $1, which means it was 17%. Now that gas is $2.58 a gallon, what is the gas tax? 17 cents. That's 6.6%. We need to increase this by at least 25 cents a gallon. 17% would be 43 cents a gallon, so say we raise it 26 cents over the current 17 to make it 43 cents. That would make a gallon of gas $2.84, and that's still quite a lot below its high of well over $4.
Not only would raising the gas tax increase revenues, but it might finally push more people to get into fuel-efficient cars, particularly hybrids, thereby helping to forestall climate change. (By the way, if you could find a non-hybrid regular car that got 45+ mpg -- currently there is no such animal -- you would still be putting out more pollution than a hybrid car that gets the same gas mileage. That's why I think the government should do all it can to push for hybrids, plug-in hybrids, electric cars, and clean energy sources to power them.)
Make no mistake about it, Europe, China and Japan are going full-speed ahead with clean energy and more fuel efficient cars. China is investing 10 times the amount of money we are on clean energy research. We can either get with the program, or we can be left behind. Again.
So, Mr. President, reverse course and raise my taxes. But only after the Bush tax cuts, which never should have been passed in the first place, are allowed to expire.
