Matt asked me to blog about this. As most of you know, I love NPR. It is what is usually on when I am in the car. So on my way to pick up Gabe from daycare, I was listening to "Fresh Air" as usual, and there was an interview with a guy (I forget his name) who wrote the book "Free Lunch" which is about why the rich get richer, the middle class can't catch a break and the poor get poorer. His perspective is that we can point a finger to the government's tax policies.
In this interview he pointed out that the middle class has suffered continually since deregulation, which was supposed to be so great for the little people because it would make government smaller and encourage the market to regulate itself. We'd all be better off. A generation later, we are worse off. Deregulation didn't achieve what it promised and in fact, it's only real contribution was to strip away consumer protection. There is more money in the this country, but it is all in the pockets of the already rich. The average person does not have the buying power they once had and more and more people are going into debt not for luxuries, but for necessities. A huge percentage of our population can't afford and does not have health insurance and pensions are a thing of the past. We work for less money and have fewer benefits.
What angered Matt so much that he wanted me to blog about this, is the tax benefits that huge corporations get. All those big box retail stores that are so prevalent now, get crazy perks. For example, sales tax. We have no choice in paying sales tax and most of believe that it is going to things like the police department or fire department or schools, so we are okay with it. But the large retailers like Wal-mart, Cabela's, etc. get to keep the sales tax. It's part of the deal they make when they go into an area. They have to publish this fact, but it is couched in economic terms that most of us don't understand so we never know. These corporations come in and say they'll build and bring all sorts of benefits to the area, but they aren't going to pay property tax and they are going to keep the sales tax. So when you go into Wal-mart and purchase something and pay your sales tax, you just handed an extra chunk of change directly to the Walton family. This is how most of the larger retailers make their money, not actually through the sale of merchandise. Also, smaller businesses are not granted these perks.
Think about Target's ads for a minute. They like to tell you how much money they give back to the community for schools and so on. But they keep the sales tax, so they are really not doing a extra service, they are just giving back money they should have given up in the first place; not only that, they are not giving back the level of the sales tax, so they are still ripping off the community all they while telling us how great they are for helping us. Kind of makes you see red, huh?
I can also tell you that he explained how Bush used this to make his fortune. He didn't do with oil, he did it be playing these exact tax games when he and his partners bought the Texas Rangers. There is more to it that would probably make you even angrier, but at this point I would say, go listen to the interview or go buy the book. I can only type so much. Matt is so mad. He does get worked up about the injustices he sees in the world, but man is he angry about this. He says he not really certain what to do about it, but that he wants to make sure everyone knows about this.
