Last week I received an unsolicited text message from someone or some group asking me to take a survey on the proposed Fair Tax amendment to the Illinois constitution that will be on the ballot this fall. The text of the amendment is as follows:
Proposed Amendment to the 1970 Illinois Constitution
Explanation of Amendment
The proposed amendment grants the State authority to impose higher income tax rates on higher income levels, which is how the federal government and a majority of other states do it. The amendment would remove the portion of the Revenue Article of the Illinois Constitution that is sometimes referred to as the “flat tax,” that requires all taxes on income to be at the same rate. The amendment does not itself change tax rates. It gives the State the ability to impose higher tax rates on those with higher income levels and lower tax rates on those with middle or lower income levels. You are asked to decide whether the proposed amendment should become a part of the Illinois Constitution.
But this was not stated in the survey, which was kind of shadowy now that I think about it. I'm not going to say it was a push poll but they had me watch exactly one ad in favor of taxing millionaires, and four against. What this amendment would actually do is create a progressive income tax, but the vast majority of Americans do not know what this means. My old nemesis in Wisconsin, the DJ, looked like a deer caught in the headlights when I challenged him to explain what progressive taxation was. This was a guy who knew a vast amount of political trivia (without any deep understanding of it, beyond what right-wing media told him) but the best he could come up with after that blank stare was "it's something Democrats do to take more of your money." The derp was strong with him that day.
Now, my Dad, old school union Democrat that he is, explained to me when I was young "the more you make, the more they take" and something about brackets. This is essentially true but doesn't do much to understand it's importance. Since 1981 the United States has had an explosion of income and wealth inequality, a major factor of this polarization is from republicans messing with tax laws. That year, Ronnie Raygun cajoled Congress into cutting the top bracket so much as to make the tax rates almost flat. There was a economic theory (funded by rich assholes at think tanks and universities) at the time that the country was suffering from a lack of investment capital available to take advantage of new technologies and methods of production. Cutting taxes on the rich would free up capital for this investment. The concurrent theory of this investment causing revenue to rise and the final iteration of deficits "starving the beast" and shrinking government were later rationalizations to appease mainstream media and non-rich republicans. Wealth and income stratification was the main reason for a graduated income tax in the first place and it did manage to keep a ceiling on just how much the rich could steal for themselves to the detriment of everyone else and the public infrastructure. When that ceiling was removed it had the predictable consequence of returning society to gilded age levels of inequality that have gotten worse every year. And every year, the arguments to keep letting the rich get richer become more stale, there may have been a modicum of plausibility to the original supply-side argument but the main thing those tax cuts that republicans keep passing have done is allow rich people to buy the government, not invest in job creation.
Illinois has a lot of taxes, because of the flat income tax rate the state needed other revenue streams to try and keep up that public infrastructure. So we have a high sales tax, user fees on everything, tolls, and so on that are often extremely regressive meaning that those taxes fall disproportionately on working people. Other states are able to spread out the burden of local taxes by generating a larger proportion of revenue from higher income taxes on the rich. The myth is that people down state pay more to provide welfare for people in Chicago but of course the opposite is true, the rural people are subsidized by the Chicago metro area. But this is not a city vs. country issue, it's a rich vs. working class issue. Higher brackets on the selfish rich would mean they have less money to buy politicians that they have always said were corrupt, and fund right-wing think tanks like Illinois Policy (institute, foundation? they must have rebranded). I'm pretty sure that was the source of the survey I took, the language was fairly neutral but took the "would you like to pay more in taxes" line that you would expect from an organization that exists solely to protect and expand the power and wealth of rich people.
All that aside, here's something you can say to your republican family member.
Which is more competitive, Major League Baseball or the NFL? Yes, but why is the NFL more competitive and therefore more interesting? It is because the league takes steps to avoid the "Yankees problem" with the salary cap, draft ordering, and schedule weighting. There are 32 teams but only one championship, so instead of having the richest team win every year, the league makes dynasties harder to build. The winning team has to pay more to keep it's superstar players so the salary cap makes it impossible to keep them all. The last place finisher gets to pick the best players in each round of the college draft, and the Superb owl winner has to play harder teams the next year. That makes it more fair and more interesting to watch. This is the same thing that progressive tax brackets do, it takes money to make money they say, but a flat tax means you have to pay more than the rich guys. And the rich guys get to use that extra money that isn't being taxed to buy more investments and make more money off of them, meaning they get richer. If you had more of your income you could do some of that. And when rich guys have more money they speculate in the stock market, that leads to crashes. They also buy up property to drive up values, forcing people out of neighborhoods or making it hard for regular people to move to good neighborhoods with good schools, roads without potholes, etc. If the playing field was more level, all those neighborhoods would be better, your life would be better.
It's a start anyway. Feel free to let me know if you have any better arguments. Obviously someone glued to fox news all day isn't going to listen but not every republican has allowed themselves to be brainwashed to zombiehood. You can try the proposed tax calculator here. Anyone reading this post probably already agrees that the biggest obstacle to progress is the massive inequality in this country. All other problems flow from the fact that the rich have too much money and power, and working people have too little. Progressive taxation won't solve the problem by itself but is a start.
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