By Donald A. Collins | 16 November 2020
Church and State
A primary Republican mantra for the richest among us continues to feature the attack on any new taxes!
And that position evokes cheers as they and others who should know better envision the newly packed Supreme Court—which it may not—taking away Obama Care. Hopefully that will not happen, but mindless ideologues can prevail and are too often these days prevailing as the rest of this op ed argues.
Sharing wealth as Bernie Sanders wants us to consider is not socialism! It is simply making sure the poor don’t rebel against the wealth disparity in the world’s wealthiest nation.
I’d call Bernie an Equitist!! As he often notes, we are the richest nation in the world but that wealth is now badly balanced.
Charles Koch says his partisanship was a mistake: 'Boy, did we screw up!' https://t.co/hlMvro9a99
— Business Insider (@businessinsider) November 13, 2020
Not raising taxes is the mantra of the rich but what the growing number of our billionaires should be realizing is that not sharing a reasonable amount of that huge wealth is failing to buy an insurance policy against the anger represented by many of those 71 million votes for Trump, even as misunderstood as those voters apparently are in why they supported him.
Trump ironically was standing in the way of these voters. What they really wanted was more equity.
Trump succeeded early in his term by enacting his overdone corporate tax cuts for the richest among us!
Part of Trump’s political cover story for his new constituents involved hypocritically feigning fealty for one religion whose leadership is awash in pedophilia and whose arrogant strictures against reproductive choice for women are designed to keep them from attaining their full range of occupational attainments. The stupidity of female denigrating and lack of equality has certainly not subsided, but Senator Harris’s election is a promising start.
The Catholic leadership’s positions have of course also been greatly abetted by the evangelicals who say ditto to such outdated dangerous restrictions on liberty as for example represented by the enlightened Roe v Wade decision in 1973!
Roe v Wade: Trump says Supreme Court ruling on abortion 'possible' https://t.co/4dAWO0c0ui pic.twitter.com/Kwh0X9ZTra
— tanya (@andreevatn) November 15, 2020
The answers of course are not prohibiting or inhibiting choice, but simply keeping religious choice out of secular law making.
The Roman Empire foundered on excess which our super rich could easily emulate but we can fervently hope will not. Why?
Well across the world in China we see that powerful dictatorship tightening its grip on allowing its citizens freedom by installing massive technological surveillance devices. And now we are horrified to observe its willful destruction of Hong Kong’s superb free market example.
A positive future for us and the world would be our willingness to extend our wealth to all our citizens as insurance against the stupid embrace of maintaining the wealth gap that now divides us.
Bernie’s equitism is not socialism and certainly wouldn’t break us, but rather release us from the trap of failing to reduce the inequalities of health care, minimum wages, etc. that likely motivated many of those misguided 71 million.
Yes, small businesses could be exempted from minimum wage laws but surely not paying a living wage would attract those on less to keep seeking work with larger businesses which were subject to paying living wages.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
Kindle Store
Bernie Sanders explains his newly proposed pandemic wealth tax
Biden Says He’ll Only Raise Taxes on the Super Rich at Florida Rally
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