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Friends,_________
To the Editor:
Alfonse D’Amato, in his recent Herald column accuses President Obama of fomenting class warfare (“The President should stop the class warfare”). If only this were the case! Obama has been far too wary of treading on wealthy donors representing banking and Wall Street. Over the course of several decades the wealthiest Americans have become wealthier as the rest of us have seen our living standards stagnate or decline. American government, which should represent all the people, rich, middle class and poor, should rectify the trajectory of this increasing inequality. Our representatives show no signs, unfortunately, of getting out under the influence of corporate wealth. To run for a major office, with a realistic chance of winning, requires a thralldom to corporate money. Mr. D’Amato and Mr. Obama probably know as well as anyone how this process works. Increasingly, representation is based on “one dollar, one vote,” rather than “one person, one vote.” Money talks, often to the detriment of democracy.
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Warren Buffet, the great investor capitalist, stated for the New York Times in 2006 that there is indeed an ongoing class war and that his class, the wealthy, is winning that war. Ben Stein, in interviewing and explaining the views of Mr. Buffet, states that “put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.” The rich do not now even pay taxes to the percentages they paid in the 1970s, during the administration of that great “radical” Richard Nixon. There was less social and economic inequality under Nixon than currently exists under Obama. That is sadly how far we have come due to the class war that Mr. Buffet describes.
For these reasons I will be voting for the Green Party this year. The Green Party, which accepts no corporate money, has a platform that would redress the inequalities created by an unfair and dysfunctional tax system. The party’s gubernatorial candidate, Howie Hawkins, is suggesting that New York State keep, and not rebate, the stock transfer tax. While perhaps unpopular on Wall Street, this simple measure would close the State’s budget gap by generating $16 billion annually in revenue. The Greens also advocate a return to a fairer, progressive income tax structure such as we had in the past, before corporate power got out of hand. These would be good, solid steps in reversing the skewed results of our very real, decades-old class war.
Jim Brown
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Filed under: News Tagged: | Al D'Amato, Ben Stein, green, howie hawkins, new york, new york times, politics, Richard Nixon
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