Too Little, Too Late
It seems like the Republican and Democratic candidates have caught the smell of change in the air. Suddenly, everyone from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to Jeb Bush and Donald Trump are talking about tax reform. They have clued in, maybe too late, that Americans are more than fed up with the state of our country and that something needs to be done.
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night, former President Bill Clinton acknowledged that Americans are furious and tried to explain the appeal of Bernie Sanders. “Because there are a lot of people all over the world that are really hacked off, that think the system’s rigged against them and the rich get all the gains.” Oblivious to the mounting anger and resentment of the 99%, the elites of America have been pillaging our nation’s economy for decades. Now, they have suddenly noticed what has long been obvious to everyone else, and the candidates are scrambling with proposals to fix our tax system and make things “more fair.”
However, none of these presidential hopefuls are proposing anything even remotely reasonable. They are hoping they can throw a bone to the American public with a few token gestures and then continue lining their pockets and making billions for their friends and benefactors on Wall Street. The Republican candidates are even proposing to cut taxes on the 1% and are hoping that Americans won’t notice because they’re also cutting taxes for the working and middle classes.
Meanwhile Clinton and Sanders are both planning to increase tax rates on the rich, but neither has suggested anything to address the fact that the US tax system is designed specifically to allow the wealthiest among us to avoid paying anything, let alone their fair share. Here in America, it is a sad truth that teachers and nurses generally pay more income tax than investment bankers and hedge fund managers, while America’s true elites – the wealthiest among us, like the Walton family – can use some clever accounting to avoid contributing a single dollar to our nation’s coffers.
What our nation truly needs before it can address any of our other problems is to tear down our current tax code and build a new one from the ground up. We need a simple, straightforward tax code, without the maze of exemptions and loopholes that give giant corporations and idle billionaires a way to avoid paying their taxes. We need to ease the burden on the working and middle class families who work hard, follow the rules, and do their part to help our country succeed. We need to ensure that the wealthy, who have taken so much from America, are required to give something back. And most of all, we need a tax code that can be understood by anybody, without the twisted regulations and rules that give an advantage to those who can afford to hire a $2,500/hour accountant.
If I am elected President of the United States in November of next year, reforming the tax code will be one of my top priorities. My administration will work with top experts from industry, the IRS, and private firms to develop a tax code that is fair to all. Simply ensuring that our nation’s top earners pay the taxes they are already supposed to under current law will give the government more than enough money to operate and to start paying down our enormous debt.
If you want to see a reformed tax code that ensures the wealthy can no longer pillage America without giving anything back, then I hope you will join me in 2016 by casting your write-in vote for me, Art Drew, for President of the United States.