Tag: taxes

Lessons from the Bastille

Posted on by kathiemm

July 14 is the Fête de la Fédération, generally known as Bastille Day in English speaking countries. The events leading up to that critical day in the French Revolution are instructive.

Storming the Bastille, by Jean-Pierre Houel
Storming the Bastille, by Jean-Pierre Houel (Image in public domain)

With his government facing economic crisis because of his war expenditures (i.e., his intervention in the American Revolution), King Louis XVI imposed heavy and regressive taxes on the middle class. He was unable to broaden his tax base because of the power of the small but entrenched and very conservative nobility.

Do these problems have a familiar ring? Can you think of countries where there is a middle class struggling with similar issues? What are some
ways they can achieve equality and fairness without violence?

On July 14, 1789, opponents of autocratic rule stormed the Bastille, an ancient fortress and prison, to liberate the vast stores of arms and ammunition there. Many French troops  sympathized with the rebel cause and refrained from attack.

Soon after the storming of the Bastille, the leaders of the Revolution drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The principles in this Declaration include:

  • Social equality and freedom of religion
  • Ending the exemptions from taxation that had benefited the nobility
  • Ensuring free speech while acknowledging the need to keep freedom of expression from being abused
  • Calling for universal military service

Many of its principles were also included in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, and the document became a model for much of later human rights law. Moreover, the motives behind the storming of the Bastille and the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen continue to push for expression around the world today.

Following its Revolution, France experienced many years of violence — against its own citizens, against neighboring countries, and as part of its efforts to obtain and retain colonies in other parts of the world.

Today, France ranks 36 in the Global Peace Index, well ahead of the United States, ranked at 82.  It has shown reluctance to be drawn into many of the armed conflicts of the day, often to the anger of the U.S. government, and its active role in the European Union helps to insure that it will not go to war with its neighbors again.

Perhaps that is another lesson to us all.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Morality and taxes

Posted on by kathiemm
"Tax Dollars" poster
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

With April 15 (Tax Day in the U.S.) looming, I consider myself to have three moral obligations:

  • Pay taxes that can provide funding for many vital programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, public transportation, human services, education, environmental protections, and veterans’ benefits.
  • Protest tax policies that further entrench the rich and powerful while robbing the poor, depleting the middle class, and killing innocent people in the names of profit and national security.
  • Protest policies allowing huge corporations like General Electric to make billions of dollars in profits from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while paying NO federal taxes.

To find out where your tax payments go, check out the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). According to their analysis, out of each dollar paid in federal income taxes in 2010, 39 cents went to fund current and past wars. This is probably an underestimate.

The federal budget deficit has been growing alarmingly since 2001, and it makes sense to look for ways to trim expenditures. But ask yourself, is it moral, is it just, and in the long run is it wise to cut the budgets for programs such as Social Security, job training, and Head Start, while keeping the Pentagon budget “off the table” and maintaining enormous tax breaks for the wealthy (e.g., through recent tax cuts on millionaires’ estates).

For a detailed breakdown of how social programs could be saved if some of the tax breaks for the rich were reduced, see the Center for American Progress.

In last year’s “weak economy,” hundreds of new billionaires emerged in this country while more and more people were losing their jobs and homes and falling below the poverty line. Is this what you want your taxes and current tax policies to support?

Finally, I have some suggestions:

To get some idea about what a cutback in military spending could accomplish, watch this video:

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology