Legislators in Washington want us to believe that everyone is facing the brunt of the economic downturn and that tough times are ahead for all Americans. Time and time again we hear the White House and Congress speak of sacrifice and perseverance in times of turmoil and how Americans are fit for the test. However, this notion of patriotic sacrifice has not been applied to the wealthiest of Americans. The fact is that the rich are just getting richer, thanks to tax cuts.
The wealthiest Americans for the past several years have been paying a smaller share of their income in taxes than everyone else. In 1997 Congress cut capital gains taxes for the rich. The Internal Revenue Service reported that from 1995 to '99, the percentage of income paid in federal income tax fell by 11 percent for the wealthiest Americans.
Congress also cut taxes for the middle class, but only one in five taxpayers were eligible for the cuts. Those who did not make a million dollars saw their share of taxes go up in those years, according to the IRS. Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, told The New York Times Feb. 7, \Congress cut taxes for rich people in 1997. ... Their intent was to make sure the wealthier people paid less in taxes and they weren't worried about the rest of the people, their taxes went up.""
Capital gains tax cuts only favor the rich. The IRS reported that after the tax cuts of 1997, the richest 400 Americans paid just 22 percent of their income in taxes. In 1994 they had paid 30 percent. Professor Edward Wolff, a New York University economist, found that wealth in America is more highly concentrated today than it has been since the stock market crash of 1929.
In Bush's most recent budget proposal, not only are the rich paying less in taxes, but corporate polluters are also getting a free ride. Since 1980 the Environmental Protection Agency has been cleaning up contaminated sites paid for by a ""Superfund."" The trust fund used special corporate taxes to clean up sites like W.R. Grace & Company's vermiculite mine. The mine is no longer in operation, but asbestos from the mine has contaminated the town of Libby, Mont.
Both Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush supported the Superfund tax and Clinton sought to have it renewed in 1995. But the Gingrich Congress squelched funding for the program. In 1994, taxpayers paid 12 percent of clean-up expenses; under the George W. Bush plan, taxpayers would foot the entire bill. The current lack of resources has forced the EPA to cut the overall number of sites designated for cleanup and decontamination.
It is not surprising that the White House would pass corporation pollution cleanup on to taxpayers. Almost all of Bush's top aides have long worked for U.S. oil companies. His National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was the manager for Chevron. The heads of both energy and commerce, Donald Evans and Spencer Abraham, worked for the oil giant Tom Brown. Vice President Dick Cheney was the president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for the oil industry. Bush himself even owned an oil company.
The endless pursuit of profit corrupts the ability of corporations to be responsible to their communities and the nation. In order to accumulate more money, polluters will scrap environmental cleanup programs to make a profit off of pollution. The public is expected to pay for the damage, even when the wealthy shift the tax burden onto working-class consumers. These policies are making it increasingly difficult to balance the federal budget without cutting social programs. The politicians and their wealthy contributors should practice what they preach'fiscal responsibility. Otherwise they are just hypocrites lying to the public at the expense of the environment.
