By maria svart

Protesters attend a tax demonstration in Texas. Credit: today.mccombs.utexas.edu.

By Maria Svart

The spring issue of Democratic Left arrives before Tax Day, April 15. As socialists, we know how important a fair and progressive tax system is to a fair and progressive society. It’s important, then, that we understand how, for more than 30 years, the right wing has worked to lower taxes for the rich and use the reduced income as an excuse to starve government programs that benefit all of us.

We know that candidates for office consider it political suicide to talk about raising taxes, even on the rich, but it is a complete myth that U.S. income taxes are too high. The truth is that the United States is both the lowest and most regressively taxed nation in the developed world. We spend less of our collective income on public provision than any other advanced democracy. On the other hand, we do excel in spending in two areas that violently destroy rather than enhance human life: the military and mass incarceration.

Source: Don’t Tax and Don’t Spend: How the Right Defunded the Government