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A
Second Open Letter to President Obama
Provocative
Proposals for Real ‘Change We Can Believe In’
Dr. Tiffany B. Twain
August 27, 2009
Dear
President Obama,
Three emerging
challenges overshadow all human endeavors.
First, an epochal ecological crisis is unfolding. Second, the federal government is using the
fiscally irresponsible expediency of borrow-and-spend policies and unprecedented
amounts of public debt to deprive future generations of a fair legacy. And third, regressive tax policies are making
social inequities worse and causing a radical increase in the disparities of
wealth and power between rich people and everyone else, creating extreme
unfairness and injustices.
We must address these
three mounting problems THIS YEAR. We
must not wait until some nebulous future date to begin solving these
problems. Salubrious solutions to these
daunting challenges exist. Proposals setting
forth these solutions are presented in Three
Bills of Right: A Triumvirate of Responsible Actions for the Greater Good. I sent this to you, attached to my
first Open Letter. These proposals can also be viewed in
Part Four of the Earth Manifesto website at www.EarthManifesto.com.
In summary, three
vital new legislative initiatives are needed to solve these problems:
(1) A Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2010;
(2) A
Social Justice Taxation Act of 2010;
and,
(3) An
Ecological Balance Initiative of 2010.
To make the
reasons for these proposals clear, and to provide a cogent impetus to ensure that
they are put into effect, the following discussion is presented in a colorful
dialogue held between various historic personages and famous people and
literary characters. The scene is set,
and a sterling cast of characters waits patiently to weigh in with their provocative
perspectives.
Senator Robert
Byrd: “I pride myself on working to create
a better future for our nation. The
times today are tumultuous. Titanic
struggles are taking place all about us like relentless thunderstorms marching
across the landscape. The economy is in
a severe recession. Ecological
conditions are deteriorating. Social
circumstances are sensationally stressed.
We are awash in a sea of red ink.
Unfairness is in the air like a befuddled old deity. The crowds are getting ever more definitively
crowd-like.”
Jacques Yves Cousteau: “Each generation, sharing in the heritage of
the Earth, has a duty as trustee for future generations to prevent irreversible
and irreparable harm to life on Earth and to human freedom and dignity. The planet Earth is our home. We are assaulting it with an astounding and
far-reaching litany of abuses that is daunting and unacceptably detrimental. NOW
is the time to courageously step forward to deal with these challenges in an intelligent
and assertive way. NOW is the time to reject the status quo that is
responsible for this threat to the security of people worldwide. NOW
is the time for bold new ideas to be heard.”
Will Durant:
“Ariel and I spent our lives studying history. We wrote eleven lengthy volumes called The Story of Civilization. Then we thought long and hard about what
we had learned from our studies, and we wrote the succinct book The Lessons of History. One of the things we discovered was that
wealth in human civilizations naturally and inevitably tends to become
increasingly concentrated. Occasionally
a point is reached where the strength in the numbers of the poor rivals the
strength in the influence of the rich.
When this happens, the unstable equilibrium generates a critical
situation. At such times in history, the
crisis is either dealt with through legislation that redistributes wealth a bit
more fairly, or it is dealt with through social upheaval or violent revolution which
tends to have the effect of destroying wealth and redistributing poverty. It is clear that the most sensible plan is
for the rich to recognize the need for a greater modicum of fairness through
legislation that makes taxation more progressive, rather than risking more
crime and instability and violent revolts.
It would be wise indeed to choose to make our societies more just.”
Ariel Durant:
“You’re right, Will. In the
Athens of 594 B.C., the disparities of wealth reached such a height that
despotic power or violent revolt seemed the only two options. Good sense prevailed when moderate elements
elected the wise businessman Solon, who took charge and created a series of dramatic
reforms. One of them was the creation of
a graduated income tax that made the rich pay at a rate twelve times as much as
that required of the poor. The rich
protested; and the radicals complained
because it allowed the rich to maintain most of their fortunes; but within a generation almost all agreed
that Solon’s reforms had saved Athens from destitution and revolution. The Social Justice Taxation Act
proposed by Dr. Twain utilizes this same principle to remedy the serious social
ills and debt and ecological challenges that are gathering like a vast
hurricane spiraling toward us.”
Karl
Marx: “I agree with you, Ariel. The history of all societies is a history of
class struggles. Rulers oppressed
slaves; lords exploited serfs; patricians took advantage of the plebian
masses; and corporate executives treat
their workers as antagonists who they must prevent from gaining higher wages or
benefits. There have always been these
two groups, the powerful few and the oppressed masses, and they have always
stood in opposition to each other. The fight always ends in either a revolutionary
re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending
classes. Today the choice is clear: a greater modicum of social justice is the
right course of action. Workers
of the world, unite!”
John Fowles: “A capitalist society conditions its members
to envy and be envied; but this
conditioning is a form of movement; and
the movement will be out of the capitalist society into a better one. I am not saying, as Marx did, that capitalism
contains the seeds of its own destruction.
I am saying that capitalism contains the seeds of its own
transformation. And it is high time the capitalist system starts
to nurture those seeds. The
deterioration of our global environment seems to be too slow in developing and
too intangible to motivate people to make bold and transformative changes in
the status quo, so we need to focus on specific related problems and implement courageous
solutions to them. Strategic changes
should be made that will help achieve common good goals in a broad range of
problem areas. This must include fiscal
responsibility as well as social justice, and we can no longer ignore the vital
importance of assuring a healthy environs.”
Thomas
Paine: “It is only common sense that those who expect to reap the blessings of
freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it. I always opposed the tyranny of government,
and of inherited power, but I recognize the necessity of fair taxation as a
criterion of civic-mindedness. We must
deal with dangers in proportion to their true nature and actual potential
costs. A deep concern for the
well-being of people in future generations is not communism or socialism. It is not liberality or progressivism. And it is a concept that is completely contrary
to the modern-day expression of the radical right. A responsible concern for the well-being of
our descendents is diametrically opposed to the myopic intransigence of forces
that defend the status quo. An
overarching concern for our descendents is rational. Such a concern is the ultimate in morality and
sanity. It is a definitive form of common sense.”
Mark Twain: “Tom and Huck and Jim, what do you reckon we
should do about these critically important and perplexifying and concernful
problems in the world today?”
Tom Sawyer: “Shucks, let me see, I’ve grown up and become
much more aware of the global ecological crisis. The full scope of this rapidly mounting set
of challenges is identified by the revealing 2005 Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment. I figure that most people
don’t read such serious compendiums of facts and insights, so it is fortunate
that the new film titled Home by the extraordinary
photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has been produced to vividly portray these environmental
challenges. Check out this film, which
can be viewed online! My, hasn’t
progress progressed! It is because of such
understandings that I support the Ecological Balance Initiative proposed
by Dr. Twain.”
Huck Finn: “I tell you what, these problems sure make me
want to absquatulate and light out for the territories. Do you know any territories where space is
available, and where there might be ‘gold in them thar hills’? Or maybe I’ll just set off on another good long
raft trip! But really, I still feel like
a common sensical boy, so it seems doggone clear to me that the most
significant problem people face is the inegalitarian and unjust and
shortsighted nature of our societies. Let’s
make change! Peace is crucial for civilization. Peace is justice. Justice is peace. Yep.”
Ben Rogers: “You know, Tom and Huck, I feel like I’ve become
a better citizen since the days of our magnificent boyhood adventures. I’m no longer just a happy-go-lucky
rascal. I am alert to the ecological
interconnectedness of all our actions, and I also see the extensive injustices that
abound around the planet, and I understand the great fiscal risks of
out-of-control public debt. The United
States has thrown caution to the wind with escalating levels of deficit
spending. This is not good. Jim and I have talked about this situation,
and we have come up with a solution.
This plan will deal with the looming debt crisis and the unfairness
issues, and the environmental conundrums as well!”
Jim: “That’s right, Ben. I’ve been reborn as an enthusiastic black
activist in the wake of the historic election of a black man to the White
House. Imagine that! My thinking has turned to “America’s
pastime”, professional baseball. Hey,
Baseball -- I’m from Hannibal, Missouri -- ‘America’s Hometown’. You guys are America’s sport – that’s cool. Say, could you help the fans?? The U.S. economy is stumbling, and we sure
could use your support in advocating higher progressive taxes on all earnings
in excess of a million dollars a year.
Revenues generated would help to finance needed investments in social
justice, and in energy modernization, and in physical infrastructure, and in ‘green
building’, and in protections of public lands and rivers and wetlands and ocean
ecosystems and the atmosphere. Please
give your support to a Social Justice Taxation Act initiative that would
ensure that, no matter how a person earns more than a million dollars in a
given year, they agree to a fairer social contract that contributes more of those
earnings in excess of a million dollars to these causes. As you are well aware, tens of millions of
people are struggling with daunting challenges, and millions of people are unemployed. Millions of men and women and children do not
have adequate health insurance or access to medical care other than
over-crowded emergency rooms. I call on
fat cats in every profession to agree to this proposal. Yo, CEO’s!
Yo, high rollers! Yo, hedge fund scammers! Yo offshore tax shelter aficionados! Agree to this, effective THIS YEAR!”
Andrew Carnegie: “I
once wrote that the man who dies rich dies disgraced. I believe this for a variety of reasons. The bottom line is that economic and
political systems in nations worldwide have been gamed to the extreme advantage
of those who make the most money. The
super-rich are the triumphant class.
Think about it! People who make
more than $1 million a year should give more back to the societies in which
they earn their good fortune. They
should do this, not just because they are best poised to afford it, but because
they are the ones who have been the primary beneficiaries of the system as it
is structured. They benefit most from
low tax rates on capital gains, and from property rights, and from law
enforcement and fire protections, and from tax loopholes and giant bonuses and
executive pay and windfall earnings and debt instruments and profiteering on
wars. They are the ones who have
scandalously outsized ecological footprints because their wealth allows them to
consume so much. They contribute the
most to the insidious calamity of the pathological phenomenon known as the
‘Tragedy of the Commons’. They benefit
most from laissez-faire capitalism and corporatism and the externalizing of
costs by big corporations upon society.
They contribute the most to resource depletion. For these reasons, the rich should be
compelled to contribute more to the greater good to address the wide-ranging
problems that face humanity.”
Theodore
Roosevelt: “The person of great wealth owes a peculiar
obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere
existence of government. It does not matter how someone makes more than $1
million, they should be required to pay a higher rate on those earnings. There is a wide variety of ways that someone
earns more that $1 million a year, including the following: they receive enormous inheritances; they are exceptionally lucky in being in the
right place at the right time; they
invest and speculate shrewdly on Wall Street;
they are insiders in financial trading schemes that pull others in,
often figuratively leaving others holding the bag; they derive gargantuan commissions from the
trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds that are sold to finance the
irresponsibly-incurred federal debt; they
drive a NASCAR race car faster than most of the others; they are one of the best professional golfers
or baseball or basketball or football players;
they work very hard; they have a
powerful manipulative personality that helps them take advantage of other
people; they indulge in fraud or other
corrupt activities; they are thrifty or
cheap; they evade their fair share of
taxes; they win a lottery; they make outlandish profits from armaments
sales or war services companies or war reconstruction activities; they own land and real estate and so they benefit
from the appreciation that is stoked by generous government policies; or they ruthlessly and harmfully exploit
workers or natural resources. By
whatever means they make more than a million dollars, there are very good
reasons for the public to take a larger cut of the earnings in excess of $1
million. High earners should be required
to make a larger contribution to the common good.”
Bill Moyers:
“Capitalism simple must be better managed. The price of all products and services should
include every cost that is related to its production. When corporations are allowed to externalize
costs onto society, products are priced artificially low. This leads to market distortions and resource
misallocations. It also impedes innovation
and the development of new products. It
hinders creative start-up companies and obstructs the transition to the use of
renewable alternatives. All of the
following costs should be included in every products and service: (1) pollution reduction and mitigation
costs; (2) healthcare costs for people
harmed by air pollution and toxins and other detrimental aspects of
industrialization and urbanization; (3)
a reasonably generous contribution to 401(k) plans as a minimal form of guaranteed
social security for workers; (4) an
allocation of funds for resource depletion costs to be used to finance the
development of alternatives; (5) a
provision for rainy day funds that cover increasingly costly natural disasters
like floods and wildfires and hurricanes and crop failures that are made worse
by climate changes that are being caused by greenhouse gas emissions; and, (6) a reasonable amount of corporate tax
that ensures that we do not rely on borrowing from future generations to
finance our needs today. These costs should
be included in all products and services so that inept and easily manipulated
governments are not forced to borrow money to pay for these obligations. Our pricing system must reflect the larger
societal values of a stable economy and a fairer society and healthier
communities and a sustainable future.”
The Congressional Budget Office: “Corporations are paying 60% less than the
share of federal revenues that they paid in 1960. Large businesses have
managed to achieve this narrow benefit by increasing the influence of lobbyists
to enable big corporations to grab a variety of special privileges for their
shareholders and themselves. These perks
include direct subsidies, accelerated depreciation write-offs, tax loopholes,
offshore tax shelters, and the relaxation of common-good rules. The time is now to include a fairer amount of
the burden of society in all products sold.”
Lee Iacocca: “Let’s congratulate the businesses that make
good profits. Let them keep these
profits. But by all means implement full
cost pricing. Businesses should pass
along the higher actual costs of production to consumers so that these
previously externalized costs are included in current prices. All corporations must agree to these new
pricing parameters, because they will result in a smarter allocation of
resources and a saner system. Our
leaders must exhibit more commitment to finding good solutions to pressing problems. Adopting the transcendental ideas of Dr.
Twain would be a great start.”
The Sierra Club:
“Good call. Tens of millions of people
in low-income and minority communities are severely affected by environmental
degradation. They are much more disproportionately
affected than rich people, who tend to live in safer communities and to be more
insulated from such hazards. This is why
these deleterious conditions are known as ‘environmental injustices’. These hazards include contaminated soil, diesel
pollution, agricultural pesticides, hazardous industrial wastes, air pollution
downwind of factories, environmental toxins, nuclear wastes, mercury-laden fish,
unsafe drinking water, lowland flooding, and environmental degradation in
general. The rich, who have profited the
most from policies that result in externalized costs like these, are the exact
right people to help pay for the resulting healthcare problems and inequities.”
Ted Kennedy: “A firestorm of self-interested opposition
from powerful people confronts any suggestion that the rich and giant
corporations should pay more taxes. But
let me make one thing perfectly clear:
No matter what rationalizations or ideological arguments are adduced for
clinging to the status quo and for opposing progressive change, if the bottom
line is that we will continue to contribute to the rapid damaging of the
ecological commons that supports us, and to the unwise undermining of the
health of communities, and to the rapid increase in debt, then we must go back
to the drawing board and figure out better ways forward. Let’s take differing points-of-view into
account, and utilize the best ideas they contain, and then committedly pursue
the best courses of action that will leave a salubrious legacy for our
descendents. There is no question that
the proposed Social Justice Taxation Act and the Fiscal
Responsibility Act are outstanding ideas.”
Alan Greenspan,
belatedly: “Our nation must be more
fiscally responsible. If Chinese and
Japanese investors and others worldwide decide to no longer trust the financial
stability of the U.S., the dollar will plummet in value and interest rates will
skyrocket. This could make the current
recession look like a picnic in the park.
This outcome is increasingly likely as long as we are incapable of bringing
our federal budget into better balance.
We must enact a revised system of taxation to increase revenues THIS
YEAR. This revised system must tax high
income earners at a higher marginal tax rate.
It should also assess corporate taxes in a more steeply graduated way, since
this will benefit small businesses, which are widely and accurately regarded as
the true engine of job growth and innovation in the United States. Also, taxes of rich kids’ inheritances, known
as Estate Taxes, should be taxed at a more steeply graduated rate for wealth in
excess of a generous exclusion.”
Warren Buffet: “Concentrated wealth is the antithesis of democratic
fairness. It seems clear to me that
inherited wealth undermines the free market system itself. Without the estate tax, you in effect have an
aristocracy of wealth. This means you
pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity,
rather than based on merit. The repeal
of the estate tax would be a terrible mistake.
It’d be equivalent to choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the
eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics. Economic productivity requires competitive
markets. Competitive markets require a
level playing field. Not only is it in
the common good that we maintain sensible and progressively graduated estate
taxes, but we also need fiscal responsibility.
The rapidly growing amounts of federal debt are as ominous as the
financial crisis itself.”
Edgar Bronfman: “Responsible
Wealth organizations likeWealth for the Common Good importantly recognize that the concentration of
wealth and power not only harms the economy and corrupts democracy, but it
deepens the racial divide and tears communities apart. A committed social movement is needed to
achieve greater equality. Healthier
societies are strongly correlated with a greater modicum of equality, not a
lesser one. Values, and not profits
alone, should guide economic decisions. This
is why we need more responsible tax laws as well as more farsighted budgetary
priorities.”
Bill Gates: “One percent of Americans owns 40% of all
household wealth in the United States.
You can be assured that this disparity will become increasingly skewed
as long as the regressive G.W. Bush tax cuts are allowed to perpetuate the
shrewd Reagan Gush Up “Trickle Down” ideology.
The amount of exclusion in rich kids’ inheritances already ensures that
only 1% of Americans who die are rich enough to incur any Estate Taxes at
all. A vote on this issue in a true democracy
where each person voted his or her direct self-interest would be 99 to 1 in
favor of more progressive taxes. The
reason that the super-rich have their way is that our system is functionally a
plutocracy (rule by the wealthy), and not a true representative democracy. What a pathetic Laffer!”
The sagacious lawmaker Solon: “The super-rich are causing an outlandish
proportion of the impacts that are damaging Earth’s ecosystems, simply as a
result of their buying so much stuff and traveling so extensively and owning so
many houses and receiving such a large part of all corporate profits
earned. No matter how vituperative the
ideological arguments are by anti-tax types like Grover Norquist, their self-serving
rationalizations ring preposterously hollow. Of course we need to find an effective way to
rein in the runaway growth in the size of the federal and state governments. Of course we need to reduce bureaucratic
waste, and conquer the weak-willed inability of our governments to control
spending. Of course we would be wise to
prevent excessive war profiteering. Of
course we should rein in the
octopus of wasteful and misguided American militarism. Of course we should spend federal
funds less profligately and stop spending so much money on pork barrel projects
and wrong-headed subsidies and bureaucratic red tape. So let’s make it a priority to accomplish
these smart goals! But we must also
restructure our government and tax system in progressive ways, and be more fiscally
responsible, and not just idiotically try to ‘drown the government in the
bathtub’.”
The Dalai
Lama: “This issue is not one about some
hollow concept that we give lip service to and call ‘compassion’; this issue involves wisdom and true
justice. There are millions of people
suffering hardships, and workers are under great stresses, and the environment
is under sustained assault. Compassion
is a deep idea, and much deeper in action than in word. There is no need to think of progressive
taxation as some kind of charity or kindness. Progressive taxation should be seen as a
social insurance policy that protects against insecurity and fiscal insolvency
and ecological calamity and crime and revolution and the risks associated with
deep social injustices. The more money
an individual makes, and the more profitable a corporation is, the higher the
marginal tax rate should be.”
Tom Sawyer:
“American economic and political systems are prioritized wrong by design. The solution is right before us. If we enact a Social Justice Taxation Act, and
a Fiscal Responsibility Act, this re-design of our tax system will make our
societies fairer and more financially sound.
I also agree that we must accomplish this goal THIS YEAR. While we are at it, we must sensibly commit
ourselves to an Ecological Balance Initiative, as I said before. Review for yourself the details of these proposals
as spelled out in the Earth Manifesto, and see the common sense they make in
light of these discussions.”
Robert Reich:
“Tiffany Twain has neatly summarized the insights contained in my book, Supercapitalism, in her Earth Manifesto
piece The Common Good, Properly
Understood. Each person has competing
goals within themselves in their various roles as consumers, and as investors,
and as good citizens. Now is the time to
re-structure the rules and to re-design our systems to make sure consumers and investors
contribute more to the sustainability and the fairness of our activities, and
to the good citizen goals we all share.
The overarching issue of human existence is to find a way to make our
livings WITHOUT destroying the ecological commons. We must pay a slightly higher price for
products, so that each purchase will include an automatically contribution to
healthier and greener and more sustainable societies. And as investors, we must pay a slightly higher
portion of our investment returns to contribute to socially and ecologically
sound needs. This is the ultimate ethical
rightness!”
Paul Hawken: “It is incumbent upon us to design a new
system in which people will do the right thing automatically, as
naturally as they would give a cordial handshake to someone they are introduced
to in a social situation. Smart
incentives and disincentives, properly prioritized, are the best way to ensure
that people do the right thing without freedom-infringing regulations and bureaucratic
red tape.”
Henry Ford: “I had a strategy in 1916 to generously
compensate my factory workers so that they would be able to afford to buy an
automobile that they were producing.
This strategy stimulated sales, which increased profits, so it was a
win/win plan. Guess what? The shareholders and investors were so greedy
that they decided those wages were too high, so they ginner up a lawsuit, and
won. The decision was made and it was upheld
by the Michigan Supreme Court in the 1919 case, Dodge vs. Ford Motor Company.
It held that management must not pay its workers too
generously. One of the two primary legal
purposes of a corporation is to maximize the amount of profit earned. So CEO’s and top management ruthlessly clamp
down on workers to get big bonuses for themselves. They effectively make sure that they increase
profits by squelching the work force and giving benefits of all increases in
productivity to investors, with none of the gains being shared with the workers. So it makes sense that high earners should
give back some of the windfall of their good fortunes.”
Joel Bakan: “Making profits, almost independently of all
other considerations, is one of the two primary purposes of a corporation. What, you may wonder, is the other purpose? It is to limit the legal liability of the
owners and shareholders. This is one
more way that profits are privatized and risks and costs are socialized. Such strategies are eagerly endorsed by
bankers and speculators, who are always alert to find ways to profit at the public
expense. The current recession has once
again left taxpayers obligated for the costs of bailouts and unemployment
insurance and programs to mitigate the economic and social problems that have
resulted from financial schemes gone awry.
It is practically pathological madness to allow corporations the same
rights of ‘personhood’ as those which the 14th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution guaranteed to actual people!
Watch my film The Corporation
for deeper perspective on this topic.”
Naomi Klein: “In my book The Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism I explain how
and why insiders insidiously game the system, to the severe detriment of the
public. The enormous and heretofore
unimaginably large bailouts by the federal government were ‘necessitated’ because
of such ‘disaster capitalism’ gambits.
So were the gargantuan stimulus funds that are being borrowed and spent
by the federal government today. We must
now recognize that high levels of government borrowing are a shameless,
expedient, and irresponsible tactic that steals from all taxpayers in the
future to finance the short-term oriented and shortsighted expediency of self-serving
vested interests today. We must demand
more fiscal responsibility! There is no
more advantageous source for financing corrective measures than those who can
afford it, and no fairer source than those who most benefit from the way the
system is set up. A vote taken on this
issue should be at least 99 to 1 in support of the Social Justice Taxation
Act, with its higher tax rates on higher earnings, because this new level
of progressive taxes will affect only the top 1% of earners, and ALL would benefit from the healthier and more
financially sound society.”
Tim Geithner: “We have been working very hard to get the
economy back on track. We are making
extremely costly national efforts to achieve this goal. But I admit that we must be far more careful
as to which track we want to be on.
We must invest in a greener economy, and a more energy efficient
one. We must revise our measures of
growth to emphasize the quality of growth, and not to just take into account
skewed measures of consumption and waste, like war-stimulated spending
activities and rapid inflation in healthcare costs and increases in the use of
non-renewable resources. Such growth is
not desirable. Our economy is addicted
to growth because jobs are needed for the inexorably growing number of people
on the planet. Population growth creates
its own stimulus of product demand. As
our population ages, more young people and workers are needed to help support the
growing number of people in their old age.
But this is surely an overarching Ponzi scheme that will prove to be
unsustainable. We must take the full
context of this understanding into consideration in all policy decisions.”
Voltaire:
“The early 19th Century Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus
contended that unlimited population growth would eventually result in
catastrophic natural checks on population growth. Judging from the growing global ecological challenges
associated with feeding and clothing and housing the increasing numbers of
people alive, I believe that Malthus will ultimately be proved to be
disastrously correct. Malthus noted that
we must place long-term stability of the economy above short-term
expediencies. We must start to do this NOW!”
Warren Buffet:
“I have another compelling perspective to share. Another reason that we should revolutionarily
reform our current system is that too much wealth is locked up in the pockets
of the wealthy. As Bill Gates has noted,
40% of all household wealth in the U.S is owned by 1% of Americans. Consider this in light of the concept of
insurance. Many people contribute, and the
premiums are pooled; some of the funds
are devoted to administration and profit, and enormous reserves are established
to cover the potential liabilities of the things insured. When a disaster occurs, these reserves are
used to pay those that are affected.
Natural disasters like fires and floods and hurricanes serve to release
these reserves and provide powerful stimulus to economic activity. Likewise, progressive taxes as proposed in
the Social Justice Taxation Act will free up some of the enormous amount
of money that is locked up by rich people like a weight around the neck of our
nation. The rules defining how this
wealth is accumulated and preserved are overwhelmingly designed to keep the
money locked up, and to increase the amount that is owned by this small elite
of super-rich people. This design is misguided. It is fiscally unsound. It is socially detrimental. And it is morally wrong. To refuse to re-design this system is like
allowing an insurance company to take in large premiums but never pay out any
fair portion on claims.”
Donald Trump:
“You are right, I suppose, Warren.
But if we are to make design changes in our system, they should be made
in smart ways. First, taxes should be
assessed in a more steeply graduated way, so that higher taxes only affect
those who make the top 1% of earnings.
This will slow down the accumulation and concentration of wealth. And second, estate taxes should be restructured
in a more steeply graduated way, so that they allow a generous exclusion amount
that allows rich kids to keep a secure portion of their inheritances, and makes
sure that family farms are not broken up, but prevents billions of dollars from
being passed on to rich kids. Incentives
should be strengthened, in addition, to encourage generous philanthropy. These changes will release some of the 40% of
all wealth that is locked up.”
E. F. Schumacher:
“In 1973, I wrote Small Is
Beautiful. In this book, I observed
that we must treat fossil fuels as capital resources rather than as
income. This is true of all natural
resources. We have been treating Mother
Earth like a business in liquidation, rather than an on-going concern. Instead of safeguarding her assets, we’ve been
selling them off to turn them into cash as quickly as possible. Instead
of investing in her biotic health, we have been harming her ecosystems and
destroying habitats and hunting her wildlife mercilessly around the
globe. Instead of protecting her streams and wetlands and seas and wilderness
areas and atmosphere, we have been irresponsibly spewing pollutants into the
commons. Instead of adequately
regulating corporate abuses and properly overseeing businesses and governments,
we have been inexorably stimulating the exploitation of our home planet’s
resources through subsidies and privatization and globalization. The list
of detrimental impacts of our activities is long. The logical conclusion of an intelligent and
intuitively sensible worldview that regards fossil fuels and other
non-renewable resources as valuable assets is that we would conserve them and
put some of the profits obtained from their depletion into a special fund to be
devoted exclusively to the evolution of production methods and patterns of
living which do not depend on fossil fuels and wasteful usages. Smart tax plans, not deficits and debt, would
be the best way to utilize some of these profits so they can be invested in
green technologies and sustainable actions and ecologically wise undertakings.”
Tiffany Twain:
“People can, and should, judge for themselves. The integrity of ideas should be judged in
accordance with one’s experience and reason and common sense and evaluations of
the merits of points-of-view that are advanced by competing interests. A doctrine proposing such ideas is called
Humanism. Let’s all become Humanists!”
Wikipedia: “In
the broadest philosophic sense, Humanism is a large body of ethical
philosophies that affirm the dignity of humankind. These philosophies assert that people can determine
right and wrong by using their own individual reason. Humanists reject supernatural strictures and the
supposedly ‘divine authority’ of religious texts.
Humanists endorse a kind of universal morality in recognition of the
commonality of the human condition. They
believe that solutions to human social and cultural and environmental problems
cannot and must not be parochial or narrowly self-serving, and they believe in
an ethics that says public policies should be socially responsible and ecologically
farsighted.”
Victor
Hugo: “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Percy Williams Bridgeman: “There is no adequate defense, except
stupidity, against the impact of a good new idea. We should strive to be better informed.”
John
Kenneth Galbraith: “The modern conservative
is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy;
that is, the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness. Hyper-individualist
conservatism has been a distinct feature in America in the past 30 years. We need a new vision today, one of
farsightedness and confidence in our own problem-solving abilities. This open-minded attitude, reinforced with
the recognition that we are all figuratively in the same boat together, should
give us the impetus to work together to accomplish common good goals!”
John Lennon:
“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.”
El Gaviero:
“I am the vaunted Lookout, a watchful navigator, yet sometimes I feel
like a cork being tossed about on the choppy seas of fate. Can’t we all just get along? I’ll bet that we could embrace common good
solutions if we all really tried to find them.
Even though I am a conservative, I’ll grudgingly admit that Dr. Twain’s
objective approach is a good starting point.
One must admit that the dominant paradigm of vested interest domination
and paralyzing hyper-partisan inertia and political acrimony is not exactly
constructive.”
Lina
Wertmüller: “Let us be swept away by an adaptive
transformation on a blue sea of August!
We need to defuse class warfare with a greater modicum of egalitarianism. A reversal of roles is needed to alter the
dominant paradigm of male domination of our societies, because it is having
such damaging effects on human societies and the Earth.”
Huck
Finn: “Hmmmm. Well, curious and curiouser. I guess that’s the whole scoop. Let’s all get together, and admit that in a
way we are all on the same raft. Let’s recognize
that our lives are truly interconnected and interdependent. Let’s make do in the best way possible. Let’s get along by honoring live-and-let-live
precepts and the fairness principle as embodied by the Golden Rule!”
The
Beatles:
 “One thing I can tell
you is You got to be free
Come together, right now Over me
… Shhhuuuccck! Come together!”
Tiffany Twain:
“That’s all folks! The details of
the three proposals discussed herein can be viewed in Part Four of the Earth
Manifesto website. See Three Bills of Right: A Triumvirate of
Responsible Actions for the Greater Good.
There are also many more good ideas in the Earth Manifesto, as
summarized in One Dozen Big Ideas to
Positively Transform Our Societies, and in the Progressive Agenda for a More Sane Humanity. Check them out!”
President Obama, I’d like to offer one more piece of
perspective on the true nature of progressive taxation. It is contained in a letter to the
intelligent and progressive MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow. See the Real
Memo to Rachel Maddow in Part One of the Earth Manifesto website for
details.
Thank you for your attention to these ‘clear-seeing’
perspectives!
Truly,
Dr.
Tiffany B. Twain
Contact
at: SaveTruffulaTrees@hotmail.com
Minor revisions made on December 7, 2009.
Copy sent in August to:
All Americans,
via the Earth Manifesto at www.EarthManifesto.com
Allan (Bud) Selig, Commissioner of
Baseball
245
Park Avenue, 31st Floor, New York, NY 10167
Katharine Weymouth, Publisher of the Washington Post
1150 15th St.
NW, Washington D.C. 20071
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., Publisher of
the New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue., New
York 10018
Rachel Maddow c/o NBC
News, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10112
Senator Robert Byrd, 311 Hart Senate
Office Building, Washington D.C. 20510
Jack Whitaker, Publisher of the Hannibal Courier-Post
200 N. 3rd St. Hannibal, MO
63401
Earth Justice, Because the Earth needs a good lawyer, and I may too!
426 17th Street, 6th
Floor; Oakland, CA 94612
The
Nation, c/o Submissions, 33 Irving Place, 8th Floor New York City 10003
Graydon
Carter, Editor-In-Chief, Vanity Fair
4 Times Square, 7th Floor New York City
10036
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