Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Taking Our Responsibilities Seriously
The juxtaposition of initiating an open-ended war without adequate international support in Iraq and the cutting of taxes while the deficit and trade balance were carrying the country toward a fiscal cliff led me about a year ago to recommend that we place a surcharge on the U.S. income tax. This would have the double effect of reducing our fiscal haemorrhaging while making all Americans feel a part of what was going on in the Middle East. To me there was an eerie sense that we were hiring the young to go off and risk their lives while most Americans went on "living it up". The Indian Ocean Tsunami seems to me to have some of the same urgency about it. If we as a country are serious about helping the millions of people affected around the Indian Ocean, then we should be willing to act as a community, a community in which all contribute, to help those who need assistance in the short or long term. It would do the Americans good to have it announced that a surcharge would be placed on this year’s income tax for all Americans. All the money raised by this surcharge would be used to replace the money needed now to help the affected people. We need to have symbolic gestures like this to make us all realize we are one people united in serving not just our own pleasures but the greater world around us. The gesture might also improve our reputation as a people, especially if placing such special occasion surcharges on the income tax were to become a standard part of American tax policy.
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