United for a Fair Economy's E-Newsletter (March 2007)
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United for a Fair Economy's E-Newsletter |
Wealthy Taxpayers Still Reaping Huge Tax CutsHelp Get Tax Cuts Out of the Federal Budget Experts and Learners - That's What We All Are |
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Wealthy Taxpayers Still Reaping Huge Tax Cuts "This president is giving me millions of dollars. Do you think I need that?" - Matt Damon, ABC Primetime Live. "It seems to me that instead of cutting taxes, we ought to be increasing taxes to pay off the deficit...." - Walter Cronkite, CNN NewsNight. Those quotes are from 2004 and 2003 respectively, but they would be just as true today. Upper-income taxpayers are still pocketing huge Bush and Clinton-era tax cuts while our national debt soars, educational needs are unfunded and New Orleans remains in shambles. George W. Bush inherited a projected $5.1 trillion, 10-year budget surplus and gave most of it away in tax cuts for the wealthy. Six years later, we face a $237 billion annual deficit and over $8.7 trillion of national debt - and yet wealthy taxpayers are still receiving windfall savings! Since 1998, our Tax Fairness Pledge has asked wealthy taxpayers to calculate their tax cuts and donate them to efforts to create tax fairness. If you are wealthy, or even if you're not, please take a moment now to calculate your 2006 tax break and consider using your savings to support organizations fighting for tax fairness. If you're not wealthy, you can compare your tax cut to what you would get if you were wealthy. First calculate your tax cut, then increase your income by a couple of hundred thousand dollars to see what your tax cut would be! Help Get Tax Cuts Out of the Federal Budget As we write this, there's budget wrangling in Washington. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are due to expire in 2010, including repeal of the estate tax. Nevertheless, the President's current budget proposal assumes that his cuts will be made permanent at a 10-year cost of $2.3 trillion. The House and the Senate each have separate budgets right now, but they have to go through a reconciliation process to produce one budget number - and the result could still be vetoed by the President. Your pressure could help push the tax cuts out of the budget! To contact your Senators or Representatives, call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 244-3121 or find your Senators' contact information here and your Representative's contact information here. Tell them: "Do not extend the Bush tax cuts in the budget. We should not continue these tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy." The White House can be reached here or by calling (202) 456-1111. Experts and Learners - That's What We All Are "I'm not an expert!" You normally wouldn't expect to hear that from someone learning to lead a workshop. Yet such comments are common from people in our Training of Trainers (TOT) workshops - and we actually encourage it! Our education methodology, called Popular Education, draws on participants' own experience - whatever it is - to achieve an authentic dialogue. We find that this approach is much more effective than the traditional method of having an expert deliver information. By engaging participants more fully, we find that more learning happens. Also, by following this approach of sharing power, we model a more cooperative way of sharing information and solving problems than the traditional approach. This is especially valuable when learning about economics, whose rules often support and enhance the power imbalances that result in inequity and inequality. In fact, Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator who is considered a founder of Popular Education, was quite clear about what was wrong with the traditional notion of the teacher as expert and the student as without knowledge. This oppressive teaching model, said Freire, mirrors the attitudes and practices of an oppressive society. Instead, Freire emphasized problem-posing strategies that elicit dialogue. Suddenly, the content, instead of being separate from the learners' experience, becomes much more relevant to the group. The departure point is not the world of the teacher, but the world of the learner, in which she/he is "expert." To understand why our economy operates the way it does and how we can make it better serve our needs, we must all become more than learners - we must engage as teachers of our own experience. For more information on UFE workshops, visit our website. To learn more about other current Popular Education efforts, visit the Institute for People's Education and Action and for more information about Paulo Freire's work, check out these critical reviews. "Governors have gotten wise to a corporate shell game that hurts individual taxpayers and encourages businesses to game the system," so says Responsible Wealth member and former CEO of Stride Rite shoe company, Arnold Hiatt, in a recent letter to the Boston Globe. Hiatt is referring to sophisticated accounting strategies that corporations use to avoid paying their fair share of taxes in certain states by shifting their profits to subsidiaries in states with no or low tax rates. Seventeen states have plugged this big tax loophole by requiring "combined reporting," and Democratic governors in another six states (MA, NY, IA, PA, MI, NC) have recently introduced the same legislation that requires corporations to report to each state their total profit (parent company and all subsidiaries) so that states can then tax their fair share of the profits. Hiatt explains the problem, "Take, for example, the scheme uncovered through WorldCom's recent bankruptcy filings. State taxes were avoided by creating a shell company in Mississippi-really a P.O. box whose only asset was the ”˜business foresight' of CEO, Bernie Ebbers. WorldCom erased its reportable profits by paying the shell company for use of the CEO's business foresight." Laury Hammel, Responsible Wealth member and owner of several fitness clubs in Massachusetts has also been a vocal proponent of leveling the playing field between large multi-state corporations that take advantage of tax loopholes and local small business owners who pay their fair share of taxes. His public support provides an alternative voice to the mainstream business organizations that attempt to equate closing loopholes with a tax increase. As a pilot for other states, UFE has developed a Popular Education workshop that supports Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's proposal to close the "combined reporting" loophole. The workshop puts the current effort within the context of helping local communities understand the Massachusetts budget and tax system.
You can download UFE's Massachusetts Budget Workshop or contact kkraut
For more information about Responsible Wealth, contact mlapham Black and Brown Unity - A Key to the Movement On issues from globalization and immigrants' rights to rebuilding after Katrina, people of color are disproportionately negatively impacted. If these groups stood together, there would be tremendous potential to affect great change. But when Latinos and African Americans are forced to compete for jobs and other limited resources, coming together can be difficult. And yet, even under an economic and political system that creates inequalities and pits the most disenfranchised groups against one another in order to breed disunity, many national and regional organizations are working to create unity. For example, UFE joined 13 groups that recently converged at the Highlander Center to discuss building a movement for Black-Brown unity. Following momentum from the Southeast Social Forum and 2005's People of Color workshop at Highlander, the gathering aimed to address past, existing and emerging points of unity and problems involving relations between African American and Latino communities in a progressive political context. Coming out of that conversation, a working group is developing joint education and organizing strategies that will include the historical and current political and economic realities affecting both communities. The intention is to prepare for the US Social Forum this summer as a starting point to begin a much broader effort to bring the issue of Black-Brown unity to the forefront of the social economic justice movement in the US. For general information visit the Highlander Center or the US Social Forum.
For information on this Black-Brown unity initiative, contact adrian Highschoolers have an innate sense of fairness, but they're still developing their critical faculties. That puts them in a great position to learn the truth about economics. To help, we've just published the 2007 edition of Teaching Economics As If People Mattered (TEAIPM), authored by Tamara Sober Giecek and edited by Steve Schnapp. Field-tested by high school teachers, this innovative and accessible economics curriculum looks at the human implications of economic policies. It's also great for college courses, formal and informal adult education, and self study. Topics include: What is income and why do some people earn so much more of it than others? • Viewing income and wealth through gender and race lenses • What is wealth and how is it distributed in the US? • The global economy and the race to the bottom • The consequences of economic inequality • Strategies and policies for greater equality, and much more. A DVD with Teaching Economics As If People Mattered in PDF format will be available soon from our west coast partner Reach & Teach, a progressive web-based educational communications support company. The book will available soon from Dollars & Sense. Also, if you live or work near students or instructors, please consider posting a flyer describing the book. A PDF version is available here. |
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