America Last?

 

Our president was elected on a promise to Make America Great Again, but he lied. Almost everything he has done has weakened our country. Let’s look at some of the things that he has done.

Foreign Policy

In foreign policy, making America great again has taken a form he has called “America First,” but that has turned out to mean “American Alone.” Mr. Trump foolishly thinks that we are strong because we stand alone. He does not understand that allies make us stronger and that preserving our alliances makes us stronger not weaker. So, he is willing to sacrifice alliances built over many years for small, domestic political advantages. The latest expression of his view is his executive order suspending sanctions on Russia in order to allow us to import Russian diesel fuel in the hope that the price of diesel fuel will come down before next month’s election.

This action flies directly in the face of the policies and interests of our NATO allies in Europe. They are supporting Ukraine against Russia because they see Russia’s expansionism as a threat to all of them. They see Putin as today’s Hitler, and they remember Munich. So, they ask themselves, “If Putin can take all or part of Ukraine, what is to prevent him from focusing next on Romania or Poland? 

Trump doesn’t care about any of that. He is willing to throw away NATO and the support of our European allies for a possible electoral advantage in November. He is willing to give up our position as “leader of the free world” and thereby to weaken the United States in the hope that a few Republicans may be elected to Congress next month. How will Europeans ever trust NATO or the United States again?

Trump also appears to be willing to dump our Arab allies in the Middle East. The current war with Iran has shown that the United States cannot or will not defend our Arab allies against attacks by Iran or its proxies like the Houthis. There can be no doubt that our position in the Middle East will be permanently weakened. Trump's foolish support of Netanyahu in Israel's upcoming election can never make up for the doubt in the minds of our Arab allies.

Immigration

In running for office, Trump promised to crack down on illegal immigration, and he has done so with a vengeance. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been arrested and imprisoned or deported. It was always obvious that the mass deportation of immigrants would damage our economy, especially in sectors like construction or agriculture that depend on immigrant workers. Today, crops are rotting in the fields because the workers who used to harvest the crops have disappeared, and an article in the New York Times tells us that the cleanup from Hurricane Isaias in Florida may well be delayed because workers are afraid to show up for work.

As if that were not enough, we learn in a recent article that the deportation of immigrant workers will reduce the income of the Social Security System on which millions of Americans depend in their retirement.

In order to satisfy the racists who elected him, Trump has damaged America's economy and made the people who voted for him more insecure and impoverished.

Taxes

Trump’s signature economic policy is the huge tax cuts that he passed in both his first and second administrations to please the billionaires who funded his campaigns. Those taxes have widened the government’s deficit and forced the government to borrow more money to pay its bills. To cover its debts, the government has had to resort to “printing” money, and the result has predictably been rapid inflation. The costs of basic consumer goods like housing, food and gasoline have risen dramatically, and millions of working Americans are suffering.

At the same time, Trump has raised tariffs on many imported goods. A tariff is a consumption tax, and it falls heavily on working Americans because they spend most of their incomes to buy the things that they need to live. Rich people are less affected by the tariffs because they spend a smaller proportion of the incomes on consumption. Indeed, it appears that the main purpose of the tariffs has been to shift the tax burden from the rich to the middle class.

Moreover, American farmers are suffering because other countries are responding to the tariffs by refusing to buy American agricultural products. Corn and soybeans exports have suffered, and farmers cannot pay back the money that they borrowed to finance the growing of those crops.

Thus, to reduce taxes for rich folks, he has been willing to cause immense damage to most Americans.

 America last indeed.

The Cultural Contributions of Immigrants Make Me Proud to be American

 Carmen.Maquia and Ballet Hispanico of New York

Last week, my wife and I went to see the ballet Carmen.Maquia performed by Ballet Hispanico of New York at the Appleton PAC. The performance was wonderful and full of very powerful dancing.  Bravo!  

Ballet Hispanico de New York is a highly regarded dance company that has been producing extraordinary performances since 1970. The company has roots in Cuba, but it is not a folkloric company. It does not focus on Cuban or other Latin American folk dancing, and it does not dress its dancers in folkloric costumes. The company is “Hispanic” only in the sense that its members and its leadership are Hispanic people and as such, they have a “Hispanic artistic sensibility” that underlies the company’s work.

Hispanic Artistic Sensibility

A Hispanic sensibility is different from a Cuban, Mexican, Argentinian or other Latin American sensibility. Each of those countries has its own culture and its own sensibility, and they are very different from one another. Hispanic sensibility is different from all of them, and it comes from the unique experience and culture of Latin American immigrants in the United States. A Hispanic sensibility has emerged in the United States out of the interaction between the cultures that Latin Americans have brought with them and the culture of the United States to which the immigrants must adapt.

Immigrant Sensibility Has Enriched Our Culture

Other immigrant groups have developed similar types of artistic sensibilities. There is a distinct Jewish-American sensibility and a distinct Italian-American sensibility. The movie The Deer Hunter takes place in a Russian-American community with its own distinctive culture. The interaction that produced these various immigrant cultures has produced many beautiful works of art, literature, theater and music. They are all American, but they express different aspects of our rich and complex culture.

Think for example of the movie Brooklyn starring Saoirse Ronan, which portrays the experience of an Irish immigrant woman in New York. Or think of the movie Funny Girl about a Jewish immigrant.  There are the novels of William Saroyan, which describe the experience of Armenian immigrants. We also have the musicals of Rogers and Hammerstein both of whom came from immigrant Jewish families.

Black Artistic Sensibility Has Played a Special Role

Then, there is the enormous contribution of Black Americans to American music. Black Americans are a special case because the racism and segregation of American society have allowed a unique Black American culture to evolve even among Black people who have been here for many generations. They have been marginalized and excluded, and so, they have developed a unique sensibility that has been central to the character and development of American music. Our culture has been immeasurably enriched by the musical creativity of Black Americans,

Hispanic Ballet and the Tradition of Immigrant Contributions to Our Culture

The work of the Hispanic Ballet Company falls into the rich tradition of immigrant and Black contributions to American culture. The company's work draws on the special experience of Hispanic immigrants to the United States, and it enriches our culture through the expression of a unique point of view. The beauty and power of Carmen.Maquia moved me deeply. It deepened my experience and offered me one more way to share in the unique power and diversity of American culture. We can be proud of it.

Replace the Property Tax With a Wealth Tax

 What Did the Property Tax Originally Do?

Why do we have a property tax, and why does it seem to have become unjust? We began collecting a property tax because our local governments needed money to fund projects of local benefit, but what were we taxing in those days? We were not taxing houses in the suburbs. That is certain. In the eighteenth century, there were no suburbs, and only a few people lived in towns. So, what were we taxing? The answer is that we were taxing wealth.

Land Used to be the Main Form of Wealth

In the eighteenth century, land was the most important form of wealth, and it was the most important productive resource. Capital as we know it today barely existed. There were no large industrial companies, and the modern corporation had not yet been invented. Most wealthy people were wealthy because they owned land, and most wealth was produced by working the land. In the British colonies, wealth came from products like tobacco, rice, indigo and sugar cane. A little later, wealth came from cotton. Most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were wealthy landowners.

Land was not the only form of wealth . International trade produced wealth in forms like the tea that was dumped in Boston Harbor, and infamously, there were slaves. However, in the eighteenth century, these forms of wealth were significant in only a few places. In most communities, they were insignificant. In most places, property in land was the main form of wealth.

Governments Protect Property Rights

For centuries, one of the primary responsibilities of government has been to protect property rights. Laws specify the rights of property owners and those of inheritance. Courts enforce the terms of contracts. Police and fire departments protect physical property. Local governments build roads, bridges and canals that promote trade that benefits primarily the owners of property. In past centuries, “property” meant primarily land, and so, it made sense that land should be taxed to pay for the costs of local government.

There Are Many Kinds of Property Today

Today, the protection of property is still a primary responsibility of government, but today property takes many forms. People own bonds and shares of stock. They own copyrights. Some people own companies the value of which does not come primarily from land. For example, a doctor may own the building where his/her office resides, but that building is not a large part of the value of the doctor's practice. An automobile repair business may own the building where the shop resides, but the value of the business comes also from the expensive tools that the business owns as well as the reputation of its owner. Stock traders may work from their homes, but their wealth consists primarily of stocks. Property today takes many forms.

We Should Tax All Types of Property

In addition, today we have millions of landowners who are not wealthy. They own only the small plots on which their homes sit, and today, they bear an unfair share of the cost of local government because the “property” tax is levied only on land and buildings and not on the many other forms of wealth that also benefit from the work of local governments. Today, it still makes sense for the wealthy to pay a large share of the cost of local government, but today “landowner” is not a synonym for “wealthy,” and “land” is not a synonym for “wealth.” We should update our tax structure to reflect the reality of today’s society. We should replace the property tax with a wealth tax.