BY SHARON MARTIN
You don’t give tax breaks to the people who already have all the money.
You don’t collect money from the citizens and give it to corporations.
If you think these are good ideas, you cannot call yourself a conservative. There’s nothing conservative about blowing money up the chute from the working poor to corporations and billionaires.
If you work for wages and you vote for candidates who promise to cut taxes, you’ve been conned into making the rich richer at your expense.
If you buy into the idea that estates worth more than $5 million should be exempt from paying an estate tax, you’ve been conned into creating, over generations, a moneyed aristocracy.
Like all good cons, you won’t realize you’ve been swindled at first. Take the massive tax cut passed by the GOP and signed by President Trump. They doubled the standard deduction. A lot of us will benefit from that. But here’s a short list of what we have already lost or are likely to lose when you cut taxes on top earners:
– Services for veterans
– Classrooms with a teachable number of students
– Libraries and librarians in every school
– Drinkable water from the tap
– Safe roads and bridges
– Access to health care
– Access to mental health care
– Rural hospitals
– Nursing homes and elder care
– Accessible post office hours
– Real people on the phone when you need to call the IRS
Conservatives invest money. True conservative politicians invest money in the people they serve. They give a hand up to the poor – education and training, health and wellbeing – so they, too, can become contributors. They don’t give it to folks who buy yachts then register them in the Cayman Islands so they don’t have to pay property tax on them.
If you don’t get this, there’s a good chance you’ve been swindled by politicians who only claim to be conservatives. So, save the extra in your paycheck from that doubled standard deduction. You’ll need it when your pre-existing condition is no longer covered.
It will be too late when Medicare and Social Security have been privatized.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer. Her latest book, Not A Prodigal, is available through Barnes and Noble. Her recent children’s book, Froggy Bottom Blues, can be purchased in hardcover or paperback from Doodle and Peck Publishingand in paperback from Amazon.
