COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SABRINA SIDDIQUI IN THE
GUARDIAN
Donald Trump unveils
ambitious plan to overhaul US tax system
The United States, right now, is running massive, massive
deficits in its budgets.
And those are destined only add to the greatest heap of debt
in recorded history.
At the same time, the great corporations of America are so
unbelievably flush with cash, they don't know what to do with it.
Of course, one of the things they will inevitably do is buy
up other companies and extend themselves into still new areas.
Already, a number of them are troubling-sized
multi-corporations, butting into every corner of our lives.
Also, at the same time, individual wealth in the United
States has reached grotesque levels, and the division between wealth and
poverty has grown frighteningly large.
Personal fortunes like those of Mr Microsoft or Mr Facebook
or Mr Amazon are only possible under a tax system already badly axed by the
likes of George Bush.
This all means not only great inequality, but, almost more
importantly, it means vast concentration of power.
The United States already is more of a plutocracy than a
democracy. It took a multi-billionaire to defeat the best-financed candidate in
history, one who spent somewhere between $1.2 and $1.8 billion on her defeat.
Too many people in the United States do not appreciate the
intimate connection between concentrating personal wealth and lack of democracy
because of the deep attachment to the concept that what you earn is yours and
yours alone. It is a very dangerous attitude over the long term.
I fear that these measures will only add to the horrors we
see in the world. The American establishment – the plutocrats supported by
their huge military-security establishment - has been on a non-stop tear for
years to dominate everywhere, its Pentagon-generated slogan being,
“full-spectrum dominance.”
Increased concentration of wealth in the United States
threatens all of us long-term militarily but also economically. Financial
instability in the United States has the capacity to put us all back into a
Great Depression. Of course, Trump further adds to this possibility with his
wolf-pack approach to international trade and destabilizing arbitrary acts.
And here comes boy genius Trump to say we need to pay even
fewer taxes. He is playing what likely is the last round of a nasty game played
by Republican leaders from Reagan through Bush, reduce taxes to gain votes but
also to increase the flow of campaign finances from grateful billionaires,
money so crucial to America’s money-drenched politics.
It is actually a nightmare scenario, and we are all going to
be forced to live through its results.
