This morning in Congressional Quarterly was an article about the president’s 2013 budget proposal which began by saying:

Democrats are saying it is a balanced approach, and
Republicans saying it is a blueprint for more spending and higher taxes.

Yes, it is a blueprint for higher taxes. More revenue is critically needed. Effective tax rates are far lower than they have been any time in the last 60 years, at a time when demographics and corporate greed demand more spending on what will allow seniors and those with less economic power to live in some level of dignity.

It is also a time when our roads, bridges, public hospitals and schools, built when there was sufficient revenue to pay for them, are now crumbling. The highway trust fund is unable to keep up with patching our interstates, much less provide improvement to unsafe bridges. Taxed exist to provide for what all members of our society rely on and use. Many corporations pay little if any taxes in some years. Yet, these very corporations use and cause wear and tear on the very infrastructure paid for by taxes paid by others – while they enjoy outrageous profits.

Higher taxes would be detrimental to the economy – only in reducing these outrageous profits to a more just level.

There is something amiss in this system.