Our current tax system is unsustainable. Legalized tax evasion allows corporations to be “persons” in the political influence arena, yet excuses them from paying “income” taxes along with the rest of us. Estimates of tax monies lost this way range up to 140 billion dollars annually.

The “Bush” tax cuts have not resulted in jobs or economic growth for anyone except the wealthiest 1% in this country. Real wages and buying power are significantly lower than ten years ago.  Trickle down doesn’t.Is there a “correct” percentage to tax formulas? Top tax rates one hundred years ago were near 90%. Currently they are under 40%.

We need to address the damage to our fiscal security done by the financial crisis of 2008.  Risky business practices by financial institutions caused the crisis. Those entities were bailed out, costing taxpayers both the damage to the economy plus the money paid to bail said companies out. It is unjust to allow them not to pay the taxpayers back.

We need resolution on paying for our most recent wars.  A war tax needs to be implemented before we ask the the poor and voiceless to bear this cost.  Many companies and government contractors made tremendous profits off of these wars. They need to pay their share.

We need to remove corporate welfare and subsidies and tax protections for industries that don’t practice good community and conservation values.  They cost us real money in the present, and more in the future with their destructive practices.

We need to address our deficit in a comprehensive manner.  Ending all social assistance programs alone will not close the gap between income and payments.  We need to address the cultural reasons why so many of us are needing assistance. This will mean hard conversations involving childbearing, child rearing and population growth.  Ignoring these issues leaves other problems festering.

We need to put aside utopian ideals of low/no taxes and limited government.  We live in both local and global communities. We depend on infrastructure. We all need to pay in, to keep costs as low and fair as possible.

The fiscal year 2010 deficit was 1,294 billion dollars.  The deficit for fiscal year 2014 is projected to be 744 billion.  This is down by nearly half!

We still have a long way to go, and we need to fix more than welfare to get there.  There is no fiscal or moral justification for cutting off social assistance before revamping tax rates and corporate welfare.

Laura Twing lives in Cedar county, with her husband and various animal companions.