The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
There was a brief, four-paragraph story in the newspaper the other day about the reconciliation package which needs to be approved by Congress in order for the two enormous infrastructure bills to be voted on. A proposal had been made that the Internal Revenue Service would be empowered to check the bank records of the wealthiest people in the land to see if they were breaking any laws in their financial finaglings.
The news report said that Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told the president that idea would have to be squelched for the reconciliation process to go forward. This will remove an estimated $250 billion in lost revenue to help pay the costs of the infrastructure measures.
Sen. Manchin personally, along with his unpredictable ally Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, has already eviscerated a couple trillion dollars from these mammoth bills. Why would he object to the IRS being allowed to inspect the bank accounts of the nation’s richest citizens?
The answer is that Mr. Manchin, along with countless other Members of Congress, has had his Senate votes on many legislative issues purchased by the nation’s richest citizens. In his case they are coal mine owners in West Virginia. Granting the IRS more funds to hire more agents to sleuth the finances of those most able to pay the highest taxes was also scotched by Congress. The reasons for their refusal are onerous, if also not so obvious; the billionaires don’t want their billions audited or taken from them.
The Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court allowed anyone to contribute any amount to any candidate on the spurious principle that it is an expression of free speech. It has turned our country into a kleptocracy that is controlled by a very small group of Americans with an incomprehensibly huge political war-chest to purchase whatever they desire in tax policy. A few billion dollars more for the IRS would result in megabillions more in tax revenue, and that plutocrats understandably abhor.
The IRS is understaffed and underfunded. The latter has a direct relationship to the former. Whatever Congress might invest in more funding to the federal tax-collecting agency would produce ten or twenty of fifty times that amount in added revenue. An investment of that magnitude in the stock market would be considered spectacular, but Congress refuses to make such an investment.
And why won’t Congress vote the expenditure? Because the super-rich would no longer direct their largesse to the campaigns of the Members of Congress. It illustrates the age-old corrupting political philosophy: You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.
- October 28, 2021
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.