More Compassion Would Improve Society
People's Misconceptions of Reality Prevent Progress
Aug 1, 2009
American comedian Bill Maher said on his HBO series, the estate tax is a tax on people with estates- "in other words, not you!"
Sometimes in front of retail stores such as Target, petitioners ask patrons if they would sign their petition to repeal the estate tax. The more aggressive ones ask for help with repealing the “death tax.” This term is an example of a scare tactic.
In Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes by William H. Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins, the authors credit Jim Martin, the founder of 60 Plus Association, a senior advocacy group with a "less tax" focus, with bringing the term "death tax" into popular use. Pollster Frank Luntz, who worked with the Republican party over the years, said the term creates resentment unike the term "estate tax."
What’s troubling about this (as Maher pointed out) is the estate tax doesn’t affect them. The estate tax is applicable to someone worth at least $3.5 million dollars when they die. According to Bruno Graziano, a tax analyst at Chicago, Ill., tax researcher CCH, quoted in The Arizona Republic fewer than percent of estates have the tax applied.
Money Could be Put to Better Use
In 2007, the states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. With bond money and federal government spending added, the total becomes $49 billion, according to The New York Times. Approximately 1.6 million adults are in prison and another 723,000 are in local jails as of the 2007 Times story, which shows 1 in 100 adults in the country are behind bars.
Meanwhile, the federal government allocates $16.8 billion a year to states for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), otherwise known as welfare. States receive the same amount of funds for temporary assistance as they did in the early 1990s when caseloads were more than three times the amount they are now, according to a February article in The New York Times.
A Change in Attitude Could Lead to Reform and a More Stable Society
In a 2008 story in The New York Times, Sen. John Whitmire, (D-Texas) was quoted as saying, “Our violent offenders, we lock them up for a very long time — rapists, murderers, child molesters … The problem was that we weren’t smart about nonviolent offenders. The Legislature finally caught up with the public.”
“We have 5,500 D.W.I offenders in prison,” he said, including people caught driving under the influence who had not been in an accident. “They’re in the general population. As serious as drinking and driving is, we should segregate them and give them treatment.”
The Pew report recommended diverting nonviolent offenders away from prison and using punishments short of reincarceration for minor or technical violations of probation or parole. It also urged states to consider earlier release of some prisoners.
Before the recent changes in Texas, Mr. Whitmire said, “we were recycling nonviolent offenders.”
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