f) A Federal Budget that Puts Human Needs Before Corporate Greed and Militarism
(Back to Nader Table of Contents)

The United States needs a redirected federal budget that adequately funds the crucial priorities like infrastructure, transit and other public works, schools, clinics, libraries, forests, parks, sustainable energy and pollution controls. The budget should move away from the deeply documented and criticized (by the US General Accounting Office, retired Admirals and Generals and others) wasteful, redundant “military industrial complex” as President Eisenhower called it, as well as corporate welfare and tax cuts for the wealthy that expand the divide between the luxuries of the rich and the necessities of the poor and middle class.

I am all in favor of cutting government waste. But engaging in class warfare by calling for an end to tax cuts isn’t just divisive, its bad policy.

I'm hoping to add some posts when I get the time that debate the merits between progressive and regressive taxation. The argument for regressive taxation is that (a) Government should be viewed as a service, and as one makes more money, the percentage of your income that need be taken to pay for that service declines (b) Regressive Taxation counter-intuitively is superior for both the common good and government coffers.

Kevin Drum has an old post that suggests that in some ways the tax code is much less progressive than conservatives and libertarians think.

For an interesting Discussion against Regressivity, read this post or this one by Jacob Levy.


(next section)