Speaking of Taxes . . ..

The most expensive campaign in the history of the Planet Earth ended this month.  The amount of money spent in the campaign, or perhaps “invested in the future” – depending on your intentions – was the greatest in the history of the world.  

So what really happened?  

Well, the nation’s real problems were not even discussed!  What are those problems?  Here’s a list to begin with:

1. Education for the nation’s people.  This is far too important to be left to individual communities, counties or even states.  The rest of the world had solved this problem and they are educating their children very well and America is not.  Also, there is a continuing need for education for ALL people, not just the children.  This was never discussed.
2. Health care for America – we are the only developed nation in the world that does not provide for the health of its work force, AND at the same  time we spend three times as much money on health-care as other nations do.  The health care available to many Americans ranks with that of Mexico and Turkey.  This was never discussed
3. Infrastructure.  Bridges are crumbling, highways are deteriorating. Light rail and high-speed rail are a main part of all developed nations but not America.  This was never discussed.
4. Reforming the nation’s election process which was wrecked by the Supreme Court in its Citizens United decision.  This was never discussed.
5. Climate change.  Ask the people in New York and New Jersey.  Or New Orleans.   This was never discussed.
6. Dependence on foreign oil.  This was never discussed
7. Gun control.  America, according to Bob Herbert of the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18herbert.html?_r=0  has lost 1,000,000 people to gun violence since Dr. King was shot down in 1968.  That is a little less than 23,000 people a year – every year – or  about 2,000 a month, some 60 a day, or about  3 Americans who are shot down every hour by American terrorists.  And not a SINGLE WORD was said about this in the recent campaign for president. We went to war when 3,000 people were killed in the Twin Towers attack, but that’s only about 40 days worth of our normal and constant carnage.  This was never discussed.

Finally, we have to realize that all the money spent in this campaign really came from the same place.  Whether it was individual contributions from many people or from great corporations, all that money REALLY came from the individual people of america.  Does this amount to another tax?  And when the great corporations spend lavishly on issues designed to influence government action, and this money comes from the profit they made from selling products and services to American consumers that were totally unrelated to these issues, does that amount to a tax without representation?