Page 6
April 13, 2016
O PINION
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Raising Taxes Could Actually be a Good Deal
Investing in our
prosperity
by i saiah
J. p oole
This time of year,
a whole lot of Ameri-
cans are feeling taxed
enough already.
But the astonishing
momentum of Bernie Sanders’s
presidential candidacy reveals
something else: Millions of tax-
payers are willing to entertain the
idea that some of us aren’t taxed
enough, and that it’s hurting the
rest of us.
Sanders has propelled his
race against Hillary Clinton on
a platform that would ramp up
government investment — in in-
frastructure, education, health
care, research, and social ser-
vices — while boosting taxes on
the wealthiest Americans and big
business to cover the cost.
Clinton’s own vision is less
ambitious, but it’s also a far cry
from “the era of big government
is over” days of her husband’s ad-
ministration.
The old conservative ep-
ithet against “tax-and-spend
liberals” hasn’t complete-
ly lost its sting, says Jacob
Hacker, a political science
professor at Yale Universi-
ty who pushed the idea of a
public option for health insurance
during the Affordable Care Act
debate. But “we are moving to-
ward the point where we can have
an active discussion” about why
“you need an activist government
to secure prosperity.”
Hacker’s latest book, with Paul
Pierson of the University of Cal-
ifornia at Berkeley, is American
Amnesia: How the War on Gov-
ernment Led Us to Forget What
Made America Prosper.
Hacker and Pierson argue
that it was “the strong thumb”
of a largely progressive-oriented
government, in tandem with “the
nimble fingers of the market,”
that created the broad prosperi-
ty of the post-World War II era.
Conservative ideologues and cor-
porate leaders then severed that
partnership.
Anti-government
activism
replaced the virtuous cycle of
shared prosperity that existed
into the 1970s with a new cy-
cle that’s reached its apogee in
today’s radical Republican-run
Congress: Make government un-
workable. Attack government as
unworkable. Win over angry vot-
ers. Repeat.
But in today’s mad politics,
growing numbers of voters seem
to have gotten wise to the routine
and how it’s been rigged against
them. Some are gravitating to-
ward Donald Trump, as Hacker
puts it, out of “the need to put a
strong man who you know is not
with the program in Washington
in charge.”
Sanders has the opposite vi-
sion. He’s looking to spark a peo-
ple-powered reordering of what
government can do, with the
biggest wealth-holders paying
the share of taxes that they did
when America’s thriving middle
class and thriving corporate sec-
tor were, together, the envy of the
world.
That vision is embodied in the
People’s Budget, a document pro-
duced by the Congressional Pro-
gressive Caucus as an alternative
to the House Republican budget.
It’s based on the premise that
America can break out of its
slow-growth economic malaise
through a $1 trillion infrastruc-
ture spending plan that would
create more than 3 million jobs,
increased spending on green en-
ergy research and development,
and universal access to qual-
ity education from preschool
through college.
“There are two messages that
come out of the progressive bud-
get,” Hacker said. One is that “we
can actually increase investment
if we don’t cut taxes further on
the wealthy.” The other is that “if
we got tougher with the modern
robber barons in the health care
and finance and energy indus-
tries, we could actually achieve
substantial savings without cut-
ting necessary spending.”
Unfortunately, the People’s
Budget won’t get close to a ma-
jority vote in Congress — and
that’s if it gets a vote at all in the
dysfunctional Republican House.
Yet together with the debate
provoked by the Sanders cam-
paign, Hacker says, it shows that
now “we have a little bit more of
an opening for the kind of con-
versation we should’ve had 20
or 30 years ago, when we were
trashing government and aban-
doning all of these long-term in-
vestments that are essential to our
prosperity.”
Isaiah J. Poole is the online
communications director at Cam-
paign for America’s Future. Our-
Future.org. Distributed by Other-
Words.org.
Contributions by Women Past and Present
Her place is
simply where
she makes it
M arC h. M orial
There is no arena
in American life, or
beyond the borders of
this country, where a
woman’s presence can
neither be noted nor
celebrated.
Women
have played—and con-
tinue to play—a major role in our
nation’s culture, politics and econ-
omy.
The traditionally held belief of
a “woman’s place” has long creat-
ed obstacles for women who have
ventured into the business arena.
It was a notion that dictated that a
woman’s natural place was in the
home, and when women worked
outside of the home, it largely dic-
tated what kind of work was appro-
priate for her. From the late 1800s
and its initial boom of female work-
ers and entrepreneurs in Ameri-
ca, to Maria Contreras-Sweet, the
founder of ProAmerica Bank and
current head of the Small Busi-
ness Association, and Oprah Win-
frey’s media empire, we know that
a woman’s place is quite simply
where she makes it.
My own respect for strong, ac-
complished women was instilled
by my mother, a highly-respected
by
educator and civil rights activist
who recently published a memoir,
“Witness to Change,” about her
own remarkable life.
Despite issues of gender parity
and gender equity that continue
to plague our boardrooms,
conference rooms and
banks, women have long
contributed to the econom-
ic vitality of our country.
Yesterday’s entrepreneur
laid the groundwork for
today’s
businesswoman,
who continues to defy odds,
Women own nearly 10 million
of the businesses in America—
making up 36 percent of the na-
tion’s businesses. These business-
es generate more than $1.4 trillion
in annual revenue and employ 8
million people. Women are start-
ing businesses at record rates, ex-
ceeding the national average, and
there has been remarkable spike
in small business ownership by
women of color.
In 2002, there were fewer than
one million businesses owned by
women of color, representing 14
nesses and their businesses can be
found in any conceivable industry.
There are many factors that
can be attributed to this historic
growth. The gender pay gap, and
the glass ceiling above the lad-
der of success that is littered with
cracks but has yet to be shattered,
surely plays a motivating role for
many women who have decided
to invest in themselves and their
talent. The Great Recession and
the slow start, especially for com-
munities of color to recover from
the immense loss of capital and
There are many factors that can be
attributed to this historic growth. The
gender pay gap, and the glass ceiling above
the ladder of success that is littered with
cracks but has yet to be shattered, surely
plays a motivating role for many women
who have decided to invest in themselves
and their talent.
break glass ceilings and produce
much-needed jobs and revenue.
This is especially true in the case
of women of color, who are the
fastest growing group of entrepre-
neurs in the United States.
percent of women-owned firms.
As of 2012, there are nearly 3.8
million firms owned by women
of color, comprising 38 percent of
women-owned businesses. Today,
women of color own 4 in 10 busi-
employment, is likely another mo-
tivating factor. The ever-widening
gap between the haves and the
have nots has also played a part in
women of color tapping into their
entrepreneurial spirit.
The growth in businesses
owned by women of color belies
the ugly reality that African Amer-
ican and Latina business owners
struggle to fund their startups.
Women tend to start their busi-
nesses with half as much money
as men, they are more likely to
use their personal savings, and are
less likely to access bank loans,
funding and venture capital. To
foster the growth and long-term
survivability of businesses owned
by people of color, the National
Urban League has created Entre-
preneurship Centers that provide
management counseling, mento-
ring and training services geared
toward the development of man-
agement skills that enable minori-
ty entrepreneurs to obtain financ-
ing that support job creation and
preservation.
Entrepreneurship plays a vital
role in our economy and the Na-
tional Urban League will contin-
ue to play a vital role in shoring
up the efforts and success of all
businesses that create the jobs that
save our cities. The small busi-
nesses owned by women of color
are helping to bring jobs to strug-
gling neighborhoods, creating
new economic pathways in under-
served communities and deserve
their fair share of recognition—
every month of the year.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.