This Tax Day, Let’s Lead With Our Values

This tax season hits different.  

Annually, this season sparks political commentary from pundits and policy wonks alike about our tax system.  

This year, amid an authoritarian shift in our democracy, people are asking questions about our government’s priorities and demanding change. Because as wonky and obscure as the tax code is, this administration’s tax policy decisions are being felt in real, tangible, and terrible ways. 

Since January, families have faced higher healthcare costs due to the expiration of subsidies that helped them pay for the expensive, untenable costs of health insurance—in the only industrialized nation without universal care. Millions of families struggling to make it to the middle class will lose access to SNAP and the Child Tax Credit—two things that help them put food on the table in times of economic hardship.  

Why? Policymakers’ actions and alliances sent a clear message: They were changing the tax code and sacrificing those programs so that the excessively wealthy could benefit. 

Those cuts are hard to swallow when you look at the nearly one billion dollars per day our government is spending to fund a Middle East military operation, an illegal war that has already cost American lives.   

On tax days past, those who advocated for a regressive system obscured their ultimate goal in niceties: “trickle down,” “efficiency,” “deadweight loss,” “rising tide.” By taking from the poor and giving to the rich, they said, we’d all be better off. 

Wealthy people and corporations simply want control. And they are using the tax system to take it.

Today, in a new authoritarian context, the masks have come off. Wealthy people and corporations have captured the government, operating through the authoritarian power structure and buying off many who could otherwise oppose it. In this new reality, many people have stopped pretending. They are no longer arguing that they should control the resources because their control benefits us all. They simply want control. And they are using the tax system to take it. We need them to know we see it and them for who they truly are. 

This turn is frightening and harmful, but it also presents us with an opportunity. No longer will we be mired in technical debates that presume we all have the same end goal of shared benefit. Instead, our opposing value systems are exposed, and we can ask: Which side are you on? 

Today, the people are speaking, and I stand with them.  

I will tell you about the side that I am on. I am on the side of recognizing our plenty and sharing it equitably. I am on the side of providing public goods for the public good.  

"Public good” is a term policy analysts use to describe goods and services that the government produces and distributes. Think: bridges, roads, K-12 education, water treatment plants, street lights, public parks, trash collection, libraries, the 911 line. When a good is public, we all contribute to its costs, and we all receive its benefits. Having this infrastructure in place means that our economy and our communities function more smoothly. When public goods are properly provided, it also means that Black and brown communities, who have been denied opportunities to build wealth for centuries, have the same access to these goods and services as their white counterparts. Public goods, when implemented properly, offer freedom and liberation. 

So when I say, “I am on the side of the public good,” I mean that I am on the side of a thriving, flourishing society where we can have self-determination. I am against the oligarchy of today which nakedly hoards resources and power for the few. I believe, instead, in a representative and accountable government that provides for all its constituents, and in a world where Black and brown people have the economic and political power they need to shape their own lives. 

As I have written before, our forebearers have shown us that when we respond to moments of terror and crisis with steady hands and hard work, we can organize ourselves to a better future. And indeed, that work begins with dreaming. This is a moment to say no to the oligarchy. It is also a moment to say “yes” to our liberatory future. 

This Tax Day is an opportunity to imagine another future

This Tax Day is an opportunity to imagine another future, one where we write checks to a government that uses our dollars to pay for the things we all need. What does that look like? What is the role that our taxes play in that future? How do we leverage our dollars to support the public good in our society? 

Paying taxes is an act of care for our community. It’s time to re-envision the tax code so that everyone pays their fair share, no one pays more than they can afford, and the government raises enough money to robustly fund the public goods that benefit us all.  

Paying taxes is an act of care for our community.

What would a more fair and generative tax code entail? It would mean harnessing the levers of fiscal policy so that the wealthy no longer benefit from numerous credits and deductions than those with less cannot access. It would mean corporations paying their fair share rather than extracting from communities without giving back, and income from stock dividends and inherited wealth being taxed at the same rate as income from work. It would look like those who have been boxed out of home ownership by centuries of inequitable taxation, discrimination, and redlining getting a similar tax break as those paying mortgages. It would look like the revenue coming in being used to pay for the things that we all need, rather than lining the pockets of the wealthy and powerful. 

I am fighting for a system that refuses to privilege the rich and the few. On this Tax Day, we can commit anew to creating a system in which policy choices maximize our public dollars for the public good.