Why taxing millionaires and billionaires is fair

I note with consternation and some degree of frustration with our education system that the Republican candidates are evidently able to frighten (or at least put off) voters by using the term "distributing wealth" in reference to Senator Obama's proposed tax policy. They refer to it disparagingly as "socialism." Obama's proposed tax policy protects (and even lowers the taxes of) the lower and middle classes while modestly increasing the assessment on the wealthiest among us. Many American voters evidently believe that it is unfair to increase the taxes of millionaires and billionaires in order to provide a social safety net for all.

 

This sense of unfairness seems to emanate from some corollary to a belief in the American Dream, that the wealthy deserve what they have (and should not be required to carry a proportionate burden) because they "worked for what they have." (This suggests that the person working three minimum wage jobs and who cannot afford health care for her family isn't working hard enough. Otherwise she would be wealthy too.) Of course the same individuals who hold this belief also tend to oppose inheritance taxes that would help to ensure that whose with wealth did indeed earn it and not just inherit it. There appears to be a mistaken impression afoot in this country that the US affords its citizens opportunities that are the envy of the world.

 

Unfortunately, Americans are poorly educated about what goes on outside our own borders. A member of the working class is more likely to achieve the "American Dream" in most western European countries than in the U.S., where social mobility has been declining for decades. Citizens are also more likely to be able to send their children to college where they will earn a degree in about 15 other competitor nations than in the U.S. And this is intimately related to the fact that these countries, through tax policies, do not allow the huge disparities in wealth that exist here.

 

How did we get things so backwards that "distributing wealth" turned into an ugly concept and enormous disparities in wealth — in even the ability to provide the most basic aspects of life for one's family — is something to be protected? Do we need to revisit our civics curricula, or do we just need to teach our kids more about social policy in the countries where their peers are faring much better than they?

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Patricia Gándara is professor of education and co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. This piece was originally published in The Sprint, the UCLA Newsroom presidential election blog.