Rally For Tax Justice

To the Editor:

I want to express my appreciation to the many fellow Newtowners who joined in the “Rally for Tax Justice” last Monday (Tax Day) in Danbury. Your participation and enthusiasm was a key to making it successful in raising awareness in the public, and among our elected officials about the gross inequities in our current tax system.

This system, as we learned, allows huge corporations to completely avoid paying their fair share of taxes by using tax loopholes, offshore tax havens, and earmarked tax subsidies. This allowed GE to earn over $14 billion in profits last year and pay $0 federal taxes, and Bank of America (the largest bank in Connecticut) to pay no federal or Connecticut taxes despite being profitable enough to hand out over $35 million in bonuses to its top executives. In fact, over the last 30 years the portion of government revenue coming from corporate taxes has decreased from 30 percent to six percent, meaning that we, the individual taxpayers, have to shoulder a much larger share of the burden. This, coupled with the factor of the greatly lowered tax rates on the top two percent income group over the last ten years, has further shifted much more of the tax load onto the working middle class and contributed greatly to the budget and debt crises.

I am very grateful that you helped bring these facts to light and I am hopeful that we will all work together to pressure our government to change these unfair tax laws. And, I hope we will elect those representatives who will work for these goals, and replace those who insist on exempting these extremely profitable corporations and the extremely wealthy from paying their fair share of the cost of running this country and keeping it great. I, for one, am very concerned about the incredible amount of power and control the huge corporations, giant banks, mammoth oil companies, and mega insurance companies are wielding over our lives and our government. With their ability to spend tens of millions of dollars lobbying for their own tax breaks and exemptions, and their ability to spend hundreds of millions influencing elections to make sure they get “their people” in power, they are well on their way toward taking complete control.

That’s why I think it is so important that the American middle class really pay attention and look beyond the political distortions and untruthful sound bites, and make sure we are electing representatives that are truly dedicated to looking out for the interests of the country and the people as a whole, and not just the economic aristocracy. This is why I also want to express my appreciation for our Congressman, and candidate for Senate, Chris Murphy, for participating in the rally and sharing his insights and inspiration, as well as Elizabeth Esty, who is running for Congress next year. These are the kind of representatives we need to help restore government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Curt Riebeling

21 Sugar Street, Newtown                                              April 20, 2011