Issue 11: Tax Policy
Stephen Cohen || Professor of Law, Georgetown University
The Obama administration should use the tax system to combat economic inequality. The U.S. today has more inequality than any other industrialized country. Even with the past year’s economic downturn, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer in our country than in Western Europe or Japan. Although inequality has been growing here for several decades, the Bush tax cuts, disproportionately favoring the wealthiest, made things much worse. The top federal income tax rate is now 35%, no matter how much you earn. So, even financial moguls, making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars pay no more than 35 cents out of every dollar in federal taxes, and often much less due to loopholes favoring the rich. The low rate of taxes on the very rich fuels their conspicuous consumption of multiple McMansions and private jets and increases the amount the rest of us have to pay. Noted financier Warren Buffet has observed that his secretary, earning $60,000, a tiny fraction of his $50 million income, nevertheless pays a higher rate of tax.
Since 1980, Professor Cohen has taught courses at the Law Center in his two principal areas of expertise: tax and international human rights. He served as corporate secretary of the Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund, established by the U.S. government to encourage private sector development in Southern Africa. He also is on the Academic Advisory Board of the International Human Rights Law Group. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights from 1978-80 and has been a consultant to the Department of State. Currently, he serves on the Academic Advisory Joint Committee on Taxation, on the U.S. Congress. His writings include a casebook on federal income taxation and various articles on tax and corporate law and on national security and foreign policy. He has also been a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stanford, and Rutgers.
What Do You Think? Post Your Response
Recent Responses
rUSiA
Stephen points out vast inequities that are truly shocking in what should be a world-leading nation. That thing about Buffet’s secretary is INSANE. It is sad that people can “game” the system of government and financial and tax equity.
Show the world what this Inauguration means to you.
Respond by posting your photos and videos on Flickr and YouTube.
Simply tag your content with the keyword changeincommand and it will be displayed here in our response feed.
44 Issues in 44 Days
Explore and respond to the issues that matter to you.
# 37: Interior Design
# 8: Music Industry
# 2: Transportation
# 10: Immigration
# 3: World View
# 6: Conservation
Inaugural Insight
- The inauguration for the first U.S. president, George Washington, was held on April 30, 1789 in New York City.