{"id":296385,"date":"2017-02-24T20:56:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T19:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/to-save-main-street-tax-wall-street\/"},"modified":"2017-02-24T20:56:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T19:56:12","slug":"to-save-main-street-tax-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/to-save-main-street-tax-wall-street\/","title":{"rendered":"To Save Main Street, Tax Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"
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All too often these days, large U.S. corporations and Wall Street banks seem more interested in tapping overseas markets than in growing a customer base at home. When local communities in America’s heartland suffer, it’s no skin off their backs.<\/p>\n

By contrast, our nation\u2019s small businesses depend on the health of their communities. When young people don\u2019t have the opportunity to get an education and a good job, these Main Street businesses take a direct hit.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this up and coming generation is entering a job market with too few opportunities to earn enough money to make a down payment on a house, eat in restaurants, or support local merchants.<\/p>\n

Times are especially hard for the millions of young people who are saddled with crushing student debt. Last year\u2019s college graduates owed an average of more than\u00a0$37,000<\/a>, a historic high.<\/p>\n

The lack of affordable education for middle-class families limits young Americans\u2019 prospects for the future and undermines the health of our economy. The small business sector, which needs\u00a0local customers with strong buying power\u00a0to survive, especially suffers.<\/p>\n

\"corporate-CEO-1-percent-coins-rich\"<\/p>\n

the great 8 \/ Flickr<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For our long-term prosperity, it\u2019s critical that we help current student borrowers reduce their debts and start moving on a path towards debt-free college. The question is how we pay for it.<\/p>\n

Many people claim our national coffers are empty. We\u00a0have no choice, they say, but to accept that affordable higher education is simply beyond our means.<\/p>\n

In reality, this country \u2014 the richest in the world \u2014 has abundant resources to ensure a world class college education for all. The problem is that too great a share of our resources is going into too few pockets.<\/p>\n

Congress deserves much of the blame. Under pressure from lobbyists, lawmakers have filled the tax code with loopholes that benefit many of our country\u2019s wealthiest individuals and corporations. If we simply eliminated these perverse loopholes, we could raise massive revenues for education and other urgent economic needs.<\/p>\n

One of the most extreme examples of tax privilege is the so-called “carried interest” loophole. This allows private equity and hedge fund managers to claim the bulk of their income as capital gains, which is taxed at only 20 percent, instead of the top marginal income tax rate of 39.6 percent.<\/p>\n

This means some of the wealthiest Americans pay a lower tax rate than millions of our country\u2019s teachers, firefighters, and nurses.<\/p>\n

Getting rid of this unfair loophole would raise at least\u00a0$15.6 billion<\/a>\u00a0over 10 years, and\u00a0some tax experts\u00a0believe it could raise more than 10 times that amount. A strong majority of Americans are opposed to the carried interest loophole \u2014 by\u00a068 percent to 17 percent,<\/a>\u00a0according to Bloomberg. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump also called for closing it.<\/p>\n

In areas that are home to many Wall Street financiers, some elected officials are considering closing the carried interest loophole at the state level. Such proposals are moving forward in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island as part of a regionally coordinated effort<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The carried interest loophole is just one example of a rampant tax avoidance problem among our wealthiest individuals and largest corporations. Their tax-dodging sucks wealth out of local communities, leaving the customers that are the lifeblood of small businesses to absorb a larger share of our mutual tax responsibility.<\/p>\n

We need new rules that rein in the excesses of our financial industry and hold corporations and wealthy individuals accountable to pay their fair share in taxes. Only then can we create the opportunities our young people deserve and return community wealth to the hands of local consumers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All too often these days, large U.S. corporations and Wall Street banks seem more interested in tapping overseas markets than in growing a customer base at home. When local communities in America’s heartland suffer, it’s no skin off their backs. By contrast, our nation\u2019s small businesses depend on the health of their communities. When young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2523,"featured_media":296386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-296385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}