"These tax expenditures for individuals and families represented 7.4 percent of GDP in 2008, up from 4.2 percent in 1976. By way of comparison, Social Security amounted to 4.3 percent of GDP in 2008; Medicare and Medicaid, 4.1 percent," she added.
Most Americans, Mettler says, "express disdain for government social spending" even when they benefit from it. "Without discussion of what is actually at stake in spending through the tax code, citizens are not told what these subsidies really are: special provisions for particular groups of people, especially the wealthy."
Mettler goes on to write, "Tax expenditures also exacerbate economic inequality by dramatically reducing the revenues government collects, leaving considerably fewer resources available for the programs like Head Start and Pell grants that benefit lower-income Americans."
The vested interests that profit from the tax break policies, ranging from the real estate and health care industries to the nonprofit foundation world, Mettler says, "are keenly aware of the and invest heavily in their political capacity to preserve and defend core policies." Real estate sector giving to political campaigns jumped from $43 million in 1992 to $138 million in 2008.
"Ordinary Americans, by contrast, have little awareness of the very existence of such policies, even if they are beneficiaries themselves," Mettler says. "It's time for progressives to do battle with tax expenditures." #
(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based reporter who formerly worked for major dailies and wire services.)
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