Conservative thinkers tell us the best way to balance the budget is to cut social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But many people struggling to make ends meet rely heavily on these programs. Cutting holes in the safety net would inflict more pain and suffering on the already downtrodden poor and as-good-as-poor lower middle class.
An alternative approach would seem all the more reasonable given the shocking information recently released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Their research is laying bare the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore hideaways. The documents show how the mega-rich use complex offshore structures to hide their "gold," thus gaining tax advantages and anonymity not available to average people. Their findings support what James S. Henry, former chief economist at McKinsey & Co., estimates in his study, namely that wealthy individuals have $21 trillion to $32 trillion in private financial wealth tucked away in offshore havens — roughly equivalent to the size of the U.S. and Japanese economies combined.
Maybe if we closed tax loopholes and made the tax rogues pay their fair share we could balance the budget, strengthen our social safety net and ease the tax burden on the rest of us.
Don Bell
Troy
