Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Voices That Must Be Heard" Articles Description An account of the resource The Independent Press Association (IPA) translates articles from the ethnic press (when necessary) and distributes them via web and fax newsletter to mainstream and ethnic press, government offices, nonprofits, and interested individuals. Voices That Must be Heard was designed by the Independent Press Association staff in New York City in response to the horrifying events of September 11. After Sept. 11th, Voices focused on the South Asian, Arab and Middle Eastern communities in New York. Since February 2002, the project has expanded, selecting articles from the broad range of ethnic and community newspapers throughout the city. Here, the Archive has preserved the Voices collection from its inception until November 2002. VTMBH Article VTMBH Article: Edition 26 VTMBH Article: Article Order 3 VTMBH Article: Title City budget targets poor, middle class, while rich continue to evade taxes VTMBH Article: Author David Greaves VTMBH Article: Publication Our Time Press VTMBH Article: Original Language English VTMBH Article: Translator VTMBH Article: Section edits VTMBH Article: Blurb The only way to straighten out the mess that is this years City Budget is by changing the way taxes are raised and by the electorate becoming militant and force the changes needed. VTMBH Article: Keywords VTMBH Article: Body With the budget deal done, politicians in the city have time to catch their breath after the election and post-election blur combined with the budget process. The freshmen on the city council saw what numbers look like in the real world, and were happy just to get through it, saving whatever they could, and promising to sort it all out further down the road. Well, theyve got a short run to a nasty stretch of the economic highway, and the only way to straighten it out is by changing the way taxes are raised and by the electorate becoming militant and force the changes needed. Mayor Bloombergs nickel-and-dime cell phone tax, cigarette tax, parking violations tax and others like them, are poppycock and a lot worse. These regressive taxes strike the middle class and the least among us the hardest. A $25,000-a-year smoker talking on a cell phone about the parking ticket he or she just found on the windshield will be paying a measurable percentage of their yearly income in new taxes. However, the impact on a billionaire like Bloomberg, whose $25,000 rate is measured in the sweep of the second hand, would be akin to removing a grain of sand from Riis Beach. The problem with the budget will not be solved by taking more and more from people who have less and less. It will be solved when the upper classes pay their fair share. This is something they avoid like a plague. The New York Times reports how the big accounting firms have private sessions with very wealthy people doing workarounds on the tax code. One example they use is someone with a $20 million paycheck on which he would owe $7.7 million in federal income taxestypically, an executive, professional athlete or entertainerwould delay the tax for 30 years, effectively reducing the tax to $1.4 million. Another example is someone selling a business for a $100 million profit on which there could be $20 million in federal capital-gains taxes alone could instead pay only about $5 million. And that money would go not to the government but to Ernst & Young, as a fee. Rich people play the system to pay less than their fair share. Yet they still demand every service, convenience and courtesy. People on a payroll dont have this luxury. Taxes are deducted both automatically from their checks, and then paid again at the point of purchase. In return, their relationship with city government usually involves long lines and waiting for the opportunity to have an emergency application for assistance placed on the eight-inch stack of applications waiting to be processed. And to add further insult, the ruling classesthose in the top 1 percent of wealthmake the middle and lower classes pay for the war machine they use to lash the rest of the world into line. You look at this elite, impervious to pleas, lacking even the common human decency of allowing universal health care, as in the rest of the industrialized world, or enough money for each student to have enriching and empowering school years, and you wonder what kind of people are these? The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by himself, provides us with an answer. When you see a slaveholders nature unrestrained by law or even civility, you see in highest relief, that curious streak that holds money more valuable than human lives. Brooklyn historian William Mackey, Jr. has written the introduction to a recent release of the narrative, and gave us a copy. To read Mr. Douglasss work is to be inside a slaves skin and finding it nothing like Gone With the Wind. The lives of the people Douglass describes are not much different than cattle, except more poorly treated. [Editor's note: <a href="http://www.ourtimepress.com"> read Douglass' speech by clicking here. </a>] For Douglass, the key to the doorway out of slavery was learning how to read. This was knowledge he had to steal, letter by letter, coaxing it out of the world around him. His efforts make this book required reading in any curriculum for African-American students, if not in school, then at home. And it is in the home that we will have to find and build others like Frederick Douglass: those with tenacious and indomitable spirits that will not be bound or held back. They have demonstrated throughout history that change can come. The Berlin Wall can be torn down, the Shah can be run out of Iran, the USSR can be broken up and the ruling elite in the United States can be taken down. As black and brown people and progressive and middle-class whites come together, they will find that their interests in war and peace, globalization, education and health care, all come together in a Gordian knot, requiring only a sword of fairness in the hands of a united people. VTMBH Article: Line Breaks 1 VTMBH Article: Date 2002-07-01 VTMBH Article: Thumb VTMBH Article: Article File VTMBH Article: Hit Count 90 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource City budget targets poor, middle class, while rich continue to evade taxes 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. unknown Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. article Original Name The original name of this item. The only way to straighten out the mess that is this years City Budget is by changing the way taxes Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-07-01