All you hear on the news today is Fiscal Cliff this and Fiscal Cliff that. If a humble warehouse worker predicted today’s events 28 years ago in a guest column, why does the Media ignore the same history that the humble worker based his column on? Perhaps Democrats and Republicans dare not cite precedent because it might lead the public to the realization of just how serious the deficit problem has become perhaps to the point of revolution. I wrote, “When the next group is ‘taxed,’ their perception of business and government is likely to change, and in a manner not done quietly.” The ruling class appears to be whistling past the graveyard.
I submitted the article when corporate America had been terminating its workforce by the millions including me. “Higher levels of middle class next to feel deficit’s bite” Kansas City Star, 25 November 1984 7J. It’s funny how unemployment focuses the mind. I explained what happened in France by 1789. Generally, France ran out of money after her involvement in a foreign war, the American Revolution. In order to “appease” the deficit the King called for a meeting of the “Estates-General” or France’s three classes who hadn’t met since 1614. Since the King and the Nobles were broke and the Clergy was off limits, only the Bourgeoisie (business) was left to tax. Those that had the power didn’t have the money and those that had the money didn’t have any power. The Bourgeoisie (Third Estate), mostly farmers, but spearheaded by the French Media, overthrew the king, aristocracy, and Church with the help of Parisian workers.
By the early 1980s in the United States corporations had been paying billions in taxes for the utopian socialist experiments of the Great Society. Spending by the government eclipsed revenue and inflation became a crisis. Unchecked spending also became a major pretext to remove the Democrats from office, shut down the economy to break the back of inflation, and to throw millions out of work. Fighting inflation became the mantra for business to recoup revenue by theoretically making operations efficient. What actually took place during Republican rule was America’s bourgeoisie shifted the burden of taxation from themselves to individuals. I wrote, “Since 1981, under a politically receptive climate, the main responsibility of paying taxes has shifted from corporations to individuals.”
Additionally, corporations shipped jobs overseas by the millions where taxation was minimal or non-existent and even started looting the wages and benefits of the employees that were left. I wrote, “The idea of taxes being paid only by money is a provincial one. The first deficit installment paid by the 1981-82 private sector workers was one made in jobs and tears. It assumed the form of a ‘fire bell in the night’ to the middle class, and those above now stand to feel the next ripple effect.” I even predicted the next workers to be taxed. “The last and least vulnerable strata of workers to be “taxed” probably will be union and government workers whose financial protection was determined by political strength.” Then I predicted the taxation of the next class. “Professionals, stung by the creeping erosion of their economic base, will again reel from new taxation schemes when they are solicited by government as the next group able to pay deficit taxes.” That is where we are today – on the precipice or Fiscal Cliff of who will pay? If you do not believe me, check out Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution.
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