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| Billie Silvey |
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| I remember Howard Jarvis and the tax revolt he led in California. It all but destroyed our public schools, which had been the envy of the nation.
Now there is a new tax revolt that holds the promise of restoring public education. It's led by an unlikely radical--a billionaire from Omaha, Nebraska, named Warren Buffett. He and his wealthy friends have formed a group called Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and have sent a letter to President Obama and the Congress asking them to raise their taxes and the taxes of the 370,000 other Americans who earn more than $1 million a year. "We shouldn't be wallowing in our riches while everybody else is suffering," one member said. "My country--our country--means more than my money," another pointed out. But the wealthy aren't the only ones who recognize inequality when they see it. Another group, Occupy Wall Street, claims to represent the disenfranchized 99% of Americans against the wealthy and powerful 1%. And they aren't afraid of being accused of fomenting class warfare. Inspired by the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street has spread from New York to Kona, Hawaii, driven by social media. Now they have gone international, impacting the U.K., the European Union and Japan. Here in Los Angeles, Occupy LA held a massive solidarity march with unions, camped outside City Hall, disrupted a bankers' conference at a Newport Beach yacht club and demonstrated outside a financial executive's Bel Air home. They also marched with teachers and camped outside the headquarters of Los Angeles Unified School District. The movement draws from many segments of society, from college students to ordinary Americans who are concerned about the economy. They have no single organizer, but are made up of individual groups focused on the banking industry's role in the growing divide between America's rich and poor. "On some level, I can't blame them," said Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. "The banks engineered the country's collapse and then is profiting from it," according to Joe Briones, a film major at L.A. City College who is helping run the media feed from the City Hall protests here in Los Angeles. "They did the same thing in the Depression." Protestors in Newport Beach accused bankers of causing the economic meltdown by peddling bad loans, accepting govenment bailouts and then doing little to compensate the country for the damage they'd caused. Protests have taken place in several other cities, including Boston, Chicago and Washington. Participation in the dialogue has come from Texas, Florida, Oregon and Tennessee. "The conversation has a strong and steady heartbeat that is spreading. We're seeing national dialogue morph into pockets of local and topic-based conversation." "I don't want to be rich. I don't want to live a lavish lifestyle," wrote a woman on Tumblr. "I'm worried. I'm scared, thinking about the future shakes me. I hope this works. I really hope this works." A lot of other people do, too. |
| November 2011 |
| Warren Buffett and the New Tax Revolt |
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