TalkoftheTown: Let's talk about getting rid of taxes, but do the math on the lost revenue

Eliminating income taxes would still cost someone

I’m glad State Rep. Elaine Sena Cortez (R-Hobbs) wants to relieve us of the burden of state income taxes, in “Eliminating personal income taxes isn’t a radical proposition,” (Jan. 14 Journal).

But there are two problems with her proposal: sloppy arithmetic and a lack of detail about how other states’ tax systems work.

It’s true, as she says, that if the income tax were eliminated folks would instead spend that money on things like groceries, and thus generate gross receipts tax (GRT) revenue. But her arithmetic doesn’t add up: that GRT revenue could not possibly offset the loss in income tax revenues because the GRT rate is less than 10%, and it doesn’t apply to groceries anyway.

Furthermore, if she wants to compare New Mexico to other states that don’t collect income taxes, she ought to be more forthcoming about what they do instead. Tennessee, one of the example states I’m familiar with, offsets its lack of income tax with a very high — and very regressive — sales tax, including on groceries. Do we want that here?

It’s fine to talk about getting rid of taxes, but let’s be honest about how we would make up the lost revenue or what equivalent state expenditures we would get rid of.

Hard numbers, give us hard numbers.

GREG TITUS

Albuquerque

The arts, as always, will lead us right back into the light

As the United States embarks on a new era, beyond the certainty of death and taxes, one thing to look forward to is the inevitable explosion of human creativity in the arts. Theatre, cinema, dance, comedy, literature, music and the visual arts will stimulate, entertain, enrage and enlighten us as we pass through this valley of uncertainty.

In every age in which people have endured repressive governments, the arts have been a liberating and revolutionary force, and always in the vanguard. Jazz, which arose out of the genius of Black culture, became a symbol of freedom during the Soviet empire.

The Beats, rock ‘n’ roll, and abstract expressionism emerged out of the conformity and political paranoia of the post-war era. Charlie Chaplin defied and outraged Hitler, amidst a time of American isolationism and a homegrown Nazi movement, replete with summer camps for its youth movement.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” electrified and mobilized public opinion in the north against slavery. The Sex Pistols and The Clash outraged the stolid middle class of Britain under Margaret Thatcher; an eruption that I witnessed firsthand as a student in the grey London of the ‘70s.

The tortured genius and great granddaddy of spoken word and rap, Gil Scott Heron, indicted American hypocrisy and oppression in “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “Winter in America;” both seminal works of the early 1970s. Ten years later, David Bowie, decried the betrayal of the values of his adopted homeland in “This Is Not America.”

Hip hop, in addition to transforming world culture, began with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five confronting poverty, police violence and racism in “The Message.” As James Mangold’s brilliant biopic of Bob Dylan, “A Complete Unknown,” reminds us, Woodie Guthrie had inscribed “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar in the 1940s.

Fundamentalist religions have deepened our divisions. Principled conservatism has all but vaporized. The progressive movement is riven by in-fighting; the Democratic Party is in disarray; and vast swathes of Los Angeles have been reduced to a hellscape due to a climate change-fueled firestorm.

Even firebrand comedian Dave Chappell was uncharacteristically muted while delivering his monologue on Saturday Night Live, offering President Trump a feckless “good luck.” A curious coda, that: Donald Trump may be the luckiest man in history. With all due respect to Mr. Chappell, we are all in desperate need of some good luck.

The arts and artists will be on the receiving end of any overt or indirect efforts at censorship: witness the recent excision of Ann Telnaes’ satirical cartoon by the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post. Most pernicious to the lifeblood of democracy is self-censorship. As historian Timothy Snyder warned in 2017, “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.”

Circumspection among artists and journalists is the telltale sign of encroaching influence of government on free speech.

Suffice it to say, that when a nation, and a people, have stumbled — have lost their way — the arts will spur a re-imagining of our collective existence. Our salvation, as ever, will lie with the expressive media of the arts. Poets, the artists of revealed truth, will lead us out of the abyss and into the light.

Marvin Gaye, the great troubadour of a decade when protesters waged initially hugely unpopular campaigns against segregation, poverty and war sang, “You know we’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today” in 1971’s “What’s Going On.”

To which I say, “amen.”

ERIC RADACK

Santa Fe