John Nichols: We’re not broke, we just a need Robin Hood tax

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/john-nichols-we-re-not-broke-we-just-a-need/article_b21573c6-019b-11e2-9a2a-001a4bcf887a.html

Paul Ryan is wrong … about a lot of things.

But there is one issue on which he is truly, fully and fundamentally wrong.

Despite what Ryan imagines, America is not broke.

The problem is that the Republican vice presidential nominee and other career politicians like him have broken priorities. They can always find money for wars and bank bailouts. But they always have trouble finding money for school lunch programs and cervical cancer testing.

Part of what puts America’s priorities out of whack is the determination of Ryan and his ilk to avoid taxing billionaires, millionaires and speculators. In so doing, they foster the fantasy of “crisis” where it need not exist.

When The Nation magazine published its People’s Platform prior to the recent Republican and Democratic conventions, the first plank in the proposal to address the absurdity of the austerity arguments preached by Ryan was a call for a Robin Hood tax.