"[Working people] must not be asked to make a disproportionate share of the sacrifices of our society—whether it be in the form of job lay-offs, skyrocketing health costs, or the bearing of a disproportionate tax burden while others go tax free.”
Our Quote of the Week is over 50 years old, but it resonates as we take in today’s news headlines. We share it as we witness the US Congress pass a tax bill that will benefit the nation’s wealthiest at the expense of those who can least afford it.
With this week’s speech, Sargent Shriver’s 1974 Address to the University of Mississippi, we find Shriver speaking about the history of progressive movements in the South. It is a speech meant to motivate the audience during a turbulent time in the country. The United States was in political turmoil, with President Richard Nixon having resigned after the Watergate scandal and then having been pardoned by Gerald Ford.
Sargent Shriver laments these events and expresses dismay at: “vetoes of bills to aid the handicapped or bills to expand public information about governmental decision making, surcharges on middle income families but tax indulgence for giant corporations—a total absence of effective controls or even moral leadership from the White House.”
Turning to the economy, he says:
“Of course, all Americans are primarily concerned with the economy. Can we make it work? Can we prevent another 1929? They simply aren’t going to accept 7% unemployment rates, a declining gross national product, the fall of real purchasing power, the most outrageous interest rates in history, the highest inflation in peacetime—while corporate profits are running at the highest level in history.”
In this context, he talks about working people’s “disproportionate share of sacrifices of our society,” with some going “tax free” while working people are penalized through regressive tax policies.
We could not help but share this quote in this moment, as we watch the House pass a tax bill that includes significant cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and student loan funding, while making permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and allocating $170 billion to immigration—including billions for detention centers and surveillance equipment of the public—and raising the debt ceiling to up to $5 billion dollars.
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