The shortcomings of American governmental policy on taxation have finally been exposed and all it took was the recent culmination of serious government self-sustenance issues.

Recently, the state of Wisconsin began enforcing a new legislative initiative, giving an ultimatum to any resident owing back-taxes of more than $25,000. Should these residents be unable to pay their dues, they will see their names published in an effort to shame them into uprightness.

The innovation of Wisconsin's new tax-retrieval method is interesting, and nothing could be more fun than sifting through a list of delinquent taxpayers, searching for the names of friends and relatives. However, the action being taken by the state can be considered largely indicative of a much more serious problem. The United States' formula of tax collection, which has long inhibited the government's potential as a provider of social welfare, is now proving incapable of upholding even the pillars of governmental social responsibility.

Taxpayers in the U.S. have long carried a substantially smaller load than most of their European counterparts. This is the easy explanation for American's lack of the comprehensive social programs — namely things like universal health care and fully subsidized university tuition — that allow for a European equality unlike any the U.S. has ever seen. Nonetheless, the bare essentials that always were available to Americans — things like a good, public K-12 education — are now proving they are not immune to the effects of an insufficient system of taxation.

Nobody realistically expected an expansion of the government's revenue base as President George W. Bush was elected to office in 2000, but it's also doubtful that anyone expected such a catastrophic mishandling of budgetary issues. Fighting two different conflicts simultaneously, the Bush administration decided it would be the first administration in U.S. history to cut taxes in a time of war. Even worse, the bulk of these cuts would pad the pockets of the wealthy.

From here, the story is well known: a projected budget surplus from the days of Clinton fiscal policy quickly deteriorating into a record national debt by the blundering of the Bush administration. Before long, areas in which society already suffered from the inadequacies of the U.S. revenue stream were now experiencing multiple crises.

The American attitude toward taxation has long seemed cavalier, emphasizing the importance of self-reliance and discouraging the notion that those who strike it big owe something to the society that nurtured their success. Many members of the top tax bracket are so caught up in complaining about things like the social security tax — chump change to them — that they blindly refuse to acknowledge the ways in which they rely on government themselves. Perhaps these people ought to consider the extent to which their taxes help the government serve them.

Promoting a free flow and protection of capital, the U.S. government is a slave to the wealthy. Providing services such as national defense, corporate subsidies, bureaucracies overseeing trade, and the establishment of freeways for commerce, the government truly caters to those with money. It is peculiar, then, that these people are always searching for a loophole to escape the possibility that they might have to pay one cent toward the welfare of the lower classes.

The fact that the richest nation on earth does not enforce the simplest standards of equality is disgusting. No teacher should have to cut important sections of the curriculum in order to save the few hundred dollars they were shorted because of tax cuts for the wealthy. Americans have never expected their government to fully support them, but only to provide the most basic necessities. The U.S. government has always asked too little of its most privileged citizens, but the irresponsible tax policies now being promoted are restricting governmental ability to provide equality more than ever.

Very few people are advocating socialism, but most simply want to see their kids have an education equal to that received by children of wealth. This is the case in Wisconsin as much as anywhere else. Unfortunately, given its tax policies, Wisconsin's new initiative to collect back-taxes may not be enough to provide this equality.

Rob Rossmeissl ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.