Billy Bragg: 'Who really runs this country?'
"Paying my income tax is an expression of social solidarity, a means of making a contribution to the common good.
Paying taxes is a way of recognising that in any society we all of us have some degree of responsibility for one another."
Great rousing speech from Billy Bragg. I need to investigate PAYE tax and why we happily allow this to be paid monthly on our behalf by our employers. Imagine the pressure on a government if everyone withheld their taxes until the end of the financial year. Problematic and inefficient for sure but an interesting thought exercise. Collectively we really do cede control of the financial wherewithal we grant our so-called representatives without so much as a peep of protest.
In a similar vein I'm intrigued by Michael Moore mentioning that his new film contains previously unseen footage of Roosevelt:
"President Franklin D Roosevelt was ailing. Too ill to make his 1944 state of the nation address to Congress, he instead broadcast it by radio. But at one point he called in the cameras, and set out his vision of a new America he knew he would not live to see.
Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights to guarantee every American a job with a living wage, a decent home, medical care, protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness and unemployment, and, perhaps most dangerously for big business, freedom from unfair monopolies. He said that "true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence".
The film was quickly locked away."
Yes we can?
