Health policy under austerity capitalism: the impact of the "tax revolt"

The United States has moved from the postwar period of prosperity capitalism to the current era of austerity capitalism. Two pillars of austerity policy are cutbacks in social services, including health care, and a further shift in the tax burden from corporations onto individuals. The corporate-controlled media attempt to justify these austerity measures by insisting that the government cutbacks and corporate tax reductions represent the will of the people, as expressed by the "tax revolt" of Proposition 13 in California and Proposition 21/2 in Massachusetts. This paper argues that the tax revolt is actually a protest against the massive shift in taxes away from corporations and onto individual taxpayers. In addition, the tax revolt is not a rejection of government services, as the media and politicians have maintained. In fact, the majority of Americans want more rather than less public services and want more rather than less taxes on large corporations.