Having just read the AP analysis piece: Obama Plan Brings Cries of Class Warfare, it seems to me that author Tom Raum and Congressional Republicans don't actually know what the phrase "class warfare" means.All of this misses a key point, which is of course the fact that higher income-earners and the wealthy already pay the overwhelming bulk of federal taxes, and that's even after factoring for Social Security.
No, just becuase Obama is going to make rich people pay more does not mean it's "warfare." Nor is Obama "pitting the haves against the have nots." He's doing nothing of the kind. He's not saying "Rich people are screwing you over, so we need to take their money." He's just making people who can afford to pay more, pay more. That's not warfare. That's a sensible proposition. It's not about soaking the rich. It's about paying for what we have, without hurting people who can't afford the bite.
And it's not just Republicans: Rasmussen reports that "59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that 'government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.'"
Indeed, even the New York Times gets it: "President Obama will propose further tax increases on the affluent to help pay for his promise to make health care more accessible and affordable ..."
Notice that? Obama wants "further" tax increases. As Charles Krauthammer notes this morning:
Obama sees the current economic crisis as an opportunity. He has said so openly. And now we know what opportunity he wants to seize. Just as the Depression created the political and psychological conditions for Franklin Roosevelt's transformation of America from laissez-faireism to the beginnings of the welfare state, the current crisis gives Obama the political space to move the still (relatively) modest American welfare state toward European-style social democracy.
Leftists want a redistribution of society's wealth from the most productive to the least. We don't have to call it "soaking the rich" to know that government confiscation of personal product violates liberty in the name of "equality." But given the level of unprecedented dishonesty so far in the first few weeks of the Obama administration, it should be no surprise to see such class warfare denialism across the left-wing netroots fever swamps.
3 comments:
Donald - You completely missed everything I wrote. To show that Obama is using class warfare, you need to show that he is demonizing the upper-class in order to make people in the lower classes angry at them. That's what class warfare means, similar to how Republicans demonize poor people, attacking them for being lazy and undeserving of government assistance. Instead, all you can do is say correctly that Obama wants to have the people who can afford to pay more taxes pay more taxes, and assert that this is proof that Obama wants to hurt rich people. And that was the exact point I was making and rather than refute what I wrote, you merely made the same mistake I was addressing. Obama might want them to pay more, but he's not attacking them for being rich.
And FYI, if all taxation is "confiscation of personal property" then we could never have a government or society. Sorry Donald, but even conservatives understand that taxation is necessary for some purposes. The only difference between liberals and conservatives is what purposes the government should serve. So to suggest that Obama's tiny tax increase is somehow a violation of liberty is absurd on its face. I know of no conservatives who think we should pay for national defense using voluntary contributions. So you guys clearly don't have any problem with violating liberty.
And as a reminder, even a flat tax scheme that's based upon a percentage of income will have rich people pay more taxes than other people. So even you guys agree that the rich should pay more than everyone else. So these high-minded principles you espouse are obviously faulty. This has nothing to do with preserving liberty. It's merely about attacking Obama for raising taxes on people who can afford it, while allowing less fortunate people to keep their money.
And you can attack this all you want, but I suspect the American people will be on Obama's side. They'll see that he gave them tax cuts, while slightly increasing tax rates for a small portion of the population and understand what a good move this was.
"You completely missed everything I wrote."
Well, no, Mr. Biodenialist, but you're free to cocoon in your own little world.
"And you can attack this all you want, but I suspect the American people will be on Obama's side."
Actually, not ... but keep up with your snarky fantasies anyway Biobrain.
That's it, Donald? No rebuttal? Just a couple of tepid insults? Surely your readers want to see a better smackdown than that.
But if they're interested in seeing what a proper rebuttal looks like, they can read mine here: Still Crying Class Warfare
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