Posted on 07/29/2009 10:56:20 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
It sounds so simple: Just tax the few to pay for social programs that benefit the many.
Yet no political idea — embodied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s call to tax the wealthy to cover health care for everyone else — has ever proved more contentious. The country was founded on the principle of unlimited and unbounded opportunity. Despite what poll questions often appear to say, class warfare language, outside the Democratic primary electorate, has always been politically counterproductive, because it divides Americans from one another and from their own aspirations and dreams.
And class warfare could be especially problematic now, considering that many of the Democratic Party’s newest supporters are among the highest-income categories — groups that had previously voted overwhelmingly Republican.
President Barack Obama steered clear of class warfare during his 2008 presidential bid. He emphasized that he would reduce taxes for 95 percent of the country and rarely mentioned what would happen to the other 5 percent. And when he took office, one of his first acts was to defer repealing the Bush tax cuts; instead, he decided to let them run out in 2010, postponing increases until past the midterm elections.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25522.html#ixzz0Mfjk1bLx
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I don’t doubt that the police unions have decided to vote against Zero and in Asia they haev the right idea, don’t hate the rich, work hard to try to be like them!
I don’t doubt that the police unions have decided to vote against Zero and in Asia they haev the right idea, don’t hate the rich, work hard to try to be like them!
I’m amazed!
I guess he got the memo that the 40% that are now supporting the 60% dependent on government is about ready to revolt.
That why they call it ‘Class Warfare’. The ‘productive’ sector still has ammunition.
(For perhaps the first time aside from the 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson landslide, a Democratic nominee won close to half of these upscale voters and achieved a 52 percent majority, even among the 6 percent making over $200,000.)
That’s why in the short run it was good that Obama beat McCain. People (especially rich people) had forgotten what a socialist looked like. Bill Clinton made them forget. George Bush also made them forget what a fiscal conservative looked like. Obama is forcing them to remember. It’ll take quite a few years before rich people forget Obama...
You make a good point.
I’m recently retired @ age 61 (by the company’s desire, not mine).
As millions of baby boomers switch from paying big $$ income taxes and Social Security taxes to small $$ taxes on pensions and collecting Social Sec, the fed gov is gonna see a big reversal in cash flow.
“It’s shocking that this comes from longtime Clinton operative, pollster and campaign manager”
Well, Clinton != Obama... Just sayin’...
Maybe he’s planting some seeds.
This makes me wonder if Obama is facing a primary challenge from the “moderate” Hillary Clinton if he doesn’t turn things around.
This is what I've learned over the years, nothing that happens that's associated with the name "Clinton", happens by accident. There's a plan for everything.
Incidentally, there was a piece either in the Post or Politico today that mentioned Hilary still maintains a campaign staff of eight as well as a handsome war chest.
We used to sell new hopper trailers. The Federal Excise Tax was 12% on the purchase price. Last year I paid $127,000 in FET. This year, I will not. I am risk/debt aversive and will not invest the capital in new trailers. No funds for the Treasury.
I’m too young to retire. So the term we use here is ‘slow roll’. ( Term used in refinerys where they keep a pump at it’s operating temperature and recirculating the oil or whatever it is pumping. That way when the time is right, the valves can be opened and they can get on with the process.)
Who’s to say that all of this stirring up class hatred didn’t play a part in the murder of the Florida couple with the adopted special needs children.
Retired people don't put their income in a mattress. All income circulates and is taxed everywhere at all rates, sometime or other. That is why Federal receipts run 20% of GDP for the entire postwar era, regardless of what the tax code says. With top rates 94% or 28%, with corporate rates 48 or 25 or 35, with payroll taxes of a few percent or 15.4%, in inflations and recessions - 20% of GDP flows into the US treasury. The only thing that makes a short term difference is GDP growth - receipts drop a couple of points of GDP in recessions and get it back in years of normal growth.
This is precisely why it is stupid for politicians to try to micromanage such things and play stupid redistributive games. Those games never change the actual economic roles of capital or skilled labor in the economy, so they do not meaningfully change income shares. They just force everyone to play endless games - raise prices, expense more, use more machinery and tech per worker, keep wealth in corporate rather than personal form, invest in municipals instead of corporates, and a million other games.
If what they actually wanted was revenue, all they'd do is focus on growing the economy. Because the only sustained way to get more income is to take that 20% from a larger pie. But they aren't interested in revenue, they are interested in making this or that group dependent on themselves and angry and that other group that votes for their opponents, etc. It is all useless and they are parasites and fools. As are we for putting up with them...
End the demonCRAT party. Do not allow marxists to hold office. Any left of center politician cannot be elected or hold any office that regulates or rules on law. That is the only way class warfare will go away. Leftists are the biggest dividers. It is their nature.
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