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Bruce Bartlett is, in my general estimation, a well-educated idiot, but now and again he stumbles on something smart.
He goes on to suggest that the problem is how low the threshhold is for the current top tax rate- totally ignoring how it got that way. (Nixon and Reagan eliminated the top tiers of income taxation, bringing down tax rates for the rich and super-rich to those paid by the upper-middle-class.) But the above three paragraphs are the only really important ones in his essay...
... and they're the ones the Republican Party will ignore at all costs. In fact, they've decided to raise taxes not on the rich, but on the poor.
Ah- so, obviously, the only tax cuts that break the budget are those for the poor, and the only tax cuts that stimulate the economy are those for the rich. Obvious, really.
Of course, a large part of this is simple hatred of the poor by the rich:
This is, of course, maddening- but not as maddening as the certainty that the Democrats, led byRockefeller Hoover Republican Barack Obama, will do absolutely nothing to push back. Only a minority of Democrats remain liberal enough to actually fight for the poor and disadvantaged. Most- including Obama- are occupied solely with serving their corporate masters.
Despite that I'm on the point of despair because, sadly, there's not yet enough people willing to abandon Obama & Co. to make a liberal party in the United States viable. The effort ought to be made, but I'm definitely not the one to make it; if I were to lead it, nobody would follow. About the best I could suggest is the Contract for the American Dream drafted by Van Jones... but I can't really recommend that, because Jones still supports the president who dropped him like a bad habit, and because the Contract people have no intent of primarying Democrats who fail to sign on or act on the Contract.
But something like (at the VERY minimum) a Left-wing Tea Party is desperately needed. And today I read a poem (linked by Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast) by Langston Hughes. When I was in high school I was given Hughes as a report assignment, and there was one encyclopedia entry and one book about him in our school library. (Which was one book more than the county library had.) What I learned was, basically, that Hughes was a black poet "taking advantage of the expanded freedom of the mid-20th Century Harlem Renaissance to express the black creative spirit."
Which, I've since learned, was white revisionist-history bullshit. Hughes was black, and he was a poet. He was also gay. He was also socialist. And the period during which his poetry flourished was not one of "expanded freedom," but of often deadly political struggles for equality in which Hughes and many of his friends lived under constant anonymous threats of death.
But this poem speaks not just to non-whites, gays, or whatever, but to all the Have Nots sick of being abused by the Haves:
(Read the whole poem.)
It must happen. And it can happen. But not by depending on Democrats to defend us from the Big Bad GOP- not when they've failed so miserably at doing that, even when they hold total power.
It's axiomatic among Republicans that taxes on the rich are the single most important factor determining economic growth. If that were true, then the period from 1988 to 1990, when the top rate was just 28 percent, should have been the most prosperous in recent American history. During that time we had the lowest top rate since 1931. But although 1988 started out okay with a real GDP growth rate of 4.1 percent, it fell to 3.6 percent in 1989 and just 1.9 percent in 1990.
Conversely, the period from 1993 to 2000, when the top rate rose from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, should have been a period of dismal growth. But in fact, that period was the most prosperous in recent American history. Real GDP growth averaged 3.9 percent per year – more than 50 percent above the average postwar growth rate.
. . .
So where is the data supporting the argument that taxes on the rich are the sine qua non of growth? I don’t see it. On the contrary, the data from the last several decades would in fact support the opposite conclusion – that higher tax rates on the wealthy stimulate growth.
He goes on to suggest that the problem is how low the threshhold is for the current top tax rate- totally ignoring how it got that way. (Nixon and Reagan eliminated the top tiers of income taxation, bringing down tax rates for the rich and super-rich to those paid by the upper-middle-class.) But the above three paragraphs are the only really important ones in his essay...
... and they're the ones the Republican Party will ignore at all costs. In fact, they've decided to raise taxes not on the rich, but on the poor.
Many of the same Republicans who fought hammer-and-tong to keep the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts from expiring on schedule are now saying a different "temporary" tax cut should end as planned. By their own definition, that amounts to a tax increase.
The tax break extension they oppose is sought by President Barack Obama. Unlike proposed changes in the income tax, this policy helps the 46 percent of all Americans who owe no federal income taxes but who pay a "payroll tax" on practically every dime they earn.
. . .
"It's always a net positive to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn," says Rep. Jeb Hensarling, "but not all tax relief is created equal for the purposes of helping to get the economy moving again." The Texas lawmaker is on the House GOP leadership team.
. . . Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and a member of the House-Senate supercommittee tasked with finding new deficit cuts. Tax reductions, "no matter how well-intended," will push the deficit higher, making the panel's task that much harder, Camp's office said.
But Republican lawmakers haven't always worried about tax cuts increasing the deficit. They led the fight to extend the life of a much bigger tax break: the major 2001 income tax reduction enacted under Bush. It was scheduled to expire at the start of this year. Obama campaigned on a pledge to end the tax break only for the richest Americans, but solid GOP opposition forced him to back down.
Ah- so, obviously, the only tax cuts that break the budget are those for the poor, and the only tax cuts that stimulate the economy are those for the rich. Obvious, really.
Of course, a large part of this is simple hatred of the poor by the rich:
The use of the word "injustice" is not accidental. The term social justice has traditionally meant working to ease the hardships of poverty. But Perry reverses the meaning and claims the victims of injustice here are the rich people forced to shell out an extra dollar because those impoverished meanies are selfishly hoarding what little they have left.
This kiss-up, kick-down attitude is popular on the right, not just with rich campaign donors but with a lot of middle-class and just-hanging-on people whose anger could do some good if focused on the robber barons' ever-increasing share. Instead it's targeted at the poorest people, who conveniently don't have lobbyists to defend them. I think it works because of a comforting bit of wishful thinking: that life is fair, and bad things don't happen to good people. Following that belief, those with money are by definition Worthy, and those without are Unworthy. It's tempting to believe - or at least want to believe - that if you work hard, if you're just Worthy enough, you'll get ahead.
. . .
Any system that declares the Haves morally superior to the Have-Nots will always get the support of the Haves. Our political and media establishments are run by Haves. They're currently engaged in a campaign to convince the Have-Littles that they're on the same side, being oppressed by the Unworthy Have-Nots. Somehow, we have to keep countering with the truth: up is not down, slavery is not freedom, and robbing the poor to give to the rich is not justice.
This is, of course, maddening- but not as maddening as the certainty that the Democrats, led by
Despite that I'm on the point of despair because, sadly, there's not yet enough people willing to abandon Obama & Co. to make a liberal party in the United States viable. The effort ought to be made, but I'm definitely not the one to make it; if I were to lead it, nobody would follow. About the best I could suggest is the Contract for the American Dream drafted by Van Jones... but I can't really recommend that, because Jones still supports the president who dropped him like a bad habit, and because the Contract people have no intent of primarying Democrats who fail to sign on or act on the Contract.
But something like (at the VERY minimum) a Left-wing Tea Party is desperately needed. And today I read a poem (linked by Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast) by Langston Hughes. When I was in high school I was given Hughes as a report assignment, and there was one encyclopedia entry and one book about him in our school library. (Which was one book more than the county library had.) What I learned was, basically, that Hughes was a black poet "taking advantage of the expanded freedom of the mid-20th Century Harlem Renaissance to express the black creative spirit."
Which, I've since learned, was white revisionist-history bullshit. Hughes was black, and he was a poet. He was also gay. He was also socialist. And the period during which his poetry flourished was not one of "expanded freedom," but of often deadly political struggles for equality in which Hughes and many of his friends lived under constant anonymous threats of death.
But this poem speaks not just to non-whites, gays, or whatever, but to all the Have Nots sick of being abused by the Haves:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
. . .
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
. . .
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
(Read the whole poem.)
It must happen. And it can happen. But not by depending on Democrats to defend us from the Big Bad GOP- not when they've failed so miserably at doing that, even when they hold total power.