WillowTree
Diamond Member
- Sep 15, 2008
- 84,532
- 16,092
- 2,180
I'm going to make a proposal that's going to rile a lot of people but if you bear with me I think you'll see the sense of it. I'm going to suggest that we accept President Obama's offer that we "raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires" as part of a deficit-reduction agreement.
Now here's my logic. First of all, we completely take his most powerful weapon out of his hand. The President has already decided he's going to run his entire re-election campaign around the theme of "making the rich pay their fair share" while Republicans will be cast as "protecting the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class." Take this issue out of his hands and he'll have to run on his own record, which will mean almost certain defeat.
Second, there's absolutely no chance his plan will do anything to improve the economy. Raising taxes on rich people will make a pathetically small contribution to balancing the budget and will hurt investment, which will ensure that things will be just as bad in November 2012 as they are now. There won't be any George Bush to blame this time. The electorate will can the President and Republicans can undo all the damage in a very short time.
But here's the most important thing. When Obama talks about the "millionaires and billionaires" and their $250,000 incomes, he's really talking about a class of highly professional people who are making a lot of money, not in the private sector but in high-level government jobs and non-profits. Nearly all of these people are concentrated on the East and West Coasts, particularly in New York, Washington and California. This is the core of Obama's support. He takes in more campaign contributions from one afternoon on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley than he could raise from a month doing bus tours in the middle of the country. Why are we protecting these people? Let them experience the consequences of their misapprehensions. Maybe they'll find their inner Republican and discover they're not such enthusiastic tax levelers after all.
The American Spectator : What the Heck, Let's Tax the Rich
Now here's my logic. First of all, we completely take his most powerful weapon out of his hand. The President has already decided he's going to run his entire re-election campaign around the theme of "making the rich pay their fair share" while Republicans will be cast as "protecting the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class." Take this issue out of his hands and he'll have to run on his own record, which will mean almost certain defeat.
Second, there's absolutely no chance his plan will do anything to improve the economy. Raising taxes on rich people will make a pathetically small contribution to balancing the budget and will hurt investment, which will ensure that things will be just as bad in November 2012 as they are now. There won't be any George Bush to blame this time. The electorate will can the President and Republicans can undo all the damage in a very short time.
But here's the most important thing. When Obama talks about the "millionaires and billionaires" and their $250,000 incomes, he's really talking about a class of highly professional people who are making a lot of money, not in the private sector but in high-level government jobs and non-profits. Nearly all of these people are concentrated on the East and West Coasts, particularly in New York, Washington and California. This is the core of Obama's support. He takes in more campaign contributions from one afternoon on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley than he could raise from a month doing bus tours in the middle of the country. Why are we protecting these people? Let them experience the consequences of their misapprehensions. Maybe they'll find their inner Republican and discover they're not such enthusiastic tax levelers after all.
The American Spectator : What the Heck, Let's Tax the Rich