The Spectacle Blog
Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post deserves special praise for noting just how much conservatives have done to keep taxes on the poor low (even if it is just to accuse them of hypocrisy). While covering Erick Erickson’s “I am the 53 percent” rebuttal to the Occupy Wall Street “I am the 99 percent” cry, she writes that the logic is flawed:
But there is some tension between the site’s critique and conservative tax policy. Part of the reason that over 40 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes is because of the continual push to lower them - a cause that conservatives have championed. For example, while the Bush-era tax cuts benefited the wealthy, they also lowered taxes at every income level, making it “relatively easy for families of four making $50,000 to eliminate their income tax liability,” as the Associated Press notes. Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, similarly, took many lower-income Americans off of the tax rolls, an accomplishment about which the Gipper was quite proud.
Khimm willfully misinterprets what Erickson and others are saying. Conservatives don’t want these protesters to pay more in taxes but simply to recognize what these taxes represent. It’s that conservatives believe people should be taxed less, in general, because their money is not put to good enough use (say, entering the dues-receiving coffers of politically active public employees unions who demand greater government spending). They are also objecting to the idea that those who do pay taxes ought to pay more, given what little productivity we’ve seen from government spending.
Sure. The point may be hobbled when people are grousing about it like the neighbor yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. But “I am the 53 percent” is not the same as saying, “Get a job!” It’s more like saying, “I got a job and this is what I am subsidizing?”
Solo| 10.11.11 @ 12:59PM
Much is made of how the Bush Administration policies "caused" the recession.
I have yet to hear anyone explain exactly which Bush Administration policies, in particular, were responsible.
The only Bush policy I can think of which may have had a significant impact on the economy was his tax cuts.
When is someone going to demand of Obama and the dems that they explain how allowing people to keep their own money "hurts" the economy?
Their answer would be most illuminating.
tonypal| 10.11.11 @ 1:32PM
You have as much chance of getting a straight answer to that question as you would getting an answer to what constitutes fairness. The point is that no amount of taxation on the "wealthy" will ever be considered fair, short of complete confiscation. As Maha Rushie has preached over the years, there's no such thing as "enough" in the liberal lexicon. That's why we should NEVER compromise with our political enemies.
John| 10.11.11 @ 4:19PM
I believe Erik Erikson's line was "stop whining". Sure sounds like the angry old neighbor telling the kids to get off his lawn.
As for "Solo"...you can include the unfunded Medicare D program, and two unfunded wars to the Bush economic pot plus unprecedented tax cuts.
Solo| 10.11.11 @ 5:05PM
"John"...Yes...I recognize that these are Bush Administration policies (one's with which I do not agree, btw) BUT....how have those programs contributed to a recession?
There's been lots of excessive government spending on entitlements and on wars and neither has ever been blamed for creating a recession. Until now, apparently.
And..again I ask:
How does allowing the American people to keep their own money create a recession?
I'm not convinced. Nor should you be.
Wacman| 10.11.11 @ 9:15PM
If you cut taxes without cutting spending, you will dig into a deficit. If you increase spending (with war) while cutting taxes, you dig deeper into a deficit.
Doug| 11.30.11 @ 4:38PM
2006 deficit was less than $200 billion...with 2 "unfunded" wars and Medicare Part D.
What changed in 2007 to make the deficit explode? Which party took control of Congress and the bill writing process?
ncatty| 10.11.11 @ 5:19PM
Tax the poor and sick. Make it hurt.
Solo| 10.11.11 @ 5:53PM
I say "Tax Congress"!
Take their money away and make them do more ...with less. Or...vote them out of office.
"Sauce for the goose", I would say.
John| 10.12.11 @ 9:31AM
Solo.
There's a lot of blame to go around.
Bush's unfunded policies were the icing on the cake...including his campaign to put more Americans in homes. While not the sole cause of the financial collapse of 2008, was a mitigating factor which included deregulating derivative trading and allowing traditional banks to get into those highly risky loans, and rating companies that slapped AAA ratings on dog crap mortgages.
All that said, the financial collapse is what caused the recession, and financial debacles like that take longer to get out of. Too many people are upside down.
Unfortunately, because he took so much $$$ from Wall Street to get elected, Obama can't institute some of the financial change that's needed to reign some of this in.
So, we're left with a pile of debt, with no viable short term solutions, crumbling infrastructure, two wars, the rich getting richer and not trickling downward, not one Republican politician even willing to entertain ANY tax raise, a President that used up his political capital on rejiggering health care, tax code that went from 504 pages in 1939 to 71,000 pages in 2010, banks that aren't lending, two wars...should I go on???
Allow me to indulge for a moment. Over the past 30 years, there has been a MASSIVE redistribution of wealth in this country. UPWARD! Abborhant behavior aside, the Wall Street protesters have pointed that out. We're ALL guilty of misreading several issues in the past 30 years starting with the opening of China in 1978, to our changes in tax policy, to the infiltration of corporate lobby money in our politics.
And, the best that we can come up with is cutting entitlements???? All of these things coming together, and that's the best that we can do? Really?
I wouldn't want to be POTUS. Would you?
John
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