Suppose they threw a class war and nobody came?
The Republican Party is up in arms this week in response to President Obama's proposal to help close the deficit by requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of taxes. Specifically, the president has proposed the "Buffett Rule," named for billionaire Warren Buffett, which would ensure that millionaires pay as fair a share in income tax as do all working Americans. In response, GOP budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan resurrected one of his party's favorite talking points, calling the proposal "class warfare." Others have been following his rhetorical lead. In last night's GOP debate in Florida, Mitt Romney asserted that "the president's party wants to take from some people and give to others" and Newt Gingrich insisted that people on unemployment insurance are getting paid "for doing nothing." Republican leaders seem to be preparing for an all-out assault from low-and-middle income Americans whom they bizarrely believe are intent on stealing their cash.
The Republicans' "class warfare" accusation is both ironic and cynical.
It's ironic because, in the midst of the current economic and jobs crisis, where a huge number of Americans are desperately hurting -- with homes underwater, with unemployment insurance running out and health insurance gone, with kids in over-crowded classrooms in buildings that are decaying -- the rich are getting richer and large corporations are sitting on record profits. Income inequality in the U.S. is at its highest since the precarious days of the late 1920s. One third of Americans who were raised in middle class households can fall out of the middle class as adults. A political elite beholden to the wealthiest CEOs has pursued policies that take money out of the pockets of the neediest to create ever-larger tax breaks for the wealthy. The richest one percent of Americans now earn almost a quarter of the country's income and control 40 percent of its wealth -- a level of inequality not seen since the days before Social Security and Medicare and the social safety net as we know it. If there is "warfare" going on between the "haves" and the "have nots" it's pretty clear who is waging war on whom.
Even more, this claim of "class warfare" that Republicans are touting is something quite dangerous. It's an expression of a deeply cynical vision of our country, in which everyone is out for themselves, the suffering of the least fortunate is of no consequence to the most fortunate, and the American dream is off-limits to those who have lost their footing in a devastating economy. Fortunately, this is a vision that most people wholeheartedly reject. The task of our elected officials is to stop assuming the worst about their constituents' insensitivity to the plight of their fellow Americans, to stop trying to pit us against each other and to start working toward an economic policy that works for everyone. Struggling Americans don't want to take the American dream away from those who have achieved it and successful Americans don't want to see their fellow citizens slip into permanent poverty.
The "class warfare" Republicans decry is all in the heads -- and the destructive policies -- of a small number of political leaders. While all but a few Republicans in Congress have signed a pledge to never raise taxes on corporations or the wealthy, the majority of Americans are much more pragmatic. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, a whopping 71 percent of Americans -- including 86 percent of moderates and 74 percent of independents -- think that any plan to reduce the deficit should include both spending cuts and tax increases. 56 percent, including large majorities of moderates and independents said that wealthier Americans should pitch in and pay higher taxes to help reduce the deficit. A Gallup poll this week found that 53 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners support the president's plan to eliminate corporate tax loopholes (a major element of the alleged "class warfare"), and majorities of GOP respondents supported spending that extra revenue on hiring public employees, funding public works projects and cutting payroll taxes on small businesses.
The Republicans' invocation of "class warfare" is a political ploy that the vast majority of Americans want no part of. Warren Buffett is not alone.
Follow Michael B. Keegan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peoplefor
All digital and electronic jobs were already overseas before Bush the alesser entered the office of the Presidency. As was textiles, steel, and many other whole industries.
That the TPubs start caterwhailing now is just fodder for how out of touch they are with average working people.
Mr. Keegan, cherry-picking is too easy, I know. But space limits make it practically mandatory.
Are you kidding??! Of course they fall out of the middle class as adults. Do you actually expect them to leave home and instantly make middle-class incomes??? From what sort of home did you come? My folks were middle-class, moderately comfortable. When I left I instantly became lower-class. I've worked my way to the top of the middle class in the intervening 41 years. That is how it is, or were you somehow unaware of this??
Semper fi
That steep of a drop is what results from the real class warfare
Those who do not learn from history will be bound to repeat it. The question will be if our history will be that of the Romanov's or of the Franklin D. Roosevelts.
It wont be a very long fight at least.
Stephen Colbert
Maybe in the "Prosperity Gospels" being used by hucksters and grifters to remove you from your money, but I am pretty sure that was not in the teachings of the guy they named the religion after....
Semper fi
He was referring to paying taxes, just so you don't try to intentionally misinterpret it. As far as helping others, the only 'others' he was concerned about was 'the least of my brothers.' In fact, that's such an important point in his philosophy that he said it was the ONLY way to get into heaven.
He didn't care one whit whether or not you gave money to the church.
Jeeez. You guys don't even know your own cultural history. No wonder you've lost your way.
I stay quiet. I know it’s a lie. They must know too.
Is $48,000 a lot of money for a family of four with 2 children? They’re 47% ‘ers. But only because the 2 kids qualify them for a $2000 credit applied against federal income tax. With standard deductions and an $800 Making Work Pay credit, they owe no federal. The government wanted to support family values. And working people. Couples without children don’t get the credit so they would owe.
Is it fair?
All families with income under $110,000 qualified for the same deductions and credit. But with a $110,000 income there is of course a bigger tax bill. The $2000 credit makes a dent but doesn’t wipe it out.
Single people earning $9350 annual are 47%’ers too. So are couples with a joint income of $19,000.
It does no good to protest. At $300,000 we don’t get a $2000 Child Tax Credit. Yes these folks work. We scorn them because they’re low wage earners, no matter the reason. Poverty is a sin. Make them give up their pitiful deductions and credits so real people can have tax breaks.
Seniors? They could be 47%’ers too. Tax them? 90 year olds on a fixed income?
I believe there is a perception that if we went to a flat tax or even the fair tax, everyone's Federal tax liability, which I assume will include not only Federal income tax, but also FICA and Medicare, will go down. Perhaps going down for those in the middle class.
I believe this is based on the top one to five percent paying more than they are paying now, due to all the loopholes and the collections from those in the brackets which now exempt the 47% or whatever the real number is, to collect enough for the reduction on the middle class. T
The problem, as I see it, is there are simply not enough people at the high end for it to be more than a symbolic collection, and for those in the currently exempt low income range, there simply isn't enough money to collect to make a dent for those of us in the middle incomes.
If for example, our country rescinded the tax cuts Bush initiated many years that benefited by far the most wealthy in this country - with trillions of dollars - within 5-7 years our current budget deficit would not be a problem.
This lie is no different from the "All [insert enthnic group] are lazy" or "stupid" or any other patently false "axiom" meant to drive a wedge between two groups for the benefit of a third.
Your co-workers need to stop heeding the call from the Elite when they say, "Let's you and him fight."
The more we allow these dreadful lies to be repeated, the longer they linger and more they fester in our social discourse.
The whole notion that people should give penance for earning a pittance is as distasteful as a person's skin color determining where they should sit on a bus or whether they should be allowed to urinate in the same place as people of lighter skin color.
Speak up!
They refuse to acknowledge that we have the greatest wealth inequality since our robber baron gilded age, or that ordinary Americans haven't had a "real" pay raise since the 1970s, while the wealthiest have nearly tripled their incomes since then.
Clearly - the economic system that is now in place in this country is serving the rich far more than it is ordinary working Americans.
You state that the GOP is overstating claims of class warfare polices. You then go on to engage in class warfare calling for more attacks on the rich and justify more expropriation of their property, earnings, and wealth. You make it an us versus them scenario. When in fact the rich have done nothing to those making less and, if anything, have created huge amounts of economic growth and jobs that benefit all.
Some people are poor for various reasons that have nothing to do with the rich. And attacking a rich to address this problem will not solve the problem, nor will taking from them and giving to others. All that does is address the sysmptom not the disease.
Ben Franklin said it best, ‘I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer’
Kai
Higher taxes are not an "attack" on the rich. Shooting rich people would be an attack on the rich. No one of consequence is proposing that. Get a grip.
Ben Franklin was just an apt quote to my point, not part of my argument.
Elitist? You mean a guy that was self taught, created the first public library, was the first post master general, elitist? Well then we should hope that we have more like him.
Class-warfare is an attack. The author of the article above is engaging in that activity. It is a shame and I am simply pointing it out.
Attacking the rich does not help the poor. It reminds me of another quote by Rev. William J. H. Boetcker (1916):
• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.
Kai
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/opinion/24lepore.html
(edited excerpt)
Their lives tell an 18th-century tale of two Americas. Against poverty and ignorance, Franklin prevailed; his sister did not. . . . She and her brother wrote to each other all their lives: they were each other’s dearest friends. (He wrote more letters to her than to anyone.) His letters are learned, warm, funny, delightful; hers are misspelled, fretful and full of sorrow. “Nothing but troble can you her from me,†she warned. It’s extraordinary that she could write at all.
“I have such a Poor Fackulty at making Leters,†she confessed.
She had one child after another; her husband, a saddler named Edward Mecom, grew ill, and may have lost his mind, as, most certainly, did two of her sons. She struggled, and failed, to keep them out of debtors’ prison, the almshouse, asylums. She took in boarders; she sewed bonnets. She had not a moment’s rest.
And still, she thirsted for knowledge. “I Read as much as I Dare,†she confided to her brother.
Kai
Kai
The rich deserve the enormous wealth off the backs of the labor they exploit - or it is God given...
Right-wingers like Kai-HK willfully ignore the history of exploitation of those with wealth and power - and refuse to acknowledge that this is exactly what is taking place in the US right now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/social-immobility-climbin_n_501788.html
like the abusive spouse, shouting, and accusing the abused of infidelity (knowing the spouse is innocent but unable to admit it themselves, just to confuse the person/group and direct attention away from your own behavior
Rule number one do what you claim the other side does.
Rule number lie repete spin lie some more and the lie becomes truth.
Like tax cuts for the rich over the last 10 years has created jobs they have just not here.
The right is the party of the radicals and the chill billy Palin from up north even claims she is one.
For example .... While you are worried about playing Robin Hood in reverse , trying your best to keep the Bush tax brakes for the poor suffering "job creators" ..... Every time you go put gasoline to your vehicles , the "job creators" in the Energy industry are thanking you for your support by ROBBING YOU BLIND .
While you complain about Obama's taxes to the rich .... You are paying about 50 cents more per Gallon given where the prize oil currently is. In case you have not notices oil has gone down more than 15.00 per barrel .... That would have translated into at least a price of 3.10 per Gallon .....
Now this is what I call class warfare Republicans !
Only you are too busy defending the rich to notice them ripping you off.
What a smart bunch you guys are indeed!