In the last post I argued that Republicans have reversed John Locke’s “life, liberty and property,” putting property (or the wealth of the wealthy) first, liberty second, and life a distant and expendable third. Now Paul Krugman agrees —
If you look for an overarching theme for overall conservative policy these past four decades, it definitely isn’t liberty — by and large the GOP has been enthusiastic about expanding the security and surveillance state. Nor is it in a consistent fashion smaller government, unless you define military and homeland security as not government. Instead, it has been about making the tax-and-transfer system harsher on the poor and easier on the rich. In short, class warfare.
It seems that several Republican governors, whose “conservative” economic policies strangled their states’ economies, are proposing tax increases to make up for loss of revenue. However, Krugman writes, “in every case the tax hike would fall most heavily on those with lower incomes, and many are proposing simultaneous tax cuts for business and/or the wealthy.”
In short, doing more of what hasn’t worked before. Erik Loomis writes,
Watching how Republican presidential possibilities have been talking in the last couple of weeks, it’s pretty clear that they are going to focus on income inequality, but define income inequality as a problem that exists because the rich pay too much in taxes and the poor don’t pay enough. I know this sounds like a terrible strategy for the Republicans, and maybe it is, but I do believe in their ability to obfuscate an issue and twist meanings that the message of income inequality I hope the Democrats run on in 2016 will have a lot of difficulty motivating the public.
Unfortunately, I think he’s right. A substantial portion of the American public will be persuaded that “income inequality” means the rich are being soaked so that the poor can lounge around living high on the hog and food stamps.
Never underestimate the Reich-Wing’s ability to pack some poop onto a bread roll, season it with pee, and sell it as a delicious foot-long sub/hero/hoagie!
Yes, we “poor’s,” moochers, takers, leeches, parasites have it too good!
After all, many, if not most, of us have homes or apartment’s with a roof, and cars, and TV’s, and cell phones, and microwaves!!!
So, yes, by all means, tax US!!!
Don’t tax the people who have so much money, that they don’t know what to do with most of it, except letting it lay around, gathering something that I’ve heard called, “interest!
Tax us poor schlub’s who live from paycheck to paycheck.
And/or those of us who are on disability!
Anything to help our poor, poor, overly-rich, over-taxed, “Job Creators!”
I’m waiting for a tumbrel and pike sale.
The rest of you kid’s bring the home-made guillotines!
And remember to make them nice and dull, and rusty – and I’ll make sure that my tumbrel’s are slow and squeaky – some people don’t deserve a quick and merciful death!
But I’ll make sure my pike’s are sharp!
No sense making poor and hungry folks burn calories, trying to get some fat head, like Donald Trump’s, on a pike at the crossroad…
OY!
OY!
My word turds are repeated.
My word turds are…
Oh, never mind…
gulag– I fixed it. 🙂
I’ve got my pitchfork around here, somewhere. Although I favor hanging them from the streetlights – ” a la lanterne!”
Thanks, maha! 🙂
My laptop, apparently, stutters.
I actually do own a pike. I use it in my work frequently. Nice to have when I’m walking through a creepy culvert in ‘gator country, or trying to get a rope around a pile. And I have a pitch fork. I use it for preparing wheat straw for oyster mushroom spawn inoculation. There’s an old saying that any tool becomes a weapon depending on how it’s held.
Back to the subject; my right wing buddy thinks corporate tax rates are too high, and if wages are increased, the economy will suffer. He went to Cayman a number of years ago and opened a bank account, offshoring his money ( he has more than me, but that ain’t saying much). He thinks it’s perfectly fine to avoid paying taxes.
His wife is around 60, they refuse to buy insurance per the aca. He thinks Obama is a closet Muslim / Communist. His wife has been dealing with a persistent cough for several months.
Several years ago, they bought a home in Marion county near ocala, Florida. They were both working and doing quite well, living in key largo. Glen Beck got into his head ( along with g. Gordon liddy) convincing him the country was going to fall into civil war, and he would have to shoot his way through a see of starving angry minorities in Miami/ Dade county.
The strange thing is the guy is not stupid. He can build almost anything, he’s an avid reader, he once taught blind and disabled people how to scuba dive, he has worked in silver mines in Colorado and as a mortgage broker in California and Oregon.
We talk on a regular basis, trying to avoid politics and religion, that’s pretty difficult.
Last week he was saying he thinks the Saudis were involved in 9/11. He was all in favor of attacking Iraq for that time. I said, well 15 of the 19 were Saudis, no Iraqis were involved. Butif 15 Americans attacked a town in Mexico, that doesn’t mean the u.s. government was behind the attack.
erinyes,
If he’s not stupid, then he’s willfully ignorant.
I know a few people like that.
The most difficult thing is, they’re NOT stupid.
Just willing to listen and accept Reich-Wing Propaganda!
They make it work by distracting people with “social issues,” e.g. religion, abortion, race, etc. And it works, unfortunately.
In this case, the racial application for income inequality is, “those people” getting things that they don’t deserve, that “hard working Americans” pay for.
To paraphrase the great Gamble Rogers, “The work ethic says that ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat.’ In the Protestant ethic, they try to make you like it.”
Recent brutal events have made it painfully and embarrassingly clear that for many among us, property and property rights are more important than (someone else’s) life. Few who reach that degree of madness ever return to the land of the living. But, on a less hideous level, there is so little concern about the quality of life. So long ago, when there was a USSR, we were all taught to pity the poor Soviet or Chinese workers, who were held in relative serfdom.
Now, we’re supposed to be more like the Chinese and less like our own greedy selves. A decent wage, safe working conditions and the possibility of retirement should all fade from our minds as we step dutifully back into our cubicle or hamster wheel. Our educational system prepares us for work and not life. We’re here to punch a clock and pinch the penny, not dwell on beauty or the mysteries of the world.
If you distill the idea that we’re here just to work, gradually the mixture reaches a toxic strength and the baubles that we buy with our sweat become confused and mistaken for our lives themselves.
Oh, for the hippie days!
It’s always the case that right wing propaganda works, because there is nobody standing up to 1) refute the up-is-down argument they inevitably make, and 2) to present the liberal alternative.
Well, I don’t have to travel the road to serfdom any more..I’ve already arrived. Bank of America owns my ass — lock. stock, and barrel.
Well, it’s not like if the Republican Party starts saying that they’re the real party of attacking inequality by pushing the creation of jobs that the press will just repeat mindlessly…
Shit. We’re doomed.
(Not really. Odds are, they’ll over-reach, and end up sounding like fools. It’ll seem devastating in the echo chamber, but fall flat in the rest of the world. But it is scary what good, incisive journalism would do to this pile of BS.)
Suppose the rich were unable to reward politicians who enrich them with tax breaks and preferential legislation. Suppose there were enforceable and constitutional laws that prevented campaign contributions large enough to sway a lawmakers vote. Suppose there was a ban on former legislators from working as lobbyists or for lobbyists. What if equal protection under the law made all voters equal to the rich in the electoral process?
By itself, such a program would not advance a liberal agenda one inch – most conservative low-information voters are convinced the govt has been bought by liberal donors. (And it’s half true – the graft is non-partisan.) If Congress-critters couldn’t be bought – during the campaign – while in office – or after they retire – what difference would we see? How much would a progressive agenda be able to progress if those ideas did not have to compete with billions of dollars from the ultra- ultra rich? I propose we find out.
it definitely isn’t liberty
What we get instead is the empty incantation of “Freedom” buffoonishly attached to buildings, corporations, legislation and everything else; like the ridiculous over-use of “People’s” under communism, it only serves to highlight the lack of what they are bombastically asserting.
I here ya swami. I went to the local b of a to set up an estate account after my brother died. I was watching the computer screen as the bank employee brought up the program, the first location listed on the computer screen was Afghanistan.
Shortly after, the great recession hit. B of a reduced the available credit limit on my card from $20,000 to $1,500. I had a $1000 balance. Their excuse was the high unemployment and default rate in Osceola county. This really screwed up my ability to bid jobs.
This year, I called them and asked for a credit increase, having paid down my balance to $300. Several minutes later, the representative said they were reducing my credit limit to $1000. I’m pretty over Bank of America.
Of course, we all know “poor” means “black.”
It’s hard to say which is the chicken and which is the egg, but one of the corollaries is that life, liberty, justice and various types of freedom have basically become commodities. The rich simply have more of them because they can afford it and the poor might have none at all.
Maybe one of our damning characteristics is an affection for continuity and security. Some part of us wants things to be settled and doesn’t want to deal with change. Some of us tolerate ambiguity and change much better than others, some of us even seem to thrive on it. But, for some of us, it was all settled long ago, maybe even in the bronze age. We’ll subscribe to authority if it seems to be telling us what we want to hear, and our hearing can be selective.
I actually visited the ruins of a peasant village. It was a progression of the foundations of very small houses, about the size of office cubicles. They had been the first line of defense for the manor house. Advancing belligerent armies would reduce the circumstances of the lord of the manor by slaughtering his “property.” Heavy lies the head that wears the crown” after all. I remember making the joke that the serfs had probably been undone by some early attempt at universal health care. But, then my sense of humor tends to be hit or miss.
Wah, Lesley Gore died. 🙁
Shit !
I am not sure that the rich people’s taxes are too high and poor people are lazy lines are going to work as well as they used too. My neighbor is a John Bircher type with an arsenal in the basement and a passionate love for anything Fox tells him to love, but he is blue collar and the he volunteered to me the other day that rich people don’t pay their fair share in taxes and that working people are getting screwed by the wealthy. Maybe it was just a blip in the Matrix, but I do wonder if the evidence has become so overwhelming that even the staunchest right wingers aren’t going to fall for that economic fairy tale anymore.
I think the elephant in the room is becoming more obvious.
And now it’s all ‘our turns to cry!’