Democrat Bigotry: More Taxes for "The Rich"

There is a spirited debate about the upcoming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats have brought out their usual arguments with new vigor and creativity:  "The Deficit," class warfare, income redistribution.  Here, Obama and the Democrats are demonizing "The Rich" and targeting them for higher taxes in what can only be called an act of economic bigotry.  For reasons known only to the Democrats, they appear determined to repeat their "stimulus" mistakes since January 20, 2009, ignoring at least 100 years of economic history of what works and, more importantly, what does not work to get the economy growing.

According to the Democrats' plan, economic growth was to have started by now, triggered by their Keynesian stimulus, actually payoffs to key constituencies using taxpayers' money.  Then, the Bush tax cuts which the Democrats have always despised, could be allowed to expire quietly.  Unfortunately, reality intruded, and raising tax rates back to Clinton levels would make a bad economic situation worse.  The Democrats' solution is to single out the "The Rich" for higher taxes for the "offense" of having wealth and the perception that "The Rich" can afford it.  In this economic context, as with all forms of bigotry, many of the same dynamics are in play:  ignorance, seeking economic short cuts, instigating animosity among groups of Americans, arbitrarily favoring some groups over others, and arbitrarily taking wealth from one group and giving it to another.  In a word, Democrat-sponsored bigotry.  (See 9/21/2010 post - Democrat Strategy:  Divide Americans Into Classes)

All Americans, including "The Rich," need to come together to get the economy back on track,  The Democrat tactic of dividing Americans into classes and demonizing "The Rich" is not helpful.  When candidates ask you for your vote, be sure they support all Americans coming together to get the economy back on track.

Economic History According to Barack Obama

A quote from Barack Obama's AFL-CIO Laborfest speech is below.  It really isn't that unusual that politicians pick and choose from history and ignore anything which doesn't fit their version of reality.  "Greed and recklessness" have never been rewarded, at least not for very long.  As with Bernard Madoff, Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom), and Jeffrey Skilling, et al. (Enron), greed and recklessness generally result in bankruptcy, prison, or both.  In this quote, Obama misses a group of people without whom the goods and innovation he mentions would not be possible:  the men and women currently demonized as "Wall Street" or "The Rich." These are the people who pull together the capital and investors needed for all the advances Americans have enjoyed for the past 150 years from railroads to smart phones.  These are the people who create the jobs and opportunities for the "workers, middle-class families, and small business owners" whom Obama seems to favor.

From Barack Obama's Labor Day Speech to the AFL-CIO Laborfest in Milwaukee 9/6/2010

"Well, anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it'll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up - they just haven't studied our history. We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting special interests run wild. We didn't do it by just gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We did it by producing goods we could sell; we did it with sweat and effort and innovation. We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up - workers, and middle-class families, and small business owners. We did it by out-working, out-educating, and out-competing everyone else."

Barack Obama's Word Games with Taxes

Quotes from Barack Obama's speech at Cuyohoga Community College and a later press conference are below.  The coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts means taxes will increase for Americans by as much as $4 trillion, and for "The Rich" (families with taxable incomes of $250,000 and higher), taxes will increase by $700 billion.  There is a lot wrong with what Obama says:

• In Barack Obama's Washington DC word games, these future tax increases are a given, and anything to stop or delay them is a tax cut.  In the real world, a tax increase is a tax increase where people get to keep less of their own money.
• Barack Obama seems to question the value of "millionaires" keeping their own money rather than paying it to the government as taxes.  Millionaires have a much better track record than the government of starting businesses, creating jobs, and getting the economy growing again.
• Barack Obama talks about "reclaiming the American Dream for the next generation."  The current "recovery" is one of the weakest at least partly due to the current and future impact Obama's stimulus, ObamaCare, and current and planned regulations.  Obama is talking about "the next generation."  What does he plan to do for today's generation?  Or does he have a plan?
• Barack Obama and Harry Reid (last quote below) suddenly seem concerned about "The Deficit" only now that the Democrats' massive new spending and ObamaCare are in place.  Interesting how Democrats only bring up The Deficit when the debate turns to taxes and letting Americans keep more of their own money.

From Barack Obama's speech at Cuyahoga Community College 9/8/2010:

"With all the other budgetary pressures we have – with all the Republicans' talk about wanting to shrink the deficit – they would have us borrow $700 billion over the next ten years to give a tax cut of about $100,000 to folks who are already millionaires. These are among the only folks who saw their incomes rise when Republicans were in charge. And these are folks who are less likely to spend the money, which is why economists don't think tax breaks for the wealthy would do much to boost the economy."

"...if we're willing again to choose hope over fear; to choose the future over the past; to come together once more around the great project of national renewal, then we will restore our economy; rebuild our middle-class; and reclaim the American Dream for the next generation."

Barack Obama's Press Conference 9/10/2010

"And what I’ve got is the Republicans holding middle-class tax relief hostage because they're insisting we’ve got to give tax relief to millionaires and billionaires to the tune of about $100,000 per millionaire, which would cost over the course of 10 years, $700 billion, and that economists say is probably the worst way to stimulate the economy."

"We can have a further conversation about how they want to spend an additional $700 billion to give an average of $100,000 to millionaires.  That, I think, is a bad idea.  If you were going to spend that money, there are a lot better ways of spending it. But more to the point, these are the same folks who say that they’re concerned about the deficits."

Harry Reid:  Never Let Facts Interfere with a Good Sound Bite

At first, it was difficult to figure out what to make of Harry Reid's press release or even what planet he was talking about.  He repeats Obama's "hostage" and tax cut/increase word games above.  The interesting thing was Harry Reid's references to China and shipping American jobs overseas.  Money goes where it is treated well, and today, money goes to China and other places where it is treated well, or at least better than it is treated in America.  Is this Harry Reid's rather indirect way of saying that China is a better investment than America?  Perhaps he and his colleagues should look at how to make America a better destination for investment.

Harry Reid Press Release 9/15/2010

"Republicans are holding hostage tax cuts for working Nevadans, and their ransom is even bigger breaks for millionaires and CEOs who ship American jobs overseas.  Today we learned that these breaks would double our deficit and add nearly a trillion dollars in interest to our tab with countries like China."