Politicians of both parties are doing what they do best: Congratulating themselves on their achievement (at least temporarily) to break ‘gridlock’ in the Senate and move a fiscal bill forward that satisfies both parties.
The nation’s court jester, Joe Biden, claims that nobody in either party got what they wanted, and that it’s therefore a good thing.
If you’ve lived long enough, and have read the news long enough, you know this can only mean one thing: Leftists got what they wanted. In Washington D.C., a ‘compromise’ is when politicians raise taxes (they mean it) and claim to cut some spending (they don’t mean it, and spending will always rise.)
It would be laughable, if it weren’t so serious, and if the majority of Americans weren’t too stupid or too inattentive to question it.
Associated Press reports: ‘Democrats complained that Obama had given away too much in agreeing to limit tax increases to incomes over $450,000, far above the $250,000 level he campaigned on. Yet some Republicans recoiled at the prospect of raising taxes at all.’
Democrats will complain publicly, because they want to make sure they look like they’re sacrificing something. It’s all BS.
Ideologically, Democrats want the taxes on the richest segment of the population to go up. This is a matter of principle for them, and has nothing whatsoever to do with balancing budgets or economics. Wealth redistribution is the # 1 goal of any socialist democratic party. They’re getting it.
Both Democrats and Republicans subscribe to the philosophy that the more successful you are, the more you owe to those ‘less fortunate.’ Democrats are consistent on this point, while Republicans are mealy-mouthed about it. The more consistent side always wins in the end, and usually in the short-term as well.
The idea that those who make more money owe something to those ‘less fortunate’ concedes a very questionable and controversial point: That all success is due to luck.
To swallow ‘Obamaomics’ you must first swallow the idea that we are all our brother’s keepers, and we don’t truly own what’s ours. Once you buy that, the political debate is over. That’s why these endless pseudo-battles between Democrats and Republicans are a spectacle.
Ironically, many Americans outside of Washington D.C. and academia probably do still believe that not all success is due to luck. Yet this is the point they embrace and concede by electing and reelecting socialist democrats like Obama and Democratic Senators into power.
Higher taxes for the rich should be opposed on ideological grounds. Equal tax rates for all is far fairer than ‘progressive’ tax rates. (Leaving aside the fact that government should not be doing most of what it currently does.) This is a debate Republicans are afraid to have, which is why they keep losing (even on the rare occasion when they win elections). You cannot win a debate if you evade the only terms that make a debate possible.
Progressive tax rates tell people, ‘The more you produce, the more you owe to others.’ This is no different from telling an author hard at work on his would-be best seller, ‘Do a good job on that. But remember, if you write a best seller, you owe most of the royalties to others.’ Or saying this to someone about to make a blockbuster movie, or create a technology that will make billions of dollars and change the world forever.
Most parents, even in today’s politically stupid American society, do not actually teach their children, ‘Now work hard and study. Grow up and be successful, so you can pay your fair share.’ Yet this is precisely what they impose on their children by endorsing Obama’s debt-leveraged, currency-risking transfer-of-wealth state.
When put in these terms, most people would express outrage—especially if it was applied to their own income or career. This is the deeper conflict too many people feel: ‘I want to live my life for myself. But I owe my life—especially my success—to others.’
It was always capitalism and wealth-producing that got the moralistic label “exploitation” attached to them by those who now run everything in society. Obama and the Democrats are the true exploiters, in that they foster guilt and shame in those who are afraid to proclaim, ‘I made it, I built it, I earned it—now hands off!!’
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