So there's a major problem with vocabulary in the debate on taxation. I was watching This Week Without David Brinkley on Sunday and the Democrat in the debate section said the following:
"Making sure the wealthiest in the country contribute to the deficit problem."
and lots of other similar statements.
Now, are the wealthiest paying as high a tax rate? Maybe not. Are they paying as high a rate as some of you all would like? Clearly not.
But saying that we need to make sure they are contributing is two lies:
1. Being taxed at a rate lower than this lady would like is still contributing and
2. it's mathematically true that raising the tax rates on the wealthiest Americans cannot contribute to solving our revenue problems.
Not that there aren't problems and not that we shouldn't raise rates on the wealthiest americans, but lying that the wealthiest aren't paying taxes and at the same time pretending that you could solve the problem if only they did is creating a backlash against wealth that is dangerous and unproductive.
6 comments:
I would interpret this charitably as a bit of verbal shorthand. Most discussants of this point tend to say the wealthy need to be or are not "contributing their fair share" or some variation on that formulation.
I don't think they intended to "lie" and suggest that the wealthiest contribute nothing, and I don't think that's a fair reading of the quote cited. Still, it's a good argument for clarity in choosing one's words.
Personally I'm quite depressed that the Dems have backed off their previous position (circa 2007, pre-recession) that all the Bush tax cuts should expire. Yes, we can get some good revenue from the top 2%, but the total cost of the tax cuts for the other 98% far exceeds the cost of the top 2%. The rich are disproportionate beneficiaries, yes, but their gains are dwarfed by the sheer numbers of the other 98%. I understand that Obama doesn't want to jeopardize the recovery with higher taxes, but locking in the bush tax cuts for 98% will make it harder ever to get in fiscal balance. Worse, if there are more or less permanent deficits, the drumbeat to dismantle the New Deal entitlements will get stronger and stronger.
Pity.
Yes, most of what you say I agree with, surprisingly. The most important point we seem to agree on, and which we desperately need everyone to acknowledge is the fact that raising taxes on the wealthiest 1% cannot actually do anything in particular. Because our debt is so huge, you can talk about insignificant sums of money and make them sound enormous, but that doesn't change the fact that arguing over raising the rates on the top 1% is equivalent to arguing over NASA's budget--it's a philosophical argument at best. I actually don't care one way or the other about the actual tax rate on the wealthy, as long as we're within the normalish ranges we've been in since 1955.
As to the language issue, I think it's bigger than you are saying it is. I find it patently offensive to use terms like "their fair share" and worse than that, I think "warfare" is the right term for the left's continual need to phrase it like that. Framing the ultra-rich as not doing something they are in fact, doing (again, not arguing the rate is fair) is actually increasing the divide between them and the less fortunate. So much of the prosperity engine of the United States is aspirational, and if you systematically use words that divide us into castes, you create a perception of a difference of quality and not degree, and you hurt the perception of social mobility. And perception matters in so many ways that we shouldn't discount it. First of all, whatever barriers there are, you really *can* rise in this country, and the biggest offender in this category of labels in the current class warfare did just that. Barack Obama didn't come from Hope, Arkansas exactly, but he didn't enjoy the advantages that even I did. And yet now he's the most powerful person in the world. And speaking of Hope, Arkansas...
I think "not paying their fair share" is the same evil-genius in normalizing outlandish language in order to serve a political goal as is "pro-life" and "biblical literalism".
I'm of two minds WRT the language issue. You are quite correct that using the language of "class warfare" is divisive and antithetical to the American concept of class mobility that we highly cherish.
On the other hand, there has been a concerted class warfare waged on the middle class for the past seventy years, and the monied classes have been winning. The Bush tax cuts were only the most recent win, and one of the few overtly political ones. The slow destruction of organized labor, the creation of and defense of huge tax preferences for hedge fund managers, corporations and the very wealthy, the determined assault on the social safety net, all these have harmed the middle class (or could have, if successful) to the benefit of the wealthy. Much of the class warfare has been extra-governmental. The wal-martization of the economy. The shift from defined benefits to 401ks, the roll back in health care benefits, and the unbelievable escalation in executive compensation -- all legal, private actions, but in concert with the agenda of the political right wing, compelling evidence to support the notion that there is an ongoing war on the middle class.
So we on the left are rhetorically in a tight spot. We can point out all day long that inequality in the US has never been higher, and that social mobility in the US is lower than in Europe & Canada, but that sort of dry, neutral language is not likely to sway to court of public opinion. When we use more overt references to class, capital, etc, we are accused of being divisive and inciting class warfare. We have yet to master the sort of framing that the right excels at: "Right to work," and the like. The Occupy slogan of "the 99%" was a decent start. I would actually contend that "fair share" is a restrained example of rhetoric, but then I hang out in Left Blogistan where it is very tame indeed compared to the angry words of my fellow-travelers.
So how do we make a persuasive case for policies that reduce inequality & increase social mobility without sounding like a bunch of radical angry hippies urging revolution?
I don't know.
Very good points, but I think it misses something that I have been preaching to you (guys) for a long time: there just isn't enough difference between the Democrats and the Republicans to meaningfully draw distinctions in policy with regard to the war on the middle class.
Consider the Securities Modernization Act. Of all the institutional controls imposed by our government, this one is probably the most singly responsible for our recent economic malaise, and it does nothing if not increase the disparity between the corporate wealthy and the workers they employ and the "clients" they exploit. The act was signed into law by president Clinton, who spoke more eloquently for the rights of the poor and middle class than most recent politicians.
Bush gave tax cuts in the face of economic crisis, and his predecessor is doing everything he can to not solve that problem, while at the same time ensuring poorly-run car companies and corruptly (evilly) managed financial companies never get to fail.
There are vital social policies that I am grateful to have Obama driving forward right now, but in terms of economic leadership, there's simply no difference between him and his predecessors, except for engendering bitterness between the classes.
Note that I am schooled enough by Jim not to leave the "no difference" statement unqualified... gay marriage and other social and scientific issues are enough of a distinction that I cannot ignore them as differences any longer.
I forgot a whole paragraph about the presidential financial advisers and policymakers of the last 25 years for both parties and how they are a freely migrating bunch between the West Wing and Goldman Sach's board of directors. The two are so completely tied at the hip that it's almost incomprehensible how it has not been called out by the press more clearly and continuously.
I COMPLETELY agree with you with particular regard to the horrific incestuous relationship between financiers and the White House.
However, it's important to remember that there still are very major policy differences:
1) the GOP recently made a serious effort to privatize Social Security and would likely do so again if they could get away with it.
2) the GOP wants to end Medicare and turn it into a voucher system in which the vouchers will grow at a rate slower than inflation and in which retirees are forced to buy private insurance
3) the GOP wants to block grant Medicaid, widely expect to gut it, and the GOP at state levels has refused to participate in Medicaid expansion
4) Obama passed sort-of-but-pretty-good national health care, which the GOP wants to repeal.
So these are not trivial policy differences, all of which are related to middle class and lower class interests.
I guess what I would say is that the Democratic policy positions are more or less indistinguishable from the GOP of 1993, which is a bad thing but that there are major differences between the centrist-conservative Democratic party of today and the radical right that is the modern GOP.
Scary that we are kind of agreeing on this stuff...
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