"After months of struggling to find their footing, it looks like the GOP has finally found an effective spokesman:… Read More.
McCain Banking On a Confederacy of Dunces
Is John McCain stupid, or does he believe we are? That's the question as he criticizes Barack Obama for allegedly trying to "redistribute the wealth" with a plan to lower taxes on the middle class and raise them on the super-rich.
Of course, the Democrat's proposal would merely slow down (not fully halt) the less-talked-about redistribution whereby Washington sends middle-class money up the income ladder. Either McCain doesn't know about this kleptocracy and is the dumbest presidential candidate in history, or he thinks America is too ignorant to recognize theft. Which is it?
I'm guessing the latter, since the evidence is so overwhelming.
In the last eight years, we the little people have been forced to provide more and more of the taxes fueling America's redistribution machine. As the Congressional Budget Office reports, the $715 billion in tax breaks that President Bush gave to those making more than $342,000 a year began dramatically shifting the overall tax burden from the rich onto the rest of us. Meanwhile, because of lobbyist-crafted loopholes, most corporations pay zero federal income taxes, according to the Government Accountability Office. The result is what Warren Buffett admits: When counting all taxes (income, payroll, property, etc.), billionaires and Big Business often pay lower effective tax rates than their employees.
The output of the redistribution machine is becoming just as regressive. In the age of Halliburton fraud and ExxonMobil subsidies, our government spends $93 billion a year on corporate welfare. (For comparison, that's roughly three times what it spends on a traditional welfare program like food stamps.) That doesn't include the recent bailout giving $700 billion to the same banks currently doling out $70 billion in executive pay and bonuses — a scheme the Financial Times says "amounts to a large transfer of resources from lower to higher income earners."
Thanks to these redistributive policies — policies McCain championed in Congress — the richest 1 percent today owns a larger share of America's wealth than at any time since before the Great Depression.
The Republican standard-bearer likely knows all this, but his fetish is fact-free fairy tales — the kind presenting seven houses, a beer-industry fortune and lockstep conservatism as mavericky Joe-the-Plumber populism.
When it comes to economics, McCain is banking on Americans believing similarly inane myths — specifically, those portraying obscene affluence as the commonplace achievement under royalist rule.
During the indigence and socioeconomic immobility of the 19th century's Gilded Age, this meme flourished through Horatio Alger stories. Today, one in five American children live in poverty, and authorities from The Economist magazine to The Wall Street Journal note that our country exhibits the least amount of upward economic mobility in the industrialized world — less than even Europe's supposedly sclerotic socialisms. In light of that, sustaining the "American Dream" narrative requires updated rags-to-riches fantasies like "MTV Cribs," HBO's "Entourage" — and now McCain '08.
The Arizona senator's pulp fiction packs an extra-nationalistic punch, however. We are not only expected to support regressive redistribution, but also to believe that stopping such robbery is subversive. McCain implies Obama is backing Soviet conquest by proposing to finance tax cuts for 95 percent of American workers with tax increases on the richest 5 percent. When Joe Biden said it is "patriotic" for millionaires to pay their fair share of taxes, Republicans waved the bloody shirt of Reaganism and attacked him — as if Al Capone-style tax evasion is how aristocrats display their true love of country.
The GOP campaign, in short, is a brew of redbaiting and free-market zealotry, a concoction with a poisonous purpose: resurrecting the everyone-for-themselves pathologies that perpetuate the status quo. And if we revert to selfish form during this economic crisis, then McCain's cynical calculation is correct: America is a confederacy of dunces.
David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," was just released in June of 2008. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network — both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.
Your column contains a misstatement.
You state the following: “In the past eight years, we the little people have been forced to provide more and more of the taxes fueling America's redistribution machine.”
Per the Internal Revenue Website with numbers through 2005, the latest available:
As of 2005, the top 10% of individuals in tax brackets paid 70.3% of all taxes, up from 65.0% in 2001.
As of 2005 the top 50% of individuals in tax brackets paid 96.9% of all taxes, up from 96.0% in 2001.
If the top 10% increased 5.3% over a 5 year period and the top 50% only increased 0.9%, how are the little people fueling America's redistribution machine?
AllAmericanBear
Comment: #1
Posted by: AllAmericanBear
Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:50 AM
Re: AllAmericanBear;... Sir, Your numbers could reflect the fact that downward pressure on wages has been relentless... Do you think you could give some corelation with actual returns filed, because my bet is that more and more people are being pushed out of the middle tax brackets and into the lowest, where they will not pay at all... Have you considered that there is a lot of pressure on wages that are not taxes and are not directly for profit, like interest people pay on credit used to suppliment low wages... As you may know, if that is a home equity loan or a refinance, then taxes are not paid on the interest, which subsidizes debt, and interest profit, but robs the government of revenue... I want you to trust me on this.... If the little people had any more to pay they would because they the love their land, but they are ground up between a stone of gold and old reality... If the rich are paying more, they should be paying more yet because they are taking the life right out of this place... If you think of it, every society has got to feed all its members. We all have to get something out of this deal... You can't run a guy out of a job, and then blast him for not working... It happens; but it isn't right....Thanks....Sweeney
Comment: #4
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:08 PM
Re: Lynn;... Ma'am,... I have to disagree...We are some angry people and many of us don't know who to blame, but most of us feel it isn't us... Try to understand that this country and this nation is a form, and a form of relationship... Marriages are forms of relationship too, and you know that some times, one side or the other abuses the relationship and uses it for themselves... That does not mean that the other person is a dunce just because they have hope and keep faith, and try to make the relationship work... We try to make the relationship work... The rich of this land are like an unfaithful mate... Sure; they might look at their other as some kind of fool... We don't want to believe that some people are just feeding off us and have abslutely no regard for our needs out of the relationship... The sad fact is that there are some real big ones out there, and they want everything out of the relationship called America, but they don't want to give anything for it... Ultimately, they will be the losers... They would find themselves in terrible straits if they had only each other to exploit; but such people need to be left to themselves and cut out of decent society... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #5
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:20 PM
Re: James A, Sweeney James, you're talking about a social compact and the idea that there is such a thing as the commons. This idea's death, started by Reagan and accelerated ever since, is what has led this country to it's present state. Each of us, whether politicians, business or just plain citizens have been mesmerized by our own short term selfishness, not caring about the consequences of our actions; indeed, believing that consequences do not even exist, that we are so powerful we can create our own reality. We have been living beyond our means both as individuals and as a country; we have tried to dominate the world militarily on borrowed money while simultaneously shipping our manufacturing overseas and as individulas, buying objects now made overseas that were once made here, not caring that our fellow citizens lost their jobs in the process, our trade deficit soared and the dollar weakened, after all, we still had our jobs and now our goodies were cheaper to buy. All that has ended amd what has gone around has come around. The fixes are obvious, but it will take a large dose of humility to accept them.
Comment: #6
Posted by: michael nola
Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:27 AM
Dear AllAmericanBear: It is not at all clear what you mean by "the top 10% of individuals in tax brackets," but for starters, you need to look at income ranges in percentiles like the top 5%, 3%, 1%, 0.5%, etc., and the taxes those good folks are paying. It's in those rarified areas of wealth where the rip-off is occurring. The top 10% of incomes in this country includes a lot of folks who make well below $250,000. You need to stop getting distracted by small change.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Masako
Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:13 PM
Re: Masako;...Sir... What percent of the population does have income of 250K? Is it in the top 5% or the top 2%... I can't say I know, or much care... The income tax is very unfair for labor, and any tax change leaving the power structure intact, with the rich having property protection without obligation, and freedom from taxation that tends to make wealth herdiitary is ultimately going to kill the society... Tribal peoples were not reduced to peasants over night, and chiefs were not made feudal lords and kings over night... Slight inequalities played out over years reduced one to slave and another to master...We did not get rid of our king in this land to see people made kings by economy; running their corporations over the top of every bodies freedom... We did not choose the situation we have; but let it evolve out of inequalities of rights... To me, it does not matter by what percent we consider a person rich.. And the solution is not so simple as making the government rich in the place of business... The object is to have government put pressure on wealth, to see first that it comes out of justice, and second that it show a public benefit in private hands... That is, if the rich have it, and the government earns it as taxes by supporting private wealth, then the rich can keep what is good for everyone.... A wealthy society is made when the wealth is shared and defended by all... A few wealthy people holding all the free wealth make all the rest poor and slaves... And you know we would not take it in fact, if the facts were laid out before all... If we were a community of 100, and one person took all but ten percent for his share, some one would introduce him to the tools, and show him how to do his share for his share... We admire the rich, but we give them an honor they do not deserve... At a minimum, taxes ought to pressure wealth so it must constantly seek profit, or hide behind a positive value to society...How much wealth do you think could pass that last test??? We have to move beyond a society where those who must defend the country must pay for the privilage while those whose property and wealth is defended need not lift a finger or spend a nickle to have it protected... No property is ever owned free and clear... It always comes with an obligation......Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #8
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:58 PM
