(Also published at The Agonist)
Republicans claim to be deeply worried by budget deficits. Indeed, Mr. Ryan has called the deficit an “existential threat” to America. Yet they are insisting that the wealthy — who presumably have as much of a stake as everyone else in the nation’s future — should not be called upon to play any role in warding off that existential threat. Well, that amounts to a demand that a small number of very lucky people be exempted from the social contract that applies to everyone else. And that, in case you’re wondering, is what real class warfare looks like.
When confronted with a policy option they despise, Republicans are masters at sticking to talking points in the hope of rhetorically beating an idea to death…or at least convincing the American Sheeple that the truth is what they say it is, not what it actually is. How often have we heard pet phrases parroted identically and repeatedly by myriad Republicans, all of whom seem incapable of expressing themselves independently of the official marching orders and talking points?
The latest iteration of this silliness is “class warfare”, which as defined by Republicans, is anything that asks the wealthy to actually share the tax burden commensurate to what the middle class bears. “Class warfare”, they’ll tell you, will remove any and all incentive that the “job creators” may have to create the good jobs Americans need. They’ll claim that the Obama Administration is appealing to the fear, envy, and anxiety of Americans, when in reality it’s just a simple appeal to respect the social contract (and basic math). As Paul Krugman explains,
As background, it helps to know what has been happening to incomes over the past three decades. Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office — which only go up to 2005, but the basic picture surely hasn’t changed — show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That’s growth, but it’s slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II.
Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent. No, that isn’t a misprint. In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million.
So do the wealthy look to you like the victims of class warfare?
To be fair, there is argument about the extent to which government policy was responsible for the spectacular disparity in income growth. What we know for sure, however, is that policy has consistently tilted to the advantage of the wealthy as opposed to the middle class.
The basic, simplistic, and arguably incorrect theory behind the GOP squawking is that if you tax something, you get less of it. Except that the wealthy already pay a significantly lower base tax rate than they did during the Reagan Administration. The Bush tax cuts were supposed to spur job growith; in reality all they spurred were significant increases in the net worth of the wealthiest among us. Meanwhile, infrastructure crumbles, our health care system deteriorates, and America has become a meaner, more divided, and more selfish place.
Yeah, there’s a class war happening in this country, all right…except it’s a war the wealthy and their Republican protectors are waging against the poor and middle class. Never mind the fact that the growth in the income of the wealthy has far outstripped any tax burden; somehow the expectation of having to pay additional taxes constitutes “class warfare”? Cry me a river.
Looking at what’s happening in America today, it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to understand that the upper class is doing everything they can to collect as much wealth as they possibly can. They’re doing this by shedding jobs domestically, sending jobs overseas, and using the GOP that they’ve long since bought and paid for to grease the skids for them. The upper class seems to have forgotten that they wouldn’t be where they are today without the middle class- the folks who work for them and those who buy their products and services. It’s as if the wealthy have decided that, since they were born on third base, they must have hit a triple. Gone is the recognition (if it ever really existed) that wealth creation requires a symbiotic relationship between the middle and upper classes. What exists now is more akin to using leeches to bleed a sick person; use enough leeches, eventually there won’t be any more blood left, and the patient dies.
The upper class is not only killing the goose that laid the golden egg, they’re destroying the golden egg because they think they can do so much better.
The reality is that no one gets rich alone. What Elizabeth Warren so eloquently stated was that wealth isn’t accumulated in a vacuum. If you managed to get rich, then good on you. You took the risk, you worked hard, you made smart decisions. You’re successful…and you deserve it. That doesn’t mean that you don’t owe a debt to the society that made it possible- those who buy your products, those who make your products, the rule of law that makes it possible, fair, and safe for you to get your products to market. We- America- provided you with those things, and you used them to your advantage. Congratulations! Now accept the fact that, while you get to keep a huge chunk of your wealth, you need to give some of it back in recognition of the reality that America is a society that makes it possible for you to get and stay rich.
As President Obama said, “It’s not class warfare; it’s math.”. If you’re one of the fortunate wealthy, all you’re being asked to do is to pay the same base tax rate the middle class does. It’s not as if you’re taxed too much, especially when you consider that the tax rate for the wealthiest during the Reagan Administration was 50%. It’s time to do the right thing and recognize paying your taxes is really just satisfying a debt of gratitude for living in a country that makes it possible for you to become rich.
So, get rich. Filthy, unbelievably rich. Become so rich that you couldn’t spend all that money in five lifetimes. Enjoy your success. Just remember that expecting you to pay your fair share in taxes isn’t “class warfare.” It’s math, pure and simple. Deal with it.
