It’s taxes stupid.
The country does not have the will, via its leaders, to get rich people to pay a percentage point of two more back to the collective that helps enrich them. Maybe that’s the pull of Wall Street. Maybe that’s the evil of the Right. Maybe it is the weakness of the Left. Probably it is the corruption, stupidity, and brokenness of the whole system, but until the left makes higher taxes on the wealthy–not on everyone, just the real rich–their essential cause, the “taxes are bad” card the Right trots out will not lose its power to screw up to government the country needs. And this is true even if no new taxes actually ever get raised.
Global warming, racial justice, gay marriage, troops out of everywhere–these are all quaint issues now. The wedge issue is higher taxes. Not higher taxes on everyone, but higher taxes on rich people. And it can’t be wedged unless it is made the issue for which the left argues.
Let there be a national debate. Rich means you own a helicopter lined with mink and propelled by gold rotors. Or rich means you have a twelve car garage. Or rich means you know someone who works in D.C. Maybe rich just means $250,000 income a year. But let it be clear that the unwillingness of the rich to pay a little more does more than crystallize injustice in the name of ideology or contribute mightily to national malaise, it screws up the political system.
Its taxes stupid.
Prepare for all the arguments. It’s a slippery slope, they will say. Indeed. The government will waste it. Of course. You’re a commie and redistribution of wealth is a sign of the devil and rich people are job creators. Bring it on.
In essence, all the cliches are crap, the reverse of what is true.. The fiscal house can only be brought into order by spending less? Wait, if it’s a fiscal house, then people are getting an allowance. Last year all you rich kids got 95% allowance. Next year, cause things are tight, you will only get 90%. You will be O.K.
Taxes. Its taxes stupid.
It will take a while. Republicans have been working the trickle-down argument for a long time. And they have the advantage of preaching to the vested interest choir.
Throwing bricks through the windows of Goldman Sachs, sensible as that may be, provides only short-term pleasure. Pointing out the Tea Party denies basic facts and makes up history as it goes along is fruitless. Besides, hard as it is to admit, those in the Tea Party are brothers and sisters in outrage.
But they are wrong economically and theologically. And now, the free market of votes is the only way to show that.
The system must stand. Violence must not prevail. But the Left must get busy promoting, running, and working for candidates who can distinguish between a fuzzy mandate of “change” and a clear policy imperative to raise taxes–not on everyone–just rich, just a little, not for the money itself, but to get the system moving again.
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Postscript. You probably saw this. Yet the message was met with silence and outrage among the Davos crowd. What they want is control, not systemic change or improvement. So while the today discussed above is old, it is, as ever, a day like this one.