Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wait! It doesn't happen that way.
Randite conservatives endlessly pound this point: Less than half of all Americans now pay Federal income tax, and the proportion is shrinking steadily. Supposedly this drives Congress to respond more and more to the desires of the "parasite class", less and less to the desires of the "Atlas class".
Hold on. The trend actually runs the other way! When did Congress buy the votes of the poor? Mainly during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, when the tax structure drew more heavily from the working class.
Since 1992, only one benefit program has been nominally aimed at the poor: the Medicare prescription drug mess of 2001. Was this something that starving elderly folks were clamoring for? No, not at all. Polls showed that only 15% of old folks wanted this, and most weren't even thinking about the idea. This was merely a bargaining chip, an auction organized by Bush and Gore, to buy those crucial 700 Jewish widows in Palm Beach. It was a gimmick to rig the Electoral College, nothing more.
Everything else since 1992 has been designed to benefit George Soros, or aimed at specific factions of each party's base (which is another way of saying George Soros.)
The wishes of the lower half are completely ignored. The lower half want stricter immigration control, stricter policing, stricter import control, looser environmental regulation, and an end to useless wars. In other words, they want jobs suitable to their skills, and they don't want their sons to continue dying pointlessly.
Neither party will come anywhere near these goals.
Is this an argument for taxing the poor? If we paid more taxes, would the politicians listen? I doubt it. ¶ 5:12 PM
Hold on. The trend actually runs the other way! When did Congress buy the votes of the poor? Mainly during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, when the tax structure drew more heavily from the working class.
Since 1992, only one benefit program has been nominally aimed at the poor: the Medicare prescription drug mess of 2001. Was this something that starving elderly folks were clamoring for? No, not at all. Polls showed that only 15% of old folks wanted this, and most weren't even thinking about the idea. This was merely a bargaining chip, an auction organized by Bush and Gore, to buy those crucial 700 Jewish widows in Palm Beach. It was a gimmick to rig the Electoral College, nothing more.
Everything else since 1992 has been designed to benefit George Soros, or aimed at specific factions of each party's base (which is another way of saying George Soros.)
The wishes of the lower half are completely ignored. The lower half want stricter immigration control, stricter policing, stricter import control, looser environmental regulation, and an end to useless wars. In other words, they want jobs suitable to their skills, and they don't want their sons to continue dying pointlessly.
Neither party will come anywhere near these goals.
Is this an argument for taxing the poor? If we paid more taxes, would the politicians listen? I doubt it. ¶ 5:12 PM
