Entitlement Reform
We must have entitlement reform! That’s been the mantra of the Republican lemmings that have been following Paul Ryan toward the horizon. They use the word entitlement like it is some sort of slur. “Why do those people feel entitled to anything?” And just so that we are clear, the entitlements on the table are for the old and the sick.
But I have seen the rise of entitlements in a different way. The way that the wealthy have decided that they are entitled to tax cuts. Why should I have to pay for rising medical costs on Medicare? I’m a job creator! The sense of entitlement is palpable. Tax increases are off the table.
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to pay for wars
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to balance the budget
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to repair infrastructure
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to pay medical costs for the elderly
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to help people devastated by tornadoes
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to feed children living in poverty
- Tax increases for the top 1% are off the table to support the VA health system
Why? Because the wealthy are entitled to the protection of Congress. Because the wealthy are entitled to keep as much as they want. Because the wealthy are entitled to funnel huge sums of money to political campaigns to keep their taxes low.
That’s who feels entitled around here. And if you dare to agree with me, you’re engaging in class warfare. God forbid we should engage in class warfare after years of the cries of socialism, communism and wealth redistribution as the top 1% amassed more wealth in a rigged game.
And every time they get a tax cut, you know what they do, they ask for another. Talk about entitlement.
Tags: entitlements, National Republicans, taxes
I’m not for favoring the wealthy over the poor. And I’m not for tax cuts. Let’s tax everyone, AT THE SAME RATE. Every earned dollar gets taxed at the same rate, rich or poor, and no more escalating tax brackets based on income. No one is any more “entitled” than anyone else. Same for inheritance taxes. TAX ‘EM ALL!! From the tenthousand dollar estates right up through the $100,000,000 estates. And tax them all at the same rate. Everybody gets “entitled” to the same tax treatment.
“One of the most important duties of government is putting rings in the noses of HOGS!”-William Jennings Bryan
Rings and cattle prods will both be needed.
Let’s tax everyone, AT THE SAME RATE
Well, that would certainly work for Social Security (currently regressive).
Every earned dollar gets taxed at the same rate, rich or poor, and no more escalating tax brackets based on income.
You have to tax the unearned income too, otherwise it is just the “No Tax For Steve Forbes Tax.”
I’m all for a flat tax if we include all income, use the tax to pay for health care and old age pensions and unemployment benefits, and set the rate each year depending on the projected budget.
If you tax everyone at the same rate you will hurt the poor to much.
ie.17% of $10,000 is $1,700 while 17% of 100,000 is 17,000. If you take 1,700 from the lower number you would take away a bigger percentage of their spend able income.
A progressive tax is still the best way to go so you wouldn’t have to have more programs for the poor. What is needed is a tax on ALL income. If you make your living off dividends and capital gains you pay way less than someone who gets up and goes to work everyday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65RxVnqaJRY
I like the framing of “entitlement reform” to reform tax breaks for the wealthy and for corporations that send jobs overseas. Why are they entitled to my tax dollars? What are they doing for me?
As far as a flat income tax goes, it’s extremely regressive because it would raise taxes on the poor and raise cut taxes on the rich. Currently our income tax is really a labor tax because we are taxing earnings from labor and not income. Paris Hilton is paying less taxes because she doesn’t have to work, she has her family’s money. If we are talking flat tax, let’s talk about all income, including capital gains, investment and inheritance.
I love it. I down with the left simply co-opting the phrase to mean progressive taxation.
If you tax everyone at the same rate you will hurt the poor to much.
Not if that tax pays for health care, unemployment insurance, education, and old age pension. And assuming all income is taxed, not just labor.
Taxation is already only modestly progressive, if at all:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=456
Engaging these GOP morans on progressive taxation is futile. They all subscribe to the bedrock Republican philosophy that the rich don’t have enough money and the poor have too much.
It is an article of faith. You’d sooner convince Fred Phelps that the ‘Great Flood’ was metaphorical.
It is great to have DL back with good critical analysis of tax cuts for the rich, especially after its “quiet period” a few months before and a few months after Democrats passed tax cuts for the rich.
It will be important to continue the critical analysis even when the political season begins to heat up and Democratic leadership once again tries to renege on tax issues. Otherwise we will just be following Bill Clinton’s advice to act like Republicans.
There will always be new hostages and new excuses for tax cuts for the rich, and we need to be prepared. We’ve got another expiration coming up in 2012; let’s see if we can catch our own punt this time.
It is great to have DL back with good critical analysis of tax cuts for the rich, especially after its “quiet period” a few months before and a few months after Democrats passed tax cuts for the rich.
B.F.S.
And this complaining anon apparently doesn’t even read the blog that he feels the need to complain about for not covering what he wants covered.
We already get that you are just going to bitch and complain. You might as well just go do that over at the News Journal if you won’t even read what people write here.
I think LG has made an excellent case that excessive tax cuts for the rich are rotting our moral sensibilities and our view of government, as well as damaging our economy. The 2001 tax cuts crashed through the Laffer Curve and triggered a tipping point where tax cuts for the rich endlessly funnel money upwards and degrade the middle class, with zero potential for job creation. This is why expiring those tax cuts is foundational to every liberal or progressive aspiration, and not just a plank or a pony.
Hey Cass, don’t you have to go register some more Carper voters or something?
Hey anon, can’t you find another blog to not read and provide ill-informed complaints to? Seriously guy, you should go work out your issues over at DE Politics where that kind of incoherence is the coin of the realm.
Come on – some of us are trying to have a serious conversation about the politics of tax cuts. Your endless war on commenters is not helpful or welcome.
You aren’t having a serious conversation about anything that doesn’t rely on your silly and false view of this blog that you don’t read. And you will note that there isn’t much of a war on commenters except those that persist in never having an especially honest view of what goes on here. The minute you get a little more generosity and get less married to your purity issues this all goes away.
But until that time, what *you* think is welcome here isn’t especially material. Since you don’t even *read* this blog, you know?
@anon – endless war on commentators?? Here??
WO!W!
obviously you dont read DP either – here is a ssmple
Comment deleted – personal attack
comment deleted – defamatory and personal attack
comment deleted – off topic
comment deleted – suggested Profanity (??REALLY SUGGESTED PROFANITY?)
hey that’s their world, and its scary – can you IMAGINE if Don Ayotte was EVER elected to ANYTHING and someone wanted to speak or write??and he didn’t agree with them??
would he have them “deleted” too?? It really is scary to think that this is they way they go about silenceing folks
SO ANON – be glad the liberal folks are so……liberal and let you have your say but then nicely ask you to go away
Thanks
http://www.delawarepolitics.net/sussex-commmittee-elections-and-redistricting/comment-page-2/#comment-53982
that group just never ceeses to amaze with the blatnt stupidity and tyrannical ways – SILENCE THE OPPOSITION!!! echos of Stalin, Lenin and Pol Phot, but thems good GAWD fearin: ‘mericans
Once again, Anon, if you’re too chickenshit to create a screenname for yourself, your opinion of whether or not we’re fighting hard enough for progressive values doesn’t mean shit to us. Seriously, “anon” is shorthand for troll in my book.
Awesome – I have seen an X Stryker comment AND Halley’s Comet in the same lifetime! The comet was brighter though.
And speaking of chickenshit – if I were chickenshit I’d stay out of the debate for months at a time, only dropping in once in a while to attack commenters who actually ARE participating. If you want to be on a blog with no commenters, I think Burris is hiring.
OK, I’m out of my comfort zone now engaging with you guys on personal shit. I’ll stick to policy and leave the meta to the usual suspects.
So let me see if I have your policy thoughts down correctly: Tax cuts for the rich suck, and Democrats suck for having extended them. Anything else?
anon’s policy thoughts can be summarized as “You’re doin’ it all wrong.” Without, of course, bothering to get familiar with much of the topic at hand.
And you know, anon, there are people in this world — including some of the editors here — who often have other priorities than this blog. No one here is paid to do this and unlike you, not one of us has the leisure to hang out here all day.
(ignoring useless meta)
Yes. The anlysis of attitudes toward “entitlements” is excellent. It is a great think piece. So now, how to turn it into action? Remember, we are all about action here and not just complaining on blogs.
So maybe to act on this insight, there is a bit more thinking to do first, namely, in the spirit of inquiry, to find an explanation and a target. In other words: How did it happen? and who did this to us? Once we understand these things, we can look for a handle to grab to make it stop.
“Who did this to us” is not hard. It is us. The liberal bourgeoisie is almost as evil as the conservative bourgeoisie. We like to hang out with other people who think like us. We don’t want to disagree with our friends. And we hate to be told we are wrong, even if the facts point that way. It’s all very cozy, but doesn’t work well when you need to create change.
We have been captured by conservative tax-cut mania and are now in the grip of the Stockholm Syndrome. To be sure, many of us are not to the point yet where we openly advocate tax cuts for the rich. But we have lost enthusiasm for opposing them. And those who attack opponents of tax cuts, are well on their way to becoming open advocates of the cuts.
How it happened? Like “pro-life,” “entitlements” is a masterful manipulation of language for political ends. As I recall, it began decades ago as a neutral technical term used by economists to describe budget items that had to be funded when the enrollment increased. But it has been co-opted by Republicans.
The way you influence language is by using more language. Keep talking. Don’t attack others who are trying. Save your bile for your opponents. And make sure you are not your own opponent.
Yeah — how dare these people believe that they are entitled to keep their own money rather than have it confiscated by the government!
I do love all these folks who believe that a proportional tax is regressive, when by definition it is not. Said assertion starts with the presumption that ONLY a progressive income tax is fair and acceptable, and then uses that flawed starting point as the basis for rejecting any change away from progressivity.
In the end, what we have is supporters of “everyone paying their fair share” arguing that ZERO is the fair share for some, but not for others. At that point, they have surrendered any basis for being taken seriously in the discussion. Especially when the “unfair tax system” they lament already has half of Americans paying ZERO in income taxes — and many of them actually receiving a refund of taxes not paid.
I do love all those folks who believe that ONLY a non-progressive tax is fair and acceptable, and then uses that flawed starting point as the basis for rejecting any defense of progressivity.
See how easy it is to just make a declarative statement? See how pointless it is? See what a dick you are?
It’s not their money, or yours. Take a look. It’s a federal reserve note, and without the full faith and credit of the US government, it’s worthless.
Geezer, the name of the system you just advocated is “communism”, in light of your declaration that everything rightfully belongs to the government.
By the way, I didn’t start with the assumption that only non-progressive taxation is fair. I just pointed out that when you start with the assumption that only a progressive system can be fair, the discussion can go nowhere. After all, such a presumption makes any consideration of other alternatives impossible because they are, by definition, “unfair”.
Also, Geezer, your argument here validates those of the fringe folks who argue that the entire Federal Reserve fiat money system is unconstitutional, and that only hard currency can legitimately be “money” under the US Constitution. Did you really mean to head that direction?
Anon proves my point. See, because my work is signed, you get to judge exactly what I have or haven’t done. We can’t judge you the same because we have a number of “anon” commenters. Which makes you a coward for starting this meta BS in the first place. Either come up with a screenname or focus your criticism on the post you’re commenting on, rather than bitching at us for not having written the posts you wanted us to write months ago.
Teahidists are really socialist; they advocate for the wealthy. Why? Because they want to be them.
Delusional.
Tax everyone at the same rate,(aka. Steve Forbes) is another way to lower taxes…
One can’t tax those on the bottom heavily,therefore if all are taxed equally, one can’t tax those at the top heavily either….
From the great depression to the “W” Bush years, we had seventy years of phenomenal growth. During those golden growth years, taxes were 90% under Truman & Eisenhower, cut to 70% under Kennedy, cut again to 50% under Reagan, slashed to 28% and then bumped back up to 31% under the first Bush, accelerated to 39% under Clinton, and then, against everyone’s better judgment, dropped to 35% under Bush W…. At the end of the Bush years, fewer people were working than at the beginning. Cutting taxes cost jobs.
If you lived through the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter years, you know High taxes did really well for the middle class… They also worked well for the upper class as well..
To get back on track, all we need to do is to eliminate the Bush tax cuts… Let them expire…
As all can see: based on history, the top 1% until “W” Bush, were never “entitled” to tax cuts… In fact, it was assumed that with the acquisition of wealth came the responsibility to give part of it up to defend the nation that allowed such wealth to happen.
Let the stupid among them blabber. They cannot produce one fact that says cutting taxes helps grow American jobs. Because it doesn’t…. it causes the exact opposite.