Class Warfare

President Bush passed a tax cut in 2001 that is set to expire. It is expiring for two reasons. First, it is expiring because it was passed under reconciliation, and reconciliation rules prevented it from lasting longer than 10 years. The other reason it is expiring is so that they could say that it only cost $1.35 trillion. Oh, and by the way, the reason it was passed under reconciliation was because even some Republicans balked at the cost.



Senator Jon McCain was on a Sunday talk show today and he was asked about the Obama Administration's plan to let the tax cuts expire for the wealthiest 2% of Americans, but extend them for everyone else. He responded by saying that this is letting class warfare begin. To borrow from Rachel Maddow, this is Bullpucky (I like the word but would use a different one).



Over the last 30 years, our deficit has grown from under $1 Trillion to more than $14 Trillion. Most of this deficit growth has occurred during the Preisdencies of supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans. In fact, the last Democratic President left us with a surplus. Three other things have happened during this time that are both significant and relevant when discussing the deficit. The wealthiest Americans have seen their wealth grow exponentially, middle class wages have been stagnant, and the top marginal tax rate has gone from around 70% to about 35% today.


Letting the upper class tax breaks expire is not class warfare. Their taxes have been cut in half as the deficit has exploded. Republicans are railing against the deficit. What do we do? Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because that's where the money is. We need to let the taxes increases on the richest 2% because that is where the money is. They benefited the most as our deficit exploded, they can aford to plug the hole.