I was encouraged when I learned that House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) and Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) wanted to tax the wealthiest Americans to pay for any troop buildup in Afghanistan. We already have a situation where because our military is made up of volunteers most of the country is disconnected from the human costs of our wars. Allowing our elites to escape the price-tag through deficit spending/borrowing seems a bridge too far. Unfortunately, Levin has backed down.
“Well in the middle of a recession we’re probably not going to be able to increase taxes,” Levin told CBS’s Face the Nation.
Levin still supports the idea of a surtax, but says it “should have happened some time ago.”
Levin is probably responding to political reality, but I don’t think soaking the rich during a recession is a bad policy either economically or politically. It’s a bad idea during a recession to increase taxes on businesses or to take away disposable income from the middle class. But, provided that the tax hike doesn’t hit small business owners, there isn’t any economic reason to worry about taking some hide out of millionaires even in a down economy. Remember, the alternative is to go even deeper into debt.
Which is exactly what the Congress will do. And the Republicans will absolutely relish the idea of screaming “TOO MUCH DEBT” at every opportunity in the run-up to November. And since the debt now seems to magically be everyone’s concern, the GOP can have their cake and eat it too.
It’s a win-win for them.
What political reality? I think we have to distinguish between political reality and just plain pandering to the special interests. To paraphrase Hitler, how many votes do the $250,000/yr recipients have? The real political reality is that we live in a plutocracy — a simple fact which both our wars and our tax policies amply prove.
Levin is right about it being too little too late, if that’s what he meant, but there’s no time like now to make a tiny start. Surely even the dimmest, most propagandized among us have come to realize that there’s no correlation between talent/value/hard work and grotesquely inflated incomes. If the Wall Street fools didn’t amply demonstrate that, we always have Bushes, Trump, Corzine, Limbaugh and a bevy of beauties more to remind us of what reality really looks like.
The Right is always whining about the good old days of the 1950s. They did have one excellent quality: tax brackets that topped out at 90%. Forget little war surtaxes and concentrate on finally undoing the evil wrought by Reagan and Bush (along with the usual contingent of on-the-take Dems, of course, as always). The real goal is a return to wealth distribution that is compatible with a democratic society. The recession excuse is too ridiculous to even argue — unless you’re a pol concerned about shrinkage of the pool that your bribes come out of.
Soaking the rich in a time of war and recession is exactly the right policy.
It reduces the marginal value of financial profits, which makes another bubble less attractive.
Hell, return the tax rates to what they were in 1954. Then not only would you reduce the deficit, you would also provide incentives for the creation of jobs instead of bubbles. In order to profit, the rich would need everyone else to prosper enough to become consumers again.
This is one of those instances where the debate itself may be even more important than the end result of a tax passed. The education of the American people of where the funds come from, the (no) bid mechanisms, the proportion of our taxes & the blind opportunistic profits made at our expense of course make the Health Care bill, TARP, Stimulus, Augo bailout all look like popcorn.
It would be fascinating to watch the teabaggers weigh in; to watch the arguments the lobbyists would write for the debate; to watch Wall Street struggle with only one argument; to watch the Evangelical extremists preach…and would Israel or perhaps the UK follow suit?
That’s AIG, sorry
I’d rather they be taxed to pay for health care rather than a pointless war we can’t win.
What exactly is wrong with a tax on everyone? Why just soak the rich?
Don’t we all have a portion to pay for our defense? As citizens of this republic if we go to war we all go to war. Or we don’t go.
If it’s important enough to fight it’s important enough to tax everyone.
If one isn’t important enough then neither is the other.
To answer this question one has only to look at the current tax structure (income, estate, sales, property, excise) that lets off the rich, burdens the middle class, and soaks the poor. Your premise of a tax on everyone is correct, but right now everyone is not being impacted by taxes the same.
The other reason is that it is primarily the opinions of the rich who determine what wars are important to fight. Having them have to pay for them might make them and their lobbies a little more circumspect.
It’s questionable at best to call US military ventures of the past half-century “defense”. The military-corporate complex offers little or no benefit to anyone but the rich. At the very least they should pay for their pleasures. More appropriate would be sending them and their families first to the front lines.
nothing makes me more insane than not taxing the people that can well afford to be responsible for the system that enabled them to have have so much money they can’t even begin to find enough junk to buy including the 400 ft yachts that they possess…they are idiots and the money usually causes them more harm than good, current example – Tiger Woods.
dude, you’re talking about an adminsitration that put Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of Treasury.
You’re talking about a Senate that’s made up primarily of millionaires. (I have no idea the relative worth of our Reps, but I’m sufre the majority of them are well off too).
“taxing the rich” has never been on the table and never WILL be on the table.