...polling suggests that when it comes to soaking the rich, the American public is increasingly on board.You'd think that tax cuts followed by the most robust economy in decades would suggest that this is the opposite of wisdom.
Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million — including 54 percent of Republicans.
People in mobs scare me. This reminds once again of the recently cited Bonhoeffer quote, and raises the adage about the four types of officers- the smart and industrious, the smart and lazy, the stupid and lazy, the most devastating of all, the stupid and industrious- I forget which General spoke of this, but my fear is that we are on a road laid out by 50 years of increasing enstupification of the populace, resulting in being "led" by the Zealots of Stupid , all thoroughly washed of any trace of historical or economic wisdom, inoculated against Old Thought, and completely convinced of their intellectual, economic and moral superiority over the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteThe 21st century is when we replace the "Banality of Evil" with the banality of stupid.
Yes, the stupid and industrious are the worst and most dangerous people to give any kind of authority.
ReplyDeleteI think there remains a suspicion of those who have more, left over from primitive eras when the band shared things with more equality, and someone with more probably had cheated somehow. If not hard-wired, it is certainly at least easy to arouse, regardless of the type of government. Because of confirmation bias, it is always easy to go through life finding examples of the believe to prove your prejudice. The idea that there is only so much to go around, a finite amount of money to be divied up, dies hard.
ReplyDeleteThe rhetoric is often about "giving back." There is also a bias in our statistics-gathering which feeds this misperception. The idea of GDP and other national wealth measurements suggest that everything produced in a country(including its children) is somehow owned by the society as a whole. Governments are only too glad to agree with this adea, as they will be the ones in charge of administering the collection and distribution.
The politics of envy and greed.
ReplyDeleteWe were warned, no, commanded, to eschew such behavior.
I think part of it is seeing the cozy relationship between the politicians and the corporate leaders and their lobbists, and seeing the regulation that chokes small business but barely bothers or even helps the big guys, and people start thinking that if they can't balance the system back out by limiting the power of big (fill in the blank), then at least they can take their pound of flesh on the back end. I don't approve, but I get where it's coming from.
ReplyDeleteI make such a sharp distinction between opposing government policies that choke one kind of legitimate business in favor of a better-connected one, vs. supporting policies that redistribute wealth from one out-of-favor group to another more popular one. If we elect "populist" politicians, it behooves us to know which kind of activity they encompass in their populism.
ReplyDeleteThis is the "democratic" part of "democratic socialism" -- it's OK to take your property for our use, because we voted on it and there were more of us than you.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think 20 years ago more Americans cherished the dream that they might one day be rich (or close enough), and they wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Now, even though the economy has done well the last couple of years, most people are still thinking they'll end up worse off than their parents, and they suspect it's for unjust reasons.
ReplyDeleteAnd, some of the reasons seem pretty unjust to me, too, but scapegoating people isn't the answer. Correcting the system is, but that's hard to do.
The most hilarious part is that after they raise taxes, Hollywood movie profits will still be taxed at 0%. Hahaha. Humans are a bunch of...
ReplyDeleteI think that's right, Tom. The 'lost decade' essentially under Obama really hurt me and my wife in ways that I don't think we'll ever fully recover from. We also made bad decisions in some cases, but the environment was just about as bad as it could be in many ways.
ReplyDelete