Hi David Brooks, Welcome to Planet Earth. When Did You Arrive?
David Brooks is shocked (shocked!) that "..the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide... All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward."
Listening to conservatives, it's as if the past eight years never happened. They begin their argument from the position that the current balance of tax burdens is somehow right or fair, then call Obama a socialist for trying to re-adjust the balance.
But we've just had eight years where the rich disproportionately benefited from changes to the tax code. Inequality is up to levels last witnessed in the 1920's, in large part as a result of the richest Americans paying a far lower share of their income in taxes than has been the case for most of the preceding 50-100 years.
Here's an interesting anecdote from Warren Buffett: His marginal tax rate is lower than his secretary's, because his income comes from dividends and capital gains, and her income is from salary. That's just not fair.
For a while now, we've lived under an increasingly regressive tax code imposed by a Republican president and congress. Obama is just restoring the balance.
Listening to conservatives, it's as if the past eight years never happened. They begin their argument from the position that the current balance of tax burdens is somehow right or fair, then call Obama a socialist for trying to re-adjust the balance.
But we've just had eight years where the rich disproportionately benefited from changes to the tax code. Inequality is up to levels last witnessed in the 1920's, in large part as a result of the richest Americans paying a far lower share of their income in taxes than has been the case for most of the preceding 50-100 years.
Here's an interesting anecdote from Warren Buffett: His marginal tax rate is lower than his secretary's, because his income comes from dividends and capital gains, and her income is from salary. That's just not fair.
For a while now, we've lived under an increasingly regressive tax code imposed by a Republican president and congress. Obama is just restoring the balance.
posted by Moses Kagan at
9:05 AM
2 Comments:
Just curious. Is there an exact level that you consider balanced?
I don't think there is a perfect balance. My problem with Brooks isn't that he believes that the tax rate should be regressive (although I think that is lunacy); my problem is that, in this instance, his rhetoric is weak and transparent.
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