By John Sykes
As a conservative I shudder when I type this: our plutocrats keep getting unfairly richer while the rest of us keep getting poorer.
We’ve got to stop using a tax code that uses 1000s of loopholes to let those who can afford to hire lawyers and accountants spread their losses to all of us but tuck away their gains where they can be minimally taxed. Others smarter than I call this “subsidized losses and privatized gains.”
We’ve also got to stop sending money to Washington so they can line their pockets and send a huge hunk back to the plutocrats.
Even Rep. Paul Ryan in Saving the American Idea, addressing corporate welfare and crony capitalism, is now asking:
- Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically-connected solar energy firms?
- Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?
- Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?
Rep. Ryan summarizes this beautifully:
Rather than raising taxes and making it more difficult for Americans to become wealthy, let’s lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.
There is a sweet spot of greed. It is located within a regulatory schematic that ensures the rich get richer, the middle class get to keep their homes and the working class mostly stays employed. When below the sweet spot, the rich maintain their relative economic superiority, there is a little too much upward mobility and near full employment results in greater bargaining power for labor. This situation necessitates a corrective increase in greed. When above the sweet spot, disparity in wealth accelerates to the speed of national attention, there are too many middle class foreclosures, the unemployment rate reaches a critical dimension…and there is marching in the streets.
ReplyDeleteThe old guard of the plutocracy understood this. http://outlierideas.com