Why is the current taxation debate framed in such silly fashion–i.e., want corporations to come nearer their supposed obligations? You hate profit! Favor a more progressive income tax rate? You’re a socialist who wants my money! Entertaining, but not terribly useful unless you benefit from the status quo and are a client of Frank Luntz.
Funny how the rates have changed dramatically over the years under both parties, yet we haven’t veered from socialism to fascism and back again. Only the rhetoric has.
It ought to be possible to find agreement on effective and fair tax rates without such idiocy, but it ain’t anymore. Remember when Obama proposed increasing the top income tax rate from 35% to 39.6%? That’s apparently when he became a socialist. At least we’ve established the critical 4.6 percent that separates the patriots from the minions of Satan. Good job he didn’t tell them about the dirty knife.
The color grey has vanished, it seems. Someone’s gone and made us binary.
UPDATE: And now we have our illustration of the point–the instant absolutism we can’t escape.
Progressive taxation, even extremely progressive taxation, does not equal collective ownership of the means of production or of anything else. Progressive taxation isn’t socialism. No matter what you call it, it just equals progressive taxation, a system that’s well-established in the democratic world.
Let’s say Obama were a socialist. If there really were such a prominent socialist voice offering socialist policy in the debate, at least we’d have an actual benchmark for what it means. Wouldn’t mean much else in our narrow political spectrum. We wouldn’t just suddenly turn into a socialist nation, considering how our system works.
It wouldn’t change the discussion we need to have but can’t: what might be effective and fair tax rates, especially regarding corporate income and the wealthiest among us?
Time to get over it, talk about the problems, and direct the clowns to the next banquet hall.
It’s that-a-way —->
