Speaking to The Middle Class today, Barack Obama made a promise, pledging not to pursue spending cuts "that will hurt seniors, or hurt students, or hurt middle- class families." Such is the state of liberal politics today: the most our recently reelected progressive president is willing to offer his supporters is a pledge not to actively harm them.
Of course, being the head of an empire that feeds on death and consumer debt, the president didn't even really offer that. Instead, the sentence containing his grand promise continued, clarifying that Obama only meant he wouldn't harm the middle class "without asking also equivalent sacrifice from millionaires or companies with a lot of lobbyists, et cetera."
"[I]t’s going to have to be a matter of shared sacrifice," he added.
So, in exchange for cutting your grandmother's already inadequate Social Security, a Fortune 500 CEO will -- no, let's go with "may" -- be bumped up to a higher tax rate, which could require as many as two to three additional billable hours for their accountant to successfully evade. No one, least of all our secretly Marxist commander in chief, will point out how the middle (and lower) class already sacrifices its claim to the country's abundant resources to the capitalist class, which the state grants monopoly privileges over what ought to be our shared abundance.
Seems about right.
Digby refers to this as "tip money" for the rich, but I fear even that over-states what "shared sacrifice" means.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't understand is what this says about negotiating skills. If you really wanted to end up with a shared sacrifice knowing that your opponent wanted only the poorer class to pay, shouldn't you start with the position that only the rich should pay? Doesn't starting with "shared sacrifice" end with "mostly poor sacrifice"?
Of course, maybe it is not about negotiating. The truth is that Obama is a pretty typical Republican circa 1972. Maybe he thinks our barely progressive tax system is just perfect.
I fear that this is the case.
Hey baby, he can actively not harm me any time...
ReplyDeleteThe secrecy of his marxism is so perfect I'm getting a little paranoid that the right just made it up to waste my time!
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ReplyDelete