by
John Nolte
How is it that the GOP is so feckless and ineffective that it can't even convince the 48% who voted for Romney that raising taxes on those making over $250,000 is both pointless and bad policy:
Sixty percent of all Americans
back higher taxes on higher incomes in the new Post-ABC data. Earlier
this month, an identical 60 percent of voters in the presidential
election said income taxes should be raised on income over $250,000,
according to the national exit poll.
Only 37% oppose the tax hike.
Other than a complete inability to
communicate, there's no rhyme or reason for this. Facts, logic, and
history are all with us in this debate, but we still can't make our case
to more than 37% of adults?
We lost here, though, the moment Obama
and the media were able to make the deficit reduction debate center on a
silly tax increase as opposed to spending decreases. The fact that this
tax increase is utterly meaningless only makes this poll all the more
galling. The tax increase Obama's looking for is a drop in the ocean of
debt we're facing, but yet if it passes, it will look as though Obama
reduced the deficit.
Forget that any tax increase is bad
economic policy (especially in this economy), it's also a trap. The
damage the passing of this tax increase would do to Republicans with
their base is the primary motivation behind what Obama and the media are
up to. Raising tax rates would almost certainly suppress Republican
turnout in the 2014 midterms. As a result, Democrats would make gains
and possibly even win the House back.
But that's the good news. Here's the bad:
Other proposed solutions to
shrinking the debt are far less popular with the public. Only 44 percent
support new limitations on the deductions people can claim on their
federal income taxes — a proposal that former Massachusetts governor
Mitt Romney put forward during his unsuccessful 2012 presidential
campaign.
Our tax code represents everything
wrong with the federal government -- specifically, tax
deductions/loopholes. For starters, this is one way the government
attempts to strip away our liberties and control our behavior. You get a
tax credit for behaving one way or a penalty in the form of higher
taxes for behaving another way. This isn't what the tax code is for.
The worst part of the
deduction/loophole racket is the legal and illegal corruption it breeds.
In order to win special deductions, special interest groups and
lobbyists descend on DC like locusts -- but locusts who are welcomed by
politicians of both parties. It's you and I these locusts are feasting
upon.
Nothing would make me happier than to
see every single one of these deductions and loopholes eliminated with
the exception of the charity deduction. Deductions that help the middle
income bracket -- like the mortgage deduction -- could be phased out
over ten years.
In my mind, this is an easy case for
Republicans to make to the public because it's a twofer: a way to
increase taxes (especially on the rich) without increasing tax rates
while simplifying the tax code in a way that all but snuffs out the
lobbyist/special interest crowd.
But no, Republicans can't even sell something as easy as this.
And now comes the real bad news:
Even fewer — 30 percent — favor raising the age for Medicare from 65 to 67[.]
Yep, we're Greece.
As a kid, I remember my dad telling me
that he had to give up overtime at his auto mechanic's job because the
additional income landed him in a higher tax bracket. In other words, he
was working more hours but taking home less money because he this extra
income edged him into a higher tax bracket.
My dad's not a political guy, and he
was just talking to me, not laying down a life lesson. And me, I was
probably 12 years old. But still I got it -- the destructive insanity
and immorality of our government punishing hard work.
But the entire apparatus of the GOP
can't make this same argument in the same convincing way my dad did
during a Saturday afternoon drive to the store.
Pathetic.
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