As the US continues to suffer the effects of the Great Recession and the national debt keeps growing, the president’s sensible proposal to extend the infamous George W. Bush tax cuts to American families earning less than $250,000, but letting them expire on incomes above that mark, has the Republicans and some all-too-familiar “blue dog” Democrats emitting cries of anguish for the nation’s wealthiest 2 percent.
“Class warfare,” the GOP leaders shout, claiming that any tax increase in this economy would cause every calamity except, perhaps, stopping the earth from rotating.
Class warfare? Yes, there’s class warfare occurring in this country, but it’s not what the GOP and the blue dogs claim. It’s the other way around: a war being waged by the country’s privileged financial elite against the great American middle and lower financial classes with the help of politicians whose coffers are kept brimming by the privileged people. It began in 1981 with the introduction of Reaganomics and it has continued unabated, with the possible exception of Bill Clinton’s second term, ever since.
Taxes were cut, deficits soared and during all that time, the wealthiest 1 percent in the United States increased their share of the country’s financial wealth from less than 25 percent to more than 35 percent today. The bottom 99 percent’s piece of the economic pie dropped from 75 to 65 percent.
For more: Plain Talk: Ending tax cuts for top 2 percent a step in the right direction
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