Republicans are champions of the rich

Linda Turner, Henderson

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

I am baffled as to why Republicans in Congress have put themselves in a position that reveals their allegiance to the very rich over working-class people by refusing to make tax cuts for the latter permanent unless the richest 2 percent of Americans get theirs, too. After all, it’s only a 4 percentage point raise on the marginal tax rate for those making more than $250,000 and not even a raise as much as a reinstatement of the rate they paid before George W. Bush initiated them as a “temporary” measure that would expire this January. I believe they would go from about 35 percent to 39 percent. (In Dwight D. Eisenhower’s day, they paid 90 percent.)

Arguments that it’s stupid to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires at a time when we need more jobs imply that the trickle-down theory, devised by Ronald Reagan and used by Bush to justify these cuts, has worked. But it hasn’t. If the cuts had worked, why aren’t Republicans producing statistics to show it? They can’t, because in fact we’ve continuously bled jobs the whole time these cuts have been in effect.

We’re not talking about corporate taxes but personal income taxes. Don’t wait for the very rich (including many of the scoundrels who broke our economy in the first place) to dig into their wallets to hire more workers.

If middle-class taxpayers have to increase their level of investment in America’s future, so that we don’t add to our deficit (which conservatives purport to care about), then the $70 billion over 10 years that the very richest would pay would be the patriotic thing to do. But it seems that the champions of the rich think patriotism is nothing but flag-waving and slogan-shouting.