Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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Republicans believe in small government and low taxes on the rich. Democrats believe in “The Great Society,” with high taxes on the rich and lots of investments in America.
From FDR through JFK and LBJ, Democrats were in charge for all but eight years. America had the highest taxes in our nation’s history. We rebuilt Germany and Japan. We built our interstate highway system. We put a man on the moon. We created the first prosperous middle class in the world’s history.
Beginning with Richard Nixon’s election in 1968, through Ronald Reagan’s conservative revolution and George W. Bush’s neo-con movement up to Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the rich, Republicans have become more and more extreme. They have refused to invest in things that would improve the lives of Americans, such as better schools, roads, airports and hospitals; instead, they made sure wealth created has gone almost exclusively to the top 1%.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said of economic inequality and democracy, “we can have extreme wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, or we can have democracy; but, we can’t have both.”
Increasing taxes on the rich to pay for a better America isn’t socialism, it is democracy. Democracy is what Republicans fear most. Giving everyone a voice in how our economy works isn’t on the Republican agenda.
