Excerpt: "In political terms, a strong stand enables the President to clearly demonstrate whose side he's on (the working and middle class that's still bearing the brunt of this lousy economy) and whose side the Republicans are on (the powerful and privileged who brought much of this on, and who are now doing just fine)."
Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
The Showdown on Tax Cuts for the Rich
30 November 10
he President met with Republican leaders at the White House this morning to talk about whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended to top taxpayers, as Republicans want.
No decision has been reached, but this is the first test of the President's resolve with the new Congress - and he should be tough as nails. The economics and politics both dictate it.
Taxpayers in the top 1 percent don't need it (they are now getting almost a quarter of all national income, the highest percent since 1928).
They don't deserve it (they got the lion's share of the benefits of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and have had no reason to expect a continuation of their windfall).
They won't spend it to stimulate the economy (top earners save a much higher proportion of their income than the middle class).
And giving it to them blows a giant hole in the budget (the Joint Tax Committee estimates the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent to be $61 billion in 2011 alone.)
In political terms, a strong stand enables the President to clearly demonstrate whose side he's on (the working and middle class that's still bearing the brunt of this lousy economy) and whose side the Republicans are on (the powerful and privileged who brought much of this on, and who are now doing just fine).
The only compromise he should be prepared to make is to extend the Bush tax cuts to the bottom 99 percent (rather than the bottom 98 percent), and for two years rather than ten. The top 1 percent begins at around $500,000 rather than $250,000.
This would allow the President to even more sharply illustrate the extraordinary concentration of income at the top, while robbing Republicans of their debating point about small business (just about all small business owners with payrolls earn under $500,000).
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet," "Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/08/charles-burris/americas-first-fascist-president/
Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal: An Annotated Bibliographic Guide
roosevelt did not talk about socialism because he knew the owner class thought of socialists as people who would steal their money and than make slaves of them.
of course socialists don't see themselves that way. they see themselves as defending workers from employers who steal their money and make slaves of them.
it's still not smart to call yourself a socialist in american politics.
it's even less smart to run around "demanding" the rich pay for everything you want.
FDR made sure Social Security was NOT "welfare" but insurance for workers paid for by the workers themselves it turned out to be a really good idea.
no wonder both the insane right and the far left both hate it.
the right settling for nothing but law of the jungle and the left settling for nothing but "make the rich pay."
and the pundits knowing nothing about it.
In principle I don't care if the rich get richer, UNLESS they do so at my expense, which is generally the case. But emphasizing that muddies the issue.
Ultimately the one percent are better off if they understand that they have a lot in common with everyone else. Having as much money in comparison with even, say, the 50th percentile as the one percent currently does insulates them from the real tribulations of everyone else to the extent that they see themselves as a different KIND of person, or maybe not a person at all but some kind of inherently superior beings.
DINO'S. =. Democrats In Name Only
because so few "get it!"
and media does not care to explain it!
We have just been through a week of acrimony over what makes a "concentration camp" different from, say, a Boy Scout camp or an outdoor prison surrounded by razor wire whose occupants are abused, starved and treated as sub-humans. Similarly, the word "socialism" is used to mean more different arrangements than there are people who identify as socialists, with virtually everyone who uses the term claiming that their definition is its one and only true meaning.
Words that have such broad and disparate meanings have no meaning at all, so become bludgeons to say "You're wrong, COMPLETELY wrong, and I'm completely right" (cf. "liberal," "conservative") . The issue is not what socialism is or isn't, nor is it whether socialism is good or bad, but "cui bono?" (for whose benefit--Latin, so this has been an issue for a very long time). Propagandists for every tyrant who ever lived insisted that their every act was for the good of the people, and enough of the people believed it enough of the time to keep the tyrants in power most of the time, and it is still the case today. The only real remedy seems to be universal public education in BS detection.
But, in any case, Bernie doesn't get too far ahead of what he thinks is possible to accomplish in the intermediate term. The programs he has outlined may not meet some peoples definition of socialism but they will lay the groundwork for more after he is out of office.