Robert Reich: Who should get the tax cut - the rich or everyone else?

[flpoljunkie]

Who should get the tax cut - the rich or everyone else?
Robert Reich

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Who deserves a tax cut more: the top 2 percent - whose wages and benefits are higher than ever and among whose ranks are the CEOs and Wall Street mavens whose antics have sliced jobs and wages and nearly destroyed the American economy - or the rest of us?

Not a bad issue for Democrats to run on this fall - or in 2012.

Republicans are hell-bent on demanding an extension of the Bush tax cut for their patrons at the top or they'll pull the plug on tax cuts for the middle class. This is a gift for the Democrats.

But before this can be a defining election issue in the midterms, Democrats have to bring it to a vote. And they've got to do it in the next few weeks, not wait until a lame-duck session after election day.

Plus, they have to stick together (Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, are you hearing me? House Blue Dogs, do you read me? Economist Peter Orszag, will you get some sense?) Not only is this smart politics, it's smart economics.

The rich spend a far smaller portion of their money than anyone else because, hey, they're rich. That means continuing the Bush tax cut for them wouldn't stimulate much demand or create many jobs.

more...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/26/INTI1FHHQQ.DTL

[Skink]

1. Problem is most if not all democrats in the Senate are rich.

[kentuck]

2. Oh, that sounds like class warfare.

Too much like populism.

:sarcasm:

[flpoljunkie]

3. The war is over. The rich won. The rest of us lost.

[3waygeek]

4. The fact that even Reich is talking about tax cuts...

means he & everyone else have bought into the Rethug frame that tax cuts solve anything. Tax cuts are the last thing on earth we need now -- tax rates should be increased, especially on corps & the very wealthy, who've seen their tax rates plummet over the last 30 years or so.

[flpoljunkie]

5. The middle class, the poor are struggling with stagnant wages and record debt.The rich, not so much!

It is outrageous that the top 2% cannot pay the marginal tax rate of 39.6% they paid under Bill Clinton.