Where are the champions of equality?Go read the whole article. It is well worth your time.
Nobody ever accused Barack Obama of having too stiff a spine.
Even so, there is something crushingly disappointing about reports last week that the U.S. president is likely to retreat from his promise to cancel George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.
Such a capitulation to the Republicans would concede defeat before the battle to achieve greater equality and to “spread the wealth around” is even waged. The audacity of hope seems to have turned into a readiness to choke.
Obama’s promise was a modest one — to push the top marginal tax rate from 35 per cent back up to its Clinton-era level of 39 per cent.
Obama’s reluctance to go further, to advocate restoring the serious progressive taxation that existed in the U.S. (and Canada) prior to the Reagan revolution, reveals much about the timidity and self-imposed limits of progressive politics today.
The point she is trying to make can be summarized with this bit from the article:
Can’t our progressive leaders today be at least as radical as Republican president Theodore Roosevelt was in 1906 when he called for a tax “whose primary objective should be to put a constantly increasing burden on the inheritance of swollen fortunes, which it is certainly of no benefit to this country to perpetuate.”Right now it looks to me like the answer is "no". That is a tragedy. But she cites research saying I'm wrong. I sure hope that research is right. Even more, I hope that there is real "teeth" in the claims of that research. I believe it is going to be a bitter battle to turn the tide against the rich and powerful who have so skewed the system to their benefit.
Note: For a peek at Linda McQuaig's books, read this post. She is one of the best progressive writers on economic topics in Canada.
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