It’s absolutely critical in an election that you talk to people on a level that they understand so it is tantamount to political malpractice for Democrats to avoid talking about the economy during the 2022 midterm election campaign.
With a majority of voters saying that such economic issues as inflation are paramount, it is rare to hear Democrats in Congress argue that we must reverse Reaganomics to restore high wages, fair top tax rates and adequately support Social Security, or programs that advance health, education, transportation and job creation.
Nothing meaningful is being done to punish the unbridled greed that has caused inflation or hold liars accountable even when fraudulent messaging has results in violent political attacks, ranging from the assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband to the attempted coup d’etat on January 6,
Oil companies and Saudi Arabia are raising gasoline prices because these friends of Vladimir Putin want the Republicans to win control over Congress, but Democrats are not screaming about greedy corporations or traitorous GOP politicians.
The Supreme Court decision to nullify Roe v Wade, which will enable Republicans to outlaw abortion, has certainly aroused a large number of women but Democrats complaining about the issue are not going to pick up many votes that they did not already have.
Indeed, losing a right to choose that women had for fifty years merely raises the question whether Democrats preserved the vulnerability on abortion simply to keep the issue in play as a political football even.
It is more likely that Democratic insiders loyal to the political establishment talk almost exclusively about LGBT rights, gun violence and abortion because these issues will not cost their billionaire donors any money.
Never mind that tax cuts for the rich have yielded none of their promised benefits. The national debt increased by $30 trillion since President Ronald Reagan slashed top tax rates from over 70 percent to 28 percent during the 1980s.
Forget that the promise of trickle-down economics materialized in low wage jobs, high rents, mass foreclosures and other catastrophic financial instability including
The financial disasters caused by Reaganomics and Trumpian incompetence have far exceeded the worst recessions of the 20th century except for the Great Depression and the demobilization at the end of World War II, when an enormous drop in gross domestic product was quickly replaced by an unprecedented economic boom time with top tax rates over 90 percent
As the US struggles with a massive budget deficit, taxes—especially on rich people—are too low and part of the reason working middle class families are overtaxed is because we are subsidizing global corporations and the ultrawealthy that use some of the savings they acquired in recent decades to ensure they keep paying less than you.
Despite massive corporate welfare on top of the reductions under Reaganomics, wartime Bush-Republican tax cuts of 2001 & 2003, and Trump-Republican tax cut of 2017, no Democratic proposals came forth to raise top-bracket tax rates again as high as 70 percent (which was the lowest level on millionaires between 1932 and 1982).
Republicans still say that taxes are far too high and that the budget deficit should be addressed with spending cuts.
To get the economy back on track, Republicans argue, we need to give Americans an incentive to work hard–by letting them keep more of what they earn but with wages in the toilet, no one has an incentive to work hard.
For most of the boom times, top-bracket income tax rates were much higher than they are today, proving that super-high tax rates on rich people do not hurt the economy or make people lazy: During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%–and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed.
Super-low tax rates on rich people are correlated with brief booms followed by protracted busts. as well as with very severe inequality.
Because the rich do not pay a fair share of the cost burden, total federal, state, and local government tax revenue is now lower than at any time in the last 40 years.
The current federal income tax rates are 10%-25% rates for most people, and 35% in the top bracket (over $379,000) so compared with historical standards, the tax system is rigged to benefit those at the top which means that workers pay more to compensate for the wealthy who are not paying their “fair share” of taxes.
Paying taxes is not a fact in a vacuum. In 2021, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a big increase from 20-to-1 in 1965 and 59-to-1 in 1989.
It should not have taken a pandemic to realize poverty is a public policy choice but COVID safety net programs like unemployment insurance benefits and the Child Tax Credit, kept millions out of poverty in 2021.
In the rush to lower taxes on the rich, which has utterly failed to improve the overall economic condition of the country, policymakers almost entirely abandoned poverty reduction as a priority since the demise of the Great Society initiatives advanced by President Lyndon Johnson, whose policies were derailed by the cost of the Vietnam War.
The man accused of bludgeoning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer, David DePape, pleaded not guilty to state charges filed against him, including attempted murder and kidnapping, at the San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday but Republicans are joking about the violent attack and mocking the Pelosis.
The Washington Post confirmed that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor Kari Lake, Sen. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump Jr. , and Reps. Clay Higgins and Claudia Tenney were among the top GOP leaders who made punchlines out of the incident.
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