8 Reasons the Buffett Rule is NOT ‘Class Warfare’

[LiberaL Lamp Post]

You can tell President Obama really has Republicans backed into a corner this time. Whenever news anchors ask Republicans to comment on paying for job creation by taxing millionaires at rates equal to the rest of us, they fumble through their response before finally eking out the vague accusation of “class warfare.”

(Click for original post with full list and hyper-links to citations.)

Class warfare simply means “conflict between social or economic classes” but Republicans are trying to spin class warfare into connotations of trouble-makers inventing imaginary problems with unfair solutions.

Obama offered a strong defense for tax justice in his Sept. 19 speech to introduce the “Buffett Rule,” which would tax millionaires and billionaires at the same rate as Joe the Plummer as part of a plan to raise money to fund the American Jobs Act:

"I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher is class warfare. I think it’s just the right thing to do. I believe the American middle class, who’ve been pressured relentlessly for decades, believe it’s time that they were fought for as hard as lobbyists and some lawmakers have fought to protect special treatment for billionaires and big corporations.


Here are 8 reasons why the Buffett rule – or “shared sacrifice” from the wealthy – is NOT “class warfare.”

1. The health of our economy – our long-term stability as a nation – depends on job creation. We need people back to work and we need to make sure people can physically get to those jobs to have any chance of competing in a global economy. The Jobs Act will put 1.9 million people back to work, including teachers, police officers and construction workers, the latter of whom will be charged with fixing functionally obsolete bridges and refurbishing schools.

2. Obama’s calling to tax millionaires and billionaires at the SAME tax rate as the middle class. Class WARfare would be enacting punitive, HIGHER rates on the wealthy over the middle class.

3. The middle swath of Americans (earning incomes around $50,000) receive only a $647 savings from the Bush Tax Cuts (about 1.4% of income), while people with incomes over $1 million have an average savings of $123,592 (more than 10% of income). This type of disproportionate taxation is an example of class warfare waged by the right wing.

(Read reasons 4-8 on AddictingInfo.org, courtesy of The Liberal Lamp Post.)

[bemildred]

1. Nothing is more ridiculous than wealthy people whining about "unfairness". nt

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Seriously!

[glinda]

3. Especially since they either inherited it or it was made possible through US citizens or huge tax

breaks.