Victor Davis Hanson of National Review Online talks about the agenda of the poor and the middle class (emphasis added):
About 50 percent of taxpayers don’t pay federal income taxes. Almost half of American adults receive either the majority of or all of their income in some form from government.
They are naturally desirous of even more entitlements, in the sense that even higher taxes on the top 5 percent might ensure at least some of the needed revenue to pay for them.
And if that echelon must pay 70 percent or 80 percent rather than the present 60 percent of all collected income taxes, it would still not be such a bad thing, inasmuch as the circumstances surrounding their earned income must be somewhat suspicious.
In the words of the president, the so-called affluent surely at some point must realize that they have made enough money and have hundreds of thousands in unneeded income that could easily be assessed with higher taxes.
The agenda of the poorer and lower-middle classes is championed mostly by an affluent elite located on the two coasts, who find power and influence in representing “the people,” and are themselves either affluent enough, or enjoy enough top government salaries and subsidies, to be largely exempt from any hardship that would result from their own advocacy of much higher taxes and larger government expenditures.
… .
Behind the current mess and shrill rhetoric in D.C. are these two larger competing visions—the belief that the Obama agenda is the road to serfdom for everyone, and the belief that it will result in a long-overdue equality of result.
Amen, brother!
If we could somehow click our fingers and make everyone wealthy and no longer dependent on government, the Democrats would never win another election because their political base is comprised primarily of people who are dependent on government.¹
Footnotes:
¹ Suppose that you are a politician and you win elections by championing people who are discriminated against because of the color of their skin. Further suppose that tomorrow racial prejudice is eradicated. Suddenly, there would be nobody left for you to champion and you would have no political base.
Although I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Democrats actually want people to be poor and dependent on the federal government, I do believe that they want the majority of Americans to believe that they need the federal government in order to survive.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Lily // Jul 30, 2011 at 10:56 am
Very well said. God Bless America !!
2 Peter // Jul 30, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Lily,
Thank you and thanks for visiting.