Brett Hillsberg · @BrettH104
19th Sep 2011 from Twitlonger
My response to GOP claiming "class warfare" during Obama presidency @flashfiremh #p2: As you may hear in the news, millionaires are claiming that President Obama has initiated a war against the upper class, this is absurd. I feel that the wealthy have no right to oppose any tax policy in this economic climate and I will explain my viewpoint on why.
During the George W. Bush era, all branches of the federal government were under republican control, Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. Bush used his political capital to set forward his agenda, as any politician would do if given the opportunity. However, a setback was that in order to carry out the invasion of Iraq, additional revenue was required. Instead of conventionally raising taxes and having his intentions doubted by the American taxpayer who would be footing the bill, the Bush administration borrowed money from China. Politically, this move was brilliant in that he could obtain money immediately without putting his political capital at risk, but economically it was an enormous risk that did not pay off in the end. Never before has the U.S. gone to war without raising taxes, not to mention lowering them and therefore the treasury could not pay it. Seeing Iraq as a short war and once victory is secured the U.S. would pull out and start paying its debt to China, Bush went ahead with the action. The administration did not foresee the possibility of a long war that would devour more resources than imagined. When it became clear that the entire political structure of Iraq fell apart, Bush still refused to raise taxes and instead kept borrowing from China to fight the war.
The wars and the tax cuts are the origin of our now massive deficit, not social security and medicare. So back to this so-called "class warfare". Without paying their share of taxes for the last decade, millionaires have become accustomed to their life of wasteful luxury. Now to oppose the Obama agenda of putting those with less first and sharing the burden that everyone carries except the rich, the republican claim that the national debt is too out of control for his programs. This is a completely non-issue that should be dealt with at a more reasonable time. FDR set the standard during the Great Depression that the government should not stop spending money during times of economic crisis. Federal spending helps create jobs in areas such as public works and tax breaks for businesses trying to hire.
Somehow, republicans are still trying to assert that the rich should get more tax cuts. Some U.S. corporation CEO's pay themselves more money than their entire company pays in taxes:http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/31/top-ceos-earn-more-than-their-firms-pay-in-taxes/. These "job creators" (as republicans like to refer to the rich in congressional debate) have not created a single job with their tax cuts, they take the money home with them and fail to help the rest of the classes with their unemployment problem. If that's not class warfare, I'm not sure what is. The only thing the rich want is to have the lower classes pay the price and suffer so they don't have to contribute to the well being of their country.