{"id":30917,"date":"2020-10-18T12:31:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T17:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=30917"},"modified":"2020-10-18T12:31:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T17:31:04","slug":"about-cleaning-up-the-republican-financial-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/10\/18\/about-cleaning-up-the-republican-financial-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"About Cleaning Up The Republican Financial Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had heard that Biden planned to increase taxes on those making in excess of $400,000 a year in order to begin cleaning up – once again – after the Republicans’ financial mismanagement, as well as cover the costs, both necessary and the fruits of mismanagement, of the pandemic, but rather than run over to Biden’s website, I can conveniently point at Kevin Drum<\/a>, who confirms it using the analysis American Enterprise Institute<\/strong><\/em>, a conservative<\/em> think tank:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In 2021, everyone under $400,000 pays lower taxes, while the top 1 percent pays about $100,000 more in taxes. By 2030, every income group pays slightly higher taxes (about $50 per year at the median) while the top 1 percent pays $134,000 more.<\/p>\n

The effect of all this on economic growth is essentially zero. AEI estimates that Biden\u2019s plan would produce a minuscule reduction in GDP over its first decade and a minuscule increase in GDP during its second decade.<\/p>\n

In other words, Biden has told the truth about his tax plan. How refreshing and unusual in the Trump era.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds fine and dandy, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n

But I’m actually a little unsettled. No, I don’t have an odd sympathy for the plight of the top 1%. My thought isn’t financial, it’s moral:<\/p>\n

Elections should have consequences<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ll also argue against myself and suggest that the imminent confirmation of Barrett to SCOTUS<\/strong> is a reproach to this group, the ongoing tragedy of the mismanaged Covid-19<\/strong> pandemic a lesson for that group, etc etc.<\/p>\n

But the truth of the matter is this:<\/p>\n

We are all responsible for the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the outraged Clinton-supporting reader – such as myself – let me explain. We can partition the US population by their actions in the 2016, and how that makes them culpable for the ongoing disaster of the Trump Administration:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Voted for Trump<\/em>: You actively voted for someone who had already revealed themselves as a business failure, an inveterate liar, and a worse than average reality-show actor (or performer, if I am to take my Theater Arts professor’s definition of acting vs performing to heart, for Trump has only one role he can perform). You should have known better<\/em>. If you embraced some single issue to justify that vote, you should be heartily morally embarrassed.<\/li>\n
  2. I never vote<\/em>. You, sir or madam, are a shirker of your civic responsibilities. It’s time to dump the Me-me-me<\/strong><\/em> attitude and participate. Remember, the right to participate in the selection of our leaders, even as illiberally implemented as it was initially<\/em> (i.e., white landowners only), was one of the most important points of the Revolutionary War<\/strong>. And, by not voting, you enabled Donald Trump’s election.<\/li>\n
  3. I couldn’t stand Hillary, so xyz<\/em>. I hear this from time to time, as if it’s necessary that your candidate is someone with whom you could sit down and have tea & crumpets. It’s great if you do, but when it comes to national leadership, competency is far, far more important than your need for personal admiration of your chosen candidate – and a little bit of research would have shown Clinton had that in spades, while Trump’s true competency is in lying. Just a wee bit of research. The only out I would give this group is that if they raised questions of corruption in the form of the Wasserman-Schultz scandal<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. I voted Clinton, why are you penalizing me<\/em>? Because – and I include myself here – you didn’t do enough to persuade everyone else to vote for Clinton, the highly endorsed and highly competent candidate, over Trump, the already-evident chronic liar, cheat, incompetent, and mediocre actor. We didn’t pay attention to those who are discontented, fearful of a future that doesn’t seem to include them, and felt the Democrats had betrayed them. Granted, some problems are of herculean girth, such as single-issue voters who don’t understand they are the scourge of America, rather than its saviors. But more effort might have saved us from this giant blot on American honor.<\/li>\n
  5. I couldn’t vote, yet, so why penalize me?<\/em> Think of it as a salutary lesson about shirking serious research and participation. Or, too bad, life is unfair and not in your favor this time (to borrow from Calvin & Hobbes<\/strong><\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Given that Trump and his enabling Republicans have left the nation with some monumental debts, and while acknowledging the top 1% have a lot of ways to avoid paying taxes, I think it’s necessary that all the tax-paying citizens of the United States should see an increase in their tax bill<\/strong>, and its source should be labeled<\/strong>. Sure, the Republicans would scream, but, by screaming This isn’t fair!<\/em>, the Democrats can point out exactly how it IS<\/strong> true and fair.<\/p>\n

    We could call it the Trump Redemption Surtax<\/strong><\/em>, just to make it clear that this is a consequence of the 2016 election. And it would help pay off the mountainous Republican-sourced debt we are now carrying a little bit faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I had heard that Biden planned to increase taxes on those making in excess of $400,000 a year in order to begin cleaning up – once again – after the Republicans’ financial mismanagement, as well as cover the costs, both necessary and the fruits of mismanagement, of the pandemic, but \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30919,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30917\/revisions\/30919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}