Just in time to match the announcement of Time's Person of the Year, Roger Simon has written a column which has sewn up the Wanker of the Year award. At first I thought it might be tounge-in-cheek -- it's that bad -- before I realized that he was building a monumental strawman. In sum, because progressives want to reverse the rising gap in inequality by increase taxes on the wealthy, they "hate rich people." Not the usual right-wing garbage about "punishing success," but beltway centrist garbage about "hating" the wealthy because of wanting them to pay more in tax.
The rich are different from you and me. They are swine.
So say many of the Democrats in the House of Representatives who would rather that jobless people lose their unemployment checks and middle-class people lose their income tax breaks than that the rich get a dime extra.
Some Democrats hate the rich. Most Americans, on the other hand, would like to become the rich.
. . . .
Congressional Democrats want us to hate the rich for being rich.
http://dyn.politico.com/...
The mind boggles. Anyone, specifically Democrats, who want the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, and do not believe that they should be held hostage to the extension of unemployment benefits, hate the rich and believe they are swine.
But I never resented that. Which is why class warfare doesn’t work in America and why congressional Democrats are being stupid. In America, the class structure is fluid. You don’t have to stay in the economic class into which you were born. People don’t really hate the rich, and we don’t really want to confiscate their wealth.
Only half of the wealthiest people in America inherited their wealth. The rest earned it. But whether their wealth is earned or inherited, I just want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, not some kind of punitive share.
Ah, the class warfare card. Progressives who want to raises taxes on the wealthy are engaging in class warfare. Conservatives who want to cut taxes on the wealthy, bust unions, ship jobs overseas, and seek to depress wages as part of a race to the bottom, are simply doing God's work.
And the hoary canard about social mobility. Recalling the Archie Bunker line from the 1970s that he opposed raising taxes on the wealthy because he might be wealthy some day. Making policy based on fantasy rather than reality.
And I was wrong, Simple Simon does play the punish the rich card after all!
And then as Simon draws to a close, he offers this prescription for society:
Yes, the gap between rich and poor is growing in this country, and too small a percentage of the population owns too much of the wealth.
Don’t like the way wealth is distributed? Then you can join congressional Democrats and grump about it, or you can get some wealth for yourself.
No need for comment. Except to say that it's time we realized that the wealthy are our betters. Our natural superiors. We should get down on our knees and thank God for them every day.
The only question I'd leave you with is whether this is the worst column of the year or the worst column ever written by a so-called mainstream journalist.
Congrats Simon. Your column earns you the wanker of the year title.