Cross posted at Conceptual Guerilla.
Here is the simple question . . . and the simple answer. What should Obama do about closing the budget deficit? Yesterday, he actually came up with the answer . . . all by himself. Raise taxes on the wealthy . . . back to the level they were under Bill Clinton when we had budget surpluses.
Now go to the watercooler . . . when the office dittohead is there . . . and say that.
The dittohead will ask why we should "punish" the wealthy for their "achievement" by taxing them more.
He will ask why we should "redistribute" their wealth . . . and give it to some undeserving deadbeat.
He will ask why we shouldn't balance the budget by "making government smaller."
He will suggest that the way to balance the budget is to "cut spending."
The first question is whether you will respond to him at all . . . and second, what will you tell him?
Behind those simple arguments, your office dittohead is making a basic moral argument. The wealthy have "earned" their fortunes, and taxing them at a higher rate is "stealing."
How do you respond to that argument?
Make no mistake, that argument has power . . . and it is repeated at every office watercooler in America, everyday by 25 million Limbaugh listening dittoheads. Your co-workers listening at the watercooler . . . or on the loading dock . . . or in the break room . . . or at the barbershop . . . or in the bowling alley, pool hall, or neighborhood bar . . . are hearing about how progressive taxation is "stealing" and "punishing achievement" and how our hardearned money being "given away.
Some of the people at the watercooler, and on the loading dock, and in the break room, and at the barbershop, will be persuaded by these arguments.
What are you doing to push back?
Yesterday, all across progressive blogistan, people were delighted that the President . . . one time, in one speech, on one day . . . "pushed back." Once, in one speech, on one day, the President defended higher taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent.
Do you think that was enough?
Today, Rush Limbaugh is hard at work explaining why progressive taxation is "redistribution" and "stealing" and "punishing achievement." His army of dittoheads will be at the watercooler this afternoon . . . and tomorrow . . . and the day after tomorrow . . . and next week . . . and next month . . . and next year.
Will you be there, answering them?
Because sometime later this year, President Obama will have another showdown with John Boehner and the teahadists in Congress. Will he have the barganining strength he needs? I don't mean the "inner fortitude" or some such nonsense. Will the President have the VOTES? Will the people at the watercooler . . . the wishy washy people in the middle . . . be with Obama or John Boehner? Don't have any doubt, the political strategists in the White House will know the answer to that question.
Are you one of those people who are "disappointed" in the President? Are you one of those people forever complaining that Obama has "sold out?" What are you doing to help him win the public debate . . . the one going on at the watercooler, and on the loading dock, and in the break room, and at the barbershop, and in the bowling alley, pool hall, and neighborhood bar?
Or maybe you are merely a consumer of public policy. Maybe you want to sit around and wait for politicians to "do the right thing" . . . inevitably, whatever you have decided is "right."
Or maybe you have realized that neither Obama . . . nor any other political leader . . . can do anything alone. He needs your help . . . not just your vote, and not just your money. He needs your voice . . . at the watercooler, answering the 25 million dittoheads who presently dominate the national discussion.
Over the next few days and weeks, I'm going to be posting answers to those arguments you hear at the watercooler. Here's a preview of simple statements you can make, to counter the crap spewed by Limbaugh's army of brainwashed ideologues.
1. .Progressive taxation is the most fair form of taxation, because it taxes the "easy money." Ask Rush Limbaugh how many jet plane rides he had to "sacrifice" last year, because he had to pay taxes? The answer is "none." Rich people sacrifice nothing by paying taxes . . . they pay them with what is left after they have bought everything their heart desires.
2. Wealth flows from the bottom up, it does not "trickle down." No less than Adam Smith observed that it is "the annual labor of a nation that is the fund that supplies the necessaries and conveniences of life that a nation anually consumes . . . " Labor produces absolutely everything. "Wealth" is a social fiction that vacuums up what labor produces.
3. Demand drives the economy . . . nobody invests if there is no "market," and there is no market if nobody has any money. This is what a Keynsian stimulus fixes . . . and it works, if the stimulus is big enough. [I have a video on this, I will be releasing soon.]
These are a few points you must repeat . . . over and over and over again . . . at the watercooler, and on the loading dock, and in the break room, and at the barber shop, and in the bowling alley, the pool hall, and the neighborhood bar.
That is where you defeat conservative ideology . . . and make the world safe for Democratic economic policies that work. That is where you help Barack Obama become the kind of progressive you want him to be.
Stay tuned for my upcoming film "Megadittoes: A Journey Into Rush Limbaugh's America." It's coming this summer.
Updated by Conceptual Guerilla at Thu Apr 14, 2011 at 09:16 AM PDT
Rec listed . . . thank you.