This is a short diary. I believe its timing is critical to get out in front of what the right is about to do to try to derail the President’s popular message on taxing the rich.
I’d suggest anyone who agrees with the following spread it asap, including to the President’s speech writers, those of you who may have that kind of connection.
More below…
I watch trends more than anything else. Yesterday’s published video of right wing push back against Paul Ryan’s budget plan in a town meeting – and Ryan’s response -- was instructive and revealing. http://thinkprogress.org/...
During a town hall meeting in Milton, a constituent who described himself as a “lifelong conservative” asked Ryan about the effects of growing income inequality in our nation. The constituent noted that huge income disparities contributed to the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and thus wanted to know why the congressman was “fighting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire.”
CONSTITUENT: You have to lower spending. But it’s a matter of there’s nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down.
RYAN: We do tax the top. (Audience boos). Let’s remember, most of our jobs come from successful small businesses. Two-thirds of our jobs do.
Already the right’s noise machine drum beat is at work framing (see Paul Lakoff) the phrase “tax the wealthy” as an attack on small business. This is BS and IMO must be countered strongly and immediately and universally. This is nothing but right wing framing of an issue – “increase taxes on the rich/wealthy” – that has been managing to avoid traction for years, decades even. It’s imperative that Democrats beat their own drum as follows:
“The 'RICH' are not small business owners.”
“The 'wealthiest Americans' are NOT owners of small businesses.”
“Tax the wealthy” means “tax the 1% of Americans who own 40% of America.”
"Tax the rich" targets primarily old money, as it should – vast fortunes which have accumulated in America for five, six, and seven generations and who, quietly, mostly anonymously, continue to control the Republican Party, the right wing message, the American wealth establishment… and who are largely at the center of the Republicans’ long-term and ongoing attack on FDR’s New Deal. “The rich” are not Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Waltons, the Kochs, even Paul Allen or Murdoch or other lesser billionaires. They are but a small portion of the rich. The real “rich” are the families of generations old family names – Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Carnegie, Mellon (especially Mellon!), Astor, Ford, Dodge, Duke, and other household and non-household names – families who collectively control vast fortunes, property holdings and most of the stock of hundreds of America’s largest corporations. Most of these heirs’ names have changed over time. Some are even Democrats. Most make huge contributions to charities, even anonymously. The new money to be sure is vast – but 1% of Americans means 3 million people – that’s a lot of people. American wealth in 2009 stood at $54.2 trillion. That means 3 million people controlled over $21.6 trillion. That’s a lot more than the paltry $1 trillion controlled by the 46 wealthiest Americans (Forbes, “The American 400” September 2007).
It’s vital to get this push back onto the American consciousness and into the mainstream of American thought, American dialogue and the media as soon as humanly possible. You’re going to see incredible unity on the right as, once again, they line up to speak with one voice – “’tax the rich’ is an attack on small business.”
Taxing the rich is a huge hill to climb -- they are 3 million of the most powerful people on the planet. This attempted derailment based on misinformation has to be countered and now. Small business is sacred in America. The rich are subconsciously seen as our “royalty” (and thus “protected” – that’s why it’s so hard to get America to collectively say “tax the rich”) but small business is everyman. We cannot let the right distort this issue with misinformation. We have to tax the rich, and protect small businesses as the everyday people they are.
Time’s a-wastin’…