Class Struggle In The USA

Noam Scheiber has a hard hitting article on the front page of www.nytimes.com “2016 Candidates and Wealthy Are Aligned on Inequality”

The content should be familiar to AngryBear readers. A majority of Americans are alarmed by high and increasing inequality and support government action to reduce inequality. However, none of the important 2016 candidates has expressed any willingness to raise taxes on the rich. The Republicans want to cut them and Clinton (and a spokesperson) dodge the question.

Rich individuals (who are willing to be interviewed) also express concern about inequality but generally oppose using higher taxes on the rich to fight it. Scheiber is very willing to bluntly state his guess (and everyone’s) that candidates are eager to please the rich, because they spend much of their time begging the rich for contributions.

No suprise to anyone who has been paying attention except for the fact that it is on the front page of www.nytimes.com and the article is printed in the business section not the opinion section. Do click the link — it is brief, to the point, solid, alarming and a must read.

I clicked one of the links and found weaker evidence than I expected for Scheiber’s view (which of course I share

“By contrast, more than half of Americans and three-quarters of Democrats believe the “government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich,” according to a Gallup poll of about 1,000 adults in April 2013.”

It is a small majority 52% favor and 47% oppose. This 52 % is noticeably smaller than the solid majoriities who have been telling Gallup that high income individuals pay less than their fair share of taxes (click and search for gallup on the page).

I guess this isn’t really surprising — the word “heavy” is heavy maaaan and “redistribute” evokes the dreaded welfare (and conservatives have devoted gigantic effort to giving it pejorative connotations). The 52% majority is remarkable given the phrasing of the question. But it isn’t enough to win elections, since it is 52% of adults which corresponds to well under 52% of actual voters.

My reading is that it is important for egalitarians to stress the tax cuts for the non rich and that higher taxes on the rich are, unfortunately, necessary if we are to have lower taxes on the non rich without huge budget deficits. This is exactly Obama’s approach.