The budget outline includes activist initiatives on energy, health care, education and climate change.
It would boost taxes on the wealthy, oil companies and other businesses while cutting Medicare and Medicaid payments to insurance companies and hospitals to make way for a $634 billion down payment on universal health care. It would also limit charitable and other tax deductions for the affluent and trim spending on government subsidies to big farms.
Predictably, Republicans complained, much as they had done during last year's presidential campaign, that Obama was pitting the haves against the have-nots.
Why is it only class warfare when those who aren't wealthy are asking for something? What is it the rest of the time? Class occupation? Class siege? Classicide? Or is it just that only the rich have class?
Asked whether the class-warfare argument could complicate White House efforts to win support for some of its big priorities, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "No. And I think it's important to understand that what the president has enumerated in his budget today is precisely the blueprint and series of promises that he made over the course of two years in a campaign ... that the American people voted for."
2 comments:
One - have vs. have nots. Republicans have no moral ground here. They need to sit quietly in a corner.
Two - my latest post looking at marginal tax rates sort of blows the whole "increasing taxes will make it worse" argument out of the water.
Phil, agreed. Trying to find any connection between tax rates and economic performance on that graph would be strongly akin to scapulimancy.
Post a Comment