Capt Bringdown
09-20-2012, 01:13 AM
When the Big Debate Is Over Taxes, Progressives Have Lost (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/when-the-big-debate-is-over-taxes-progressives-have-lost)
-Dean Baker
Ever since Governor Romney's comment about writing off the 47 percent of households who don't pay federal income tax became public, news stories and opinion pieces have been dominated by discussions of who does and does not pay taxes. This is great news for the one percent.
The obsession with taxes means that the one percent are playing a game that they can only win. The vast majority of the upward redistribution of income over the last three decades has been in before tax income. This has been brought about through a variety of changes in laws and institutions that had the effect of restructuring markets in ways that redistribute income upward.
As long as we are obsessed with a discussion of whether the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy will continue, the policies responsible for the bulk of the upward redistribution over the last three decades will never be discussed. The current debate may be good news for President Obama's re-election prospects, but it is not a positive development for those who don't like to see the perpetuation of government policies that redistribute money upward.
- more - > (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/when-the-big-debate-is-over-taxes-progressives-have-lost)
-Dean Baker
Ever since Governor Romney's comment about writing off the 47 percent of households who don't pay federal income tax became public, news stories and opinion pieces have been dominated by discussions of who does and does not pay taxes. This is great news for the one percent.
The obsession with taxes means that the one percent are playing a game that they can only win. The vast majority of the upward redistribution of income over the last three decades has been in before tax income. This has been brought about through a variety of changes in laws and institutions that had the effect of restructuring markets in ways that redistribute income upward.
As long as we are obsessed with a discussion of whether the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy will continue, the policies responsible for the bulk of the upward redistribution over the last three decades will never be discussed. The current debate may be good news for President Obama's re-election prospects, but it is not a positive development for those who don't like to see the perpetuation of government policies that redistribute money upward.
- more - > (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/when-the-big-debate-is-over-taxes-progressives-have-lost)