John Edwards: Destroyer of the Middle Class
Look at this smug sonofabitch, John Edwards. He has all the answers.
First thing first: Is there something about the WSJ’s faux-woodcarving that makes him look even more like a total asshole?
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said he would raise the capital gains tax rate to 28% from 15% and boost income taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year in order to finance tax cuts and other benefits for middle- and lower-income families…
Mr. Edwards’ remedies include a series of tax credits and savings incentives to help lower-income families generate wealth, including a dollar-for-dollar government match — up to $500 a year — for families with incomes of as much as $75,000 who use the money for such things as college, a home or retirement.
Let’s set the record straight: If you are spending money, and the government is simply giving you all (up to $500) or part of it back, no wealth has been “generated.” Wealth can only truly be generated by deferred consumption. Best-case scenario: Edwards’ program is simply a wealth transfer., because Government can only give you money that it either A) stole from someone else, thereby impoverishing that person or B) printed out of thin air, thereby impoverishing everyone else, to your benefit. Under no circumstances is this sort of program a wealth creator. Forty-five years of entitlements have done nothing but encourage stagnation and segregation, destroying wealth, opportunity, and communities in the process. There is no reason to believe Edwards’ programs will be any different.
It is also important to remember that there is no such thing as a neutral tax. So as a rule, if taxes are to be levied, they ought to be levied on things that are not desireable. Corporate taxes force companies to outsource. It’s a burden borne overwhelmingly by labor – the same labor that comprises the middle class to which Edwards panders. I’m not sure what world he lives in, but it’s apparently a world where employment, and the appreciation of one’s assets and investments constitutes a crime. Not to mention the oft repeated (and apparently more often ignored) mantra that a capital gains tax is in-fact double taxation. EPS are distributed after Uncle Sam has stuck his hands in the corporate cookie jar. Thus, the money that any individual receives in this form have already been taxed at an often onerous corporate rate.
But, Edwards wants to double the capital gains tax in order to help the middle class? The same middle class that is an enormous holder of securities through various pension funds and 401(k) accounts? The same middle class that would be decimated by a doubling of the tax levied on the sale of real property? If it’s not bad enough that Social Security will not be around for any of us, Edwards wants to proscribe the only methods by which an individual can privately try and secure his future or his legacy! What the fuck is he thinking?
Mr Edwards, this is as anti-middle-class as it gets. Your rhetoric is as fake as your plastic smile, you fucking hate the middle class, and I’m not falling for it.
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Meanwhile, what two words appear nowhere in the article?
That’s right: “deficit reduction”
I could almost not loathe him and his class warfare if he were to say, “Yes, I’ll raise taxes, but only to reduce the deficit. Read my lips: No new programs!”
Read His Lips: No New Fiscal Responsibility!…
A modified version of a comment I left at another blog on the not-news that John……
What fascinates me is how so few who are sucked into believing this ignore that he would then take a much larger chunk of that wealth if you make “too much”. He’s saying nothing more than I want everyone who has less to have a little more. He pretends it isn’t a wealth transfer, and won’t tell you that he does think there’s a legitimate cap on reasonable wealth. Not that he applies it to his millions, of course. He earned those, unlike all the other rich people.
[...] Previous post on John Edwards’ plan to destroy the middle class via capital gains taxation, here. [...]
[...] If you’re listenting, IRS, that doesn’t get you off the hook. There are plenty of reasonable arguments against taxes on capital gains, too. Like this one. [...]