It's Not Class Warfare, It's Math...Or Maybe It Really Is Warfare

As BG in KC points out, the Obama '12 folks have their bumper sticker phrase.  The President unveiled his plan to pay for the American Jobs Act with the Buffett Rule today at the White House.

"During this past decade, profligate spending in Washington, tax cuts into multi-millionaires and billionaires, and two wars have turned a record surplus into a massive deficit," Obama said. "If we don't act, the debt will eventually crowd out everything else, eventually affecting us from investing in things like education and Medicaid. We need to cut what we can't afford to pay for things we need."

Even before Obama delivered the speech, which clearly laid out the differences between both parties in the 2012 contest, Republican leaders were reacting angrily to early reports outlining the President's "go big" push, calling on Congress to cut deficits by $4 trillion over 12 years and institute automatic, across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases if a first target isn't reached by 2014.

Any reform plan must include revenue increases, he argued, because the tax system isn't fair, allowing billionaires such as Warren Buffett to have a lower tax rate than middle-class families.

"This plan eliminates tax loopholes that primarily go to the largest business and corporations--tax breaks that small businesses and middle class Americans don't have to pay," Obama said. "We can't afford these special lower rates for the wealthy, which by the way, were initially talked about as temporary measures."

"Either we have to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share, or we have to ask seniors to pay more for medicare, or gut education," he continued. "This is not class warfare. It's math." 

And there could not be a more stark contrast today than with GOP Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana:

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) appeared on MSNBC with Chris Jansing this morning to attack President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, which includes some tax increases on the wealthy. Taking up the typical GOP talking point, Fleming said raising taxes on wealthy “job creators” is a terrible idea that kills jobs because many of these people are small business owners who pay taxes through personal income rates.

Fleming is himself a businesses owner, so Jansing asked, “If you have to pay more in taxes, you would get rid of some of those employees?” Fleming responded by saying that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you “pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,” his profits “a mere fraction of that” — “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

And as ABL points out, 500 employees and $6 million a year means he's paying his workers on average $12,000 a year or about $6 an hour...less than federal minimum wage.  Sufficient advances in nanotechnology may arise in the next few years in order for science to make a violin small enough to play for this particular asshole, but we're not there yet.

On the other hand, when the whackjob right says class warfare, they mean actual warfare.



Keep the difference in mind.