1% v Obama:"criticism the country’s lionized elite hasn’t heard from its leader in a very long time"
The 1 percent vs. President Obama
Why have the rich turned against President Barack Obama?
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Part of the answer is simple self-interest. As the economics writer Matthew Yglesias has argued, there is one easy and obvious explanation for the animosity of the rich toward the incumbent:
He wants to raise their taxes significantly. That is certainly right. On Monday, Obama reiterated his support for letting the Bush-era tax cuts for household incomes of more than $250,000 expire, while keeping the lower rates in place for everyone else.
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This is more than a fight about taxes. It is a fight about whether 21st-century capitalism is working for the American middle class and who should pay to fix it. The Republicans are telling Ronald Reagans story of trickle-down economics the winners in the capitalist contest are job-creators whose prosperity helps everyone else. The wealthier they are, the wealthier all Americans will be.
The Democrats are challenging that win-win story of American capitalism. Their contention is that the U.S. economy is failing the middle class. They argue that those at the top need to contribute a little more to help rebuild the American middle. Even more threateningly, they point out, as in their critique of Bain Capital, that some of the business strategies that have enriched the elite have actually hollowed out the middle.
It is this last argument that most enrages the 1 percent and it should. Obamas most extreme critics delight in accusing him of being socialist and sometimes communist. That charge is not just overheated, it is plain wrong.
But American capitalists are right to sense a challenge from the White House, which is about more than tax rates or bruised pride. The president is arguing that what works for the top of the United States isnt working for the middle, and that is a criticism the countrys lionized elite hasnt heard from its leader in a very long time.
http://blogs.reuters.com/chrystia-freeland/2012/07/12/the-1-percent-vs-president-obama/