2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNothing illustrates how the party has shifted right like the cry "No raising taxes!"
suddenly spilling bounteously o'er the lips of of Hillary's surrogates in Congress. (And she does have a lot of them). Nothing like boxing us in. And nothing like hampering any effort of a democratic president, even when it comes to raising income taxes on the extremely wealthy, which is as far as Hillary is willing to tread. And forget trying to raise the cap on Social Security, not that Hillary supports the best way to fortify it.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Classic right-wing strategy, classic right-wing lies, in Congress and right here on DU.
"Whatever It Takes" indeed! Whatever it takes to protect the insurance lobby.
sadoldgirl
(3,431 posts)Most, if not all, Democratic members in Congress
need money for their reelections.
Today that is the norm.
I never believed that they would be of any help
to Bernie, unless their constituents pressure
them to do so.That is our job, imo.
hoosierlib
(710 posts)As Bernie says, we need a revolution...
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Some democrats run in districts where Norquist's Pledge is the 11th commandment.
cali
(114,904 posts)Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)lol
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)I wonder how many useless Soviet Era military contractors could be shifted to...oh I dunno... infrastructure work?
Making corporations pay their taxes (lower the corporate tax rate to Europe's level... but then make them PAY it, not get out of it with loopholes.) and maybe even taxing Church property (perhaps at a lower rate than any ol' property if you must) and we'll have plenty of dough to do what needs to be done.
draa
(975 posts)One that I would like to see is a higher extraction tax on natural resources on public land. We give away the mineral wealth of our citizens to corporations who the destroy the land and leave massive clean up costs mainly footed by taxpayers. Just raise extractions fees.
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)It's actually become insanity, and HRC's cries about this is deceptive since taxpayers are saving significant amounts on insurance premiums.
Punkingal
(9,522 posts)farleftlib
(2,125 posts)it keeps me up some nights.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)LWolf
(46,179 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,264 posts)Thanks for the thread, cali.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)Typical of 1%ers, especially when the tax increase comes from them.
raindaddy
(1,370 posts)And they smugly expect support from the left because we have no place to go....
elmac
(4,642 posts)and they speak republican. Its time for new leadership, its time for President Sanders.
jalan48
(13,836 posts)Liberal on social issues, conservative on economic ones. Hillary didn't get those millions in speaking fees because of her oratorical skills.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I can think of a couple of Democratic Presidential candidates who did and never became President.
For instance, FDR said in his 1932 nomination address:
http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1932b.htm
I can't find a JFK quote on taxes from the 1960 campaign, but in 1963 (pretty clearly with an eye to 1964) JFK pushed through the largest tax cut in US history (over Republican objections about its effect on the deficit) arguing that "a rising tide lifts all boats"
http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/JFK-on-the-Economy-and-Taxes.aspx
Carter ran on "simplifying" taxes, and refused to release a tax plan during the campaign. Once in office, he said to Congress,
The typical taxpayer in all income classes up to $100,000 will pay lower taxes. But the bulk of relief has been targeted to low and middle-income taxpayers.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=31055
Clinton ran on cutting taxes for households making $80K or less (That's about $135K in current dollars) and raising them on households making $200K (that's $335K today) or more.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/31/us/the-1992-campaign-taxes-clinton-promises-to-protect-middle-class-on-taxes.html
JonLeibowitz
(6,282 posts)They run on individual programs, and society gets to determine if the benefit to the country is worth the tax hit.
Pundits like to corner politicians with questions like "will taxes be raised", when the answer is more complex. If I raise your taxes by $10 but cut $12 of your nondiscretionary expenses, you would probably think of that as money saved. Pundits disagree, and would like to focus on the $10.
draa
(975 posts)People are taking one part of his platform and using it to represent the whole. That's completely disingenuous.
If you add everything together, from a higher minimum wage, to the free tuition, to the pre-K childcare, to the health care plan, to the jobs program, and so on, it's a net plus for everyone. And there's numerous plans like that in his platform so picking one is useless without adding them all to the picture. Of course many people are short sighted so they simply ignore the whole.
salib
(2,116 posts)It is a real right-wing way of thinking that would associate that with lower taxes. It is almost dog whistle quality. i believe that what FDR was doing there was assuaging those fears that have been programmed into conservatives. Trying to nip it in the bud.
It does not mean he was running on lower taxes, but was reminding people that he would spend those high marginal tax rates efficiently. Which is reasonable.
Also, the argument that JFK "pushed through the largest tax cut in US history", didn't just about every president from Reagan on claim exactly that same thing?
Taxes are how one pays for things and is also how we equalize the inequalities in income and wealth distribution. These are positive things that must be done. Hiding from it or selectively picking quotes that vaguely hint at right-wing talking points to claim one cannot talk about a progressive tax policy is cleverly cynical, but quite counter-productive to our society.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)That's literally how the paragraph starts.
It does not mean he was running on lower taxes
But he was. He ran on lowering income taxes and repealing prohibition to raise revenue through excises on liquor. In the result, he wound up raising taxes (or rather Congress did right before his first term started), which leads to another point: we can raise taxes, we just can't run on it beforehand.
didn't just about every president from Reagan on claim exactly that same thing?
Sure; and with a constantly-growing economy it's nearly always true. I still think the 1963 tax cut was the largest in proportion to GDP at the time ever (I'll have to check to be sure).
Hiding from it or selectively picking quotes that vaguely hint at right-wing talking points
This should be easy to demonstrate, then: find me a quote from a successful Democratic Presidential candidate promising tax increases on incomes below the top 5%.
(You can successfully run on taxing very very rich people, like Clinton did).
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Hmm...that looks an awful lot like a Democrat running on raising taxes.
Also, Obama ran on letting the Bush tax cuts expire. That also looks an awful lot like a Democrat running on raising taxes.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I said you can run on raising them for very very rich people.
(OK, sorry, that was a post upthread, not the same post. Still.)
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Or are we going to pretend making more than ~90% of workers means you are not rich?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)The horror. The horror.
questionseverything
(9,645 posts)the difference is people would actually be getting healthcare for it
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Because that's the only way that would actually guarantee health care, and Sanders hasn't said that.
questionseverything
(9,645 posts)pay
shame we even have to say that now...when i was young every doc was there to help people not to just get rich
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)A few years back, I was at a Republican Congresswoman's Town Hall meeting, doing some oppo research for her opponent.
I managed to get a question in on raising or eliminating the SS cap. She told me point blank that there was no way Congress would approve removing the cap or even raising it. At the time they were making about $160,000 per year. She said that they would be raising their own taxes, and they weren't about to do that.
Lyndon Johnson once said that the American people don't mind paying taxes, as long as they feel that they're getting their moneys worth. Republicans, New Dems, DLCers, and Clintonites all have one thing in common. They try to gut programs to make them fail. Then rail against "Big Government".
As Bernie say, "It's time to make government work for the people again.
Thank you Clintons, for infiltrating our party with your rethug ways.
Let's just keep taxes at a level that Bush and Reagan set. Sure, that is so Democratic.
-end sarcasm-
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)cascadiance
(19,537 posts)such as payroll taxes and get more service for it in the end. You get rid of corporate taxation if people don't have to pay for health insurance premiums any more. Don't know how often that has to be said to be understood. But it keeps getting conveniently IGNORED by some, as if they feel that we can't take the money the insurance company are in effect taking from us, when average Americans don't have the advantages that people on Medicare already have just because of their lower age.
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)Will suffer the same fate as former democratic nominee Walter Mondale. He won one state, his home state of Minnesota. It's political suicide.