Not Soak the Rich, Just a Little Sprinkle

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Not Soak the Rich, Just a Little Sprinkle
President Obama’s new federal budget plan won’t end plutocracy in America. But this second Obama budget, if adopted, might actually inconvenience it.

By Sam Pizzigati


The Heritage Foundation, the right wing’s most lavishly funded think tank, doesn’t much like the federal budget plan the Obama White House released last week. Heritage hired guns are blasting the Obama blueprint for fiscal 2011 as perhaps the “most irresponsible budget ever.”

What has the wealthy and their biggest fans so upset? Certainly not the deficit, the cause for concern they profess so earnestly.

Growing budget deficits, as economist Polly Cleveland pointed out last week, can actually work to rich people’s advantage, in part because the rich hold so much of the government’s debt. The interest payments the rich collect on that debt “tips” America’s top-heavy distribution of wealth even more their way.

The rich can live — quite well — with budget deficits. But taxes drive them crazy, and President Obama’s second budget is proposing, over the next decade, $970 billion in new taxes on America’s most affluent.

But do these tax hikes, as critics charge, “soak the rich”? Not hardly. Obama’s budget, if adopted, will inconvenience the rich, not soak them. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/not-soak-the-rich-just-a-little-sprinkle/

[JackintheGreen]

1. I was particularly appalled by this part:

"Current law also lets corporate execs who get nailed cheating consumers deduct off their taxes the punitive damages courts order them to pay. How convenient. The new White House budget would make executives and their companies much more likely to eat these damages, on their own."

Seriously?!? For some reason the wealthy in this country remind me of the petty kings along the Rhine of yore, extending enormous chains across the river and barring passage to all until exorbitant tolls were paid.

Also, I just wanted an excuse to write "of yore."

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I was much enamored of yore

second reason for this post.