My local Detroit suburban county newspaper the Macomb Daily carried an article by Bill Press writing for the Tribune Content Agency in the Daily's Dec 26th edition. According to the article Mr Press has his own radio show and is a CNN contributor.
His Marxist ideology is revealed in the title of his post: "A tax bill only millionaires could love." This is another version of the poor are poor because the rich are rich mantra. It was Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto that formulated the dogma of hatred of the rich to a modern, global movement.
But government promotion of hatred of the rich has been around in one form or another for centuries. In their book "Forty centuries of wage and price controls: how not to fight inflation" authors Robert Schuettinger and Eamon Butler report on ancient Greece:
In that misguided tradition Mr Press says about the GOP tax cuts:
Let's look at the first claim and please consider the implied meaning of the phrase "money you give the wealthiest Americans." This means that taking less in forced taxation from those who earned it is in fact, not taking less but rather is a gift from the government.
The premise here is that the money earned by the wealthy (and everyone else) actually belongs to the government. It's no different than a thug who robs you of $100 every week and decides to take only $80 dollars from now on. He declares that he is not taking less of your money but instead is making you a gift of his money.
The last part of that sentence "the more money "trickles down" to the middle class" is in my book a smear word designed to downplay any and all benefits to the middle class that may come from more freedom or less taxes or less regulations i.e. from a freer market. We are supposed to believe that only the government can provide non-trickle down benefits.
The concept "trickle down" is meant to imply a benefit that is next to worthless or irrelevant or trivial. But I can assure you that those thousands of workers that just got $1000 Christmas bonuses do not see them as negligible. Nor is it likely a family of four who are now getting a $1000 deduction for each child will regard a $2000 deduction for each child as trivial.
As to Press's second point that lower taxes don't increase investment or create new jobs. Well that is real hogwash. Those increases happened when Kennedy cut taxes, again when Reagan did it and it will happen again with Trump's cuts. To believe Mr Press you'd have to believe that the rich hide their money under mattresses making that money unavailable to the market.
If they just put their money in the bank, the bank then lends it out to promising prospects such as existing businesses wanting to expand or new startups with sound business plans. Even when the rich just invest in mutual funds, those funds buy stocks in companies that use that investment to expand or diversify or pay dividends to investors. Many middle class people invest in those funds. The notion that these activities don't benefit workers in any way is absurd on the face of it.
It's no secret that the MSM is in the back pocket of the Democrat Party and have been since FDR. It's the media's job to poo-poo everything republican, conservative, and individualist. Mr Press is just doing his anti-tax cut job.
Is there anything wrong with the bill? Yes. It's not accompanied by any serious spending cuts. That needs to be fixed.
His Marxist ideology is revealed in the title of his post: "A tax bill only millionaires could love." This is another version of the poor are poor because the rich are rich mantra. It was Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto that formulated the dogma of hatred of the rich to a modern, global movement.
But government promotion of hatred of the rich has been around in one form or another for centuries. In their book "Forty centuries of wage and price controls: how not to fight inflation" authors Robert Schuettinger and Eamon Butler report on ancient Greece:
"But Lysias was not the first and he was hardly the last politician to court popularity by promising the people lower prices in times of scarcity if only they put an occasional merchant to the sword. The Athenian government, in fact, went so far as to execute its own inspectors when their price-enforcing zeal flagged. Despite the high mortality rates for merchants and bureaucrats alike, the price of grain continued to rise when supplies were short and continued to fall when supply was plentiful." (page 16, book available online).In fact the authors go back to 2000 BC showing how businessmen were routinely scapegoated for economic failures like wage and price controls. Nothing much has changed since.
In that misguided tradition Mr Press says about the GOP tax cuts:
"The GOP plan's based on two assumptions, both of which are demonstrably wrong.
First, that the more money you give the wealthiest Americans, the more money "trickles down" to the middle class.
Second myth: that cutting corporate taxes will result in new investment, more jobs and higher wages, which again, is pure hogwash."
Let's look at the first claim and please consider the implied meaning of the phrase "money you give the wealthiest Americans." This means that taking less in forced taxation from those who earned it is in fact, not taking less but rather is a gift from the government.
The premise here is that the money earned by the wealthy (and everyone else) actually belongs to the government. It's no different than a thug who robs you of $100 every week and decides to take only $80 dollars from now on. He declares that he is not taking less of your money but instead is making you a gift of his money.
The last part of that sentence "the more money "trickles down" to the middle class" is in my book a smear word designed to downplay any and all benefits to the middle class that may come from more freedom or less taxes or less regulations i.e. from a freer market. We are supposed to believe that only the government can provide non-trickle down benefits.
The concept "trickle down" is meant to imply a benefit that is next to worthless or irrelevant or trivial. But I can assure you that those thousands of workers that just got $1000 Christmas bonuses do not see them as negligible. Nor is it likely a family of four who are now getting a $1000 deduction for each child will regard a $2000 deduction for each child as trivial.
As to Press's second point that lower taxes don't increase investment or create new jobs. Well that is real hogwash. Those increases happened when Kennedy cut taxes, again when Reagan did it and it will happen again with Trump's cuts. To believe Mr Press you'd have to believe that the rich hide their money under mattresses making that money unavailable to the market.
If they just put their money in the bank, the bank then lends it out to promising prospects such as existing businesses wanting to expand or new startups with sound business plans. Even when the rich just invest in mutual funds, those funds buy stocks in companies that use that investment to expand or diversify or pay dividends to investors. Many middle class people invest in those funds. The notion that these activities don't benefit workers in any way is absurd on the face of it.
It's no secret that the MSM is in the back pocket of the Democrat Party and have been since FDR. It's the media's job to poo-poo everything republican, conservative, and individualist. Mr Press is just doing his anti-tax cut job.
Is there anything wrong with the bill? Yes. It's not accompanied by any serious spending cuts. That needs to be fixed.
The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
