Wednesday, November 23, 2011

To Be a Great Nation... Again

When this country was great, we taxed the rich.

We need to be great again.



The issue is not left or right, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative.

And to underscore the point, let me point out that it was Democrats, not Republicans, that started this tax cut pandering.
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As Catherine Rampell notes on The New York Times Economix blog.

[O]nce upon a time, Republicans did indeed advocate leaving taxes alone, opposing tax cuts.

In the 1950s and 1960s, federal deficits were relatively small compared to the size of the economy, but even during those flush years, Republican leadership was reluctant to advocate tax cuts. In 1953, for example, Dwight Eisenhower said the country “cannot afford to reduce taxes, reduce income, until we have in sight a program of expenditures that shows that the factors of income and of outgo will be balanced.”

And when his successor, John F. Kennedy, proposed sharp tax cuts in 1963, the more conservative Republicans in Congress initially opposed them because the cuts would expand the deficit.

So let's cut the crap, and salute basic math and history.

This country was great once, and it was not great when we kicked our poor in the shins, or denigrated the sick and the unemployed. 

This country was great when we taxed the rich and invested in infrastructure.

We know how to be great, because we have been great before.  Let's do that. Again.
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1 comment:

Seahorse said...

George Carlin. Still dead, and still dead right.

Seahorse