Class Warfare

"There's class warfare all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." These are the words from Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in a 2006 New York Times op-ed by Ben Stein. And with these words, mr. Buffett started a war with the political right and right wing media that's lasted for years.

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If you search Google.com with the term "warren buffett class warfare", there are more than 800,000 search-results stretching over all the years between 2006 and 2020, with a lot of them from the year 2011; that's the year when Barack Obama proposed the Buffett Rule, a tax plan that would increase income taxes for millionaires and billionaires. Without going into too much detail, I don't think it was a good plan to begin with, partly because it wasn't a legally binding rule, just a guideline, and also because billionaires don't make their money by working, they don't have a regular income like you and I. The plan did get 51 votes though, but was stopped by a Republican filibuster. I believe an expansion of the wealth tax, as proposed by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, would be much more effective.

But that's not the point of this short post; rather I'd like to briefly mention how conservatives and the political right in general react every time it's even suggested to raise taxes on the ultra rich. In their eternal war against the deficit and for "fiscal responsibility", the Republicans have only one weapon, and that's to cut government spending. And it amazes me every time how many working class and poor people still vote for that party; these voters are against taxation of any kind and they genuinely believe that raising taxes on the rich is a violation of their God given right to keep all of their income. So they happily vote for the party that openly promote cuts to government spending, that is to cut the social safety net, and cut expenditures for maintaining the public infrastructure.

The billionaires and these voters alike claim that the rich already pay most of the tax dollars. And they're right about that, but they forget that these rich people also receive most of the GDP; the economy has grown exponentially, and so did the wealth of the rich, while working class people have been stuck on the same income since the 1970s. The only way to close this gap just a little bit, and to grant the federal government the tax income they need to close the deficit and do some much needed maintenance on the public infrastructure, as well as prevent the total destruction of what little social safety net is left after decades of neoliberalism, is to listen to the words of Warren Buffet, and force his class to make a fair contribution to the nation and its people. And no, that's not socialism, that's just fair. Please enjoy this 2011 video of a Daily Show segment with Jon Stewart. The caption explains very well what it's about:

It's not enough that the rich have grown REALLY rich but apparently Fox News thinks the poor should be taxed more than they already are. A very funny man explains it all in less than 12 minutes.

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