There’s talk in Republican circles these days about the need to save money by cutting funding for food stamps. One in seven Americans, and by some estimates am even greater percentage of children, now depend on these stamps to supplement their diets. But (and here we come to present day Republican logic) some people who don’t really need this help may be getting it. So, this thinking runs, cut overall funding for the program.
And then there’s the same logic applied to unemployment insurance. Some recipients of extended benefits, present day Republicans postulate, really don’t want to work. They prefer staying at home and collecting unemployment benefits instead, even though these benefits are far less than they could earn of they were working at the kind of jobs that generated the benefits in the first place.
And then there’s also the same logic expounded by Republicans when it comes to voting. Their theory here is that some people (i.e. poor and elderly ones who would probably vote Democratic) don’t really qualify to vote. So they impose proof rules that have the real world have the effect of disenfranchising a lot of the poor and elderly.
Does the utter absurdity, callousness and indeed the cruelty of this logic bother me? Not any more. Because I realize that all we need do to solve some of this country’s biggest fiscal problems is to apply this same logic on the tax front.
Why don’t Republicans want to tax the rich? Because, they say, these people are “jobs creators.” Except most probably aren’t, And a number are actually and demonstrably job destroyers. But those facts aside (facts don’t matter with Republican present day logic) some rich are not jobs creators.
So if some rich are not jobs creators, then all rich people should be taxed more. That’s the Republican logic with food stamps, voting, unemployment insurance. Surely it should be applied on the tax front as well.
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