Posted by
Gamecock on Saturday, March 17, 2007 10:06:35 AM
Dems' class warfare rotten
A don't-[over]tax-the-rich Republican was once a loyal Democrat
MIKE DEVINE
Special to the Observer
"They ought to pay more taxes."
Not one day has passed in my lifetime when I couldn't elicit the above statement from most Democrats with respect to "the rich."
No matter how "rich" is defined and no matter the tax rate being assessed at any particular time; that they "ought" to pay more best defines what the Democratic Party stands for. Despite our booming economy and shrinking federal budget deficit, Charlotte's own Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., and most of his Democratic colleagues in D.C. are working hard to get taxes raised as fast as they can.
Seduced young
Liberals claim to care more about the poor and define caring more as being in favor of having the "lucky" well-to-do pay more taxes so the government can more equally distribute the wealth to the losers of life's lottery.As a young Democratic activist, I was seduced by their siren song of moral superiority. But I also saw the effect of high tax policies in the 1970s on America's prosperity, especially lower-income Americans. Inflation reduced their wealth and made home ownership impossible.
Then, this Democratic activist got a formal college economics and real-world Reagan education, despite my party's membership requirement that I loathe The Gipper. I grudgingly came to love his policies and the man.
You see, Ronald Reagan lowered taxes on the rich and everyone else. The rest is world economic history. We still live in a Reagan-inaugurated recovery (only slightly interrupted twice for short periods) in which -- for minorities and everyone -- the American Dream-defining home ownership is at an all-time high.
My former party continued to advocate high taxes in spite of the evidence. Donkeys are stubborn.
Elephants never forget. My memory brain cells function. I became an elephant.
The evidence is in
President Reagan, under siege for his heartless Scrooge policies in 1982 by the Democrats, answered their class warfare attacks:
"Now, where do some of these attacks originate? They're coming from the very people whose past policies, all done in the name of compassion, brought us the current recession. Their policies drove up inflation and interest rates, and their policies stifled incentive, creativity, and halted the movement of the poor up the economic ladder. Some of their criticism is perfectly sincere ... .
"Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes -- one rich, one poor -- both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?"
Twenty-five years later, the evidence is in.
Given the history of economic growth and increased tax revenues from lower tax rates, first from JFK and then from Reagan through George W. Bush, one is hard-pressed to conclude that nothing other than pure, unadulterated envy motivates liberals' preference for higher taxes.
That Mel Watt's party rarely meets a tax hike it doesn't love, despite the evidence that tax increases hurt the poor they purport to care so much about, forces one to explore other possible motives.
Liberals appear to care more about being seen as having a caring heart for the downtrodden than having the downtrodden cease to be downtrodden.
But a verse in the book of Proverbs suggests that the liberals have a much deeper problem: "A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones."
I left the party in 2001 due in no small part to this rottenness. I could no longer abide the envy-inspired class warfare policies of liberals that slandered the low-tax conservative policies that result in more employed Americans sheltered in homes they own.
My conclusion
This middle-class son of a railroad carman was cured of class envy when I practiced law with the son of a well-to-do doctor in my hometown. Watching that rich son work harder than me as he struggled with health problems healed my bones and opened my heart to all of God's children, including the rich.
Envy-free, I was left with irrefutable evidence of which policies worked best to allow Americans to pursue and achieve happiness. Given that evidence, I came to a conclusion.
They ought to pay less in taxes.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
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