According to Republicans and their media mouthpieces, President Barack Obama has declared a war on rich people.
· “[President Obama] is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.”--Larry Kudlow, CNBC, 2/27/09
· “Obama chose a time of recession to propose a massive increase in progressivity--a 10-year, trillion-dollar haul from the rich, already being punished by the stock market collapse and the housing market decline. [The plans are so radical,] there will not be enough wealthy people left to bleed.”--Michael Gerson (a former Bush speechwriter), The Washington Post, 3/5/09
They are calling it a “class war” (from Media Matters, 2/27/09).
· [MSNBC’s] Michelle Bernard said Barack Obama “was almost declaring class warfare” in his speech to Congress;
· CNBC’s Carlos Quintanilla said, “I don’t want to call it class warfare, although that’s what it may end up being in the end, this debate over wealth redistribution”.
· Politico ran an article headlined “Class warfare returns to D.C.”.
· MSNBC ran a segment asking: “Is there a war against the wealthy? Do we have a class war developing?”
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What has President Obama done to start a class war and throw these pundits into such a tizzy?
He has proposed to:
· Roll back the Bush tax cuts on families making more than $250,000 per year or single filers earning more than $200,000 per year.
· Raise taxes on the gas and oil companies that made record profits while Americans paid record gas prices.
· Eliminate subsidies paid to private insurers in Medicare and drug companies in Medicaid, and put the savings toward healthcare reform.
· Make the investor class pay the same tax rate as the working class.
In other words, President Obama is proposing to do exactly what he said he would do--if elected President.
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