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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 8/5/12

Hey, Sarah Palin! Some "Marxists" Here Want a Word With You

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I'll do better than that: I'll have some of history's most famous Republicans show you. Oh, Ms. Palin? I've got some "Marxists" here that would like to meet you.

Comrade Ike

Our first apparatchik is Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a son of Texas who rose to command the Allied forces in World War II before reaching the Presidency in 1952. How Marxist was this comrade? Eisenhower supported and signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which funded 41,000 miles of highway construction and imposed new taxes on fuel consumption to do it. At a total cost of $25 billion, it was the largest Federal project in history at the time.

Obama was right. When it comes to roads, "you didn't build that": Eisenhower did.

Can a President get any more Leninist than that? Actually, yes. As the Eisenhower Memorial website notes, "Dwight Eisenhower was the principal force behind the greatest single expansion of Social Security beneficiaries in the history of the program. He led the legislative drive to add over ten million Americans to the system."

Ooh. Sounds like a certain former Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force was building government dependency in America.

Eisenhower even dissed the God of Conservative Economics in the process. As Eisenhower's memorial website notes, "Those opposed to the initiative stressed their belief that retirement income was the responsibility of every individual and the federal government should not be involved." Here's how Eisenhower responded to these conservative objections when asked about them at a press conference:

"A strict application, let us say, of economic theory, at least as taught by Adam Smith, would be, 'Let these people take care of themselves; during their active life they are supposed to save enough to take care of themselves.' In this modern industry, dependent as we are on mass production, and so on, we create conditions where that is no longer possible for everybody. So the active part of the population has to take care of all the population, and if they haven't been able during the course of their active life to save up enough money, we have these systems."

What a Commie! Conservatives must have risen up in outrage at his actions, right? Wrong. The leading conservative of the day, Sen. Robert A. Taft, had already assured Eisenhower he supported the idea. We've always had conservatives -- but they haven't always been crazy.

Eisenhower also supported lowering the highest tax bracket -- from 92 percent for the wealthiest Americans all the way down to ... 91 percent How many of today's right-wingers would support an 91 percent top tax rate?

Eisenhower also kept taxes high for corporations, saying this in his 1954 State of the Union address: "Because of the present need for revenue the corporation income tax should be kept at the current rate of 52% for another year, and the excise taxes scheduled to be reduced on April first, including those on liquor, tobacco, gasoline and automobiles, should be continued at present rates."

Guess he learned that at a meeting of the Abilene Soviet.

Ike had no problem blocking a cut in corporate taxes, even when they were at 52 percent. The highest official rate is now 35 percent, but so many loopholes have been added to the system that the actual average rate paid in 2011 was 12.1 percent -- the lowest effective tax rate in 40 years. "Disparage private business" much, General Eisenhower?

If you want to call Warren and Obama "Marxists," Ms. Palin, you'll have to get past Ike's five stars to do it.

Quotations From Comrade Ike...

"In most communities it is illegal to cry 'fire' in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?"

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

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Host of 'The Breakdown,' Writer, and Senior Fellow, Campaign for America's Future

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