Publius Forum – by Warner Todd Huston
Traditionally, Republicans are supposed to be against the redistribution of wealth in the USA. But it seems times may be changing with at least three purportedly conservative leaders in Congress suddenly advocating for at least some income redistribution.
According to Fortune magazine three major congressional Republican leaders are floating plans that call for some sort of redistribution.
Republican Senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio have recently proposed what they are calling a pro-family and pro-growth tax reform plan that would refigure tax rates from the current seven brackets to only two; 15 and 35 percent.
The plan is supposed to eliminate what the Senators call the “parent tax penalty,” but Fortune’s Christopher Matthews (who is not the MSNBC clown) says what it really does is “redistribute wealth from the childless to parents.”
A second plan by a third major GOP leader also has an element of redistribution. Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the Party’s most recent vice presidential candidate, has also put forward a plan that calls for an expansion of an entitlement, the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Ominously for the conservative ideology, Matthews cites a Gallup poll that shows that Americans of all political stripes seem to have a growing appreciation of redistributionist policies.
“The range in the percentage saying wealth should be ‘more evenly distributed’ has been relatively narrow over time, from a low of 56% in 2000 to a high of 68% in April 2008,” Gallup wrotelast year.
But those clamoring for higher taxes on “the rich” have risen since Gallup began asking the question. “Responses to this question have varied within a fairly small range since Gallup began to ask it in 1998, from a low of 45% favoring tax-based redistribution that year to today’s 52%, which by one percentage point is the highest measured,” Gallup’s Frank Newport wrote.
This is just another example of how the Republican Party has lost its way. And with this talk of having either Jeb Bush or Mitt Loser Romney head the ticket in 2016, there is less reason than ever to be a Republican.
After all, if the GOP is just going to be Democrat Lite, why have the GOP at all? Why not just have everyone be a Democrat?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
http://www.publiusforum.com/2014/09/27/republican-leaders-pushing-wealth-redistribution/
Yeah, thanks a bunch. Trying to continue to sell “tax reform” of a tax that has been illegal from the get-go. Wages were never supposed to be included in the “income tax”, but as usual, give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile.
It doesn’t matter which political party is in power, they all have the same agenda: steal all of America’s resources from we the people, then do the same to the rest of the world.
Also remember that what a politician says in campaign mode means absolutely nothing!
They see a wave of illegal Latino voters coming over the border, and they THINK that raising the taxes will fund the massive increases of their welfare costs.
These politicians won’t stop with tax increases… they will soon be coming for our savings, pensions, 401Ks, and IRAs. They want it ALL!