Liberal straw men, misrepresentations, and lies
- From: Jim E <nothere@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:33:29 -0600
Liberal straw men, misrepresentations, and lies
http://www.rossputin.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/20/liberal-straw-men-misrepresentations-and
Over on the Denver Post's "Gang of Four" blog where I contribute, I
regularly receive comments that range from the absurd to the ignorant
to the insulting (not that I care) from liberal commenters. Following
is a blog posting I wrote in response to two particular comments which
represented some of the "big lies" being espoused by the American left
today.
One of my favorite aspects of contributing to these pages is the
frothy exclamations by liberal commenters regarding everything from my
understanding of economics (or lack thereof), my writing skills (or
lack thereof) and, of course, their excellent understanding of
political economy (backed, no doubt, by a degree in comparative
literature or cell biology.)
While I have substantially cut back on the time and energy I spend
reading and responding to those comments (I find them to have as
little value as they claim to find in my writing, not surprisingly),
every once in a while a comment shows up that demands response.
There are two such comments in my immediately preceeding article about
Barack Obama's "overt socialism" which I find worth not only
responding to, but responding to in a full posting.
So here goes...
In response to "NearDenver" (who liked his/her comment so much it was
posted twice), who postulates that in order to be consistent I should
consider Ronald Reagan a socialist:
NearDenver,
It is something between a straw man and an outright lie to argue that
"paying the same tax rate as under Reagan" is what Obama wants to
cause to happen and is something that those of us who admire Reagan
should support.
Yes, the maximum rate under Reagan was higher than the current maximum
rate during much of his presidency. But it was MUCH higher before
Reagan, and it ended at 28%.
According to the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis,
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/tax-policy/library/ota81.pdf "The
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 was the biggest tax cut (and biggest
tax bill) of the 1968-2006 period."
Under Reagan, the top tax rate dropped from 70% to 50% (in 1981) to
38.5% (in 1987) to 28% in 1988 at the end of Reagan's term.
So yes, there was a rate higher than the current rate during Reagan's
term, but Reagan spent 8 years cutting taxes and left us with the
lowest top marginal tax rate since 1931.
Reagan couldn't wave a wand and magically cut taxes from 70% to 28%
all at once. He had a Congress to deal with. But the idea that he (or
those of us who think Reagan was a pretty good president) would
support raising rates to some rate that happened to exist at some
point before the end of his presidency is ludicrous.
This is not to say that Reagan's presidency was perfect by any
stretch. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
certainly had its faults, for example. But again, the claim that Obama
just wants to raise tax cuts to Reagan-era rates is somewhere between
intentionally misleading and an outright lie.
And second, in response to mkap, who (along with others) argues that I
don't know what "socialist" means:
mkap,
You are correct that dictionary definitions of socialism don't tend to
mention a highly "progressive" (i.e. punative of success) tax system.
But instead of going to a dictionary, let's go to the man behind the
curtain, the man whose views so many American liberals unknowingly put
forward because they have no understanding of the history of political
economy. And that man is Karl Marx.
Marx saw socialism as an intermediate stage between capitalism and
communism.
As part of that transition plan, as written in the Communist
Manifesto, is "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
So, if you want to tell me that I'm wrong for calling Obama's "Spread
the Wealth" policy socialist, I'll agree as long as you'll agree to
call it communist.
---------
In 2006, the Cato Institute awarded The Milton Friedman Prize for
advancing Liberty to Mart Laar, the former president of Estonia. His
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/laar-05-18-06.ram acceptance speech is
truly remarkable, though you have to listen through a fairly heavy
accent. (Note: the video requires RealPlayer.) There are a couple of
great lines in the speech:
"Ronald Reagan was once asked what is the difference between a Marxist
and an anti-marxist. (He answered) a Marxist is who have read the
books of Karl Marx and an anti-marxist is who has understood them."
"I'm so sorry looking on the western world to see this Marxist
thinking so developed, still. Because progressive taxation is the
grand idea of Karl Marx.
My friendly and not-so-friendly liberal commenters spend a lot of time
assailing me and even assailing the Denver Post for having the
temerity to allow a capitalist write on these pages. But at the end of
the day, they never refute my arguments with facts, only with
erroneous sound bites they must gather from MSNBC and The Nation.
Sadly, these commenters prove that Bryan Caplan is right:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/06/caplan_on_the_m.html
"democracies work well in giving voters what they want but
unfortunately, what voters want isn't particularly wise, especially
when it comes to economic policy."
.
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