Democrats don’t have a lot of talking points that resonate with a majority of Americans anymore. Oddly enough, ‘We’re going to trans your kids’ doesn’t quite ring the same to ordinary parents as it does to the blue hairs. People care about the environment, but going back to the Stone Age, when China and India kept polluting the planet on a massive scale, it seems a bit much. And while most people don’t want to make every abortion in every situation illegal, late-term and partial birth procedures seem a bit murdery for most anyone except the most committed Commies.
But one consistent talking point they do have, and have had for decades, is the contention that rich people should pay more taxes. The other issues, even if emotionally charged on the surface, are pretty easy to counter with facts and evidence. This one, however, is a different animal altogether, and it hearkens to the class warfare that’s been successfully employed by Marxists since the 19th century.
An important point many on our side miss is that just because the bad guys use an argument doesn’t mean it’s not valid on some level. For example, the working class had it pretty rough back then, and like it or not, we’ve largely got unions and government to thank for the posh working conditions we all enjoy today. Can they and have they gone too far? Of course, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t tackling real problems that needed addressing. My grandfather, who worked in a southwest Virginia coal mine, participated in many of the coal strikes of the mid-20th century, and died at 64, partially from the black lung disease he developed after decades of exposure, would doubtless agree if he were alive today.
Still, it’s one thing to force job creators to treat their workers with some baseline of fairness when it comes to pay, safety, and overall working conditions. It’s quite another to tax them at a level that not only makes it difficult to accumulate the generational wealth most of us dream of being able to obtain someday, but also stifles the kind of economic activity, from job creation to luxury consumption, that keeps the middle and lower classes functioning.
It’s hard to believe there was a time in the United States when the top marginal tax rate was 94%, but it’s true. Sure, there were deductions, and the threshold was pretty high to reach that level. Still, the fact that there was a point where taxes became virtually confiscatory had to have stifled economic activity among the super wealthy. After all, what’s the point of making a ton of money if the government is just going to take it from you?
In truth, tax rates for the richest Americans were absurdly high from the 30’s to the Reagan era, when they finally got slashed to something more similar to what we have today. But we still have a graduated system, with a standard deduction and a lower rate for initial tiers of income. And while the top 1% no longer suffer from confiscatory taxes, they also pay more than 40% of all income taxes collected.
The point I’m trying to make here is that there’s a balance. Many conservatives are conditioned to bristle at the slightest notion that the political Left might have a valid point on something, but we do that at our own peril. No, taxes on the rich shouldn’t be confiscatory, and yes, every income earner should in some way contribute to the tax system. Still, there’s also nothing wrong with taxing the people who can easily afford it at a higher rate than working-class Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.
In truth, the kind of class warfare that brought down the 19th-century robber barons is actually exacerbated by doing the opposite. If you want to see another Communist Revolution, go back to the kinds of policies that made the first one possible and see what happens. Sadly, jealousy is a human foible that will never be eradicated. We like to pick on the left for refusing to acknowledge human nature, but sometimes our side can do it too. Going too far in one direction on that pendulum is the mistake the Marxists made, but refusing to acknowledge it altogether is the kind of mistake that only gives them momentum.
This brings us to that key Democratic point of taxing the rich. We may not like it, but people like Bernie and AOC are striking a chord here that resonates with voters, particularly young ones, and we ignore it at our peril. When Republican senators actually balk at the prospect of allowing the top marginal rate to go from 37% back to the 39.6% it was before the original Trump tax cuts, ‘out of touch’ doesn’t begin to cover it. This doesn’t strike most Americans as confiscatory; it strikes them as fair.
The Republican Party, especially this Populist iteration, should NEVER, EVER again be the party of cutting taxes for the richest Americans. It’s tone deaf, dumb, and self-defeating. We can be balanced on this without going too far, and we can neuter the Dems simultaneously. Somehow, ‘We want to raise taxes on the rich more than they do’ doesn’t quite resonate the way ‘They want to cut taxes for their billionaire friends’ does. Perhaps it’s time to remove that play from their playbook and keep winning elections.