The Class War Has Begun

[DonViejo]

Obama is waging it against the rich. The Republicans are waging it against the poor.

By Matthew Yglesias|Posted Wednesday, April 10, 2013, at 3:33 PM

President Obama’s much delayed fiscal year 2014 budget is another salvo in D.C.’s endless war over taxes. Obama embraces both reductions in Medicare payments and a controversial cost-of-living formula to reduce Social Security benefits while demanding higher revenues. Republicans once again refuse to consider even a small amount of additional tax revenue as their side of a bargain.

But this superficial conflict about taxes hides a much more fundamental dispute about class warfare. The White House wants to substantially redistribute income downward, while the GOP wants to do just the reverse.

On both the tax and the spending side, this fight is really about who gets the money. Democrats want to pare back tax breaks for high-income individuals in order to preserve social services, while expanding a handful of tax credits aimed at the working poor. The GOP concept, by contrast, is to shelter tax incentives for savings and investment from any closure—a move that primarily benefits more prosperous households. The tax loopholes Republicans would close would likely result in higher taxes on many middle-class families in order to finance a big cut in the top marginal-income tax rate—a cut that only helps the wealthy.

On spending, a similar divergence emerges. The Republican budget savages programs for the poor. Medicaid, SNAP, Pell Grants, and other programs serving low-income households are singled out for cuts that are disproportionately large relative to the overall scope of spending cuts.

more:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/04/obama_s_2014_budget_obama_wants_to_soak_the_rich_to_help_the_poor_republicans.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content

[tokenlib]

1. We've had class warfare for thirty years..

..I'm STILL waiting for the counter-offensive.