President Joseph Biden, courtesy of the White House site
Reprinted from The Washington Post by Greg Sargent on April 27, 2021.
“Republicans,” writes Greg Sargent in The Washington Post, “have settled on an attack against President Biden’s jobs plans: Raising taxes on ultra-rich Americans constitutes socialism.
“The most buffoonish expression of this yet comes courtesy of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who said Sunday on ABC News that raising the capital gains tax, of all things, is ‘socialism’ because it constitutes ‘redistribution of income.’
“But this absurdity is actually useful. It points to a deeper intellectual scam employed by opponents of higher taxes, one that should be exposed as the debate over Biden’s plans gets underway.
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“It’s the idea that higher taxes represent a departure from a purportedly natural baseline of free-market capitalism that is getting distorted by those higher taxes in a way that offends pristine free-market principles. …
“Just over 100 days into his presidency Joe Biden is showing that he is one of the most pro-union presidents in American history,” writes Steven Greenhouse in The Guardian, “declaring the ‘unions built the middle class’ in his address to a joint […]
President Biden on Wednesday called for the passage of the PRO Act and for a $15 federal minimum wage during his first address before a joint session of Congress. The PRO Act, a sweeping pro-union bill, passed the House in March. […]
“Some of the changes are obvious,” writes Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic, “compared with the economic strategies of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Joe Biden is proposing more new spending and more new taxes than […]
