Tim Dickinson tracks the GOP's frenzied pursuit of tax cuts for the very rich:
It's difficult to imagine today, but taxing the rich wasn't always a major flash point of American political life. From the end of World War II to the eve of the Reagan administration, the parties fought over social spending – Democrats pushing for more, Republicans demanding less. But once the budget was fixed, both parties saw taxes as an otherwise uninteresting mechanism to raise the money required to pay the bills. Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford each fought for higher taxes, while the biggest tax cut was secured by John F. Kennedy, whose across-the-board tax reductions were actually opposed by the majority of Republicans in the House. The distribution of the tax burden wasn't really up for debate: Even after the Kennedy cuts, the top tax rate stood at 70 percent – double its current level. Steeply progressive taxation paid for the postwar investments in infrastructure, science and education that enabled the average American family to get ahead.
All this is true. In today's degenerate GOP, Eisenhower would be a communist, as, indeed, the John Birch Society insisted he was at the time. But I don't think you need to get into the argument about redistribution to note simply that the US has a massive debt that needs to be tackled urgently, and that obviously revenues – at half century lows – must be part of that mix. Taking taxes back up to where they were under Clinton, who presided over a boom, solely to tackle the debt crisis is such a no-brainer that only the current GOP would oppose it. Especially since in return, the Dems would have to cut entitlements by a serious amount.
Americans, by the way, see this. They back tax hikes on the successful and wealthy by 2 – 1 as a way to reduce debt. But as America moves "left" back to Clintonism, the Republicans are moving way to the right of Reagan. At some point, something will have to give. I only hope it isn't after we have become Greece.
The Dish 
