Conservative is a word Tea Party types, Sean Hannity and other talk show hosts use to describe themselves. In today’s world a conservative identity bolsters the self esteem of those who identify themselves that way. Talk show hosts make a living repeating conservative mantras while encouraging listeners to promote their own poverty. Conservatives and liberals both end up promoting socialism. Liberal rank and file support Democratic candidates who impoverish their supporters. Conservative rank and file support Republican candidates who impoverish their supporters. The rank and file are rewarded with high self esteem but get no political benefits.
Sean Hannity has memorized all of the arguments conservatives are expected to repeat. On the January 19 broadcast, he regurgitated the standard reasons not increasing taxes on the rich. That argument is that the rich already pay too much in taxes and the poor pay from nothing to very little. So, any tax increase on the rich is not going to increase tax revenue.
Hannity is either stupid or dishonest and it doesn’t matter much which it is. His listeners are mostly stupid or perhaps intellectually lazy.
First, the poor pay a huge tax burden. The tax burden of the poor is mostly not visible to the naked eye. Why think when you have memorized the answer you want? With these kind of things, what is actually happening, is never picked up on the radars of the willfully ignorant.
For anyone who is interested in thinking the following is the truth.
The rich, our upper 1% ,have the money and power to make government small, if small government is to their benefit. But, the rich prosper by rigging markets which is more profitable when government is large and growing. Every law that is passed, bolsters the income of the rich and government grows with each law that is passed. If government is to shrink in size it is necessarily to make government super expensive the those who make it grow for their own benefit. If government is expensive enough to the 1%, they will lobby to cut spending and reduce efforts to use government to rig markets. Government will never get smaller as long as the cost of using government as a tool is lower than the profit of using government as a tool. This a case of understanding incentives.
The poor actually pay a staggering tax burden. It just takes a little thought and reasoning to see how this is accomplished. First, FICA is a tax. Saying that it is not because it is flimsily defined as something else is does not change the fact that it is a tax. The portion paid by the employer gets past on to the employee also. Hardly a soul will take the time to understand how rigging markets so as to force the poor to buy products translates into taxation. The clearest example is ethanol being required in gasoline. Ethanol and corn producers write the check for the the taxes paid but consumers pay for the ethanol, which has no utility to society. Any poor person who buys gasoline indirectly pays a corporate tax. Even welfare mothers pay taxes indirectly by virtue of the rich using government to rig markets. Rigged markets are pervasive. The one that involves ethanol is just simple to explain.
Americans only suffer when markets get rigged. In third world countries, their citizens starve when the American 1% use government as a means of running up corn prices.
A few years back it was comical to point to sixties and seventies activist whom after four decades had not change one thought or opinion. That is impossible unless one completely stops thinking and rejects all new information.
In the thirty years since conservative talk radio started the entire political arena has changed. New incentives have emerged. When talk radio was beginning, the practice of central economic planning had not been normalized. Government as a tool was less developed than it is today. Today we have new information.
Euphemism Mountain is a Curbside Jimmy Favorite. It is about life as Americans insist it is.
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