There’s been a lot of charges thrown around this election cycle, perhaps one of the stupidest being that Obama’s tax policies are socialist. The truth is, Obama’s tax plan does increase the amount of taxes that the top 1% of earners pay. It also heavily reduces taxes on the middle class, and doesn’t put us further into debt like McCain’s. You can see for yourself here.
However, lets not forget that from 1946 to 1963, the top 1% of earners paid over 90% of their income in taxes. That’s right, during the entire era of McCarthyism, when the red scare was at its highest, we still taxed our top earners far higher than we do now. A progressive tax system isn’t socialism, and it certainly isn’t anything new. “Socialist” is just another one of those loaded buzzwords that politicians use to try and denigrate their opponents with, similar to how “communist” was used during the cold war. Slandering Obama’s tax plan as socialist is just one of the many tricks that the Republicans use to convince the American people not to support tax policies that would overwhelmingly benefit them. Don’t worry, I’ll get around to debunking the other ones sooner than later.
Update: I just wanted to add a quote from John McCain on the senate floor in 2001, after he voted against the Bush tax cuts: “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.”
