Two Campaigns' Worth of "Two Americas"
John Edwards, who recently dismissed the War on Terror as a “bumper sticker,” is sealing his political doom by resurrecting the dumbest political bumper sticker in recent memory:
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is bemoaning the growing divide between rich and poor as he returns to the signature theme of “Two Americas” from his unsuccessful 2004 White House bid.
…
“Our tax system has been rewritten by George Bush to favor the wealthy and shift the burden to working families. That is simply wrong,” Edwards said, according to text provided by his campaign. “There are still Two Americas.”
This is, of course, utter nonsense. It is the worst kind of politician blather.
Some hasty stitches:
–The concept of “Two Americas” is simply absurd as a question of empirical fact. There is no clean and crisp divide between the “rich” and the “poor.” There are a small number of Bill Gates, Scottie Pippens and Powerball winners at one end of the income spectrum, a small number of crack whores and trailer trash at the other end, and about 300 million Americans in between. The middle class swamps, by orders of magnitude, the caricatures of Edwards’ “Two Americas.”
–Our federal income tax system already exempts the lower half of the population by income. They pay nothing. Many actually receive money via the Earned Income Tax Credit. So the question becomes: Just how much more progressive than “the rich pay almost all and the poor pay nothing” would — or could — Edwards make the tax code?
–Anyone who claims to champion the working poor must, by definition, advocate Social Security (and Medicare) reform. Not merely tweaking the dials with even more payroll taxes or even more raises in the retirement age — but real reform that relieves the oppressive 15.3% payroll tax burden on the very people Edwards claims to commiserate with.
–Similarly, the single greatest income equalizer in America (at least across generations) is public education. Or, more correctly, “was” public education. Who for the most part has controlled America’s failing inner city public schools for the past few decades — Democrats or Republicans? Anyone who wants to alleviate income equality should start, not with “the rich,” but with the teacher unions and educrats who have strangled public education for over a generation. Think Edwards will pick such a fight with them?
–Finally, it demands repeating: It is still soon enough after 9/11 that the very phrase “Two Americas” is downright despicable.
“Two Americas” is something I expect — and get ad nauseum — from radical social conservatives — in the form of “Homosexual America versus ‘Normal’ America.” We don’t need such un-American divisiveness from radical class-warrior liberals too.
Similar Posts:
- Happy Tax Day — Part Three
- Edwards, Damned Edwards, and Statistics
- Why Does John Edwards Hate Democrats?
- A Tale of Two Tax Reports
- Does Progressive Taxation Really Help the Poor?
Filed under: Uncategorized
It is still soon enough after 9/11 that the very phrase "Two Americas" is downright despicable.
Why? What on Earth do the two have to do with one another?
I would have thought this self-apparent:
When Edwards describes "Two Americas," he clearly intends it as a clarion call for class warfare — "us versus them."
We already have enough "thems" — real and imagined. We don't need to turn Americans — even the rich — into another "them" to wage war on.
I repeat: It is despicable in the (one and only) post-9/11 America.
Scottie Pippen and Powerball winners are not in the same class as Bill Gates. Hell, even your nemesis Bloomberg is not in the same income class as Bill Gates.
[Kip replies: The more important observation is that Edwards and his class warrior acolytes probably can't discern the difference anyway.]
Well, I would bet Edwards can discern the relative difference between Gates' wealth and Pippens' wealth, but would be unwilling to do so, because to do so would imply a nuance at odds with the imperatives of political rhetoric. Say what you want about Edwards (or any politician) but they are well aware of the impact of their words (at most points) and so there is often a vast difference between the words they utter and what they are capable of discerning.
They are very much like lawyers in that regard.
I don't like Edwards, but to be fair to him, I think the "two Americas" includes more of what you are calling the middle. He doesn't think it's just trailor trash and whatnot, he probably includes people with a lot of debt or struggling to pay a mortgage.
Jeff
Hello Kip,
No, I don't think it self-apparent that after 9/11 we should stop focusing on class warfare. I completely agree with Aaron on that point.
If there is not an opposition of basic interests between wealthier and less wealthy people, the appeal to class war is wrong whether or not the World Trade Center is still standing. If on the other hand there is such an opposition, you have invoked 9/11 in much the same way that George W. Bush has been accused of done: namely, appealing to a foreign foe to paper over real differences in American society and mask the dominance of one class by another.
I might further add many of your blog posts can very easily be understood as positing certain kinds of conflicts (if not the precise ones that John Edwards has in mind): those who favor vs. those who oppose gay rights, politicians vs. businesses and others who want to exercise various freedoms, those who enjoy monopolistic privileges fostered by literal government monopolies or regulations vs. competitors and consumers and those who support lawmaking by elected lawmakers vs. those who support lawmaking by judges.
In fact, in this very post you posit conflicts: homosexuals (and their supporters) vs. "radical social conservatives," teachers' unions and educational officials vs. (by implication) parents, students and taxpayers at large and people with higher incomes who pay less of a percentage of their income for FICA vs. people with lower incomes who pay a higher percentage.
This blog itself, of course, entirely post-dates 9/11.
Cheers,
Jeff Deutsch
[Kip replies: There is a fundamental difference between:
(a) those who call for intra-society warfare, whether they are radical liberals such as Edwards or radical conservatives such as, say, James Dobson, and
(b) those of us who damn them.
Those who call for peace are not "at war" with those who call for war.
This is not a difficult concept, no matter how much you try to obfuscate it.]