This is probably to be expected- Roll Call, as the self-proclaimed "source for news on Capitol Hill"- is going to publish opinion pieces that reflect a viewpoint diametrically opposite from the way The Kos thinks- but I couldn't help feeling that this piece combines the exquisite type of 'reality that makes you feel better as a Republican', to paraphrase something famously heard on Fox News, with the bitter clinging to the fantasy of a Democratic media complex. It's called Public Support of Tax Increase Is a Myth and does it's own good job of mythmaking in the span of a few paragraphs.
The first paragraph starts off with the odd assertion that the need for increased government revenue in an era of historically low government 'take' has created an echo chamber of 'groupthink':
Myths are perpetuated in Washington, with conventional wisdom created by one person and bouncing off hundreds more in a self-reassuring circle of groupthink
That 'one person', I presume, is the socialist redistributor President that the right abhors. Really? These characters, the authors, are so immersed in top-down politics that they REALLY believe this whole 'we're going to try to increase the top marginal rate a
slight bone crushing 4 percent' was cooked up in the current White House, new in American history
The following graph is the typical right wing tell: The vast left wing conspiracy is burying the truth as known and believed by real Americans:
When the Democratic Party and the fourth branch of government, the mainstream media, unite on an issue, the result is a powerful megaphone of misrepresentation. During the present fiscal cliff negotiations, the most egregious myth perpetrated by the Democratic media complex is that the public supports raising taxes on the successful.
So, what is the evidence, then, that the public doesn't support raising taxes in this hour of desperate need? And on 'the successful', at that? This gem of survey data:
In a survey conducted by The Hill in February, 61 percent of likely voters said the top tax rate should be 25 percent or less, a rate that is substantially lower than the present top rate, demonstrating majority support for lowering taxes below what they are today. Fully 88 percent said the top rate should be at the current 35 percent, or less. Only 4 percent supported a top tax rate of 40 percent, which is closest to the proposal of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats to increase the top rate to 39.6 percent.
Without any snark comment about the wisdom of 'likely' voters (a term I'll forever love after the recent election), I find this an excellent representation of both the lack of public knowledge about taxes and the virtues of asking semi open-ended questions. First, most people simply don't know their tax rate. They have no idea. Most people don't know both of their senators, or the name of the VP, and most people overpay their taxes purposely during the year in an interest-losing scheme which helps them get a bigger tax refund in April. So people aren't exactly walking Tax Policy Centers when it comes to understanding tax rates and implications.
Related to this, is that 25%, the roundish number that the authors focus upon as the majority's preferred top rate, is obviously something that someone, who didn't understand taxes and the cost of implementing the popular programs voters have clamored for, would pick out of thin air as sounding 'right'. It SOUNDS good. It's just not enough, as we know today after a decade of insufficient government income and enormous corporate income.
So why is a majority of the public calling for higher taxes, while at the same time believing the top rate should be lower than it is today?
The answer is that today a majority of the public simply does not know that successful individuals and small businesses are already paying a very progressive tax rate of 35 percent — higher than what the public supports....
If the public knew that Democrats are trying to increase the top tax rate to a higher rate that 96 percent of the public believes is unfair, they would surely be in opposition to it and join the fight to bring fairer, lower tax rates not only as the overhyped fiscal cliff is debated but also beyond.
Nice sleight of hand. If you frame your argument such that the public supports x% taxes according to a survey, and then it appears that indeed there is another survey that says perhaps said public has had a change of heart ( given the fact that Republicans have screamed that we cannot afford to pay for popular programs) ignore the public's more nuanced current view and fall back on the low tax philosophy that is their only calling card.
The authors of this piece don't, I think actually believe their finishing paragraph, given the billions spent bludgeoning us with ads extolling Republican tax orthodoxy in the last election
A better, brighter vision for the future is allowing individuals and small businesses to keep more of their income. That’s what’s fair, and also what creates more jobs, more prosperity and more opportunity for all. The public believes in this vision, not the Democratic one. It’s well past time to engage them and win the argument.
Yep, the old "we didn't explain our position to anybody" argument. It's something that only wingers who thought this wasn't just a 'center-right' country but a hard-right country could believe.
Fairness, jobs, prosperity, opportunity. I, for one, am glad those words seem so out of place in a winger's editorial but so at home in a place like Daily Kos.