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Politics, Taxes and Language
Mar. 10th, 2009 11:05 amThis Modern World at Salon, may require dealing with an ad nails the modern Old Greed Party (GOP)......
I don't know why many pundits call Rush Limbaugh conservative. He doesn't believe in minimal government intervention, except for his own pet cause of denying welfare - he frames the right to choose in terms of the government forcing women to have abortions, which the government does not do. He doesn't believe in limited government unless Democrats are running things - he didn't make a peep about spending or fraud or the loss of over US$9 billion in cash in Iraq. The guy's a right-winger with no interest in bipartisanship or reason. Call him that. "Right-wing commentator (/blowhard/asshole/hypocrite) Rush Limbaugh" - see, that wasn't so hard.
During one of my few moments of relative peace recently I was thinking about how the right-wing has changed, manipulated and outright abused language, seeking to remake it to make it favorable to their causes. This is how the inheritance tax on wealthy estates became the 'death tax'. You know, it's time for a bit of honest language on taxes. We have income tax on earned income, and "capital gains" tax for unearned income. The rate for unearned income is much lower than it is for earned income. Earned income currently, at its highest, has a rate of 35%; unearned income has a rate, at its highest, of 15%. President Obama is proposing raising these taxes to 39.6% (at the top tier) for earned income and 20% for unearned income.
Point is, it is time to call the capital gains tax what it really is: the unearned income tax. I'm not at this time calling for any other change - just call it what it is. I don't have the energy for a clarion call, so if you do this when talking politics I will be appreciative.
I don't know why many pundits call Rush Limbaugh conservative. He doesn't believe in minimal government intervention, except for his own pet cause of denying welfare - he frames the right to choose in terms of the government forcing women to have abortions, which the government does not do. He doesn't believe in limited government unless Democrats are running things - he didn't make a peep about spending or fraud or the loss of over US$9 billion in cash in Iraq. The guy's a right-winger with no interest in bipartisanship or reason. Call him that. "Right-wing commentator (/blowhard/asshole/hypocrite) Rush Limbaugh" - see, that wasn't so hard.
During one of my few moments of relative peace recently I was thinking about how the right-wing has changed, manipulated and outright abused language, seeking to remake it to make it favorable to their causes. This is how the inheritance tax on wealthy estates became the 'death tax'. You know, it's time for a bit of honest language on taxes. We have income tax on earned income, and "capital gains" tax for unearned income. The rate for unearned income is much lower than it is for earned income. Earned income currently, at its highest, has a rate of 35%; unearned income has a rate, at its highest, of 15%. President Obama is proposing raising these taxes to 39.6% (at the top tier) for earned income and 20% for unearned income.
Point is, it is time to call the capital gains tax what it really is: the unearned income tax. I'm not at this time calling for any other change - just call it what it is. I don't have the energy for a clarion call, so if you do this when talking politics I will be appreciative.
