In a New York Times column titled, “The Angry Rich,” Paul Krugman writes about the growing vitriol among the rich directed toward President Obama’s efforts to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire and to levy tax increases to those who make more than $250,000 per year. Krugman says he’s not speaking directly about the Tea Party crowd (although I would argue there’s plenty of angry affluent Americans within that movement), but about Wall Street types earlier in Obama’s presidency (Here’s an excellent article) and today, more generally to others in upper echelons of the work force who simply want to hang on to their assets.
Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.
These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.
Yes, and with 14.9 million people unemployed in the United States at the moment, it’s hard to sympathize with their plight.
A letter-writer took issue with Krugman column, noting that
polls suggest that the affluent remain relatively supportive of Mr. Obama. A recent analysis of Gallup polls over the past year by the Web site RealClearPolitics.com found that Mr. Obama suffered his biggest drops in popularity among Americans making under $50,000 — while wealthier voters were more likely to continue their support.
But this writer seems to be referencing, “Wealthy Dems Stand By Obama,” which suggests that it’s only wealthy Democrats who continue to support Obama, not the affluent in general:
Obama has tested his upper class support more than any modern presidency. He’s continuously pledged to oppose tax hikes on everyone but the wealthy. That pledge is at the center of the current debate over extending the Bush tax cuts. The healthcare overhaul will increase wealthy voters’ tax burden. And financial reform was hardly celebrated by the investing class.
This is why The Wall Street Journal headlined a story last summer, “Democrats’ New Worry: Their Own Rich Voters.” But polls have continuously shown that Democrats have far more reason to worry about those who are anything but rich. This is partly because upper class Democrats are not voting on tax policy. If they were, they’d be Republicans.
True enough, and as it turns out, as Obama attempts to right the economy and replenish the labor force, mid-level wage earners, the one’s being hurt the most by the downturn, are actually the ones jumping ship the quickest. Obama’s approval rating among those making less than $50,000 per year has dropped 24 percentage points. And this makes sense.
While rich Democrats have the financial wherewithal to continue in their support for Obama through the storm, desperation is creeping in among others in the work force, and it’s only a minority of Democrat and most Republican politicians who are falling over themselves to gain support among the disillusioned proletariat on one end of the spectrum, and to continue coddling their rich interests on the other.
Or, as Krugman concluded:
You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.
And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.
But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.