By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
March 9, 2001
It was exactly one year ago today, on March 9, 2000, that Governor George W. Bush flew into a small airport in Provo, Utah to campaign for literally a few minutes in the state. It was when listening to his speech, which was only a few minutes in length, that I realized for the first time what a huge difference there was between the George W.'s political philosophy and that of Al Gore's. And, when I wrote about it I was warned that even suggesting such a thing would marginalize me as a "responsible" journalist.
What I wrote was:
:"Bush's Plan seems to gradually wean the public away from socialism, while carefully preserving at least some socialistic props such as Social Security and Medicare for fearful seniors. While we seniors are stuck with a flawed system, hopefully our children and grandchildren can look forward to something better for their old age. Perhaps the younger generation can create a system which nurtures the expansion of the property owners or bourgeois of America - i.e. the home owners, small business, car, cell telephone, TV, computer and VCR owners, farmers, ranchers and entrepreneurs of the Information Age and allows them to regain the personal freedom which we failed to protect and defend for their generation."To do that, our children and grandchildren need to support the true reformers in the Republican Party and reject the socialism and the fears of the depression and war years that made the Democrats' socialism look so attractive to their parents and grandparents."
Fifty-five members of the U.S. Congress are members of the Democratic Socialists of America's "Progressive Caucus." And, the debate over the Bush Tax cut yesterday was led by a members or former members of that Caucus, one of whom was Rep. Charles Rangel. As I listened to the class war comments by the Democrats I got out my list of the members of the Progressive Caucus. Its chairman this year is Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and its vice chair is Barbara Lee (D-GA). Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Major Owens (D-NY) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) are its officers this year.
The Democrats yesterday sounded as if they had all just brushed up on the arguments put forth by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the Communist Manifesto in which they laid the ground rules for the class warfare that the Democrats are, and have been, waging. "Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -bourgeoisie and proletariat."
The Democratic Socialists of America, on their This view of society remains the view of many liberals. Bill Gates, even if he did start his financial empire in modest circumstances, is the "bourgeoisie" or, as we now say in America "the rich" or the "capitalists." The proletariat, according to Marx and Engels, is "the modern working class," which is best expressed today in the labor unions,. Marx and Engels viewed these two groups as the "oppressing and oppressed classes" and inevitably at war with one another.
Into the middle of the current war of words between what the Democrats view as a battle between the "rich" and the "poor" or "middle-class," steps George W. Bush who believes they don't have to be at war forever. And, I think President Bush has a very good idea. The problem in today's current outbreak of class warfare in Congress is trying to figure out who are the "bourgeoisie" and who are the "proletariat."
Taking myself as an example, frankly, I can't figure out which side Karl Marx would put me on. The bourgeoisie, he wrote, is "the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor." Since I own my own computer and printer, for example, that would seem to put me in the bourgeoisie class. However, they describe the 'proletariat' as "the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live."
I could also fit into that class, since, like most people, what I live on is by selling my labor or the results of my labor, the research and the writing that I do. As a member of the working class I would be expected by Karl Marx and by the members of the Democratic Socialists of America, to be eternally antagonistic towards a capitalist like Bill Gates. Only, if it weren't for Bill Gates, I wouldn't have my own computer, the software to use it and be able to make my living in the manner that I do. So, why should I be antagonistic towards Bill Gates?
He is often cited as an example of how wrong the Bush Tax Cut plan is. Billionaire Bill Gates would actually get a tax cut under the Bush Plan and that is contrary to everything Karl Marx taught. Redistributing the means of production by forcing the capitalists to pay most of their income to the government is, of course, a key provision of socialism. Of course, we find that Bill Gates, when left with a billion dollars here or there manages to find ways to spend it. He and his wife spent $100 million in 1998 setting up a program to speed up the development of new vaccines, for example.
In 1964, when the proposed Kennedy Tax Cut was quickly pushed through Congress by Lyndon Johnson the taxes paid ranged from 20-91 percent. A 91% tax on upper income earners is a wealth re-distribution scheme. The Kennedy Tax Cut proposal slashed those percentages to 16-77 percent in 1964 and 14-70 percent in 1965. Corporate taxes were cut from 52 percent to 48 per cent.
And what were the results of those cuts? The amount of taxes collected by the Federal Government sharply increased. In one year the Corporation Income taxes collected rose 8.8%, the individual Income Taxes collected rose 3%, the employment taxes collected rose (from the sharp rise in employment) 15.2%, Estate and Gift taxes collected rose 10.5% and excise taxes collected rose 4.0%
Silvia Porter, a popular financial analyst of the 1960s, wrote of the results of the tax cut in the World Book Encyclopedia 1965 Year Book:
"The tax cut was of critical importance. Beginning in March, it added some $800,000,000 a month in take-home pay. It cut corporation tax rates. It provided a variety of special new tax breaks for individuals and businessmen. Consumers responded by sharply boosting their spending and saving and by speeding repayment of their debts. Businessmen responded to the new tax reductions by substantially increasing their spending on plants and equipment.
"At the same time, President Johnson openly wooed businessmen by emphasizing his understanding of the role adequate profits play in a prosperous economy. He also restrained federal government spending." The debate we watched in Congress yesterday has nothing to do with the Democrats' concern for the economy. It has to do with their vision of class conflict. This is why we have been hearing the Clinton mantra about "tax breaks for the wealthy" for the last eight years. In 1992, Clinton campaigned on a promise to introduce a "middle-class tax cut." Instead, in 1993 he promptly introduced the largest tax increase in American history. Every effort to modify that increase was dubbed a "tax break for the wealthy" which was promptly adopted as a much-repeated TV sound byte and used for eight years.
It was that tax increase that helped get the first Republican Congress in 43 years elected in 1994. By October 27th, 1995, Sen. Tom Daschle was saying on the floor of the Senate in response to a Contract with America bill: "This bill represents the biggest transfer of income from the lower and middle income levels to the wealthy that we have ever seen. In one fell swoop, it destroys 30 years of investment in our people."
Yesterday, almost every Democrat repeated the class-warfare mantra. Near the end of the debate, Rep. Corinne Brown, (D-Fl) spoke. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America's "Progressive Caucus", which has a demand for the "wealthiest U.S. corporations and citizens" to pay more taxes written in its agenda. She said:
"I would like to remind my Republican colleagues that the American people did not support the Bush plan. We would not be in this mess is the coup had not taken place in Florida! There is no mandate for the Bush plan. He did not win the election and the majority of the people did not vote for this irresponsible action of this congress." Now, dear reader, before you get mad, remember that making you angry is a major goal in the socialist agenda. In the first place, the high interest rates Corrine Brown mentioned and the skyrocketing unemployment that were happening "20 years" ago were during the Carter administration. It was Reagan that pulled the country out of that recession. Rep. Brown has to know that, but rightly assumes that a lot of people, especially younger people, don't know it.
Just bear in mind that if you have children, or are married, you probably fit into the category of the "wealthy" in the minds of socialist Democrats. They have voted against, and Clinton vetoed, bills that provided tax breaks for parents who make less than $50,000 a year and bills eliminating the marriage tax.
If you want to check to see if your member of Congress is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America go to: http://progressive.house.gov/members.asp
To contact your senators about the Bush Tax Plan, go to: To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
"The towering achievement of the United States economy in 1964 was a powerful, across-the-board, noninflationary upsurge to all-times peaks. ...In early 1964, despite a long string of yearly multibillion-dollar budget deficits, President Lyndon B. Johnson fought for, and Congress passed, a tax reduction bill which will amount to more than 13,000,000,000 when fully effective this year.
"Another huge tax cut for the rich! I urge my colleagues to consider the situation in my home state of Florida where massive tax breaks for the rich have come at the expense of much needed services for the poor. Yesterday Florida's Governor Bush called for even more tax breaks for the rich. The Bush tax cuts are like the Reagan tax cuts that devastated our economy. The huge debts, skyrocketing unemployment, and high interest rates. We've been down that road before. And it took us 20 years to crawl out of that mess.
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