Thursday, December 6, 2012

"Fiscal Cliff"--GOP Losing for Lack of Moral Backbone

My latest post at The Objective Standard Blog explains why Republicans must not fall into The Left's Egalitarian Trap on tax hikes on "the rich." Here is the meat of the post:

The left’s immediate goal is to forcibly redistribute the wealth of the top one percent. But if—as the left asserts—this is the “moral” thing to do, why stop there? The top 2 percent have more wealth than everyone else, too. So do the top 3 and the top 5 and the top 11 percent. If Republicans accept that it is “moral” to confiscate and redistribute someone’s wealth because he is wealthier than others, then Republicans have no defense against tax hikes on anyone and everyone who earns more than anyone else.

If Republicans fall into the Left's trap, the long-term consequences will be devastating for the GOP (and the country), because they will have disarmed themselves morally. It will be a huge consolidation of the Left's ideological position; that of "fundamentally transforming America" into a collectivist hellhole.

If the Republicans are ever to have a chance to defeat the Democrats on the tax front, they will have to take a moral stand against discriminatory taxation against productiveness. The Republicans must capture the moral high ground by strenuously making the case that Obama's targeting of the "top 2%" is really an attack on all productive people with incomes above bare poverty levels.

As of this writing, the signs are not good. Republican opposition is weakening in the face of Obama's moral resoluteness, with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner saying Obama "is 'absolutely' ready to go over the [fiscal] cliff" unless tax rates rise for the wealthiest 2%. Meanwhile, the GOP is losing the public fight, because they have painted themselves into a champion-of-the-rich corner. What else would one expect, when the only argument they offer in defense of their position is to lamely claim that hiking taxes on the rich is bad for the economy, as against the Left's claim that it is moral to do so?




No comments: