Do you think Paul Krugman actually believes this?
One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.
How about this guy, do you think he really believes this?
In 2010, we have a different environment. An ideology that treats all taxation as theft — as illegitimate, coercive, perhaps even morally equivalent to violence — is now sufficiently prominent that it effectively renders policy ideas that involve use of resources by government and potentially even redistribution impractical.
Krugman at least starts with a real belief in property rights before completely distorting that into some parody of "let them eat cake." Steve Waldman's "sufficiently prominent" ideology from the second link is just a complete fantasy. There are, of course, cranks out there who really do believe that all taxation is theft. They are not statistically significant let alone prominent in any way.
If anything actually is sufficiently prominent in this country it's the level of taxation. According to an interesting website called US Government Revenue, the estimated GDP for 2011 is $14.6 trillion and governments at all levels in the US will take in $4.6 trillion. In addition, the feds will borrow and spend an additional $1.2 trillion. That's an awful lot of "impractical."
If this is what the "reality based community" is going to bring to the table for the next couple of years then President Obama and Democrats in general are in serious trouble politically. You cannot win with a base that is either completely dishonest or completely batshit crazy and at the same time very vocal about it. Especially considering that the general public is paying more attention than ever and the mainstream media controls less and less of the narrative with each passing week.
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