According to Republican talking points, raising taxes on the wealthiest American’s is class warfare. Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan said that Obama’s new plan would cause anxiety and fear, and would create a divide based on class warfare, and if we punish the “job creators” then we hurt overall economy. Not that Congressman Ryan actually cares, but there’s a massive gaping economic divide that’s been caused by years of class warfare.
Class warfare isn’t a political argument for the poor and middle class; it’s a way of life. Every time some bank that’s already received bailout money illegally forecloses on a home, it’s class warfare. Every time a credit card company jacks up interest rates and fees while making record profit, it’s class warfare. It’s an assault on the middle class when major companies receive tax breaks while the tax code is already slanted in their favor. The Wall Street vampires like Goldman Sachs that helped put us in this financial mess can’t find a district attorney willing to prosecute them. And why would a district attorney prosecute them when the government has allowed them to apply their own regulations? Republicans talk about all business owners as if they’re all created equal. When’s the last time a local hardware store owner got to dictate his or her own government regulations?
The truth is that the divide between the rich and poor can’t get large enough for those “job creators” Ryan is referring to. The greater the economic divide, the greater the opportunity for companies to take advantage of a broken system. Amazon, as an example of a job creator, isn’t coming to Tennessee for the scenery. They’re building warehouses in Chattanooga because of the relatively cheap labor and the promise of a sales tax exemption. Everybody wants more jobs in Tennessee, but at what cost? A study complete by the Alliance of Main Street Fairness (which is some Frankenstein group composed of other retailers trying to battle the Amazon tax exemption) says that the tax exemption would cost Tennessee billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. The ultimate fear of conservatives is big government, but where’s this mythical big government when a company comes in and dictates their own rules that defy state laws?
You have Rick Perry claiming to be the great job creator of Texas while in reality Texas is just taking jobs away from other states like California that are trying to add more regulations to better the lives of the people who live there. Companies are jumping states to find the best backroom deals and fewer regulations in an attempt to further increase their profits. If it were economically feasible, Amazon would be more than happy to send all their jobs to a country that has zero regulations and you can pay your workers next to nothing. Those job creators Ryan was talking about are working hard to bring that model to America. Despite the fact that our economy has been in the tank for years now, there are plenty of “job creators” making large profits off the backs of the people who are losing everything.
