The Left’s message to wealth creators has hardened into, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass!”
Once upon a time, radicals who achieved or aspired to elected office concealed their fiscal militancy behind a screen of social conscience. They dressed it up as the unavoidable if regrettable consequence of a virtuous desire to help the needy. It has to be said, however, that the regret never really rang true.
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Then, later, when data showed with increasing clarity that tax hikes reduced revenues (whereas cuts generated more), the Left’s champions retreated behind “fairness.” For the past several decades, Democrats who’ve avoided saying the rich should “pay their fair share” have been rarer than sobriety over spring break.
During a 2008 Democratic primary debate, for example, soon-to-be President Barack Obama — a smooth, narcissistic, and emollient radical if ever there was one — was asked whether he’d raise taxes even though they didn’t raise revenues and might lower them. He replied, “I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.” He regarded taxes less as a means of raising money to pay for government necessities than as a tool with which to flatten society and prevent the successful from getting too far ahead.
This was a little shocking at the time, although hardly surprising to anyone who paid attention. But even this flight of the leading Democrat from pragmatic revenue-raising to egalitarian piety retained a veneer of humane social conscience. Taxing “the rich” was about being a good country.
Oh, for such old-fashioned hypocrisy! That pretense has gone now. In its place is an aggressive and contagious contempt for those who don’t think people and corporations should be gouged to satiate a strain of vindictiveness and egalitarian triumphalism.
Starbucks, the coffee chain, decided recently to downgrade its presence in Seattle, the city where it was founded in 1971 and where it retains its headquarters. It will expand instead in Nashville, Tennessee. Analyzing this, the Seattle Times asked what Nashville has that Seattle lacks and answered itself, writing, “Tennessee boasts the nation’s eighth-best tax climate for business.”
When this was put to Seattle’s socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, she claimed both that her agenda of steeply progressive taxes would not alienate wealthy people or businesses and, somewhat contradicting herself, said that if they did leave, she didn’t care.
“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are, like, super overblown,” Wilson said, but added insouciantly, “and if the ones that leave, like, bye!” Wilson mockingly waved adieu to the fleeing tax base and, upon hearing cheers and laughter from the audience, chuckled and basked in the approbation of the leftist echo chamber around her.
SPANBERGER AND THE DEMOCRATS’ CONSTITUTIONAL WRECKING CREW
Socialism has always presented the vice of envy as a moral ideal. This is not always cynical or dishonest; its protagonists often genuinely believe they are on the right side. This is why the evils of militant egalitarianism’s motivations and results are so difficult to overcome.
Socialism is gaining ground, especially among young adults. Its proponents want to turn America into a different country. And they cling to their faith not because they believe it will improve anyone’s life, but because it scratches an ugly leveling itch and it ministers to the satisfactions of smug triumphalism.
