Hillary's Bread and Circuses

Hillary Clinton has long stated that if she becomes President that she would raise the tax rates for the top income-earners in the United States. However, as the economy has slowed, she recently said that she would delay raising taxes while the economy was uncertain. In an article posted at TownHall.com today, Washington Times poltiical reporter Donald Lambro asks the question,

If cutting taxes across every income level, including the top two brackets, helps strengthen the economy when it is weak and skirting a recession, then wouldn't their retention continue to do that?

Mr. Lambro goes on to point out that raising taxes will have an impact on the ability of the nation's investors to invest their capital in projects that will end up increasing the economy and providing jobs. He writes,

A nearly 40 percent tax rate on the top income earners can rake in a lot of revenue, but what will that do to the economy's long-term growth?

It will redirect and redistribute incomes away from business-expanding, job-creating capital investment, rechanneling more private sector income into bigger government that creates no new wealth and no new capital investment.

This is all completely true. However, I think that perhaps Mr. Lambro missed the point. he titled his article 'Tax and Spend Democrats Just Don't Get It'. With all due respect to Mr. Lambro, I think he is mistaken- the Democrats do in fact get it. by raising taxes, they eliminate entry-level jobs, thus creating at one stroke a class of people dependent on government programs for their subsistence. it is the old Roman idea of bread and circuses. Government provides bread for the people and keeps them entertained. In return, the grateful people vote for those who keep their bread coming in and their entertainment fresh.

So I think that the tax-and-spend liberals understand the dynamic completely- they are trying to create a permanent group of constituents that will respond to their tired class-warfare rhetoric. Thus it is incumbent upon conservatives can do is work at tearing down the programs that promote such class-warfare and make people personally responsible for their own decisions. Give them a chance to make their own careers and remove the need for government support of said people and then the Democrats' rhetoric will ring as hollow in theory as it is in practice.