“Get rid of those pesky regulations” has been a G.O.P. mantra for a few decades now, and it has never made any sense. They’re in the position of arguing that if you just let corporations do all manner of harm to people, this will somehow produce an economic miracle, with all of the peasants happily dancing in the village square.
The irony is that some regulations actually help businesses, in spite of themselves. Tougher environmental regulations, for example, often force companies to ditch outdated plants and equipment, and invest in newer stuff. Sure, it hurts their bottom line for a year or two, but guess what - a few years out, they end up being more efficient, more productive, and less burdened with claims by those being harmed. Regulations like this force corporations to do the smart thing - don’t focus on next quarter’s dividend or stock price, but instead focus on the longer-term health of the company.
Damn, they’ll make me move to Love Canal II.
It’s class warfare! No, wait, it’s not. A reminder from Senator Al Franken:
Any time that a liberal points out that the wealthy are disproportionately benefiting from Bush’s tax policies, Republicans shout, “class warfare!”
In her book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, Barbara Tuchman writes about a peasant revolt in 1358 that began in the village of St. Leu and spread throughout the Oise Valley. At one estate, the serfs sacked the manor house, killed the knight, and roasted him on a spit in front of his wife and kids. Then, after ten or twelve peasants violated the lady, with the children still watching, they forced her to eat the roasted flesh of her dead husband and then killed her.
That is class warfare.
Arguing over the optimum marginal tax rate for the top one percent is not.
Childcare credit helps only the top 15% of the income distribution. 50% at the bottom don’t pay income tax. Only 30% of the remaining at the top take itemized deductions.
