-By Warner Todd Huston
Traditionally, Republicans are supposed to be against the redistribution of wealth in the USA. But it seems times may be changing with at least three purportedly conservative leaders in Congress suddenly advocating for at least some income redistribution.
According to Fortune magazine three major congressional Republican leaders are floating plans that call for some sort of redistribution.
Republican Senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio have recently proposed what they are calling a pro-family and pro-growth tax reform plan that would refigure tax rates from the current seven brackets to only two; 15 and 35 percent.
The plan is supposed to eliminate what the Senators call the “parent tax penalty,” but Fortune’s Christopher Matthews (who is not the MSNBC clown) says what it really does is “redistribute wealth from the childless to parents.”
A second plan by a third major GOP leader also has an element of redistribution. Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the Party’s most recent vice presidential candidate, has also put forward a plan that calls for an expansion of an entitlement, the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Ominously for the conservative ideology, Matthews cites a Gallup poll that shows that Americans of all political stripes seem to have a growing appreciation of redistributionist policies.
“The range in the percentage saying wealth should be ‘more evenly distributed’ has been relatively narrow over time, from a low of 56% in 2000 to a high of 68% in April 2008,” Gallup wrote last year.
But those clamoring for higher taxes on “the rich” have risen since Gallup began asking the question. “Responses to this question have varied within a fairly small range since Gallup began to ask it in 1998, from a low of 45% favoring tax-based redistribution that year to today’s 52%, which by one percentage point is the highest measured,” Gallup’s Frank Newport wrote.
This is just another example of how the Republican Party has lost its way. And with this talk of having either Jeb Bush or Mitt Loser Romney head the ticket in 2016, there is less reason than ever to be a Republican.
After all, if the GOP is just going to be Democrat Lite, why have the GOP at all? Why not just have everyone be a Democrat?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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