Tag Archives: Middle Class

Commentary

George Will: Rick Santorum connects with the working class

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From the liberal Washington Post, a column by moderate conservative George Will.

Excerpt:

On Sept. 26, 1996, the Senate was debating whether to ban partial-birth abortion, the procedure whereby the baby to be killed is almost delivered, feet first, until only a few inches of its skull remain in the birth canal, and then the skull is punctured, emptied and collapsed. Santorum asked two pro-choice senators opposed to the ban, Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), this: Suppose the baby slips out of the birth canal before it can be killed. Should killing it even then be a permissible choice? Neither senator would say no.

On Oct. 20, 1999, during another such debate, Santorum had a colloquy with pro-choice Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.):

Santorum: “You agree that, once the child is born, separated from the mother, that that child is protected by the Constitution and cannot be killed. Do you agree with that?”

Boxer: “I think that when you bring your baby home . . . .”

Santorum is not, however, a one-dimensional social conservative. He was Senate floor manager of the most important domestic legislation since the 1960s, the 1996 welfare reform. This is intensely pertinent 15 years later, as the welfare state buckles beneath the weight of unsustainable entitlement programs: Welfare reform repealed a lifetime entitlement under Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a provision of the 1935 Social Security Act, and empowered states to experiment with new weaves of the safety net.

White voters without college education — economically anxious and culturally conservative — were called “Reagan Democrats” when they were considered only seasonal Republicans because of Ronald Reagan. Today they are called the Republican base.

Who is more apt to energize them: Santorum, who is from them, or Romney, who is desperately seeking enthusiasm?

Romney recently gave a speech with a theme worthy of a national election, contrasting a “merit-based” or “opportunity” society with Barack Obama’s promotion of an “entitlement society,” which Romney termed “a fundamental corruption of the American spirit”: “Once we thought ‘entitlement’ meant that Americans were entitled to the privilege of trying to succeed. . . . But today the new entitlement battle is over the size of the check you get from Washington. . . . And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing — the government.”

Romney discerns the philosophic chasm separating those who embrace and those who reject progressivism’s objective, which is to weave a web of dependency, increasingly entangling individuals and industries in government supervision.

Santorum exemplifies a conservative aspiration born about the time he was born in 1958. Frank Meyer, a founding editor of William F. Buckley’s National Review in 1955, postulated the possibility, and necessity, of “fusionism,” a union of social conservatives and those of a more libertarian, free-market bent.

Please make sure you watch Rick Santorum’s speech in Iowa, or read the transcript. The speech was very good, and it’s also very interesting.

In a new national poll from today (Thursday), Santorum now trails Romney nationally 29%-21%.  Gingrich is third with 16%. According to another poll, Santorum is now running third in liberal New Hampshire.

By the way, I am completely fine with a Gingrich/Santorum ticket. But I would prefer a Santorum/Gingrich ticket, if I can get it. Those are the two great conservative communicators in this Republican primary. Both candidates are from the working class, and both are men with bold ideas.

Commentary

How the federal government and stimulus spending discourage work

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A post by Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Excerpt:

Thanks to food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies, and other welfare benefits, many “poor” people have far more disposable income than self-supporting households earning $40,000 to $60,000 a year.  Veronique de Rugy points to a finding that “a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year” — even excluding benefits from Supplemental Security Income.  “America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system.”

[…]The analysis de Rugy cites actually understates the disincentives to work, because it ignored the fact that many households that are “poor” in terms of taxable income are not poor at all once you factor in tax-free income from non-governmental sources.  For example, child support is tax-free to the recipient family, no matter how huge the payments they receive (for example, a billionaire may pay several million dollars a year in child support to each of his ex-girlfriends with kids, leaving them in tax-free luxury, and under New York’s child support guidelines, everyone is supposed to pay at least 17 percent of their gross income in child support for just one child, regardless of how high that income is.  In Massachusetts, middle-income households pay 25 percent of gross income for just one kid — which is around a third of their after-tax income — under that state’s child support guidelines).

He also talks about how the federal government encourages child support agencies to yank more children away from their parents – they get more funding that way!

Commentary

Did Obama keep his promise to not raise taxes on the middle class?

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The non-partisan libertarian Cato Institute explains that Obama broke his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.

Excerpt:

How many times have you heard the president and the congressional Democrats say Americans who make less than $200,000 a year have not had, and will not have, any of their taxes increased? Unfortunately, it is not true, and it is likely to become a whole lot worse.

The 111th Congress has already enacted $352 billion in net tax increases and may, in the upcoming lame-duck session, enact the largest tax increases in history, which will hit every man, woman and child — as well as every business in America. The good folks at Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) have put together the data on what the current Democrat-controlled Congress has done already. I have summarized their analysis in the accompanying table.

Here is table:

Net Change in Taxes
111th Congress
(in billions of dollars)
Legislation
(bill number)		 Gross Tax Cuts Enacted Gross Tax Increases Enacted
H.R. 2 S-Chip 0 65.5
H.R. 1 “Stimulus” 217.6 0
H.R. 3590/4872 “Obamacare” 144.0 652.2
H.R. 5297 “Small Business” 12.0 8.0
Totals 373.0 725.7

He continues:

The tax increase of $725.7 billion dwarfs the tax cuts of $373 billion, leaving a net tax increase of $352 billion. But it gets worse. Just $107.6 billion of the tax cuts are permanent — the rest are temporary — but all of the $725.7 billion increases are permanent.

The S-Chip bill was funded by an additional $65.5 billion in tobacco tax increases. These increases are paid primarily by lower-income people. Obamacare is funded with a variety of individual and employer mandates, excise tax increases and fees, including a tax on “tanning salons,” adding up to $652 billion in tax increases, before deducting $107 billion in “exchange credits” and $37 billion in small-business tax credits. The vast majority of these tax increases fall on middle- and lower-income people. As with all of the revenue estimates prepared by Congress’ Joint Tax Committee, most of the behavioral effects of these tax changes are ignored — e.g., how many tanning-salon customers will now opt for the sun rather than pay the tax?

The president and most congressional Democrats have been claiming they will make sure no one making less than $200,000 per year will face a tax increase when all of the “Bush tax cuts” expire on midnight Dec. 31. Given they have not been truthful about the tax increases they already have enacted, why should anyone believe these new claims?

Democrats don’t cut taxes, they raise them. Democrats don’t reduce spending, they increase it. Democrats don’t enable businesses to create more jobs, they attack businesses and we get fewer jobs. Those are the facts.