News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. April 20, 2015: I recently responded to an article in The New York Times titled “Why Americans Don’t Want To Soak The Rich” by posting this comment to it.
“The very term “soak the rich” as a credible description of the state of affairs is nonsense. Once you accept that phrase as valid game over. Let’s look at the same exact phrase using other words “taking advantage of the rich.” If anyone suggested that the rest of us are “taking advantage of the rich” most of us would consider that a bad joke.”
“Further using the phrase “soaking the rich” has another parallel implication that the rest of us are NOT getting soaked since the phrase identifies just one group getting “soaked” the rich ! I bet you have NEVER heard the term “soaking the poor” or “soaking the middle class.”
“How exactly are the rich getting ‘soaked’ when they just keep getting richer and richer at the expense of the rest of us and with Obama as President?”
“Why not? Because we are being victimized by the misuse of language impacting how we respond in this case to the rich. Of course good people don’t want to “abuse” the rich by SOAKING them. Shame on the Times by validating this bogus phrase by using it! It’s only legitimate use is as satire.”
That is my intro to this week’s episode and more truth about Obamacare, its real purpose and its terrible results for most of us. You get lots of whacky criticism of Obamacare from the right wing Republicans but here you get Progressive views the fatal flaws of Obamacare. The real ones! Not some drug like bizarre fantasy that the junkies in the Republican Party peddle.
Which brings me to a very important article in the New York Times on April 15th titled “Has Obamacare Turned Voters Against Sharing the Wealth?”
This article by Thomas Edsall reflects brilliantly how we should look in depth at actions the government takes and especially those that some find easy to praise it turns out for no good reason. And the irony here as to why Republicans should be very big supporters of Obamacare because it achieves a much, much more important result leading many Americans to believe inequality is good thing. What could be better for Republican Big Wigs!
So how does Obamacare achieve this result? Let’s turn to this NYT article…
“With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, the share of Americans convinced that health care is a right shrank from a majority to a minority.”
“This shift in public opinion is a major victory for the Republican Party. It is part of a larger trend: a steady decline in support for redistributive government policies. Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at Berkeley and one of the nation’s premier experts on inequality, is a co-author of a study that confirms this trend, which has been developing over the last four decades. A separate study, “The Structure of Inequality and Americans’ Attitudes Toward Redistribution,” found that as inequality increases, so does ideological conservatism in the electorate.”
That’s right; and it is very obvious once you give it some thought. All those Democrats and Progressives worst of all in PRAISING Obamacare are in fact buying into the fact that Americans are not entitled to health care as a basic right. That medical insurance is just another product that you buy what you can afford of it. And if you are truly poor in other words unable to even take care of yourself as real Americans do government will tolerate you applying for medical care “welfare.” This is the essence of Obamacare.
What it does which goes way, way beyond the issue of medical insurance is undermine the entire idea of fairness and equality as a job for government. It leads to the majority of Americans in practical terms favoring inequality and favoring the rich a class alien to the interests of the vast majority of Americans as the next paragraph in this article explains…
“The erosion of the belief in health care as a government-protected right is perhaps the most dramatic reflection of these trends. In 2006, by a margin of more than two to one, 69-28, those surveyed by Gallup said that the federal government should guarantee health care coverage for all citizens of the United States. By late 2014, however, Gallup found that this percentage had fallen 24 points to 45 percent, while the percentage of respondents who said health care is not a federal responsibility nearly doubled to 52 percent.”
The point is Americans’ views toward our right to a basic need of life like medical care is flash point for the much larger issue of inequality general. If you don’t believe you and your neighbors as an American have any right to even medical care as a citizen so you can function well enough you are very unlikely to favor even more “radical” action by government such as major changes in tax policy and that is what this article is saying.
President Obama is in fact a Trojan Horse dwelling in the middle of America today. He was elected in 2008 in the belief he as a President for the majority of Americans he would foster fairness and equality. It has not happened.
The Obama Presidency reflects the insidiousness of the reality.
What Obamacare seduces many Americans into believing is that government owes us nothing except maybe a few crumbs if you are at the bottom of the barrel. NOT that the job of government is to maintain a basic amount of fairness and equality in our nation. Rather the purpose of government is to get out of the way so each of us gets what we deserve. No matter the means.
The problem is this ideology only works for the HAVES and not the have NOTS. The vast majority of Americans. This article tells us more. It makes it crystal clear why the richest 1% of Americans just keep getting richer and America more and more unequal. The vast majority of Americans think this is OK even though they are the victims of the concentration of wealth.
Here is how this article concludes …
“The findings of the Saez group are consistent with Luttig’s. Taken together, they suggest that even if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate in 2016, largely on the basis of favorable demographic trends, the party will confront serious hurdles if it attempts to deliver material support to working men and women and the very poor. Redistribution is in trouble, and that is likely to tie American politics in knots for many years to come.”
Let me conclude this episode of Obama’s America with the New York Times article from two days later that I open with my posted comment to it.
Neil Irwin’s piece titled “Why Americans Don’t Want to Soak the Rich” preposterous concept which has become valid. Many Americans actually believe the rich are getting “soaked” as they get richer and richer while most Americans are losing financial ground and seeing less and less opportunity.
How can this bizarre situation exist? Here is the first paragraph …
“With rising income inequality in the United States, you might expect more and more people to conclude that it’s time to soak the rich. Here’s a puzzle, though: Over the last several decades, close to the opposite has happened.”
So what part has President Obama played over the last 6 years with Obamacare and more widely in his entire domestic agenda in pernicious ways and often giving the opposite impression? Obama has added fuel to the bogus belief of many Americans government has no role in fairness and equality.
Call Obama what he is.
A Trojan Horse purposely or not serving the needs of the rich.
