Muhammad, Mitt And What To Do About An Overly Entitled One Percent

Perhaps you know of deranged right-wing extremist and self-loathing anti-Semite David Yerushalmi, who "has suggested that Caucasians are inherently more receptive to republican forms of government than blacks [and] emphasizes that 'America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white.' And in an article published at the website Intellectual Conservative, Yerushalmi, who is Jewish, suggests that liberal Jews 'destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.' Unsurprisingly, then, Yerushalmi offered the lone Jewish defense of Mel Gibson, after the actor’s anti-Semitic tirade in 2006. Gibson, he wrote, was simply noting the 'undeniable Jewish liberal influence on western affairs in the direction of a World State.'" A featured writer in the garbage pile of racism calling itself the National Review, Yerushalmi was in the news again yesterday not just for his anti-Muslim psychosis that is force-fed to so many Republicans but for his nasty little assertion that “There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote.”

Yerushalmi is best known, though, for his hateful Islamophobia. There are a lot of reasons why extreme rightists-- and the Republican Party in general-- hate Muslims. But did you ever think about taxation as one of them? I'm reading Tom Holland's wondrous new book on Islam, In the Shadow of the Sword and right off the bat he started explaining Muhammad's disdain for extreme wealth. Muslim tradition holds that after the Prophet fled from Mecca and settled in Yathrib (Medina), he put that disdain into action. "When the gap," writes Holland, "between rich and poor-- which offended Muhammad to the core of his being-- refused to narrow, he summarily outlawed usury and established an equitable taxation system." And, let's face it, there is virtually no tool of social equality more feared and hated by the political right than equitable taxation. And with most Americans firmly on the side of not extending the grotesquely unfair and failed Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, rightists are getting restless.

As President Obama navigates a choppy economy in his reelection bid, he can rely on one comforting fact: Americans continue to strongly embrace his opposition to extending tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 a year.

A new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll shows that only 26 percent of the public wants to see all of the tax breaks created during the George W. Bush administration, which are set to expire at year’s end, extended for at least another year. And only 18 percent want the tax breaks across all income levels made permanent, the position taken by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

That the broader public prefers taxing the rich to taxing themselves is not surprising. But the poll results offer evidence of the political benefits that the president can derive from his opposition to the Bush-era tax breaks for high-income earners. Obama has made this a centerpiece of his campaign. It also shows the difficulties that the GOP faces trying to convince voters that the $250,000 threshold hits small businesses and would hurt the economy, and why that narrative has gained little traction with the public at large.

In the poll, 47 percent of respondents said they wanted to see the tax breaks extended only for those earning less than $250,000. Eighteen percent said they prefer that all the tax breaks simply expire, which would result in higher taxes across the income spectrum.

Republicans, of course, can taken solace in a coterie of corporately owned Democrats, who support their anti-working families agenda, particularly Joe Manchin (WV), Jon Tester (MT), who will lose his reelection bid because of this, Mark Pryor (AR), Mary Landrieu (LA), Jim Webb (VA), Ben Nelson (NE) and possibly Claire McCaskill (MO), Mark Warner (VA) and Bill Nelson (FL).

There is, as Muhammad was keenly aware, no end to the greed and avarice of the rich. Generally speaking, the richer people are the greedier and more obsessed they become and the more toxic and dangerous to society as a whole. Mobster Sheldon Adelson, for example, is a cancer on America and either we stop him or he stops us. Muhammad's idea of equitable taxation is exactly what's called for. But, as Greg Sargent pointed out in his Washington Post column yesterday, the GOP wants even more tax cuts for the rich (and predatory).

Romney isn’t simply proposing to make the Bush tax cuts permanent; he’s also proposing an additional across-the-board tax cut on top of extending the Bush tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy. A recent study found that under Romney’s tax proposals, 67 percent of the tax cut would go to those over $200,000.

Romney knows that cutting taxes for the rich further isn’t at all popular. So he has been saying that his plan wouldn’t reduce the share of the tax burden the rich pay, because he would close deductions and loopholes the rich enjoy to offset their disproportionate gains under his plan, with the result that everyone’s share gets reduced evenly. The only problem, of course, is that he won’t specify what those deductions and loopholes are, and says he sees no need to do so for the duration of the campaign.

The question is: Will the fact that the public sides with Obama on taxes matter in the fall campaign? This may all turn on how convincingly Obama can make the case that the money to pay for Romney’s tax cuts for the wealthy could come out of programs that Americans like and rely on. This is an argument that swing voters are receptive to. As that recent Democracy Corps focus grouping found, non-college whites in particularly are receptive to a message about taxes and entitlements, and “clearly fear that Mitt Romney and the Republicans will cut things that matter to them because they are not willing to raise taxes on the rich.”

So: Romney won’t say how his tax cuts for the wealthy would be paid for, or what revenues the rich will be asked to pony up in order to offset their disproportionate gains under his plan. He won’t share those details for the duration of the campaign. So where will that money come from, then? A good deal of this will turn on whether the press lets Romney’s lack of specificity continue to skate.