Blog For Arizona

Dean to get creamed on tax issue?

To get over the hump when raising taxes the only way to do it is to make any other option seem like freshly brewed evil. Dean needs to characterize the Bush tax cuts in even starker terms. He has used 'borrow and spend' and clearly demostrated the the middle class didn't get a tax cut, they got a 'tax shift' (a Sharpton bon mot) as revenue shortfalls hit state and local governments, forcing them to raise taxes and/or cut services. Finally, he has clearly laid out the benefits expected from a tax roll-back and called for a return to the 'Clinton tax code'. None of this really puts a nails Bush's irresponsible tax policy to the wall.

People don't actually respond all that well to the idea that wealthy people get the most out of the tax cut. It's true, but it's just not a big seller; Americans all think they are wealthy for some damn reason. 1/3 of people think they are in the top 5% of income; which means that 25% are seriously deluded. What I like is the 'birth tax'; the 26K that every child now born owes right out of the gate to pay for W's deficits.

That doesn't go far enough though. I think you need to make people feel a little sleazy by insisting that they are stealing from their own children because they want to have their cake and eat it to. This has to be done by proxies; you can't have a candidate calling people baby muggers. The more you hammer the theme of responsiblity to our children and that Bush's tax cuts are allowing us to pick our children's pockets, the more people will be repelled by the whole idea of W's cuts. Getting rid of them is then 'protecting our children' and not 'raising taxes'.

We gotta get mean and rhetorically nasty to make tax increases a viable electoral strategy. There has to be a lot of tough love, and the electorate isn't going to much care for the person delivering the news that they are shaking their own kids down for cash. We also have to get a good deal more perjorative on Bush's tax policy. It should NEVER be called a tax cut. Always call it something like tax shift, tax bribe, tax swindle, Federalized ponzi scheme, raiding your savings account to give you a loan, mugging your children to give you a bribe, or, my personal favorite, the "Bush thinks you're stupid" tax code.

What brutal rhetorical devices would you use to discredit the Bush tax swindle?

posted by Michael Bryan @ 12/17/2003 01:44:00 AM