PROPOSING A LIBERAL DRIVEN TAX SWINDLE

Vladimir Putin once again proves that dirty politics does not stop at the waterline. Everyone knows this. Everyone also knows that a “good crisis” should never be wasted although sometime it is a little difficult to know just how to take advantage of a crisis—either manmade or natural. It took Naomi Klein, in her book, The Shock Doctrine, to define some of the techniques followed by the IMF and the World Bank in a beautifully written refinement of how they applied these to the domestic situation. Putin has created a crisis in Crimea; let’s not waste it. What I am saying is that President Obama should step up, use Republican standard techniques of deception, and take advantage of that situation to advance his liberal agenda. My suggestion is a little convoluted and involves political intrigue but still is sensible and I believe would be effective.

First, we have a crisis in Crimea that almost all Republicans and some democrats want Obama to threaten Putin with the use of military force, although no one actually thinks he should use force—they just say that to embarrass him. Add to this picture the driving force in the Republican Party who also believes Congress has underfunded the Pentagon, which makes us look weak in the eyes of the world—we don’t have a loaded AK47 to point at Putin’s head. Feeding on this fear and the military industrial complex greed sets the stage for the “slight of hand” I propose. First, liberals want to raise taxes on the wealthy, which is something Republicans hate; therefore, they would only do it in a crisis. Therefore, President Obama should propose that Congress pass emergency legislation to increase taxes on the wealthy with the caveat that all increases go to the Pentagon and not to social programs, which the Republican majority hates. In light of this legislation, Putin, from his vantage point, would have to believe that our Congress would be willing to go to war to prevent Russian imperialism. Obama being the genius he is in international relations and a “lover of peace” could handle the situation diplomatically and easily convince Putin that the military option was on the table; we would have no fear of him losing his head and actually starting a shooting war.

This sets the stage where politics can enter the picture—I avoid used the adjective ‘dirty’ with politics because it is liberals and not the usual conservatives who would be doing it. The trick I learned from state Republicans is that when they needed money for their unpopular programs such as lower taxes on industry was to campaign to increased taxes on the working people for “highways only” or for “schools only”. Liberals know these things are in at a crisis level of neglect and that “we need these things” thus, they put their weight behind supporting the legislation. (Actually, the “for school only” legislation had to do with lucrative state run lottery in North Carolina.) The government loudly and publically honored the legislation but quietly removed an equivalent amount from the respective budgets returning them to what they were before the new influx of money and putting it into the programs they really favored. In other words, they suckered the taxpayers into providing money (by taxing themselves) for a program that they would not other wise have favored. In this proposed case, liberal would favor using the increased tax revenue to pay down the nation debt; thus, protect social programs from Republican savaging.

This approach would allow the few tough radical bomb, bomb John Wayne war mongers, the large military industrial complex, and the “super” patriotic Duck Dynasty Americans to throw their weight behind increasing taxes on the wealthy, which is something they would never do without a crisis. By the time they woke up it would be too late. It would be a win-win for the American people. 

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