Who are ‘they?’

A potential tax hike on those earning above $250,000 has caused some to confuse the rich with the wealthy

 It’s hot outside. Too hot for a summer stroll or any sort of outdoor activity.  So one recent Sunday morning, I settled in for some riveting Washington talk show action. 

Aside from the usual histrionics surrounding the Sherrod racial episode and the “necessary dialogues” on race the mainstream media feels compelled to hold every other month just so it can sleep well at night, the latest argument to follow in Washington is what to do over the expiring Bush tax cuts. 

 Specifically, in a matter of months, the tax rate cuts President George Bush and the Republican-led Congress pushed through in 2001 are set to expire, returning the top bracket to its 39.6 percent rate up from today’s 35 percent. That’s right, at a time when our economy is as fragile as ever, this administration is pondering tax increases. As if the race baiting by the White House weren’t enough, it’s now in full-throated class warfare, pitting this faceless rich no one seems to know, against the poor, who seem to be on every corner in President Obama’s mind.

I laughed out loud when talking heads such as Sam Donaldson of ABC News dismissively said of those who would be affected, “They don’t need the money.  They won’t miss it.” Then others cackled in unison on the various shows. Talks of “them” and “they” and occasionally, the disdain in the pundits’ voices of the “mega wealthy.” 

Even on FOX News, commentators such as NPR’s Juan Williams scoffed at the notion that somehow these tax hikes would leave any lasting harm, implying “they” make so much money, the zillionaires won’t possibly miss it.  Once again, in a town that excuses its gluttony by referring to every spending orgy as a “rounding error” these same ivory tower denizens attack those with wealth as if it were ill-gotten and criminal. And if tax collectors took a little more, it would represent merely a fraction (a rounding error) of their treasure.

 So just who are these folks that Donaldson, Williams and others refer to as “they”?  I presume these journalists-turned-social judges are referring to the top 1 percent earners in America, particularly those making more than $250,000 as a family. 

 Folks, in Washington, D.C. and other major urban areas, that’s a lot of money, but it’s not “mega wealthy.” 

It wasn’t but a few months ago when Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to order those Democrats drafting her health reform bill to revise the income threshold upward because some Americans might not feel Democrats were targeting the richest of the rich.  Loosely translated, someone got to her and said she could inadvertently be targeting a key Democratic constituency. Bottom line, there is no line of income demarcation by which, with just one dollar more, an individual steps out of middle class obscurity and into the pearly gates of wealth, forced now to pay his “fair share.”

I’d wager that Donaldson and many of his colleagues fall into the richest Americans category themselves. Yet how come we never hear Donaldson saying, “I’d be willing to pay more for more government”?  He won’t, because it undermines the value of his point and those like him if prime time journalists start referring to themselves as part of this elite income class. There’s something surly about that, and prevents them from attacking said profiteers.

 If they remain silent, these journalists can parrot the Marxist rhetoric of Speaker Pelosi and others when referring to “Wall Street bankers” who cashed in million-plus bonuses.  Yes, those payouts do occur. But it’s more the exception than the rule when identifying who benefits year in, year out from the Bush tax cuts. 

Recently, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, released excerpts from Congress’s non-partisan tax analysts stating the effects of repealing the 2001 tax relief plan would fall squarely on the shoulders of small businesses.  

 The point here is the mainstream politicians and media elites love to live in glass houses and throw stones at the folks in bigger glass houses, disregarding the glass while fixating on their relative size. 

 What apologists such as Donaldson fail to realize is that thousands of small business owners don’t pay corporate income taxes. Their businesses aren’t big enough or structured that way. Instead, they earn “millions” on the books and are pushed into the highest individual tax brackets. 

 How will that spur investment and job creation?  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said recently that tax hikes on the richest Americans will have a negligible negative impact on this economic recovery.  If I were advising President Obama, I’d fire him before some USDA employee.  This is the same cabinet member who told a congressional panel he was an expert on the Great Depression, yet still managed to keep us in the ditch of America’s Great Recession. 

It’s time to stop the politics of pronouns and start putting a face on “they.”  It might surprise all of us that those individuals are the same ones we sat next to in church last Sunday, and they don’t deserve what Obama wants to give them.

 Armstrong Williams is heard nightly on Sirius/XM Power 169, 7pm-8pm and 4am-5am, M-F.