Flip Flopping Like a Striped Bass on a Hook--AND He Lies

Your Right Hand Thief has an excellent post up regarding waste, fraud, and the Pentagon. Several weeks back I was trying to make a similar point, but I'll defer to Oyster's clarity of point.

While soaking up the info, I clicked on his final link, a line from our commander in chief that sums up his core "values," namely, that it doesn't matter if you went to the fanciest prep school, then an Ivy League University, then walked out of a cush stateside military committment, then went to ANOTHER Ivy League University, and followed that up with a drinking career in a sort of redneck version of an F. Scott Fitzgerald character, because in spite of all that, Bush considers himself a "not-rich."


He answered his own question: "Yes, the not-rich. That's all of us."

I dunno--maybe he means poor in spirit or something like that. Because, as the article notes, Bush is capable of flip-flopping on a moment's notice:

"Oh, I know you think I'm going to spend most of the time attacking my opponent," Mr. Bush told the crowd, the sweat dripping from his face and soaking through the back of his blue shirt as he moved around the podium. "I've got too much good to talk about."

That promise did not stop him, however, from claiming a few minutes later that Mr. Kerry's plan to roll back the tax cuts for families earning more than $200,000 a year would harm small businesses and discourage investment. "Now is not the time to raise taxes on small-business owners," Mr. Bush said.

Kerry is talking about raising INDIVIDUAL income taxes, not small business taxes. And the "raise" can really be considered more as a return to sound fiscal policies that generated a budget surplus in the 1990's. As it stands, the top marginal rate for income taxation in the United States is around 35 percent. Kerry's proposal would raise this to approximately 37 percent. And, in case anyone has a case of terminal brain lock, let me explain something else: about the only people who actually pay the top rate are politicians (because it looks good when they release their financial statements). Almost anybody in this bracket will have a professional money manager working to shelter income--which is perfectly fine with me, as shelters tend to be areas where governments offer tax breaks in the hope that investments taking advantage of said breaks benefit the economy at large. So, whining about top tax rates is little more than demogaguery. That is to say, lies.

I'd love to hear what those who make over $200 thousand a year have to say--but it's a safe bet that no one in that income range is reading this...