March 14, 2011
E.J. Dionne had a good piece pointing out that the country is not “broke” as many of the deficit hawks have been claiming. Dionne rightly points out that per capita income is continuing to rise; the problem is that the bulk of income gains have been going to those at the top. Dionne rightly identifies the claim of national poverty as part of an “excuse” for “policies to lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs.”
However, Dionne bizarrely describes this effort as “ideologically driven.” It’s not clear what ideology Dionne sees here and he certainly doesn’t identify one. The more obvious story is that wealthy people pay for the political campaigns of politicians who will support give policies that will give them more money. Ideology plays no more obvious role in this scenario than it does in the operations of the Mexican drug cartels.
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