Who are Republicans worried about on tax day?
The millions of Americans who haven’t had a raise in 15 years?
Nope. The richest .2 percent of Americans who will leave more than $5.4 million dollars to their kids. They want to cut these taxes on the inheritances of theses extraordinarily rich people — none of whom are family farmers, as much as Republicans like to pretend they are — to ZERO.
And I’d like to thank them for this, since it has zero chance of becoming law.
Republicans like to pretend their priorities are multifaceted but all connected by big themes like “life” and “personal responsibility.” In doing this, they’ve managed to trick many of the Americans who have been most brutalized by their economic failures to vote for them.
But on a day like this, we’re clearly reminded that Republicans look at a chart like this…
… and think, that top line isn’t squiggling up high enough! We’ve got to protect those few thousand American families who are benefiting from the runaway accumulation of wealth at the top that threatens our entire economy.
For some reason, it’s difficult to get Americans to understand that Republicans don’t consider their failed policies — which have made the richest, more than any time in the history of money, richer — failures.
Usually it takes Republicans nominating an actual plutocrat who wants to cut his own taxes to make the point that trickle down economics is really about sucking wealth up to the richest — and leaving it there.
This point is important because it’s the answer to every important question of our time.
It’s the reason Republicans don’t really want to do anything about the wealth gap.
It’s the reason Republicans divide the middle class by nurturing jealousies that lead to us denying poor people food, health insurance and reproductive rights.
It’s the reason Republicans won’t even acknowledge climate science — let alone act upon it.
“[W]e don’t act, and for a particular reason, one that will be clear to those who read the Gospels,” Bill McKibben said in a 2013 sermon at the Riverside Church. “Our richest people don’t want to, because it would reduce their wealth somewhat.”
Or the wealth of their children.
Thank you, Republican Party, for making this point better than I ever could.
[Chart by the great Mark Price, whom you should follow on Twitter.]
