Do conservatives genuinely not understand the liberal position on wealth? (Fox News oped)

Great Debates
1

I’ll start by posting a link to the opinion article that inspired this thread.

Basically, this is an editorial by Carol Roth as a contribution to Fox News critcizing the Obamas for bidding 15 million dollars for a home in Martha’s Vineyard. The criticism includes a statement that Obama spent his presidency “demonizing everyone else’s success.” She also contrasts the money the Obamas have earned with Trump, stating that Trump “earned his money before taking office.”

Here’s what bothers me about this article in particular and the Republican’s portrayal of what Democrat’s believe about the rich and wealthy in general. It seems to me the Republican’s portray the Democrat’s as wanting to punish those that are successful. The problem is that those who make there charge seem to conflate two different classes of people.

The way I see it there are rich people who earned their money through their own labor, and then there are the wealthy who made their money off of other people’s labor. Republicans seem to believe (or at least publicly claim) that Democrats want to punish those in the former group. My belief is that Republicans care primarily about people in the latter group, and use their platform, such as the above article, to try to confuse the public.

Here is how I differentiate the groups. The rich have made their money mostly off their own work. The reason why they earned so much is because their skills are in high demand, are very rare, or of a nature where they can be offered to billions of people. These are mostly people in the entertainment industry such as actors (Robert Downey Jr., Will Smith, George Clooney) singers (Taylor Swift, Mick Jagger, Madonna), authors (Stephen King), athletes (Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Lebron James) and so on. The reason they are rich is because modern technology allows them to provide their services to billions of people, not because they benefit from the labor of thousands of low wage workers. There are also a few such as the doctors who serve those other rich folks (Dr. James Andrews) and high priced lawyers that also serve the other rich / wealthy folds (Mark Geragos).

The wealthy, by contrast, are the people who are executives at or own large businesses and make their money off the labor of the employees of those businesses. People like the Walton family, the Koch brothers, and so on.

My belief is that Republican’s are primarily interested in helping those in the latter group. Of course they would lose the support of enough of the public if they portrayed themselves as serving the interests of just that group. Because of that, they portray the Democrats as wanting to punish people in the former group, when it’s really the folks in the latter group who should be the ones who are “punished” by paying a larger share in taxes, whether of their income or wealth. What do you all think?

FWIW I think the Obamas fall into the camp of people who earned their own money, and Trump as one of the people who made his money from other people’s hard work.

2

I’m not sure that your distinction between wealthy or rich has much utility or consistency. You seem to discount the value and rarity of entrepreneurial skills and leadership.

And I don’t think that Democrats want to punish the successful. I think Democrats observe that in a democracy a very sizable portion of the electorate can be purchased via wealth redistribution. So, if political power is the goal of the politician, exploiting class envy, even when long term counterproductive, is exceedingly effective.

3

This is actually very simple. Fox News opinion prices praise any Republican and demonize any Democrat. It doesn’t matter what either says or does. If a Republican does it, it’s good; if a Democrat does it, it’s bad.
They are also masters of making their opinions look like news.

4

The view many conservatives have of liberals is that 1) liberals want to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor and/or 2) liberals have something against the wealthy. Whether this view is accurate or not is beside the point; that’s the view many conservatives have.

So when someone like Obama signs multi-million dollar book deals and buys a $15 million house, conservatives think “hypocrisy.”

To be fair, many liberals think that conservatives 1) hate the poor and/or 2) like to see the rich get even richer at the expense of everyone else. Few people see their opponents fairly.

5

My perspective is quite different from both posts #1 and #2. The wealthy have most of the money, relatively speaking, and thus for tasks that government is best suited to accomplish, they can get the most funding from those wealthy folks. And wealthy folks can afford relatively high taxes and still live comfortable lives (unlike the poor and working classes), while also retaining the motivation to earn more (as long as their tax rate is below ~50-60% or so) and thus serving the entire economy, so it makes the most sense to rely on the wealthy for the most funding of government (relatively speaking).

There’s absolutely no conflict with this belief and with a desire to earn more money, from book deals or anything else, even into the millions of dollars. I’d presume Obama would be fine with paying ~50% taxes on his new earnings – if so, there’s no hypocrisy there at all.

6

I should have been more careful in my phrasing. When I said Republicans I meant Republican politicians and pundits, and not rank and file voters.

As for the value of entrepreneurial skill and leadership, that becomes more difficult to parse out. I recognize the skills of someone like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. On the other hand, the government does need to be funded. Someone needs to pay for everything the government does, and I think the Democrats (politicians) position is that the wealthy should pay tue most. In practical terms, the Republicans (again the politicians) seem to believe that the upper middle class and the rich whose income is mainly in wages should be footing the bill.

My hypothesis is that if taxation was the only issue, and both sides ran on those platforms openly (Republicans = tax the upper middle class and rich and Democrats = tax the wealthy) that the Democrats would win overwhelmingly. The reason they don’t, in addition to the complicating factor that people vote on other issues as well, is because it’s Republicans who successfully manage to convince the working class that the wealthy somehow deserve their wealth because of their own hard work, and therefore taxing them at a higher rate is somehow unjust.

7

That’s an interesting distinction, and not one that I think most people focus on.

For one, it seems to discount managerial and business skill as… skills. Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs had skills too. Their skills just happened to be in marketing and business executing and stuff. Have you ever managed employees? Getting a group of low wage employees to accomplish goals is not a trivial task. Getting hundreds of thousands of people to work together without it all falling apart into chaos is absurdly difficult.

And even in the arenas you mentioned, Michael Jordan’s coaches and Stephen King’s agents and Madonna’s record executives all have skills too. But they’re clearly also relying on the skills of the famous people.

(also, most of those athletes got rich off of merchandizing deals, not athletic skill).

ETA: and now I see that you’ve cross-posted a clarification. No need to re-clarify.

8

I’m not a Democratic politician, just a Democratic voter, but the way I see their positions even someone like Bernie Sanders and AOC seem to distinguish between someone who is rich because they have wages in high six to seven and figure range vs. people whose earnings come from ownership in large businesses.

I agree that Republican politicians want to see the wealthy get more wealthy. I don’t think Republican politicians hate the poor. I think it’s more like they believe that if the poor want to move up from that level that they need to do it on their own rather than with government assistance.

9

This is true.

This too.

The categories of “people who earned their own money” and “people who made [their] money from other people’s hard work” are not nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think they are. For example, you mentioned Lebron James as being in the former category, but Lebron James wouldn’t be able to get a sweet endorsement contract from Nike if there weren’t a whole bunch of hard working kids slaving away in sweatshops in Asia to make shoes and athletic wear for him to sell. His NBA salary depends in part on the low-paid janitorial staff that meticulously cleans the facilities he plays in and sells tickets to watch. He couldn’t make the money he does without the help of broadcasters, security staff, advertisers, etc. In other words, he “didn’t build that” (by himself).

10

Where do you see this distinction being made? Bernie Sanders presidential campaign website says:

The bullet points he lists there are generally targeted at taxing the rich / wealthy more, but don’t appear to distinguish between rich / wealthy that “earned their own money” vs “made … money from other people’s hard work”

11

Where do you see Sanders even talking about people who earned a lot of money from their own work at all, there? He’s talking about corporations.

12

"…The criticism includes a statement that Obama spent his presidency “demonizing everyone else’s success.” She also contrasts the money the Obamas have earned with Trump, stating that Trump “earned his money before taking office.”

What we have here is another in a long line of examples of Faux news being full of shit.

13

This is more or less my view. I prefer taxes on rich people because (to paraphrase the quote) “that’s where the money is.” I honestly don’t care where the money came from,* whether they “earned it” or “lucked into it.” It isn’t about punishing them or trying to make them suffer. I don’t demonize people for having money. For me, it’s purely utilitarian. Taxing poor people isn’t productive.

So, no I don’t think I would be a hypocrite if tomorrow I were to make a lot of money, so long as I paid the requisite taxes on it and continued to push for a more progressive system - even though it would hurt me personally.

  • for purposes of taxation. I do think there are morally and ethically wrong ways to acquire money - but I don’t think that’s a tax consideration.
14

You’re kidding, right? It’s right there in the first two words: “The wealthy”. He’s clearly talking about both. The next paragraph goes on to say “corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate that is lower than their secretaries” and “we have got to demand that the wealthiest Americans, large corporations, and Wall Street pay their fair share in taxes.” Several of his bullet points apply to wealthy individuals, not corporations:

“Pass the For the 99.8 Percent Act to establish a progressive estate tax on multi-millionaire and billionaire inheritances.”

“Tax Wall Street speculators through the Inclusive Prosperity Act.”

“Scrap the income cap on Social Security payroll taxes through the Social Security Expansion Act so that millionaires and billionaires pay more into the system.”

“End special tax breaks on capital gains and dividends for the top 1%.”

“Substantially increase the top marginal tax rate on income above $10 million.”

“Close tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy and large corporations.” (this one obviously refers to both)

15

As a liberal I find that a fair representation of my views and of conservative views.

16

In other words, the kind of wealthy people he wants to go after are the ones who don’t earn their wealth.

17

True. It seems easier to think that it is somehow intrinsic that the opposition’s policy is deliberately hateful as opposed to just wrong.

And FWIW some other faction may observe that in turn another sizeable portion of the electorate can be persuaded via the promise to put them back on top and put Those Other People in their proper place.

18

I think a lot of conservatives overvalue it. How many wealthy people are really making money through entrepreneurship and leadership and how many are making money through the fact that they had access to a lot of starting capital? If I was given ten million dollars to start with and five years later I have eleven million dollars, is it really accurate to say I earned a million dollars through my own efforts? Or is that something that most people of average intelligence would be able to do is they were in that situation? If the latter is the case, then one of the main determinants of who makes wealth is who has access to the situations where people can make wealth.

19

It’s my view that Democrats simply view more successful and wealthy people as having more “skin in the game”, and therefore should pay the lion’s share.

What I mean is that, if you become wealthy, you are even more reliant on, (or ought to give credit to) the physical, legal, and societal infrastructure of the country than a person who is barely scraping by. You, the millionaire, are such because you live in a country with paved roads, educated citizens, consistent laws, relatively crime free cities and towns, etc. Thus, given your reliance on these things, you ought to be expected to pay for them. And, because you are taking greater advantage of these pillars of our society than the average person, it’s fair for you to pay a more significant share.

I believe this is exactly what Obama was referring to when he was excoriated for telling people that “they didn’t build that”…he was talking about the American infrastructure which the wealthy have utilized for their benefit.

Nothing in this philosophy says that a person can’t or shouldn’t make oodles of money or own expensive and luxurious things. It simply stands for the proposition that people who get to that point have the most to lose if society were to crumble, so they should be the first ones we look to to pay for its perpetuation.

20

Many rich liberals want their taxes to be increased to distribute money to the poor through government, and of course many rich liberals, like Bill Gates, spend a lot of their money on the poor.
Conservative tax policy certainly supports the idea that they want the rich to get richer. I don’t know if they hate the poor, but stuff like resisting Medicaid expansion or trying to cut food subsidies sure looks like they do.

As for Trump making money before being president - remember he made more at age two than probably anyone here ever did. He is a piss poor example of pulling oneself up by ones own bootstraps.

BTW, Obama had a best seller before becoming president. I don’t know if he was rich, but I’m sure he was doing okay.