Jack & Jill Politics

Glenn Beck would have you believe that the healthcare bill’s sole purpose is to take money from hard-working “regular Americans” (read: white people) and give that $$$ to America’s laziest ni**ers. Oh and let’s not forget what Beck refers to as the voting bloc of “illegal aliens” i.e. Latinos. Never mind that the undocumented can’t vote and therefore there are plenty of very documented and legal people of Hispanic descent in the U.S. These are just irrelevant details. He even warns his audience that they will be called racist for espousing his beliefs openly to which he says essentially don’t let that stop you. “You know the truth.”

Yeah we sure do. And the white folks listening to Glenn Beck need to know that while Obama’s healthcare initiative is focused for real on healthcare, it does have another benefit of helping to shore up a middle class and working class population that has taken hit after hit since the Reagan years. And if America’s middle class can’t prosper, generally speaking, America can’t either.

From David Leonhardt of the NYTimes a couple days ago:

Since 1980, median real household income has risen less than 15 percent. The only period of strong middle-class income growth during this time came in the mid- and late 1990s, which by coincidence was also the one time when taxes on the affluent were rising.

For most of the last three decades, tax rates for the wealthy have been falling, while their pretax pay has been rising rapidly. Real incomes at the 99.99th percentile have jumpedmore than 300 percent since 1980. At the 99th percentile — about $300,000 today — real pay has roughly doubled.

The laissez-faire revolution that Mr. Reagan started did not cause these trends. But its policies — tax cuts, light regulation, a patchwork safety net — have contributed to them.

Basically, an improvement in access to affordable decent healthcare for middle class people is being paid for by rolling back some of the cushy tax bennies of people who can afford to chip in a little towards a little balance.

Oops! Does that sound communist?

I don’t think so. In fact, Obama’s healthcare bill stops far short of the nationalized healthcare most of our peer nations in Europe, Canada and even Rush Limbaugh’s libertarian paradise Costa Rica put in place for their citizens decades ago. It’s decidedly market-based for the most part. That said, it offers the middle class much needed relief and protections. As a small businesswoman, I’m elated by the tax credits for premiums paid for staff. For us, it could mean the difference between hiring 1 or 2 people — or not, this or next year.

Obama is trying to strengthen capitalism through ending the welfare program for the rich. There’s enough to go around. Gotta believe it — this is major, in more than one way. This is how we climb out of Dubya’s gutter and get on with it, y’all.