Forum Post: The Robin Hood Philosophy

Our elected officials and their wealthy corporate enablers idea of moving toward a balanced budget is to go after the middle class working families and low-income people, and to make sure millionaires and billionaires and the largest corporations in this country, which are in many cases doing phenomenally well right now, do not have to share in the sacrifices being made by everybody else. They will be protected. The elected few and their enablers approach to deficit reduction in Washington is the Robin Hood philosophy in reverse: They take from the poorest people and they give to the richest people. Now that may make sense to some people, but it does not make sense to me. In fact, what they and their backers want to do is provide over $1 trillion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires by permanently extending all of the Bush income tax cuts, reducing the estate tax for multimillionaires and billionaires, and lowering the top individual and corporate income tax rates from 18 percent to 6% percent less, ludicrous! The rich get richer. They get tax breaks. The poor get poorer. They lose their ability to send their kids to college or to have good health care. The deficit we are struggling with right now has been caused by unpaid-for wars, tax breaks for the rich, a Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the insurance companies, the bailout of Wall Street, a declining economy, and less revenue coming into our Treasury. Their ``solution'' is to balance the budget on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the children, and the poor, to cut back on environmental protection, to cut back on transportation, while providing even more tax breaks to those who do not need it. That is unacceptable, and that is what the American people have to stop.