John Boehner: GOP Won't Agree To Raise Taxes On Wealthy, Even If Obama Wins Reelection

When the Big Debate Is Over Taxes, The 99% Have Lost

Ever since Romney’s comment about the 47% who don’t pay federal income tax became public, news stories and opinion pieces have been dominated by discussions of who does and doesn't pay taxes. This is great news for the 1%.

The obsession with taxes means that the 1% are playing a game that they can only win. The vast majority of the upward redistribution of income over the last three decades has been in before tax income. This has been brought about through a variety of changes in laws and institutions that had the effect of restructuring markets in ways that redistribute income upward.

For example, we have a trade policy that's designed to put downward pressure on the wages of manufacturing workers by putting them in direct competition with low-wage workers in the developing world. (Highly paid professionals like doctors and lawyers are still largely protected from such competition.) This downward pressure is amplified by the over-valued dollar, a policy that had its origins in the ClintonAdministration.

The implicit government insurance provided to too big to fail banks transfers around $60 billion a year to the shareholders and top executives at the big banks. Patent and copyright monopolies redistribute hundreds of billions a year from consumers to drug companies and the tech and entertainment industry.

Anti-union laws weaken the power of workers trying to organize for collective action, thereby reducing their ability to secure wage increases. (ChicagoMayorRahmEmanuel was going to court to have union leaders thrown in jail the teachers continued their strike.) And a FederalReserveBoard that throws workers out of work to meet inflation targets protects the wealth of creditors at the cost of undermining workers' bargaining power.

These and other areas of public policy are the key factors determining the relative well-being of the rich and the rest of us. As long as we're obsessed with a discussion of whether the Bush tax cuts will continue, the policies responsible for the bulk of the upward redistribution over the last three decades will never be discussed. The current debate may be good news for Obama’s reelection prospects, but it's not a positive development for those who don’t like to see the perpetuation of government policies that redistribute money upward. (Yes, this is all a plug for my free book, The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive.)

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost