Four Ways Obama can Help the Middle Class Without Raising Taxes

America's middle class has taken a huge hit on President Obama's watch. The Wall Street Journal has pointed out

ViaMoi / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

that the after-tax middle-class household income fell by 1.9 percent during Obama's so-called economic recovery — despite a 25 percent increase in payment transfers.

So it is only right that the president do something to help them – and he's getting a lot of praise from MSNBC-style liberals for laying out his "bold" soak-the-rich strategy in his State of the Union address. But there is nothing bold, I note in The Week, about trotting out tired old class warfare tropes that have not a snowball's chance in hell of passing.

If he wanted to be truly bold he'd look for good ideas even if they buck his party's conventional wisdom. I'll help him out by listing four that don't involve jacking up taxes.

Go here to find out what they are (but, spoiler alert: one of them involves not messing up  the school options of poor, minority kids in DC)

Comments

[Bean Counter]

Speaking of a snowball's chance in hell.....This will happen the morning after my wife rents me a 20 year old hooker for my birthday.

[Drake]

What has Obama ever done to make you think Obama doesn't despise the Middle Class rubes?

[WTF]

Exactly. What in God's name would make anyone think that Obama wants to help the middle class?

[Rich]

Please define "middle class". How does it compare with "working families"?

[Almanian!]

They're somewhere between "Average Americans" and "Aspirational Up-and-Comers"

[Rich]

Ah. But can a child be both "at risk" and "middle class"?

[some guy]

A child can be anything and all things a politician needs it to be.

[Jeff]

I am legit shook over here that Shikha wrote a list that wasn't:

1. Immigrants
2. Immigrants
3. Immigrants
4. Immigrants

[Suthenboy]

What are you talking about Shikha?

Obumbles has no interest in helping the middle class, quite the opposite I think.
He does have great interest in raising taxes.

[Drake]

He'll help us after we become worthy poor people.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Why is it that every time I see SOTU, my brain registers STFU?

[sarcasmic]

You're not the only one.

[Tony]

I see the new phrase book on tax increases has been thoroughly distributed. It's a "tired" proposal. Just so pass?. Mitch McConnell said it, you're saying it, it's ironically like old times, when patently absurd notions gained steam quickly because enough people repeated the same bullshit words about them. So we can never raise taxes ever, because it's an idea that's gone out of fashion? Even though there are only two things you can do with taxes, raise and lower, and this is the single way government does things? Nobody who says we can never raise taxes is entitled to bitch about the budget deficit, ever.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Except in this case/every case he wants to raise taxes for new spending.

So yeah, fuck off.

[Tony]

Maybe we need new spending. It can't be true that we always, forever need lower taxes and less spending. Unless you're a moron dogmatist.

[KDN]

Perhaps the President can find room for new spending by axing some old spending. You know, prioritizing. What executives are generally paid to do.

Nah, too hard. He's just too smart to run his organization like that.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

This!

[R C Dean]

It can't be true that we always, forever need higher taxes and more spending, either.

Unless you're a moron dogmatist.

[sarcasmic]

Zing!

[Tony]

Didn't say we did.

[MJGreen]

We don't. We also don't need higher taxes.

See? That was easy.

[some guy]

It can't be true that we always, forever need lower taxes and less spending.

Sure it can, if you're not very effective at lowering taxes and reducing spending.

Also, you seem to be equating "always, forever" with "for a few decades". "Always, forever" isn't just for a few decades. It's for all the decades.

[Rasilio]

yes but can you name one time since the 1950's where we actually got lower taxes and less spending?

[Tony]

If government starts spending less, then there better be something in the private sector to pick up the slack. Otherwise you guys will just be blaming the nearest Democrat for the recession.

[Puddin' Stick]

Got bored on your private jet's fuel stop, eh, Tony?

[some guy]

You give him waaaay too much credit. I figure he got bored during his lunch break (stupid floor manager only gives him 45 minutes...)

[Counterfly]

The middle class? Good, those racists deserve every hit they get, am I right.

[Pro Libertate]

Let my markets go!

[The Late P Brooks]

Maybe we need new spending.

Yup. The last time I went to the Post Office, the floor was so littered with legless war veterans and homeless squatters I could barely get to my box. And they all want lunch money.

[sarcasmic]

"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Bastiat