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Republicans need to hammer Obama's twisted view of fairness by offering a more compelling vision of their own

Ryan Streeter
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In their columns today, both Charles Krauthammer and Mike Gerson cite Obama’s claim in a 2008 debate that he would favor raising capital gains taxes, even though doing so would reduce federal revenues, out of “fairness.”

Krauthammer writes:

A most revealing window into our president’s political core: To impose a tax that actually impoverishes our communal bank account (the U.S. Treasury) is ridiculous. It is nothing but punitive. It benefits no one — not the rich, not the poor, not the government. For Obama, however, it brings fairness, which is priceless.

Obama’s record so far, Krauthammer argues, shows that the President has been fully committed to this retributional type of justice all along and has been willing to run up the deficit in its service.

Gerson writes:

Now Obama has offered his response to the fiscal crisis: maintaining unreformed entitlement commitments with a higher, more progressive tax burden in the name of fairness. This, he claims, is the only rational, disinterested choice — leaving Republicans to be mocked as unfair, irrational and self-interested. All reasonable people, it seems, are egalitarians.

Gerson writes that Obama’s Rawlsian liberal view of fairness – confiscation and redistribution for its own sake rather than its effects – has a philosophical opponent: the view embraced by leaders ranging from Lincoln to Reagan that understands justice as opportunity. This view, perhaps best articulated among Republicans by Jack Kemp over the years, holds that what is truly fair is a society in which economic mobility is open to all.

Republicans are still searching for a leader, both in the 2012 race and also in Congress, who articulates this view of the world in a compelling way.

And finding such a leader is important. Repeatedly defending lower taxes for high earners won’t work. Public opinion is on Obama’s side on this issue. “Fairness” is an a priori principle for most people, something Obama knows. Republicans need to change the debate, and it takes leadership to do that. They need to talk about how Obama favors an environment that is unfair for young workers. They need to talk about a just society as an opportunity society. They need to point out that Obama’s tax policy, however good it sounds, reduces resources for the safety net that those who can’t pursue opportunity depend on. In short, they need to show that Obama doesn’t really care about people. He only cares about sticking it to a class that’s easy to hate, even if everyone else doesn’t benefit.

We can reform Social Security so it focuses more on the poor and works through spending constraints rather than tax hikes - if we hurry

Ryan Streeter

Chuck Blahous has a very good article at e21 detailing the winners and losers of the Bowles-Simpson proposals on Social Security.

He lists three winners and three losers.  Atop the list of winners are low-income workers, a striking aspect of the proposals. Blahous writes:

Low-income workers and those who advocate for them would achieve a great victory if Simpson-Bowles were enacted. This is far and away the single most striking substantive feature of the proposal. The program’s substantial fiscal shortfall would be closed without a toll on those on the low-income end, either on the benefit or tax side…Whereas today the maximum-wage earner receives more than three times that provided to a “very low” earner, under Simpson-Bowles this ratio would be less than 2:1 by 2050. In sum, benefit growth on the high end would be constrained while on the low end it would be accelerated. In addition, low-income workers would have added security via the reduction of the threat of insolvency-triggered benefit cuts.

This feature of Simpson-Bowles is so pronounced that advocates for the poor should be aggressively vocal in support of the plan. If they choose not to be, they will need to find a rationale based on factors other than the plan’s substantive impact on low-income workers.

Republicans should pounce on this, especially when one considers the second group of winners on Blahous’s list: fiscal conservatives.  Blahous writes that with a few changes, the proposal would effectively balance Social Security’s books through spending constraints rather than tax increases. He points out that this is especially the case if we act soon. The longer we wait, the more inevitable tax increases become.

The implications of these two groups of winners are significant:

• Social Security would and should be more generous to those who haven’t earned very much during their lifetimes. It would push the program more into the direction of a safety net for the elderly years, and encourage higher-income earners to be saving.
• Republicans can claim they want to focus increasingly on those in need in federal programs and oppose our growing arsenal of middle class entitlement programs. This should be part of a broader program that includes repealing Obamacare and focusing on creating growth for the middle class instead.
• Urgency has to be the name of the game in entitlement reform. Solvency through cuts is possible, but only if we start the ball rolling now. The GOP needs to capitalize on the public’s sentiments regarding public spending and show – complete with charts, graphs, and videos – how tax increases become more likely the longer we wait. 

(The other winner, by the way, is any supporter of bi-partisan reform; and the three losers are tax increasers, advocates of funded savings accounts, and those who would like to scare seniors for political advantage)