Putting the fairy tale of 'Lucky Duckies' in perspective

Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal wrote an absurd editorial lamenting that the poor and working class don't t hate the government it as much as it does, and thus insufficiently supports tax cuts for the rich. The Journal's solution -- straight out of Orwell -- was to raise taxes on these "lucky duckies." (Oh yes, those lucky, lucky poor people.) Then, by golly, they'll support tax cuts!

"The lucky ducky" line of attack on the working class, which willfully ignores the regressivity of state and local taxes and the payroll tax, has been resurrected by the right wing.

David Leonhardt of the New York Times demolishes the right wing's arguments in a great column.

Some excerpts:

There is no question that the wealthy pay a higher overall tax rate than any other group. That is an American tradition. But there is also no question that their tax rates have fallen more than any other group’s over the last three decades. The only reason they are paying more taxes than in the past is that their pretax incomes have risen so rapidly — which hardly seems a great rationale for a further tax cut.

So why are those radio and television talk show hosts spending so much time arguing that today’s wealthy are unfairly burdened? Well, it’s hard not to notice that the talk show hosts themselves tend to be among the very wealthy.

No doubt, like the rest of us, they don’t particularly enjoy paying taxes. They are happy with the tax cuts they have received lately. They would prefer if other people had to pick up the bill for Medicare, Social Security and the military — people like, say, firefighters, preschool teachers, computer support specialists, farmers, members of the clergy, mail carriers, secretaries and truck drivers.

In other words, people like you.