Coaches frequently fire up their team by telling them they are not getting the respect they deserve; the opponent doesn’t respect you… the media don’t… shoot, even some of their own fans don’t believe they can win.
The basic premise of this well-worn tactic is that, for all their hard work and effort, they are still being treated unfairly. They have not gotten what they deserve.
Hey, it often works. Athletes come charging out of the locker room, ready to right the perceived wrong.
President Obama is employing a similar strategy in his re-election campaign. Tuesday, he went to the swing state of Florida to deliver a stem-winder on his support of the “Buffett Rule.” The proposed minimum 30 percent tax on millionaires and billionaires is named for investor Warren Buffett, who points out that his tax rate is lower than his secretary’s.
The President’s argument is laced with references to tax “fairness,” and nothing gets some people fired up more than when they are told—by the President of the United States no less—how unfair it is that the rich are getting a better tax deal than they are.
It’s true that any wealthy person who receives income primarily from capital gains and dividends is taxed at the 15 percent rate, as opposed to the highest marginal rate of 35 percent. But capital gains are taxed at a lower rate to encourage investment. Additionally, the companies that pay returns on investments must also pay taxes, so the money that reaches Buffett and other investors is actually taxed twice.
But let’s say that Buffett and the roughly 100,000 other Americans who are millionaires and live primarily on their investment earnings did have to pay at least 30 percent of their income to the government. What would that mean for a country sinking in red ink?
According to the New York Times, “the Buffett Rule would generate about $47 billion over the next decade, or less than one percent of the $6.4 trillion in deficits projected during that time under Mr. Obama’s budget.”
That’s a rounding error, fiscally meaningless in the great scheme of how this country collects revenue and spends taxpayer dollars. Additionally, the top one percent of income earners already pay over one-third of all federal income taxes.
But forget the math. It’s irrelevant to why the administration is pushing the Buffett Rule. President Obama is trying to craft a winning election strategy and poll numbers show an avenue toward victory.
A new Washington Post poll shows Americans disapprove of how Obama is handling the economy (54 percent disapprove, 44 percent approve), believe the country is on the wrong track (64 percent wrong track, 33 percent right track) and that the recession continues (76 percent say still in recession, 21 percent say the recession is over).
Since the economy is the top issue in the minds of most Americans, President Obama has trouble running on his record on that front.
However, a majority of Americans also believe the economy is giving them a raw deal. The Post poll finds that 52 percent believe “unfairness in the economic system favors the wealthy” is a bigger problem than “over-regulation of the free market that interferes with growth and prosperity (37 percent).
The likely GOP Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, is a former private-equity executive who paid an effective tax rate of 14 percent on income of nearly $22 million in 2010. It’s a perfect set up for Obama—pound the “unfairness” of the country’s economy, then have surrogates paint Romney as a symbol of the inequity.
It’s disingenuous and it plays to the darker edges of our character, but it just might work, just as it does for the coach who whips his players into a frenzy by staging straw man us-against-them battles.