Michael Sean Winter, blogging at the National Catholic Reporter, scoffs at Rep. Paul Ryan's idea that asking rich people to pay their fair share of federal taxes amounts to "class warfare":
... Of course, Cong. Ryan is an expert on class warfare. He and his Ayn Rand-inspired colleagues have been practicing it for some time now. Cong. Ryan, you will recall, has proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program in which seniors would get $6,000 with which to buy health insurance on the free market. Good luck getting decent health insurance for that amount when you are under 65, let alone over 65. The wealthy, of course, could afford to pay for their health [img_assist|nid=72951|title=Not classy|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=150|height=150]insurance but the elderly poor? Good luck. Republicans have also begun questioning the extension of the one-year cut in payroll taxes, which has obvious stimulative value precisely because it goes disproportionately to lower and middle class workers. (Finally, a tax cut Republicans don’t like!)
Cong. Ryan also brings one type of economic expertise to the debate. He is a devotee not only of Ms. Rand, but of the Austrian school of economics that favors an unrestricted market at all costs and denigrates any and all types of government regulation or interference with the results the market yields. I have suggested that readers consult Angus Sibley’s book “The Poisoned Spring of Economic Libertarianism” to discover the specifically anti-Catholic ideas that animate the Austrian school. Sibley, who once held a chair on the London Stock Exchange also knows a thing or two about how business and finance actually work and he concludes that the Austrians’ theories are bosh. Closer to home, it was that flaming socialist George W. Bush who pushed through the TARP bailout of the financial sector... .
... the debate is as much about government as it is about the economy. It is about the kind of society we want. It is about whether we believe it is more important to keep our promises to seniors regarding Social Security and Medicare than it is to shrink the federal government’s tax rolls. It is about values as well as policies. It is about the free market of ideas, not just the free market of economics. And, Ryan is right to be scared. In American history, there are two broad strands of economic populism. Conservative populism holds that government over-reach, mostly in the form of taxes, is an affront to individual liberty. Liberal populism holds that in our free society, the rich will always be the most powerful group and it is the role of government to step in and help those less powerful groups achieve other important social goods besides the accumulation of private wealth.