The rage of the rich

The outrage of the wealthy who are mad as hell because the government is stealing their money for taxes seems to be the theme of the week. Today Krugman takes up the narrative and speaks to a point I made on twitter the other night.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.

Of course they feel the pain of the wealth holders. Which GOPer said just the other day that the rich were "the hardest hit by the recession?" As I mentioned on twitter, is there a single Congresscreature who makes less than $250K a year? Most of them are in the top 1% themselves. Really, they have an inherent conflict of interest in even setting policy on taxes.