Issue date: 4/20/09 Section: Opinion

Here's a fun fact. The Obama administration tax hike on the highest-income Americans would still be almost 10 percentage points below what existed for most of the Reagan administration. The 3 percentage point increase would simply return the tax rate of the richest 5 percent of Americans to what it was in 1993 under Clinton. Beyond the hysteria surrounding the "socialist" tax policies of the Obama administration, it is clear that a different tax policy had to be adopted after the Bush years. No administration has been able to wage a large scale war that included the invasion of a foreign country and still cut taxes, yet somehow that's exactly what happened when the Bush tax cuts were extended, costing the nation billions of dollars while we engaged in a war that even the most conservative of estimates say will cost us between $1 and $2 trillion. I know, "liberal" just doesn't quite have the sting it used to, but before we start throwing around the word "socialist," let's understand that the tax policy changes we're seeing are nothing new, but are absolutely necessary. The rich have had their tax break for the past eight years and it hasn't worked out so well. Let's see what happens when we give it to the other 95 percent.

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