The Economist on Mitch Daniels

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/08/the-economist-on-mitch-daniels

The Economist has an article on the governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, who is one of the more interesting and promising characters on the Republican horizon. It reports, "he wants to raise the retirement age and stop sending Social Security cheques to the rich."

We said just the other day that "One of the surprising things in the battle of ideas these days is the degree to which the center-right of the political spectrum wants to make government tax and spending policy tilt more away from the 'rich.'" Obama wants to raise their taxes; Mitch Daniels just wants to stop sending them Social Security checks. Do they get a refund for the money they paid in to the system before they retired?

Look, I'm a Mitch Daniels fan generally speaking and I think entitlements need to be fixed. But it's hard to see me-tooing the Democrats on "soak the rich" as a winning Republican strategy. If voters really want to soak the rich, they'll vote Democrat. And beyond the politics of it, there are some equity and taxation without representation issues involved in trying to balance the budget on the backs of a small minority of "rich."

by Ira Stoll  |  Aug 19, 2010 at 10:37 pm Related Topics:  Definition of 'Rich', Politics, Taxes receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list