The Mike Strimling for Senate campaign in the California open primary seeks to bring the message of taxing the rich to the Senate race. Polls show that Independents and even GOP voters may vote to tax the rich, if given the opportunity, and California's open primary this year could even result in two Democrats going to the run-off in November. There are no heavyweight Republican candidates - just the usual Feinstein middle of the road, and a smattering of small fry. This is an opportunity to pull the debate over to where it should be - to tax the rich like we used to tax them, at 3 to 4 times the current rates on millionaires. That used to be a central tenet of Democrats and Progressives. Of course, with millionaire candidates supported by millionaire campaign contributors, we get Democrats like Dianne Feinstein who voted for the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and voted to extend them in 2010. Our campaign is at TaxTheRich2012.org - come check us out. Leave comments. Link us and twitter us. Please help get the word out.
You'll see on our website that we don't take aim at Feinstein at all. She has not been as terrible as the Republicans she has run against, certainly, and the point of our campaign is not to form the circular firing squad as liberals sometimes do.
The point is to educate about what has happened to tax rates in the last 3 decades, and show and grow support for reviving progressive taxation. This important history is being lost. Obama is fighting for a puny 3% raise in taxes on the rich or a "Buffet rule." That actually taxes a millionaire at no more than a secretary, and is supposed to be an advance!
Economic theory has shown repeatedly that high taxes on the rich are valid and necessary - to support the government without which their property has none of the services that provide its value. The yawning gap between the very rich and the rest of us is growing. Social mobility in America is now lower than other advanced countries, as the support for education and every other facet of the social contract is reduced to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Under current law, of course, a secretary or anyone making up to $108,000 can pay a combined tax rate - between payroll taxes and income tax - of about 40% while someone like Romney can pay only 15% on $20 million incomes. Most scandalous of all are rich heirs paying only 15% on the dividends of inherited wealth. Few people know anymore that the rich paid 70% to 90% on such incomes from 1935 to 1981 and even paid 77% in 1918.
There will be a 200 word statement about taxing the rich for the Mike Strimling Senate campaign, in the voter pamphlet that every California voter receives. There are a few other crank candidates but no other real statement from a Democrat in the pamphlet. We have an opportunity to make a blow against the empire here, if we can get the word out. Come check out the pages on our website and tell us what you think. Help us get the word out that people will be able to vote to tax the rich in June in California's primary.
