Class Warfare: There You Go Again

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

There you go again, Mr. Obama — again and again and again, engaging in class warfare.

Trying to make voters think Mitt Romney cares more about the offshore bank accounts of the wealthy than the pocketbooks of the middle class.

Proving for the umpteenth time that you know nothing about economics, how wealth and jobs are created or why businesses and rich people are moving themselves or their money overseas to escape the taxes you think aren’t high enough.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

“There you go again, Mr. Obama.”

That’s what my father would have said to the president’s latest dumb idea to punish rich and successful Americans by raising their taxes.

President Obama challenged Mitt Romney this week to join him in asking Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts only for households earning less than $250,000.

Everyone above that figure — about 2 percent of Americans — would lose the Bush tax cuts, which covered all taxpayers and expire at the end of the year.

President Obama, I feel your pain. You were in way over your head when you essentially became the CEO of the largest economy in the world.

You had less business experience than a seven-year-old girl running a front-yard lemonade stand. But by now I thought you would have learned that it is high corporate tax rates, over-regulation and finance laws like the Dodd-Frank Act that are chasing industry and jobs and capital out of the country.

Apparently not. You and your fellow taxoholics in Washington still don’t understand how much damage you’re doing.

It’s gotten so bad that one of your party’s biggest campaign contributors, socialite and ex-songwriter Denise Rich, renounced her citizenship last year in part because Austria’s tax policies will let her keep more of her wealth.

Rich, in case you’ve forgotten, Mr. President, is the ex-wife of Marc Rich, the zillionaire Wall Street trader and tax evader who received a controversial pardon from Bill Clinton.

She’s been living large in a $65 million Manhattan penthouse, but she’s what you’d call “a good rich person,” Mr. President. Like George Clooney, Bill Maher, George Soros, the Kennedys and others, she’s a Democrat.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, Denise Rich is not alone. According to your friends at the IRS, nearly 1,800 American citizens and green card holders officially severed ties with the United States in 2011.

That includes Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who decided that when he became a Facebook billionaire he’d rather be a resident of Singapore.

The weather down there is a little sticky, and the laws against the import and sale of chewing gum are a little severe, but Singapore just happens to have no capital gains tax.

Mr. President, I realize all those people didn’t renounce their citizenship for tax reasons. But you should be embracing policies that will encourage rich and successful folks like your celebrity friends in Hollywood to keep their multimillions working here at home to grow our economy.

My father only had an economics degree from little Eureka College, but he knew government doesn’t create wealth or prosperity by raising taxes, over-regulating the economy or punishing success.

Mitt Romney already knows those principles. He got very rich — in the private sector — because he’s really smart about financial matters, which, with all due respect, Mr. President, is something you have spent more than three years proving you are really dumb about.

Yes, Mr. President, Mitt Romney is a very successful businessman. You can beat him up for that. But I’m hoping and praying that this fall the American people will give him a chance to clean up the mess you’ve made.

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Copyright 2012 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com or call 800-696-7561.