Senator Clinton makes a bold claim:
Blasting “companies shamelessly turning their backs on Americans” by shipping jobs overseas and railing that “it is wrong that somebody who makes $50 million on Wall Street pays a lower tax rate than somebody who makes $50,000 a year,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton increasingly sounds like one of her old Democratic rivals, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
The first half of her statement is boring rhetoric. Corporations are evil, blah blah blah. Empty talking points. Whatever.
The second half of her statement is absurd. She needs to prove it. Show me one Wall Street executive who pays a lower tax rate than somebody who makes $50,000 per year.
No matter what, I will take no solace. If she could fine one, her solution would be to raise the rate on the individual making $50 million. She’d never imagine that she could (ask Congress to) lower rates or simplify the entire tax code.
It’s interesting that the first screen a visitor encounters at her campaign website is a place to give her your information, accompanied by a big red SUBMIT button. Freudian, anyone?
Senator Obama does the same, but he doesn’t ask for first or last name and invites the visitor to LEARN MORE. I won’t pretend that the result isn’t nearly identical, when mentality meets policy, but the marketing difference explains a lot.