The Definition of a Tax "Hike" According to $ Propaganda Media

You might think the word "hike" means something rising. It can also mean something not going down, as in taxes on rich people. In fact, it can even mean a tax cut.

We have this from The New York Observer, an obnoxious, snarky, rag aimed at rich people who live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A rich reactionary named Arthur C. Carter owned it for years until he got bored with it, so a punk rich kid named Jared C. Kushner had his real estate mogul daddy buy it for hinm. Jared put his name atop the masthead as "publisher." Always a reactionary rag obsessed with multimillion dollar real estate deals, it's even more flamingly right wing now. (And its obsession with rich real estate transactions in Manhattan is bizarre and parochial, and has the breathless adoring tone of celebrity "journalism.")

A rabid editorial in the March 21st issue fulminated about a proposed extension of an existing surcharge on incomes over $200,000 thusly: "A state surcharge on annual incomes of more than $200,000 is due to expire at the end of the year. Mr. Silver [Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NY State Assembly] has proposed a one-year extension of the surcharge- a tax hike- although it would apply only to incomes of more than $1 million." In other words, a TAX CUT for people making between $200,000 and $1 million a year, and the same tax on people making OVER $1 MILLION PER YEAR. (What a ridiculous amount of money to make! But hey, how else can they afford to bid up apartments so they cost millions of dollars? And Hamptons mansions?)

The editorial throws around the usual foaming-at-the-mouth rhetoric about "wasteful" spending, and demands an end to "the millionaire's tax" and insists on "reform" instead. ("Reform" is code in this context for slashing social services spending.) Their man, nominal Democrat Andrea Cuomo, the reactionary Governor and son of former Governor Mario "Lock 'Em Up" Cuomo (whose sole accomplishment as Governor was a prison building spree- he had a terrible environmental record, a terrible poverty record, a terrible record on anything you might expect a "liberal" to have a good record on) is solidly in the corner of the rich, as the editorial approvingly notes.

Of course, this is a national phenomenon of the trillionaire oligarchy going mad with greed and wanting more more more. U.S. public corporations are currently hoarding almost two trillion dollars in cash. The Forbes richest 400 together control trillions in wealth. Yet these people insist they are overtaxed, and the U.S. and the 50 states just have no money and have to slash spending. (But not spending on the military, or secret police, or huge giveaways and subsidies for the rich and their businesses, like oil, nuclear, you name it.)

Their is massive transference of wealth in this country from the people who create it- workers- into the coffers of the superparasites.