I'd rather see it fought on grounds even more essentially moral, but this one will definitely do.
As the Bush administration draws up plans to simplify the tax system, it is also refining arguments for why it may be necessary to shift more of the tax load onto lower-income workers.Anyone out there think it's not time to honor Jefferson's maxim, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"*? Ok, maybe we can avoid the blood, but only one side has been engaged in a class war up to now.Economists at the Treasury Department are drafting new ways to calculate the distribution of tax burdens among different income classes, which are expected to highlight what administration officials see as a rising tax burden on the rich and a declining burden on the poor.
___________________
* Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Stephen Smith, November 13, 1787, in Albert Fried, Ed., The Essential Jefferson (Collier Books, 1963), p. 264.