Some In Rags, Some In Jags

The average CEO of a Fortune 500 company made $11.75 million in 2005. Few among progressives—and I suspect few old-fashioned Republicans, if you scratch the surface—would agree such compensation packages are remotely related to performance. "What the market will bear" has become, for CEOs and their ilk, code for board-room cronyism, just part of the transmission mechanism of state largess to the coddled few. All this while industry continues its flight offshore, leaving the American worker in the dirt. There are probably a lot of ways to put a stop to such looting, but one sure-fire way to apply the brakes, which should be in the mix but isn't, is raising taxes. Forget about taking back the Tyrant's many gifts to the rich. Forget about arguments whether "they pay their fair share". We're talking about nothing but a high-tone thieving class; socking it to them is merely returning to the public coffer money they've sucked out of it. Class warfare? Yes, indeed, and they started it. Returning to a 90% marginal rate on incomes above $1 million would be a forgiving start. Perhaps some not-so-debilitated Democrat somewhere has raised this issue. If so I hadn't heard it. But it could sell, if it were explained clearly, carefully, and repeatedly to the voter. More than that, though, on the merits it's a fine, basic issue of principle. To be honest, in our situation it's on par with an issue like capital punishment, a bright line that divides those in rags from those in Jags.