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Senate Democrats Should Have Embraced Surtax on Millionaires
North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad does not serve as a Democrat.
He serves as a Democrat-Non-Partisan League senator.
That's a recognition of the fact that the North Dakota Democratic Party and the old Non-Partisan League, a radical grouping that challenged corporate interests and the wealthy elites (with a state-owned bank, publicly run grain elevators and progressive taxation), merged in 1956.
Jun 19, 2011
North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad does not serve as a Democrat.
He serves as a Democrat-Non-Partisan League senator.
That's a recognition of the fact that the North Dakota Democratic Party and the old Non-Partisan League, a radical grouping that challenged corporate interests and the wealthy elites (with a state-owned bank, publicly run grain elevators and progressive taxation), merged in 1956.
Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, showed a little of his NPL side when he floated the very good idea of using a surtax on millionaires as a way to bring down budget deficits.
Few scholars of North Dakota politics would confuse the senator with the NPL activists of old. Conrad's actually a budget hawk. But he reached into the NPL cabinet and found a good idea for balancing budgets and addressing deficits: taxing the rich.
Conrad reportedly considered a 3 percent surtax on the wealthy as part of an effort to gain the support of Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who serves on the committee and has argued that at least half of any deficit-reduction plan must be paid for with new revenue--as opposed to deep cuts to needed domestic programs.
Unfortunately, Conrad's idea did not get very far with his fellow Democrats--let alone the crash-and-burn Republicans of the current Senate.
Nor was it particularly popular at the White House, where President Obama recently met, according to published reports, with "potential backers from Wall Street banks..."
So it was that the Washington-insider newspaper The Hill featured a headline late Friday that announced: "Senate Dems drop surtax on millionaires from draft budget."
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John Nichols
John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. His books co-authored with Robert W. McChesney are: "Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America" (2014), "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again" (2011), and "Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy" (2006). Nichols' other books include: "The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism" (2015), "Dick: The Man Who is President (2004) and "The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism" (2006).
North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad does not serve as a Democrat.
He serves as a Democrat-Non-Partisan League senator.
That's a recognition of the fact that the North Dakota Democratic Party and the old Non-Partisan League, a radical grouping that challenged corporate interests and the wealthy elites (with a state-owned bank, publicly run grain elevators and progressive taxation), merged in 1956.
Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, showed a little of his NPL side when he floated the very good idea of using a surtax on millionaires as a way to bring down budget deficits.
Few scholars of North Dakota politics would confuse the senator with the NPL activists of old. Conrad's actually a budget hawk. But he reached into the NPL cabinet and found a good idea for balancing budgets and addressing deficits: taxing the rich.
Conrad reportedly considered a 3 percent surtax on the wealthy as part of an effort to gain the support of Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who serves on the committee and has argued that at least half of any deficit-reduction plan must be paid for with new revenue--as opposed to deep cuts to needed domestic programs.
Unfortunately, Conrad's idea did not get very far with his fellow Democrats--let alone the crash-and-burn Republicans of the current Senate.
Nor was it particularly popular at the White House, where President Obama recently met, according to published reports, with "potential backers from Wall Street banks..."
So it was that the Washington-insider newspaper The Hill featured a headline late Friday that announced: "Senate Dems drop surtax on millionaires from draft budget."
John Nichols
John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. His books co-authored with Robert W. McChesney are: "Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America" (2014), "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again" (2011), and "Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy" (2006). Nichols' other books include: "The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism" (2015), "Dick: The Man Who is President (2004) and "The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism" (2006).
North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad does not serve as a Democrat.
He serves as a Democrat-Non-Partisan League senator.
That's a recognition of the fact that the North Dakota Democratic Party and the old Non-Partisan League, a radical grouping that challenged corporate interests and the wealthy elites (with a state-owned bank, publicly run grain elevators and progressive taxation), merged in 1956.
Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, showed a little of his NPL side when he floated the very good idea of using a surtax on millionaires as a way to bring down budget deficits.
Few scholars of North Dakota politics would confuse the senator with the NPL activists of old. Conrad's actually a budget hawk. But he reached into the NPL cabinet and found a good idea for balancing budgets and addressing deficits: taxing the rich.
Conrad reportedly considered a 3 percent surtax on the wealthy as part of an effort to gain the support of Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who serves on the committee and has argued that at least half of any deficit-reduction plan must be paid for with new revenue--as opposed to deep cuts to needed domestic programs.
Unfortunately, Conrad's idea did not get very far with his fellow Democrats--let alone the crash-and-burn Republicans of the current Senate.
Nor was it particularly popular at the White House, where President Obama recently met, according to published reports, with "potential backers from Wall Street banks..."
So it was that the Washington-insider newspaper The Hill featured a headline late Friday that announced: "Senate Dems drop surtax on millionaires from draft budget."
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