Editorial: Class warfare? Get real

Published 9:40 am Wednesday, September 28, 2011

It is misguided to call political intentions to raise taxes on the rich “class warfare.”

For one, no one called it class warfare when lawmakers raised taxes on the middle class over the past 40 years.

And secondly, more notably, class warfare is a term that really is more apt in the sense of how a person in one economic class, rich or poor or in-between, wishes ill fortunate and bad times on a person or people in another.

Email newsletter signup

Wishing for a fair tax code is not class warfare.

Calling all wealthy people a bunch of greedy snobs could be construed as class warfare. Treating all the poor people as somehow less than human could be seen as class warfare.

Even with both those examples, they are not really warfare as any dictionary defines the word, which would require actual violence and combat, not merely words.

Wanting to tax the rich? That’s just a desire for fairness. Do the rich really need tax breaks on race horses, yachts, personal aircraft and other costly items? No.

Using the term “class warfare” is just a divisive political tool. It is a term we wish would go away from the ongoing political debate.