"Romney Hood" gets pursued by the Bard of Avlon

The Daily Beast's John Avlon argues that "Romney Hood" is "a semi-clever gambit, catchy, with a populist pop-culture overlay" ...

But it unintentionally underscores Obama’s own tax problem--namely that his core rationale for raising taxes on the rich seems rooted in concepts of "fairness" rather than arguments about shared sacrifice or investment in national greatness. It is a social-justice argument rather than an economic one.

You'll notice that Avlon inserted a critical word in that tangled curiosity, one, I presume, that he hopes will acquit him after indictment for the savage torture of logic: seems, "seems rooted in concepts of 'fairness' rather than" economics.

I have watched a few of Obama's stump speeches this campaign, and I've read the transcripts of a few more. And Mr. Avlon, I'm here to ask: What speeches are you reading?

Time and again Obama has rhetorically enveloped the concept of fairness in the socioeconomics of progress, or, he has enveloped socioeconomic progress in fairness. The one only means the other; they are indistinguishable, inseparable, useless without companionship. We cannot build a greater society in the absence of fair, progressive taxation; and bottom-weighted taxation creates an unfair, intolerable drag on the engines of socioeconomic progress.

This is not a complex coupling. It's rather straightforward and pretty simple and to me and most others, I should think, damn clear.

Comments

[japa21]

Complexity is all relative. For some people, if it can't be spelled out with one container of those wooden blocks with letters on them that children use, it is too complex.

[mdblanche]

I read Avlon's criticism of Obama's emphasis as complaining that Obama is not discussing the issue in a Very Serious Centrist way, but is actually aiming all this towards, let's say, voters. This type of rhetoric is suggesting there are some problems with the last few decades of economic policy in this country, and that has practically all the pundits reaching for the smelling salts.

[Hsquared]

I'd love to hear why Avlon thinks "fairness" and "shared sacrifice" are two distinct things.