Krugman: The rise of the Angry Rich

It looks like it's coming. The rich are pushing back against the demise of their Big Boy tax cuts — with a vengeance. The Professor:

Anger is sweeping America. True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterizes most of our fellow citizens. But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.

Entitlement — it's not just for poor people any more. Meet the Angry Rich.

The tales of self-pity are numerous; Mr. Krugman points to this Forbes cover story as one instance. According to its author, well-compensated Movement Activist Dinesh D'Souza:

Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history.

And that's just the first sentence. How can we even comprehend Obama's "bizarre" actions? D'Souza knows; as the sub-head suggests, we have to "look to his roots."

D'Souza then consults Obama's autobiography, Dreams of My Father, and concludes that Barack Obama is thrusting his father's dreams — the dreams of a "Luo tribesman who grew up in Kenya" — on a presumably unsuspecting America. (The irony writes itself; I wonder what D'Souza of Mumbai dreams of.)

A Forbes cover story, ladies and gentlemen, not the throw-up pages of the Weekly Standard. Not your daddy's Forbes, I guess. But back to the Angry Rich. What will be the consequences of their anger? Krugman again (my emphasis):

The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence.

As a footnote, he adds:

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

But when they say “we,” they mean “you.”

Wow. Looks like now we really need someone to stand in the way of that bipartisan Congressional charge. Someone with real courage. Someone who has engineered:

the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation

Exactly. Yes. Someone like that. I hope we can find that person, and soon — because if that person is just a figment, if that person is just the product of a marketing campaign, then the Angry Rich will definitely get their way.

In the lame duck session, of course.

GP

(For more, click through to this Krugman blog post, and then to this, from Brad DeLong. If you want to cut to the juicy bits, click here.)