The Right Goes Batshit Crazy Over Progressives' Huge Tax Victory

Posted by David Sirota, Open Left at 12:26 PM on April 6, 2009.

In OpenLeft's ongoing coverage of the most important tax fight you've never heard about, I wanted to point out just how huge a conniption fit the national conservative movement is having over New York state progressives' success in preventing health care cuts by raising taxes on millionaires.

Check out this overwrought fulmination from Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. You have to read this thing to believe it - yes, the small grassroots Working Families Party (WFP) is evil and awful for organizing middle and working class people into a powerful political force in state politics - one that is key to this tax reform initiative. The Post explicitly attacks the WFP for developing a "foundation of influence in Albany" through it "canvassing prowess" - as if developing political power through door-to-door organizing is an absolutely awful thing.

That was topped only by de facto National Republican Party Chairman Rush Limbaugh, who used his national radio show to declare that he's selling off his luxury condo in New York because he doesn't want to pay the millionaire's tax.

The WFP responded to Limbaugh by launching a petition telling the de facto Chairman "good riddance." You can sign it here.

Whether or not you live in New York, this tax victory is huge, because it is happening in one of the most economically unequal states in America - a state that can set trends because of its sheer economic size. The hysterical reaction from the national conservative movement to these developments is a reflection of this fight's significance - and you can bet when the tax equity battle comes to your state, there will be the same crazed reaction from conservatives.

Tagged as: right, conservatives, progressives, taxes