Politics & Power Quote by Terry Savage

Savage’s line of attack is to smuggle a moral argument into an economic one, then dare you to disagree without sounding petty. The scare quotes around "rich" and "extra" do a lot of work: they hint that the category is slippery, maybe even unfairly demonized, while also insisting that surplus cash is not indulgence but fuel. In her framing, money sitting with the wealthy isn’t stagnant; it’s potential investment, jobs, growth. Tax it and you’re not redistributing comfort, you’re draining the engine.

The rhetorical questions are calibrated to close the argument rather than open it. "Do we really want..". presumes a shared, sensible "we" that already knows the answer. Government is cast as a spendthrift middleman, not a buyer of public goods, and that omission is the point: if you never mention infrastructure, research, health, education, or demand-stabilizing programs, "give it to the government to spend" sounds like pure waste.

Then comes the emotional trap: opposition is reduced to "politics" and a mean-spirited urge to "make everyone suffer equally". That’s not just a critique of redistribution; it’s a preemptive character judgment. The subtext is a recession-era anxiety (or any "tough times") where calls to "share the burden" can feel like punishment. Savage’s intent is to reframe tax policy as envy dressed up as compassion, and to make defending wealth retention sound like defending recovery itself.