Politics & Power Quote by David Plouffe

"Now, the president would like to do tax reform, which would obviously lower rates for most people in America and make the tax code fair and get rid of loopholes and special treatment. But absent tax reform, the president believes the right way to get our fiscal house in order is ask the wealthy to pay their fair share"

David Plouffe, Public Servant

About this Quote

The sentence is engineered to make two positions look like one: technocratic tax reform and moralistic redistribution. Plouffe opens with the crowd-pleaser - "lower rates for most people", "fair", "get rid of loopholes" - a greatest-hits list of bipartisan aspirations that almost no voter would reject in the abstract. It frames the White House as pragmatic, pro-growth, and allergic to insider carve-outs. Then comes the pivot word that does the real work: "But". With that, "reform" becomes the idealized destination, while a tax hike on the wealthy becomes the supposedly responsible detour.

The subtext is leverage. "Absent tax reform" quietly assigns blame to obstruction without naming Congress, Republicans, or lobbyists, keeping the speaker above the partisan mess while implying who is stalling. It also sets up a rhetorical trap: oppose the "fair share" move and you look like you're defending loopholes and "special treatment", even if your objection is about spending or economic effects. "Fiscal house in order" is the austerity-friendly phrase meant to reassure deficit hawks that this isn't just a moral crusade; it's bookkeeping. "Fair share", meanwhile, is intentionally non-numeric - a value judgment presented as common sense.

Context matters: post-crisis America, when anger at bailouts and inequality made "the wealthy" a politically potent category. Plouffe's intent is to translate that diffuse resentment into policy permission, while keeping the door open to a grand bargain that, conveniently, starts from the White House's preferred premise.

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Topic	Equality
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About the Author

David Plouffe (born May 27, 1967) is a Public Servant from USA.

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