Posted on 10/05/2010 9:12:41 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Framed on a wall in my office is a personal letter to me from Bill Gates the elder. "I am a fan of progressive taxation," he wrote. "I would say our country has prospered from using such a system—even at 70% rates to say nothing of 90%."
It's one thing to believe in bad policy. It's quite another to push it on others. But Mr. Gates Sr.—an accomplished lawyer, now retired—and his illustrious son are now trying to have their way with the people of the state of Washington.
Mr. Gates Sr. has personally contributed $500,000 to promote a statewide proposition on Washington's November ballot that would impose a brand new 5% tax on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and couples earning over $400,000 per year. An additional 4% surcharge would be levied on individuals and couples earning more than $500,000 and $1 million, respectively.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
steve jobs, bill gates, warren buffet, geroge soros. Multi billionaires that love tax hikes on everyone else, which they don’t have to pay. Dem constantly use their names as the boggeyman. “GOP just want tax cuts for ppl like bill gates”
The really rich want to tax those trying to get rich. The really rich are all for it because they won’t be paying it.
They have foundations, trusts, capital gains which are all untaxed until they need the money. In the meantime..their corporations pay all their expenses.
Sure...these SOBs love to tax everyone else. They already have theirs. The money doesn’t belong to the gov’t, you a@@wipes!
As with most powerful people, there’s stuff you say to the public and stuff you really do. Have you sent him a copy and asked WTF?
“Mr. Gates Sr. has personally contributed $500,000 to promote a statewide proposition on Washington’s November ballot that would impose a brand new 5% tax on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and couples earning over $400,000 per year.”
If Gates is so in love with paying taxes, why doesn’t he just give his wealth to the Government and shut the f up?
He loves progressive income taxes because they don’t tax his wealth, only his income.
He can afford squads of lawyers to prevent his wealth from being stolen, but the majority of those that will be robbed under this scheme are small business owners that won’t be providing someone a job because the money they would have had to reinvest is being stolen and wasted by the Government.
Counter with a $250,000 per year tax on every $1,000,000 of wealth (not income) and watch him sing a different tune. Jerks like that propose all these high INCOME tax rates because they know they won’t be paying it.
It’s a match made in heaven. The government works about as well as Windows and Word and is riddled with worms. And you constantly have to sink money into it for “upgrades” that don’t make it any better.
Although many of the hackers in the Linux world are certainly left of center (think Richard Stallman), I'm not aware of any that are trying to influence policy to the extent of Gates (both the father and son). Furthermore, as a Linux user, I'm not paying any money to fund this kind of nonsense. Far too often, the billions made by Microsoft end up promoting socialist and other dubious causes.
Get out of my head! :-)
Very well said and quite succinct.
It has to be a peculiar form of mental illness for otherwise sane and supposedly intelligent people to somehow believe that unaccountable drone-like bureaucrats — most of whom could not find a private sector job — and corrupt politicians can somehow spend THEIR money better and more productively than they can.
The incredible Medicade/Medicare fraud SHOULD be a tip-off to guys like Gates, Jobs, etc., etc. that what they’re doing is simply encouraging more of the same.
Simply require Bill and Bill Jr. to pay large percentages of their assets to the state. Of course, for this purpose, their "assets" would have to include wealth they have sheltered in trusts, and donated to personal charities.
bump
Mr. Gates Sr as well as his son have their heads up their you know whats.
Let’s tax anyone with a wealth like his 100% and see how much he cries like a baby. Let’s see him live in a 1,300 square foot tri-level living paycheck to paycheck and see how much he prefers taxation to the level he does.
Sure, for now, only the rich would have to pay.
But once you've headed down the slippery slope... Give it time... In Washington State, eventually even Joe Lunchbox will be in for a blood-letting.
For now, Washington State is still one of the handful of states which impose no state income tax. Let's keep it that way!
Regards,
This was part of the discussion on CNBC’s Squawkbox this morning, with Becky Quick sticking up for the billionaires (Gates and Buffet) because “they’ve given away their fortunes” so why don’t people agree with them on raising the income tax?
She (and many of the other panelists on the show) can’t tell or see the difference between government confiscation of wealth and choosing to donate (and get a tax credit, and get all of the psychic rewards of giving) to various causes. They seemingly have no idea how capitalism works or has worked. And please don’t bring up the fact that at its core, Berkshire-Hathaway is an insurance company that prospered for decades selling life insurance for the purpose of paying estate taxes.
Just plain scary.
Gates has run 3 or 4 different ads on television supporting the initiative-and never uses the words “income tax”. It’s a scam of monumental proportion.
:-))
Taxes something that gets passed on to the next guy.
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