Posted on 12/13/2010 8:10:46 PM PST by seamus
Bruce McQuain — a blogger at the libertarian site Q&O and a good friend of The Heartland Institute — offers his take on the filibuster of the extension of the Bush-era tax rates by self-proclaimed socialist, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont. Though Sanders spoke for many hours non-stop — and he deserves credit, at least, for trying to conduct a "real" filibuster, as opposed to the phony ones we get today — his day-long political theater can be boiled down to the 2-minute found here.
To quote Sanders again, he says “the rich” are “crybabies” who are “making out like bandits” under the current tax rates. Sanders likens the status quo as raw “greed” that is “a sickness,” and adds it’s “like an addicition … [to] heroin.” Getting philosophical, Sanders laments that “there is something more important in life than the richest people in life becoming richer,” and he hopes that maybe “the rich” will “understand they are Americans” in a country in trouble.
Gotta hand it to you, Bernie. You got me thinking. Is America really a country in trouble because since 2003, those who pay at the top marginal rate ("the rich," defined as a small business owner, or a married couple, making jointly just under $374,000 a year) forfeit only 35 percent of their income to the federal treasury since 2003 — as opposed to the 39.6 percent rate in the Clinton years? And is there "something more important in life" than forking over more and more of the fruits of your labor to government?
Read more here.
(Excerpt) Read more at somewhatreasonable.com ...
A liberal looks at success and asks when is enough enough. A conservative looks at taxes and asks when is enough enough.
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Taxes on income aren’t taxes on the wealthy. They’re taxes on people who WORK. The wealthy aren’t touched by these.
Sick of this LIE told again and again and again by socialist and other leftscum politicians!
Sanders is obsessed with confiscating assests from productive people.
that is correct. capital gains and dividends are the bulk of what the very wealthy are taxed on and the rates are much lower than for the ordinary income tax. That is how Warren Buffett pays a smaller percentage of his income than many of his employees (in all fairness, Buffett is publicly against this).
Proverbs 11:24 - Some distribute their own goods, and grow richer: others take away what is not their own, and are always in want.
Alas, the myth of the "robber barons" is hard to break. I'm from Pittsburgh, where "robber baron" Andrew Carnegie made his fortune. Did he become one of the wealthiest men in history? Yes. Was that a given that he'd be one when he poured every last dollar he had (plus borrowing a ton) to invent the mass production of steel? No. But to do that, Carnegie had to have money to pursue his dream in the first place.
Carnegie didn't just create some jobs at his steel plants by investing his own capital, he created countless jobs around the world. He created whole industries. And he rightly became rich. And he donated almost all his fortune to others, enriching millions with (more than cash) libraries, culture and inspired more entrepreneurship.
The Bernie Sanders and Barack Obamas of the world would smother such dynamism in its crib. Socialists will never get it.
Well said (or ... er ... quoted).
They all are. That's the whole point of socialism, its entire purpose.
Right on with that one. What's scary is that Bernie is hardly an outlier among the current Dem leadership in Washington.
Great points made in your post #8.
When “is enough enough”? When I say it is, not the government!!! That is what this country is all about!!!
The “Democrats” now remaining in Congress are straight up marxists and members of the marxist “Congressional Progressive Caucus”
The right needs to institute a policy of ZERO TOLERANCE FOR MARXISTS IN CONGRESS.
CPC members need to be hunted down like the degenerate communist animals they are and jailed for subversion and grand theft.
Letting these people walk around as if they are ordinary Americans is a serious mistake, they are robbing the productive class via the legislative process.
They want to steal more of our money, let them do it the old fashioned way, at gunpoint.
Libs are always moving the goalposts towards total statism.
Seriously, I believe it is un-American (there ... I said it!) to covet the wealth of another. The pursuit of wealth and property is what our founders meant by "happiness" (more or less). And, certainly, our founders did not consider the confiscation of the labor of others to be patriotic.
Hell. That's a big part of what they fomented a revolution to oppose. If a man's labor, or that of his family, is to be confiscated by the arbitrary sense of "fairness" by the likes of Sanders and Obama ...
Well ... let's just say that the founders would have strongly opposed Marxist theory in the late 1700s if it was invented by then.
This debate shows the complete HYPOCRISY of the left. Their LUST and GREED for POWER/CONTROL over the everyday lives of citizens and commerce eclipses the alledged greed that liberals accuse the “rich” of having. Liberals are jealous that they do not control everything. The left’s GREED for power is their hypocrisy in this debate.
Well said, TMA62
You hit the nail on the head with this one. This is the fundamental change in the last 100 years. 100 years ago, the wealthy were wealthy through inheritance. The upper middle class were basically the sons of those with an inheritance, who could afford to become Ivy League educated doctors and lawyers.
Today, in a case of class warfare run amok, we have redefined the growing upper middle class as "the rich". Work an 80-hour a week job in sales so the wife can stay home with the kids? You're "the rich". Bust your ass in med school to earn big bucks, but after malpractice insurance and hundreds of thousands in student loans, are you living like a CPA, not a MD? You're "the rich". Spend five years as a county prosecutor, get your shot with a law firm, only to find out you need to book 60 billable hours a week for the next five years to make partner? You're "the rich". Have two good middle class incomes, but at the cost of nannies and daycare? You're "the rich". Graduate cum laude in engineering, but spend 4 nights a week away from home as a consultant? You're "the rich".
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