Aim your fire here.
Posted on 04/21/2012 8:15:11 PM PDT by Kaslin
Earlier this week Elizabeth Warren was asked by the Boston Globe a seemingly simple and straightforward question about her taxes: In 2011, did she pay the 5.85% rate (which is voluntary) on her Massachusetts state tax form? Since 2001, as I explained in a previous post, residents of the Commonwealth have had the option – if they so choose – to pay a higher tax rate than the 5.3% minimum. And since the former consumer advocate raked in more than $700,000 last year, the Globe believed their inquiry was an appropriate and reasonable one. At the time, however, she refused to answer the question and though I was quick to criticize her silence, I acknowledged that it was still possible she paid the top rate. Unsurprisingly – according to the Brown campaign – it’s clear she did not.
After avoiding the question all week, Elizabeth Warren finally confirmed today that she did not pay the higher 5.85% rate on her state tax form, a legal option available for Massachusetts taxpayers who believe they should pay more.
For the last few weeks, Warren has lectured others about their moral responsibility to pay higher taxes. In 2011, Warren earned more than $716,000, and has a net worth of as much as $14.5 million.
“The problem with running a campaign based on self-righteousness and moral superiority is that you had better live up to the same standard you would impose on everyone else,” said Jim Barnett, Campaign Manager for Scott Brown. “Millionaire Warren lectures others about their obligation and responsibility to pay higher taxes, but she refuses to pay the optional higher rate available in Massachusetts. This is the sort of hypocrisy and double-speak voters are sick and tired of hearing from politicians, especially those who can’t keep their hands out of others’ pocketbooks.”
To be sure, I’ve written a number of posts on Elizabeth Warren’s hypocrisy and duplicity before, but this is almost too good to be true. In short, her innocuous decision to pay a lower tax rate in Massachusetts – when she had the option to pay a higher one -- seems to vindicate my longstanding belief that all people (even liberal Harvard professors), want to keep a larger percentage of their annual income.
More importantly, what makes these startling revelations particularly painful for Democrats is that Elizabeth Warren has been on the campaign trail for months demonizing the wealthy (“there is nobody in this country who got rich on their own,” she once said) and castigating top income earners. In other words, how are Massachusetts voters, in the last analysis, supposed to take a Senate candidate seriously when she clearly doesn’t practice what she preaches? At a time when Americans are growing increasingly tired of the partisan gridlock in Washington, why on earth would we want to replace one of the most moderate, bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate with a shameless demagogue? Of course, virtually every poll in America shows the warring candidates locked in a dead heat. And it’s certainly possible that Scott Brown might lose his reelection campaign. Still, as voters become more familiar with Elizabeth Warren’s hypocrisy, I’m confident they’ll be less inclined to vote for her in November.
Why would she pay the higher rate? She doesn’t have too and still gets to be a liberal goddess.
What did you expect from a leftist Democratic fraud? Honesty? Truth? and the American way?
Looks like she and Warren Buffet got caught in their own lies and hypocrisy. Hope the sane voters of Massachusetts give her the door, to political oblivion and beyond.
Of COURSE she won’t pay the higher rate.
That’s for the little people.
She’s yet another reincarnated Bolshevik, down to the glasses.
Right there is the proof that liberalism is a mental disorder...
Let’s see that option on the 1040, right at the bottom line. That should shut up Buffet and the other big-league hypocrites, even though they’re not running for office.
What are liberals if not the absolute hypocrites...
Only a pathetic candidate like Scott Brown would be tied with a communist slug like Warren.
“Liberal hypocrite’’ is redundant really. The defintion of the two is inter-changeable.
You are exactly right...
Two things: This is Massachusetts and at the end Brown is going to defeat the communist...
It sure is proof
At a time when Americans are growing increasingly tired of the partisan gridlock in Washington...
grrrr!
The Democrat Party is running on envy and greed. You’re absolutely right. For voters, this isn’t really about paying more taxes. It’s about sticking it to someone else who might have a bit more, even if it means paying more oneself. For politicians, it’s about using other people’s money to hold onto power. Immorality is the root of most of our nation’s problems.
Now, I am not sure if an uber-intellectual like Warren can even relate to anyone who buys off Amazon or any other website.
Mass also has the Use Tax option but it would be interesting to see if she even knew what is was, and if she paid any Use Tax.
Which would indicate that she purchased NOTHING off the Internet in 2011 - at least out of state.
Would also be interesting to see if any of the authors of these various bills ever paid any use tax in any state.
http://www.mass.gov/dor/individuals/taxpayer-help-and-resources/tax-guides/salesuse-tax-guide.html
Wonder if her campaign ever buys or rents equipment / services from out of state, for use in state?
Maybe alcohol from NH ...
"The only Fair Tax is the tax that taxes you and not me."
That used to be my tag line on FR, and I still believe it.
My experience is that all liberals always exempt themselves from their own beliefs. They feel smug by saying their beliefs out loud, while privately thinking that it’s only other less-enlightened people who should have to live by those beliefs.
Just like John Kerry “I served in Vietnam” guy.
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