Posted on 03/01/2020 5:35:41 AM PST by Kaslin
Michael Bloomberg said something the other night that raised eyebrows. In a slip, he reminded faithful Democrats that he had paid his dues. Bragging about his $100 million in contributions that led to the Democrats retaking the House he said, “All of the new Democrats who came in, who put Nancy Pelosi in charge and gave the Congress the ability to control this presidency, I bough… I got them.”
The enormous influence of people like he and George Soros can cause even some crusty conservatives to consider stiff wealth taxes.
Taxing the rich is a proven vote-getter. It works almost every time. Former President Obama reminded Americans that these wealthy business moguls “didn’t build that!” He also said that no one “needs” that much money. This, of course was before he and Michelle “needed” a seven-bedroom, $12 million cottage on 29 acres overlooking the sea on Martha’s Vineyard. We assume someone built that.
John Fund, back when he was a writer for the Wall Street Journal, used a story to illustrate an important point. Feel free to use this with friends and co-workers. John asked people to do this little test. First, close your eyes. Now imagine that when you get home tonight, you open your mail and there is a letter from an attorney. As you read the letter, you suddenly realize that you have been named an heir to a huge fortune. You are about to become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Since this is a windfall, you decide you want to donate a significant portion to help your fellow man. So take a few minutes to consider who you might donate to.
(Pause, think).
Ok. So how many of you thought, “I know! I’ll donate the money to the federal government!”
Almost everyone will chuckle. Even liberals. Why? Because everyone knows that the least efficient way to help your fellow man is through the federal government. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (who claim they don’t pay enough in taxes) don’t voluntarily donate to Uncle Sam. They have foundations.
Yet, for generations, the Left has demanded more tax money so that they can “help” people.
The Left believes that they can invest (spend) your money smarter than you can. Certainly better than the wealthy can. Once again, they believe in something for which there is no empirical evidence. The cynic might say that robbing Peter to pay Paul is just smart politics, figuring there are a lot more Paul’s in the electorate.
Sadly, this redistribution is corrosive to both Peter and Paul. Paul receives something he did not earn while Peter is denied the reward which he did. Paul is poorer in spirit as he grows in dependency. Peter is simply poorer. Both grow to resent the other. Money the government extracts cannot be reinvested to create more economic opportunities, which is what Paul really needs. Worse, the middleman in this exchange (the government) takes a disproportionate handling fee.
Income inequality is a real issue. The disparity between today’s billionaires and the poorest among us grows greater every year. We must ask, why?
If inadequate tax rates were to blame, Mr. Bloomberg could not have accumulated over $60 billion in one life time. He lives in New York City for crying out loud!
Taxing success is a fool’s bargain. It’s not the government’s business.
It is the government’s business to insure that there is adequate competition. Once a person or company achieves a level that warrants an invite to Davos, their behavior tends to change. They begin to think about how they might use their money and power to influence events. Saving the planet is in vogue. The super-rich also spend considerable energy thinking about how they can use their wealth to thwart any real competition. They’ve learned that governments can be very helpful. Governments grant patents, protections and juicy contracts. Regulations also stifle competition.
Teddy Roosevelt understood how the industrialists of his day were abusing their wealth and power. So he marshaled federal forces to break up the trusts.
Maybe it would be more effective to simply dust off those antitrust books and punish abuse rather than use tax rates to punish success.
Michael Bloomberg... reminded faithful Democrats... his $100 million in contributions that led to the Democrats retaking the House... "...I bough... I got them."
Andrew Walz calls himself a "proven business leader" and a "passionate advocate for students." Walz, a Republican from Rhode Island, is running for Congress with the tagline, "Let's make change in Washington together," or so his Twitter account claimed. Earlier this month, Walz's account received a coveted blue checkmark from Twitter as part of the company's broader push to verify the authenticity of many Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates currently running for office. Twitter has framed this effort as key to helping Americans find reliable information about politicians in the leadup to the 2020 election.
Taxes on the rich fall into two categories:
1) A tax burden they can shift to everyone else through wage and price adjustments in the corporations that they control.
2) A tax burden they cannot avoid without leaving the jurisdiction (state or country) imposing those taxes, which they will eventually do when the burden becomes too high.
In both cases, this ultimately means that sustaining a level of spending intended to be funded through “taxing the rich” ultimately becomes a burden on everyone but the rich. So the tax question should never who, it should be how much.
Taxing the rich is always taxing the middle class, the rich pack their bags and leave
I am flatly in favor of that . . as long as you are talking about antitrust violations by the journalism cartel.The journalism cartel (aka “the media”) is the inevitable result (People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” - Adam Smith) of the continuous virtual meeting of all major journalists which the AP “wire” (and all other wire services) constitute. Which is precisely about business, and which has been ongoing since before the Civil War.
The 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan prevents Republicans from suing for libel, but before 1964 no court had ever held that 1A modified libel law at all. Why? Because intent of the Bill of Rights was not to change any existing right - at all - but to prevent changes in existing rights.
2A’s preservation of the existing RTKBA obviously did not touch your right not to be assaulted with a deadly weapon - and 1A’s preservation of the existing freedom of the press did not touch your right to sue for libel if you reputation was assaulted with, analogously, a deadly press. The Sullivan decision’s claim that
". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”is therefore flatly wrong.Sullivan prevents both Democrat and Republican politicians from suing for libel - but “liberals” don’t get libeled.
Republicans must sue “the media,” and SCOTUS must issue a restraining order which will make “the media” as loathe to libel Republicans as they already are to libel “liberals."
Thank you and well-stated per usual, c_I_c. BUMP!
I’m so old I remember when fifty thousand a year was super wealth! Fifty thousand was enough to start a car dealership rather than the price of a single low end new car or a high end used car. Fifty thousand would support a family very well for TEN years rather than just scraping by for ONE year.
Me too!!
Just 30 years ago, I would’ve thought this to be MORE than enough. But in this day and age, thanks to government meddling, we still have to be very careful to make ends meet with one child to raise..
The one thing that I can still see in my mind today, as clearly as the day I laid eyes on it was; I was standing on the East-West border and pulling patrol in two jeeps. I was the lead jeep and I stopped at one of our check points where we were to stop and get out and starting "glassing" the eastern side of the border. This was in a rural area of both sides of the border. I looked into the east side and watched men plowing the fields, using tractors that looked like they were made in the 1920s (this was 1971 or 72). They were ancient machines. Rusty color, with medal wheels on all four. The back two were larger than the front and had like spikes on the back ones to dig into the ground for traction.
I turned around and was looking back into the west and saw a couple of West Germans doing the exact same thing, plowing their fields, driving 1970s model tractors. Nice and new. Modern for the times. I looked back and forth at each side and I knew why the east was in the shape it was in. The west was in the 1970s and the east was still in the 1920s. 50 years behind. (Kinda like Islam is still in the 700s AD while the rest of the world is in the 2020's.) But, it shows just how broke socialism/communism was and remains today. North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc., all broke and the people living in abject poverty. It took the wall falling and the west bringing the east back into Germany to start rebuilding the east. The stinking Russians didn't!!!
Ask any soldier or marine that has stood a post that deals with the communists and they will tell you the same thing. The elites of the left, socialists, commies, all have the best in those societies. Only in capitalism can we all have a chance to improve ourselves. Not in socialism.
I lived in Berlin in 1985, so I saw quite a bit of the Wall. I went into East Berlin a few times. It was like going from color to black and white. The camera store didn’t have any cameras, but they did have a zillion of these cheesy flash unit that you would put on your camera and then plug it into the wall. The appliance store has these little dorm sized refrigerators that cost 1000 marks, which was like a months pay for those guys. Hardly anyone on the streets except VoPos. On the other hand, West Berlin, Kudamm, that was a great place. There was never any better place than Berlin to compare the two systems. And this completely ignored by our allegedly most learned people.
You hit it on the nail head. Exactly how it was. I just wish all these stupid A-holes could really see communism for what it is, slavery, death, murder, living in shacks, living on very little money, nothing to eat (ask the North Koreans who are eating TREE BARK!!! for goodness sakes!!), five or six family members living in a three room apartment with only a small kitchenette, one bedroom, tiny bath. These Russians thought they had it good. They had nothing, absolutely nothing.
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