Tag Archives: class warfare

Interesting Timing On This Court Ruling

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On Wednesday, Just the News posted an article about a ruling by a New York state appeals court on Wednesday.

The article reports:

A New York state appeals court ruled Wednesday that New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani can move forward with a controversial tax on high-end second homes. 

The Brooklyn-based court reversed a September ruling by a state Supreme Court judge, who found the city mishandled the tax’s rollout and ordered officials to remove the current list of property owners to whom the tax won’t apply and replace it with one listing only those who will be subject to the tax.

Mamdani supported the new pied-à-terre tax, which was proposed by New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, earlier this year. The tax was expected to bring in approximately $500 million for the city annually.

The appeals court ruled the homeowners who brought the suit, who used to have homes in New York City, had no legal stake in the outcome and therefore, the mayor’s tax could move forward, according to the New York Daily News.

Notice that they waited until after the election to decide to raise taxes in New York City. Did anyone actually think that a Mayor with socialist leanings would not raise taxes?

The article includes Mayor Mamdani’s comment:

“Today, an appeals court rejected an attempt by the ultrawealthy to avoid paying their fair share and ruled in favor of the City in a lawsuit challenging the rollout of the pied-a-terre surcharge,” Mamdani said in a statement. “From day one, those with the most have attempted to use every legal avenue available to shield their wealth and avoid contributing more to our city. But owning a second home worth over $5 million should come with a responsibility to the city that makes it valuable.

“The pied-a-terre surcharge asks those who can afford luxury second homes to contribute toward the safer streets, cleaner parks and essential public services that every New Yorker deserves,” he added.

Class envy is a basic strategy of Marxists. It’s sad that New York City residents did not see this coming.

The Way Forward…How Do We Unite?

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The way forward has to include a change of direction. Many Americans have been negatively impacted by high inflation, high interest rates, and slow job growth. Hopefully, electing a businessman as President will help change the current situation.

One thing that will unite us is an honest media telling the truth. For example, ‘tax cuts for the rich’ is not only a lie–it is class warfare–a Marxist strategy. The Trump tax cuts benefited the lower and middle economic classes–not the rich. You can find the statistics here.

The biased press coverage by the mainstream media of the 2024 presidential campaign was a disgrace.

According to the Media Research Center:

…on ABC, CBS and NBC was 78% positive vs. 22% negative. For Trump, those numbers were flipped: just 15% positive press, vs. 85% negative coverage. Subtracting Trump’s positive press from Harris’s, the advantage to the Democratic nominee was 63 points, the greatest in the modern media age.

That bias was largely responsible for further dividing our country. Using the Department of Justice to intimidate and prosecute anyone with views opposite of the party in power also divides us. Law enforcement has no business raiding someone’s house because they were protesting abortion or investigating someone because they spoke at a school board meeting. Admittedly there are some political figures who should be prosecuted for their crimes, but not for their political views.

The people who hate President Trump because it is the approved thing to do in their social circles should consider not lying to their friends about what a Trump presidency means. President Trump has been President before. Did he put his political opponents in jail or use the judicial system the harass them? Were any Democrats disbarred or their assets seized during the Trump presidency (like John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani)? Were gay people mistreated or prosecuted? Yes, President Trump’s appointed Supreme Court Justices overturned Roe v. Wade, but even Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated that Roe v. Wade was bad law.

The past predicts the future. During the first term of President Trump we had peace and prosperity. Can we unite in the hope of achieving that again?

This Should Be An Interesting House Race

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Hot Air posted an article yesterday about one of the Democrat candidates for the 2nd U.S House district in New Jersey. The person currently holding this seat is Representative Jeff Van Drew, who recently switched from Democrat to Republican. The Democrat candidate is Amy Kennedy, ex-wife of former Representative Patrick Kennedy (son of Ted). Patrick Kennedy represented Rhode Island from 1995 to 2011. Patrick Kennedy has confessed to struggling with alcohol and has worked to combat drug addiction since leaving the House of Representatives.

The article reports:

Amy Kennedy released a video announcing her candidacy Monday.

What I see in that video is a candidate who knows exactly who she needs to win over to get elected – other women. She goes straight to our “moral compass” with a photo of Van Drew and Trump. She includes the soccer mom lingo of showing kindness, treat others with respect, and show compassion. All of this is heard in every household with kids every day. Then she pivots to the economy. She says people in south Jersey can’t find jobs. According to this chart, unemployment is higher in south New Jersey than the northern part of the state where it is more industrialized. The ‘richest corporations” she references are located further north. South New Jersey is more rural and always has been. Back in my college days, my first roommate was from Bridgeton. Her family owned a farm and her parents were active Republicans. In other words, it is traditionally a conservative part of New Jersey. Apparently, Kennedy thinks that inserting some far-left class warfare into the race is the way to go.

She speaks to the deregulation of the energy industry and mentions climate change. She’s really checking off all the boxes, isn’t she? She goes on to mention the mental health and addiction epidemic, too. “We continue to ignore the biggest public health emergency of our time — the mental health and addiction crisis that affects virtually every family.” Well, at least she didn’t succumb to the opinion of the most woke among us and say that climate change is the biggest emergency of our time. That will probably come later.

The video overall will certainly appeal to the audience for which she strives. She’s a former teacher and the mother of five. She’s the mom next door. She can fight the patriarchy and the bad Orange Man without breaking a sweat. Liberal voters are not prone to hold Kennedys morally accountable as they do conservatives. Conservatives see the irony of a Kennedy lecturing about the loss of morality in public life but liberals do not. We only have to look to the career of her father-in-law to see that.

It will be interesting to see how the voters of New Jersey react to Representative Jeff Van Drew’s decision to become a Republican and how they react to the candidacy of Amy Kennedy.

It’s Hard To Remove A Sitting President When The Economy Is Good

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It is hard to remove a sitting President when the economy is good. That rule applies to attempts to impeach the President, and the rule also applies to elections. One impact of a strong economy is that people who are making good money and feel relatively secure in their jobs are less likely to engage in class warfare. Class warfare is one of the Democrat’s most frequently used weapons.

Yesterday One America News posted an article about the current state of the American economy.

The article reports:

The latest macroeconomic data is suggesting the chances of a U.S. recession have reduced in recent weeks due to steady consumer spending. According to a recent poll by Morning Consult, consumer confidence has rebounded over the past four weeks due to ongoing job creation, gains in wages and a soft price inflation.

Even without a resolution of the trade negotiations with China, consumers are feeling confident.

The article concludes:

Retail sales have also increased going into the holiday shopping season, beating previous expectations. Consumer spending makes up for roughly 70 percent of America’s GDP growth. Many experts have tied the ongoing stable expansion to President Trump’s economic policies.

“I think on the whole, this economy has been remarkable. It’s taken the headwinds of the trade wars pretty successfully…and we’re still chugging along at roughly two percent. I think that’s an accomplishment.” – Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum

A separate report from S&P Global found the probability of a U.S. recession in the coming year has dropped from 35 to 30 percent since August of this year.

I personally would like to see the probability of a U.S. recession at 0 percent, but I don’t know if I would trust the media to report that number even if it occurred.

The Arrival Of Robin Hood

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Remember teaching your children that money doesn’t grow on trees and that they have to earn it? Evidently some of our members of Congress never learned that lesson.

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some recent statements made by Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Minnesota.

The article reports:

Far-left “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) spoke at the NAACP convention over the weekend and railed against the GOP tax cuts in a pitch for her anti-poverty BOOST Act, promising to take money from the rich and give it “back to the people that earned it.”

Tlaib introduced her anti-poverty legislation – the Building Our Opportunities to Survive and Thrive (BOOST) Act – last month and spoke about it at the NAACP convention over the weekend. The proposal offers a guaranteed income – up to $6,000 per year – to families and individuals under certain financial thresholds via a “refundable tax credit that can be paid monthly.”

The Michigan lawmaker’s BOOST Act serves as her response to what she calls the “GOP Tax Scam,” despite the fact that two-thirds of Americans will pay less in taxes in 2018, thanks to the tax cuts.

“Recently, I introduced the Boost Act. This legislation completely repeals the GOP Tax Scam that is only helping wealthy individuals – the rich, the corporations,” she told the crowd.

“And do you know what I did with that money? Do you know what I said? We’re going to go ahead and put it in the pockets of folks like everyday Americans,” she said, noting that families making less than $100,000 could get up to $6,000 per year.

Taking the moral route, Tlaib said it is important to give money back to the people who actually “earned” it, suggesting that wealthy individuals do not earn or deserve to keep the fruits of their labor.

 I guess the Democrats have decided that class warfare works better than racism. Their playbook is getting very old.

The article notes the impact of the GOP tax cuts:

The economy has seen a boost from the GOP tax cuts, with companies issuing employee bonuses and announcing plans to invest billions in the U.S., thereby providing thousands of new jobs.

Last year, Exxon Mobil announced that it would invest $50 billion in the U.S. economy, adding 12,000 new jobs, thanks to the GOP tax cuts.

Even Starbucks, a notoriously left-leaning company, used millions of its corporate tax cut to raise the wage for existing workers.

Under Tlaib’s economic plan, the people who would benefit are the people who are not working; and the people who would lose are the people who work for a living. How long would it be before those who are working to give those who don’t work a free ride would see the folly of their ways and quit producing? That’s where socialism always winds up.

Wise Words From An Economic Professor

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Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. I heard him speak many years ago when one of my daughters received a degree from Northern Virginia Community College. He is a brilliant man. On March 16th, Professor Williams posted an article at the Daily Wire. The article deals with the idea of redistributing wealth.

The article states:

In a free society, people earn income by serving their fellow man. Here’s an example: I mow your lawn, and you pay me $40. Then I go to my grocer and demand two six-packs of beer and 3 pounds of steak. In effect, the grocer says, “Williams, you are asking your fellow man to serve you by giving you beer and steak. What did you do to serve your fellow man?” My response is, “I mowed his lawn.” The grocer says, “Prove it.” That’s when I produce the $40. We can think of the, say, two $20 bills as certificates of performance — proof that I served my fellow man.

A system that requires that one serve his fellow man to have a claim on what he produces is far more moral than a system without such a requirement. For example, Congress can tell me, “Williams, you don’t have to get out in that hot sun to mow a lawn to have a claim on what your fellow man produces. Just vote for me, and through the tax code, I will take some of what your fellow man produces and give it to you.”

The last example shouldn’t even be legal.

The article also comments on the idea of ‘making enough money”:

Let’s look at a few multibillionaires to see whether they have served their fellow man well. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, with a net worth over $90 billion, is the second-richest person in the world. He didn’t acquire that wealth through violence. Millions of people around the world voluntarily plunked down money to buy Microsoft products. That explains the great wealth of people such as Gates. They discovered what their fellow man wanted and didn’t have, and they found out ways to effectively produce it. Their fellow man voluntarily gave them dollars. If Gates and others had followed President Obama’s advice that “at a certain point” they’d “made enough money” and shut down their companies when they had earned their first billion or two, mankind wouldn’t have most of the technological development we enjoy today.

The article concludes:

Take a look at the website Billionaire Mailing List’s list of current billionaires. On it, you will find people who have made great contributions to society. Way down on the list is Gordon Earle Moore — co-founder of Intel. He has a net worth of $6 billion. In 1968, Moore developed and marketed the integrated circuit, or microchip, which is responsible for thousands of today’s innovations, such as MRIs, advances in satellite technology and your desktop computer. Though Moore has benefited immensely from his development and marketing of the microchip, his benefit pales in comparison with how our nation and the world have benefited in terms of lives improved and saved by the host of technological innovations made possible by the microchip.

The only people who benefit from class warfare are politicians and the elite; they get our money and control our lives. Plus, we just might ask ourselves: Where is a society headed that holds its most productive members up to ridicule and scorn and makes mascots out of its least productive and most parasitic members?

If you want to be a millionaire, find a need and fill it. That is the proven method.

Eliminating A Tax Break That Only Benefits The Rich

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The class warfare that surrounds tax reform is bothersome. It’s not constructive and most of the information is false. The reason some tax cuts appear to benefit the rich is that the rich pay 80 percent of the taxes. They are the ones who need tax breaks. However, there is one tax break that generally impacts the rich that may disappear if the tax code is truly reformed.

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes. The article explains how this deduction impacts the residents of California:

Yes, California has high state income taxes. For instance, the rate for millionaires is 13.3 percent. It’s not insanely lower for the middle class, either: A married couple making $103,000 or more would pay a 9.3 percent rate, and while $103,000 might go far in plenty of areas in the United States, California’s outrageously high housing prices ensure that such a couple wouldn’t have an easy time paying all the bills.

But those Hollywood liberals raking in the big bucks and paying the 13.3 percent rate? Well, they’re not actually paying the 13.3 percent rate, thanks to our current U.S. tax code, which allows deduction for state and local taxes.

Let me explain. Currently, if anyone files taxes with itemized deductions, he can deduct his state and local taxes. In other words, if Joe Random makes $250,000 a year, and pays $26,000 in state and local taxes, and then donates an additional $14,000 to charity annually, he could deduct $40,000 from his salary—and pay federal taxes on only $210,000.

This deduction has big benefits for wealthy Californians. According to The Heritage Foundation’s research, that deduction means the effective tax rate for rich lefties in the Golden State is 8 percent, not 13.3 percent.

Essentially the rest of the country is subsidizing California’s high tax burden.

The article further reports:

Furthermore, for individuals pulling in over $200,000 a year, the average benefit of the state and local tax deduction is $6,296, according to Heritage research. For those making in the range of $40,000 to $50,000, that benefit shrinks to $134.

And it’s not just California whose blue-state government is currently raking in the perks thanks to the tax code.

“Just seven states receive 53 percent of the value of the state and local tax deduction: California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Connecticut,” write Rachel Greszler, Kevin D. Dayaratna, and Michael Sargent in their upcoming report for The Heritage Foundation.

Why should Americans from red states and lower-tax blue states be subsidizing other states? If states like California want to embrace big government, that’s fine—but they should also have to finance it themselves, not ask for a handout from the rest of the country.

Ending the deduction for state taxes would help make the income tax more equitable for everyone. There will be loud cries from the states it will impact, but it still needs to be done. Hopefully the Republicans will have the courage to do it.

Is This Really What Democratic Voters Want?

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The American Thinker posted an article today that includes the following quote from Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea was answering a question as she campaigned for her mother:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: “Is she planning on expanding Obamacare as people know it, ACA, to include people who are not fully documented? Because when you get ill, your illness will not ask you if you are a permanent resident or not.”

CLINTON: “It’s such an important question. Thank you for supporting my mom. My mom has very strong feelings that we must push as quickly as possible for comprehensive immigration reform, and this is a real difference between her’s and Senator Sanders’ record, she supported comprehensive immigration reform at every possible chance and she was one of the original supporters and sponsors of the DREAM Act. She does not believe that while we are working towards comprehensive immigration reform we should make people wait, like the families you are talking about. Which is why she thinks it’s so important to extend the Affordable Care Act to people who are living and working here, regardless of immigration status, regardless of citizenship status. While we’re pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and reminding Republicans who are currently running for president that a couple of years ago they actually supported comprehensive immigration reform – something they seem to have forgotten during this election cycle – that we do whatever we can to solve challenges in the education system and the health system and elsewhere.”

Okay. Let’s back up a little. Emergency rooms are not allowed to turn away people who need medical attention–regardless of whether or not they can pay for it and regardless of their legal status. To open up national health care to everyone who is here whether they are here legally or not is to commit financial suicide. This is not just about healthcare–this is about the financial survival of America. If this is done, America will lose the middle class. The middle class will be expected to bear the additional debt and tax burden that this will entail. Upward mobility in America will be a distant dream of the past. Eventually it will not only hurt the people who come here seeking a better life–they won’t find one; it will hurt the people who live here now. If you are planning to vote for Hillary, you might also plan to apologize to your children and grandchildren in the future as you explain why you didn’t do something to prevent the bankruptcy of America.

Just a note. While I was working the polls Tuesday, a woman came up to me and said that she thought ‘the rich’ should pay for new roads and bridges and new college buildings. I wonder if she realizes that because ‘the rich’ have tax accountants and people who help them legally avoid taxes, the burden will fall on the middle class. Ultimately, she will be paying for these things. Class warfare is a useful political tool, but it is not an honest one.

Sorting Out The Numbers In The Class Envy Promotion

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It has already become obvious that one of the issues in the 2012 elections will be the evil rich who keep getting richer. Just in case you were wondering, I am not in any danger of entering that class. Anyway, we recently heard that as the rest of us are eating out less often and keeping our cars longer, the evil rich are prospering at a fantastic rate. Well, not so fast.

An article slated for tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal takes apart the numbers and reveals what has really happened to the rich under the Obama administration.

The article reports:

A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CB0) says, “The share of income received by the top 1% grew from about 8% in 1979 to over 17% in 2007.”

I’m not positive, but I suspect either Barack Obama or Joe Biden has referenced those numbers in recent days. If not, I am sure you can find them in sound bites from other Democrat leaders. Do you wonder why the numbers stop at 2007? There is a reason.

The article further reports:

The CBO didn’t say, although its report briefly acknowledged—in a footnote—that “high income taxpayers had especially large declines in adjusted gross income between 2007 and 2009.”

No kidding. Once these two years are brought into the picture, the share of after-tax income of the top 1% by my estimate fell to 11.3% in 2009 from the 17.3% that the CBO reported for 2007.

The article explains the different types of income the rich receive and how they are taxed. It also explains the impact of changing tax rates in various areas. Please read the entire article to understand how the Obama administration is twisting the facts in order to stir up class warfare.

The article concludes:

If Congress raises top individual tax rates much above the corporate rate, many billions in business income would rapidly vanish from the individual tax returns the CBO uses to measure the income of the top 1%. Small businesses and professionals would revert to reporting most income on corporate tax returns as they did in 1979.

If Congress raises top tax rates on capital gains and dividends, the highest income earners would report less income from capital gains and dividends and hold more tax-exempt bonds. Such tax policies would reduce the share of reported income of the top earners almost as effectively as the recession the policies would likely provoke. The top 1% would then pay a much smaller portion of federal income taxes, just as they did in 1979. And the other 99% would pay more. As the CBO found, “the federal income tax was notably more progressive in 2007 than in 1979.”

We need to cut government spending. Until we get spending under control (back to below 20 percent of the GDP as it was before President Obama took office), we will never be able to raise taxes enough to pay the cost of government. Even if we confiscated all the money and property from everyone who made more than $100,000 a year, we would still not pay off our debt or be able to stop borrowing one out of every four dollars we spend. It’s the spending, stupid.

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Forget The Scolding By Obama–Look At The History

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Jim Jordan (Ohio politician)

Image via Wikipedia

Fox News yesterday quoted President Obama on the failure of the super committee:

“There will be no easy off ramps on this one,” Obama said at an afternoon press conference where he laid blame squarely on Republicans who refused to bend in their defense of tax cuts for the wealthy during debt talks. “We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not turn off the pressure.”

This is simply wrong. The only budget in the past three years proposed by a Democrat was President Obama’s, and it was voted down by the Senate 97 to 0 (according to The Hill).

Big Government posted a more accurate evaluation of where we are and how we got here by Representative Jim Jordan:

Jordan Responds to the Super Committee’s Lack of Agreement

 Washington, DC – Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan offered the following statement after the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failed to come to agreement, triggering $1.2 trillion of automatic spending cuts over a ten year period beginning in 2013:“

Throughout the year, the Republican Study Committee has offered solutions to address the debt crisis, including the Cut, Cap and Balance plan that passed the House with bipartisan support.  But instead of a solution, Washington wanted a deal, and thus the Super Committee was created.”

“I want to thank our Republican leadership for holding the line on taxes.  Higher taxes do not create jobs – they only serve to feed Washington’s insatiable appetite to spend.”“

I also want to thank Co-Chairman Jeb Hensarling for his leadership in trying to find bipartisan solutions to stop the out-of-control spending in a town that has only balanced its budget five times in the past 50 years.  Unfortunately, this exercise has further proven that the liberal appetite for bigger government and higher taxes outweighs everything else.”“

Though President Obama acknowledged that entitlement programs are some of the biggest drivers of our debt, he has failed to show any leadership in trying to save them.  Predictably, the tax-and-spend Democrats on the Joint Select Committee fell in line right behind him.  Their failure of leadership could doom these important safety net programs.”“

Moving forward, there are clear and responsible ways to solve our debt and economic problems without raising taxes.  I encourage Congressional leaders to advance the Republican Study Committee’s concrete solutions to create jobs, reduce spending, and balance the budget.”

Solutions from the Republican Study Committee·    

H.R. 408, the Spending Reduction Act, identifies over 100 unnecessary programs, provides a head start towards balancing the budget, and saves taxpayers trillions of dollars over the next decade.     

The RSC Budget for FY 2012 balances the federal budget in less than ten years and institutes reforms that will protect seniors and help save Americans’ health care safety net. 

H.R. 2560, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, cuts spending immediately, caps it in future years, and requires Congress to send a Balanced Budget Amendment to the American public for approval.   

H.R. 3400, the Jobs Through Growth Act, cuts through red tape, creates a simpler and fairer tax code, and tears down barriers to energy production. In short, it creates jobs by growing the economy, not the government     

H.R. 1167, the Welfare Reform Act, builds upon the successful reforms of 1996, paves the way to find efficiencies in the 70+ federal welfare programs, and returns welfare spending to pre-recession levels once unemployment falls to 6.5%.

 

This is a much more accurate picture of the history of the budget battle than the one given by President Obama. Higher taxes on the rich will not solve anything–they will only promote class warfare–one of the major talking points the Democrat party will use in the 2012 election cycle. We don’t need to punish people who have worked hard to be successful. Taking money away from people who work hard and giving it to other people does not encourage anyone to work hard. Do we really want the government deciding how much we are allowed to earn before they start taking it away from us?


 



 

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