Joe Biden says socialism is patriotic
September 23rd, 2008 by RossputinIn a brazen display of a 1950’s style Communist leader, Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate announced this week that it is the patriotic duty of successful Americans to pay more taxes in order to “take money and put it back in the pocket of middle class people.”
In this video clip of an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, Biden offers a chilling smile, one which Mao or Lenin might have offered just before destroying you, and says about higher taxes for high-income Americans, “Time to be patriotic, Kate. Time to jump in. Time to be part of the deal. Time to get America out of the rut.” The icy greed-lust of his words reminded me more than anything of the “looters” in Atlas Shrugged.
Even from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I have rarely heard such flagrantly Marxist rhetoric. Just what “deal” would he like successful people to be part of? When a pig is killed by a farmer and made into sausage for someone to eat at breakfast, the preferred “part of the deal” would be the diner’s part. Second best would be the farmer’s part. But just who would “jump in” to be the pig?
What “rut” does playing Robin Hood get us out of? I suppose it could get us out of the rut of a potential economic recovery. After all, what entrepreneur will take the risk of starting or growing a business and hiring new workers if his success will just make him that much bigger a target for the greedy hand of Uncle Joe?
Beyond the fact that his view is economically foolish and distinctly un-American philosophically, is Joe Biden really a man from whom Americans should trust advice on economics and taxation?
OpenSecrets.org, a non-partisan website “tracking the influence of money on U.S. politics”, rates Joe Biden as the poorest member of the US Senate, and the only one whose net worth is estimated, using the averages of numbers provided by the Senators themselves, at a negative number.
I don’t look down on Joe Biden for not being rich. Indeed, there is some honor in having served your country without succumbing to the temptations of corruption or cushy lobbying jobs. But, combined with the fact that Biden has never had a “real job” (I don’t count his less than 3 years practicing law as any exposure to the real world, the real economy, or the value of entrepreneurship), it leaves Biden as someone whom no working person should take seriously regarding tax policy. By “working person”, I mean anyone who works for a living, whether he or she earns $10,000 or ten million dollars in a year.
Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden do labor under what their best-known colleague once called a “willing suspension of disbelief” when they suggest socialist economic policies whose certain failure has been repeatedly demonstrated. In a remarkable showing of his true priorities, Barack Obama said he would raise capital gains taxes “for purposes of fairness” even if that meant the government would take in less revenue. Studies show that there is a distinct inverse correlation between capital gains tax rates and capital gains taxes actually collected. It was Barack Obama’s clearest statement that he cares more about punishing the rich than optimizing government revenue.
And now Joe Biden throws down a “patriotic” trump card against “tax cuts for the rich” even though me must know that the Bush tax cuts have made the income tax system the most “progressive” it’s been in the modern history of our nation.
Of the estimated 134 million returns filed for 2006, then, the bottom 50% (representing adjusted gross incomes under $31,987) paid 2.99% of all income taxes. And about 43 million of those returns had zero or negative tax liability. The top 1% of taxpayers now pays just under 40% of all income taxes collected, and the top 5% (incomes over $153,542) pay 60% of all income taxes. “Tax cuts for the wealthy” have raised the wealthy’s share of the total tax burden to its highest level ever and removed the largest percentage of working Americans ever out of paying any federal income tax.
And then there’s Joe Biden the hypocrite: In defending his “patriotic” comment, Biden said “Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is, you take care of people who need the help the most.” First, how do you think Biden would vote if some other Catholic doctrine was attempted to be forced on us through legislation…such as a prohibition against abortion? Biden had a 75% positive rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2007, a 100% rating in 2006, and a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood in 2006. Regardless of one’s views on abortion, Biden’s hypocrisy is palpable.
But it doesn’t stop there. Charity is an important tenet of Catholic tradition. And one would think that if Biden were going to try to force us to give “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need” he must be quite a charitable guy. But an analysis by CBS news of the last ten years of Senator Biden’s tax returns show that “the Bidens give little to charity. 2007, in which they donated $995, was their most generous year, though in other years Biden donated honoraria from talk shows which were valued at higher amounts.” Joe, please put your hand in your own pocket before you reach into mine.
Joe Biden represents the worst possible combination of traits in someone espousing views on taxation: He’s never had a real job, never hired anybody outside of a government payroll, doesn’t practice what he preaches, has his hands on levers of political power, and is trying to get even more. So when Biden preaches that it’s your patriotic duty to be his victim, to make “the grand idea of Karl Marx” (as Estonian President Mart Laar calls progressive taxation) even more grand, just tell him it’s not a “deal” we want any part of. Yes, Joe, if anybody’s going to “jump in”, how about you first?
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
Ross,
As you know, the “progressiveness” of a tax system is measured by the proportion of income paid by the various tax brackets. It’s not measured in tax revenue. I’ve pointed this out before on these pages. So I’m just going to call your assertion what it is: a lie.
In addition, in poll after poll after poll, most Americans say they would pay higher taxes in order to (among other things) government-subsidized healthcare, improve and build roads, to help the poor, tackle global warming, the list goes on (just google, ross, it ain’t hard). So are most Americans “socialists” too?
Finally, could you have quoted a study on capital gains that didn’t come from a right-wing “think tank” funded by oil company money?
Didn’t think so.
P.S. You never responded to the factual inaccuracies I pointed out in your last few posts. Clearly you’re no Peter Suderman.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Once again, nothing from FW on the grandest bailout of them all. You’ve eagerly pounced on every single bailout that’s been proposed by the Bush administration and rubber-stamped by the idiot Congress, but not this one.
Why not?
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Oops, my bad. Adam Brandon put out a press release opposing the bailout. I’m not sanguine about it either. Too bad you guys continue to get this wrong, though:
That’s not a very coherent explanation and it’s not accurate, either. But at least you’re on the right side of the issue.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Holy Sh!t on a sandwich. What’s FW say led to the financial crisis? Government regulation. Completely put your heads in the sand on that one. I’m amazed anyone actually takes you seriously. And now the RSC and FW are using this crisis as an excuse to push their capital gains agenda without addressing the real problem here: lack of oversight. How’s FW going to fix it? Less oversight. Bravo, kids.
i’d be angry about it if the plan weren’t so hilariously stupid. No one’s going to take it seriously.
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Speaking of socialism:
Matt Kibbe was paid $169,593 by FreedomWorks Foundation last year for 23 hours of work per week. But that’s not all. FreedomWorks, Inc. paid him an additional $135,815 last year, for a grand total of $305,508 in salary alone for last year.
FWF paid Dick Armey $320,000 for 32 hours of work per week. But again, FWInc paid him an additional $80k, for a total salary of $400,000.
Kinnan got the lowest salary for 40 hours of work, being paid $60,397. But again, FWI paid him some overtime to the tune of $53,289, for a total of $113,686.
Russ Walker is the only paid State Director, reaping $60,651 for what is allegedly 40 hours of work from FWF. But he also got $54,982 from FWI as well, for a total of $115,633.
These figures don’t include salaries for behind-the-scenes actors Judy Mulcahy and Jaci Brown, each of whom also comfortably earned six figures, as well as VP for Strategy and registered lobbyist Kent Lassman.
Those are some pretty respectable salaries for non-profits.
Other interesting facts from the 2007 990:
* FWF is still paying Kevin Mannix for “legal services,” this time for $85,000. I work for attorneys who bill $400-500/hr. Assuming Mannix commands this kind of money (and I seriously doubt he does), that means he would’ve worked at least 200 hours for FWF alone. That’s five straight weeks of work. Seriously? What did Mannix do that required that much work?
* FWF also paid the Washington office of Winston and Strawn LLP $58,045 in legal services. Again, for what? One of FreedomWorks’ old directors was Jim Burnley, a Winston and Strawn attorney for some time. They’re also a lobbying firm, according to media sources.
I wonder…how many of the people pictured in all your north carolina rallies make six figures…?
September 24th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Sickle, is the top 1% paying 40% of taxes or 5% paying 60% of the taxes not progressive enough for you?
How’s this for a poll:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Poll_Lieberman_Warner_052808.html
“The poll, conducted by the Public Opinion and Policy Center of the National Center for Public Policy Research, found that 65% of Americans reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ”
As for capital gains, just look at what Democrats predicted when the rate was cut versus what ended up actually came in. It’s not difficult homework to do.
I don’t spend a lot of time answering your questions because it’s not a good use of my time. I have a job. I do this for fun. I respond when I can and when I think of it.
September 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
A couple more quick things, Sickle:
Our current financial mess can, in the area of government, be placed squarely at the feet of Democrats using Fannie and Freddie as the enforcement arms of their “affordable housing” social engineering scheme.
They pushed banks, with threats of removing certain certifications, to loan money to people who didn’t deserve loans.
Most of what the financial markets did with the loans after that was not too unreasonable, in terms of how they were traded.
One real problem was the way mortgage paper was rated by the ratings agencies, but again that comes back to the implicit, now explicit, government guarantee of the mortgages.
Another big problem was the implementation of mark-to-market standards for structured assets that is ridiculous. Most of these mortgage portfolios are worth far far more than the price they’re trading at now, but since all the normal buyers are being forced to sell because of mark-to-market rules combined with capital requirements, the system is snowballing out of control.
The statement you quote from FW above which you say is inaccurate is dead-on. Rather than just say you find it inaccurate, how about saying what you think the cause is…and I suggest you read up on the history of FNM and the CRA before you say something which will make you look stupid.
September 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Ross,
see my comments in the above thread on Ron Paul about your mistaken assumptions concerning CRA loans, which is what you’re referring to. I assure you, if you check out that discussion, that you will not find me “looking stupid.” I already know about both the FNM and CRA. It’s you who doesn’t appear to understand the history of either.
Once again ross, the measure of a progressive tax system has nothing to do with the revenue amounts you quote. It’s measured in the percentage of income paid by various income brackets. Period. What you are doing is LYING about the tax system. It’s not going to work. We’re not stupid. We know what a progressive tax system means.
Finally, Ross, you know as well as I do that if CRA mortgages had never been securitized, the housing market would’ve had its bubble and then burst, and then recovered. Just like every other bubble. You are deliberately sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the real problem: overvalued mortgage-backed securities whose sale was completely unregulated. That’s the debt that’s on these companies’ books now, and what’s led us to undercapitalized banks on the verge of failing. Once again, we’re having this discussion in the thread above this one, so join in if you like.
Damn, Ross, this is like kicking puppies. You quoted a push-poll, for one (read the questions) that wasn’t conducted BY the Public Opinion and Policy Center, but FOR it by Wilson Research Strategies. What’s WRR, you ask? Why, according to their website, they’re:
In other words, you couldn’t find a poll from a nonpartisan outfit, so you used a push poll from a conservative organization. And it’s one hell of an outlier, too. Doesn’t seem like any other poll is really agreeing with you here. Do you have a public poll from a respected polling agency to quote that supports your views? Didn’t think so. I’m embarrassed for you now. “How’s this for a poll” indeed, Ross. *rolls eyes*
Once again, dude, you’re no Peter Suderman.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
What Biden had to say recently about the rich paying more of their fair share in taxes during a time of war is almost EXACTLY what McSame said when he didn’t orginally back the Bush tax cuts during a time of war, period.
“What ‘rut’ does playing Robin Hood get us out of?”
Wow, being fiscally repsonsible IS really a lost art in the mind of a lot of “conservatives” eh??
“what entrepreneur will take the risk of starting or growing a business and hiring new workers if his success will just make him that much bigger a target for the greedy hand of Uncle Joe?”
LOL…more scare tactics directed to try and keep failed supply-side policies in place. The last time that we raised taxes on mostly the rich, we had the largest economic expansion in the post-war history of the USA, period.
Is fiscal responsibility really “un-American”?? Really??
“rates Joe Biden as the poorest member of the US Senate”
Yea, you would MUCH rather he be one of your rich friends eh??
The NCPA is nothing more than a source of Right-wing hackery, period.
“the Bush tax cuts have made the income tax system the most ‘progressive’ it’s been in the modern history of our nation.”
Utter nonsense.
“how do you think Biden would vote if some other Catholic doctrine was attempted to be forced on us through legislation…such as a prohibition against abortion?”
Biden is FOR the separation of church & state…your Party isn’t, period.
“analysis by CBS news of the last ten years of Senator Biden’s tax returns show that ‘the Bidens give little to charity. 2007, in which they donated $995, was their most generous year, though in other years Biden donated honoraria from talk shows which were valued at higher amounts.’”
Gee, maybe the fact that he has a very low net worth and the fact that he gives very little “excess” income to charity are related, hmmmm??
“Our current financial mess can, in the area of government, be placed squarely at the feet of Democrats using Fannie and Freddie as the enforcement arms of their ‘affordable housing’ social engineering scheme.”
More utter nonsense.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Sickle -
We don’t care how much the leaders of FW earn.
A question: Why does the very-little-regulated hedge fund industry continue to thrive, when the already-heavily-regulated banking industry goes in the tank? A lack of regulation is not the problem. The problem is a lack of consequences - those banks know they will get bailed out if all fails. Fannie and Freddie are the root of the problem. We wouldn’t have a problem now if Fannie and Freddie never existed and the Fed Govt. didn’t have the habit bailing out folks. The market would take care of itself.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Mister Guy –
You are not very smart.
September 25th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Sickle,
There is no justification for the claim that mortgage securities were generally overvalued. Indeed, if you look at it from the point of view of traders and investors, they could analyze the likely cash flows, including possible defaults by lower-quality buyers, but at the end of the day there was a government guarantee behind these things.
The problem was not the value of them but the mark-to-market rules which make banks need to sell assets that are basically good or else cut their value to zero or close to zero on their balance sheets!
The first (and maybe only) thing we need to do is suspend mark-to-market for these things.
As for “progressive” taxation, I don’t think your definition is any more valid than mine. It seems to me that the fact that 1% of earners pay 40% of taxable income is a very highly relevant piece of information even if you don’t want it to be.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Ross, your definition is wrong. You can’t just decide to redefine what progressive taxation means because the definition doesn’t support your views. Even so, if we accepted your definition, the numbers actually make perfect sense. The top 1% controls about 39% of all wealth in this country, and lo and behold that’s how much tax revenue they’re responsible for. And the bottom 50%? Well they control not quite 3% of the total wealth in America. And lo and behold, Ross, how much of the total tax revenues are they responsible for? Your own statistics don’t even support your damn thesis, Ross. Your numbers, in fact, show a flat tax system.
Really? A $62 trillion market in securities backed by junk mortgages isn’t overvalued? Seriously? So all these foreclosures we’ve been hearing about aren’t really happening? Home prices aren’t really plummeting? And nobody wants to buy those assets now because…why, exactly?
And your solution to this is to remove one the most important safeguard to accounting fraud? Seriously? Asking banks to accurately value their holdings caused all these problems? Really? Seriously, Ross, I am in complete disbelief right now. You are not making sense. It’s as though you are willfully ignorant of the debt-to-capital ratio these banks were recklessly holding.
As for the government guarantees, on that we’re somewhat in agreement. But the original intention of the guarantee was so banks would feel comfortable loaning the money to begin with and to help banks recoup their losses, if any, from CRA loans. The fact that banks exploited that in order to create financial instruments backed by these same loans wasn’t a part of the original plan, and in fact wasn’t legal until Republicans in Congress allowed it. Regardless, the securities themselves became so overvalued that even the guarantees wouldn’t have covered the losses. So in a way it’s kind of a red herring.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
What are you talking about? The hedge fund industry has been feeling the pinch since 2007, when two of Bear Stearns hedge funds worth about $20 billion collapsed. And those are just two of many. There’s a great deal of anxiety right now about hedge funds, in fact, as well as a very real fear that, absent the current bailout, that hedge funds will be the next sector to collapse.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am
What are you talking about?
I was quoting a query from Ari Fleischer.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
You think that’s a valid query? After all, the markets for mortgage-backed securities were thriving as well, and subject to even less oversight. And then the bottom fell out. That’s just as real a scenario for hedge funds. I don’t think Ari has a winning argument there…
September 26th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
“We don’t care how much the leaders of FW earn.”
I do…it seems like something is definitely awry there, and it explains simply why FW would be oppossed to higher taxes for the rich (i.e. them!).
“You are not very smart.”
I am still stinging from your “biting” remark…another useless troll …
“Why does the very-little-regulated hedge fund industry continue to thrive”
It’s “thriving”??
“We wouldn’t have a problem now if Fannie and Freddie never existed”
Really?? The term “subprime” refers to loans that do not meet Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac guidelines in the first place! According the Wall Street Journal of all places, in 2006 61% of all borrowers receiving subprime loans had credit scores high enough to qualify for prime conventional loans.
The market that developed for mortgage-backed securities, which were backed by pools of shaky mortgages, was one of the keys to this fiscal disaster. That nonesense should have never been allowed to happen. Some lenders also obviously engaged in predatory lending practices…just look at the rates (~99.9%!) that were offered for the so-called “payday loans”. These types of loans have cripped thousands, including many military personnel. Many subprime borrowers also took out ARMs, which were pushed heavily by the former Fed chairman & the Bush Regime.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
When will you guys stop pushing party politics and look at the problems without a political slant? Clearly everone on this blog is intelligent and articulate. I agree that problems with mortgage securitees devloped when speculators felt like there was no risk involved on creating these mortgage backed securities. That is because thir backroom deals with both political parties virtually guaranteed them a safety net. With almost no exception, our politicans went to the same ivy leage schools and are members of the same social clubs as wall street fat cats. They protect each other and at the expense of taxpayers.
I will grant you that the republicans seem blatant in their corporate welfare, but democrats are no better. They only try to pander to their constiuents and hide their “backroom” deals.
Until the United States eliminates lobbyists and flat out bribery from our political process, the middle class and the poor will always be victimized by the rich.
As far as taxes go, loopholes and deductions have resulted in more political favoritism and amounts to nothing more than purchasing votes from blocks of voters. Did you ever see anything so stupid as the “Econimic Stimulus Package”? What a freakin waste! Now the Dem want to repeat that fiasco, as if it helped anything long term, except our debt.
All the while we still have the second largest corporate tax rate IN THE WORLD! for those companies that don’t have political friends. (like small buisnessmen) What we need to do (if you want to be fair) is institute a flat tax that way everyone (without exception) pays the same rate and this should be on all earnings.
You guys stick together
September 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I agree with the flat tax. The people that don’t pay are the large corporations. I just saw some statistics that 1.4 million corporations paid NO income tax for the last 10 years! No wonder the country is broke! As corporate leaders if the CEO’s & executives can afford to pay themselves $10-50 + million annual salaries, surely they can afford to give their workers more than that incredibly low minimum wage of $6.25/hour. This is only $1,000/mo! Could any of you whiners that complain you shouldn’t have to pay more in taxes when you make over $200K/yr live on that? You couldn’t make it through 1 week! Yet you think 50%+ of the population should. Shame on you for being greedy pigs, as that is what has caused this mess. It’s called a GREED BUBBLE! But it is hardly the Democrats fault, that you fat cats are greedy. What you fail to address in this loan mess, is the fact that millions of people have lost their jobs due to mergers & acquisitions that have been going on for the last 10 years in addition to corp. sending jobs oversees to “save” money (in reality, make more profit!)! And here we go again, a power grab by a handful of corporate elites that don’t want to pay their workers anything, and continue to complain that they should not have to contribut to running the country. FYI, It is the PEOPLE that buy the products and services that give the corporations their profits. If the people do not have the ability to buy because they lost thier job or got stuck with a high rate mortgage scam, concocted by the bankers, your profits will drop, HELLO! We need a law against GREED and then the president & VP, and paulson & Fed should all be investigated as to where did all the money go?! Perhaps we should be looking in Dubai - isn’t that where Halliburton moved, oH YEA, that was the corporation tied to Cheney that got all the contracts to rebuild Iraq with OUR tax dollars, that the big corporations didnt have to pay with thier loopholes!
September 29th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Mr. Kane:
From Sunday’s NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business/29hedge.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
September 29th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
“I just saw some statistics that 1.4 million corporations paid NO income tax for the last 10 years!”
So much for the baloney about the USA having the largest corporate tax rate in the world eh??
September 30th, 2008 at 1:13 am
After all, the markets for mortgage-backed securities were thriving as well, and subject to even less oversight. And then the bottom fell out.
Those markets may have been thriving, but it was clearly unhealthy as hell. I live in small town USA — the people that were building new houses(sometimes more than one) that couldn’t afford it. It was plain to many of us that mortgages were going to fail in a huge way. But us common folks don’t really know what happens to mortgages after they get sold — so we didn’t see this huge collapse happening.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Aren’t you President of one of the largest petroleum hauling companies in the country?
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:51 am
“the markets for mortgage-backed securities were thriving as well, and subject to even less oversight.”
These markets should have NEVER been allowed to exist in the first place, and they wouldn’t have without GOP-backed deregulation, period.