Michael Medved: "Don't Punish the Rich." Here we go with this again.

[Brigid]

Taxes punish the "job creators" and the poor just don't work hard enough. Haven't we heard this tired meme about a million times before? :banghead:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-07-25-tax-rich-obama-raise-revenue_n.htm

[indurancevile]

1. give us their money & we will create jobs. the more wealth concentrates, the fewer jobs.

[damntexdem]

2. Don't punish the rich -- eat the rich.

Yum, yum, yeah. ;-)

[Liberalynn]

3. The add on the page when I was reading your post

featured a big shark. :rofl: Ties in nicely. ;)

[awoke_in_2003]

28. sharks don't eat the rich...

it is a professional courtesy :)

[aquart]

4. Right wing ass sounds like right wing ass. NOT NEWS,

[sinkingfeeling]

5. And exactly how many jobs have these 'creators' created in the USA over the last decade?

[regnaD kciN]

6. Medved is the biggest fucking hypocrite I know...

I happen to know his in-laws. He dumped his first wife and broke up his current wife's first marriage (to a hell of a nice guy, by the way), then set himself as not only a moral exemplar but as the spokesman for the "sanctity of marriage" as opposed to all those horrible immoral 1960's-era liberals who didn't believe in marital fidelity or honoring their sacred vows. :eyes:

(And that's not even mentioning the scandal that tainted his work as a critic, when it was revealed -- in court -- that he had been secretly taking money from the studios to "consult" them on their films in production, films that he would then "impartially" review on his TV show. Is it any surprise that, once the scandal broke, he shifted from film critic to right-wing talk-show host? Same profession, just different, uh, "clients.")

[Taverner]

10. He's a self-loathing Jew for one...

Just a quick look at his columns will tell you that

[MedicalAdmin]

36. So he's a whore.

Not to impune honest whores....

[Marrah_G]

7. cI would like to throw all these hard working rich folks onto an island

How long would they last without being able to be parasites on the working class.

[Taverner]

8. No, MAKE THEM PAY FOR SERVICES RENDERED!!!!

What, are we supposed to pick up their tab, AGAIN?????

[DJ13]

9. ......

[Brigid]

12. I don't know where you got this.

But I love it! :rofl:

[DJ13]

16. Google image search

It just seemed to fit!

[NightWatcher]

11. is paying a parking meter "punishment", or a fee for a benefit? Consider taxes a fee

for getting to live here comfortably where the government allows you to make and spend your wealth.

[Fire1]

13. Same shit, different day. "job creators" my ass. Biggest lie

ever told.

[dana_b]

14. fuck him

and fuck the rich who don't give back. They make their money off of the backs of others. To those who do give back - well done. To those who don't, I hope they reap what they sow.

[Yavin4]

15. From the article:" After all, the rich generally do what we want all Americans to do: work hard.."

"After all, the rich generally do what we want all Americans to do: work hard, earn money, pay taxes and spend or invest what's left."



Yep. That's some hard ass work there.

[Brigid]

20. How much you wanna bet . . .

Paris Hilton's tax attorney ensures that she pays as little tax as possible -- or maybe no tax at all, for all I know -- while paying considerably more tax themselves on their own income? I'm sure that attorney, while rich, is not as rich as she is.

[Dawson Leery]

21. Wall Street is gambling and manipulating accouting rules.

Hard work? :wtf:

[wtmusic]

17. Be patient, "trickle down" began a scant 31 years ago.

Untold riches for the middle class should be arriving any day now.

[AngryOldDem]

22. And even its originator has backed off from it.

You'd think that would be the first clue that this is a failed ideology.

Bottom line: The rich want it all and want the rest of us to pay for it. There's no other way to spin it.

[OneGrassRoot]

18. Support our job creators!!!!!

Facebook page dedicated to raising awareness of supporting our job creators.

:)


This Medved article is rather repulsive.

:puke:

[Marr]

19. The rich haven't been punished in the west since 1789.

If people like Medved keep getting their way, they're eventually going to get a refresher course on what actual 'punishment' is.

[Brigid]

23. I also noticed another old meme in this piece:

It implies, in the words of John Steinbeck, that the rest of us are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Once people disabuse themselves of that spurious lie, there will be hell to pay.

[Iggo]

24. Punish the rich.

It's their fault.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

25. More trickle down BS

Why isn't this completely discredited economic theory being debunked? If I have a restaurant, I'm not going to invest in more tables, waiters, cooks, and food until more people start coming through the door and fill it up. I'm not going to hire more people to wait on empty tables. Until consumers have money in their hands, they're just not going to heat up this economy. Jobs won't come until the middle class has more income, something that none of the deficit-cutting plans by either party in Washington will address.

[theHandpuppet]

26. When asked of the poor, it's called "shared sacrifice"

When asked of the rich, it's called punishment.

[hfojvt]

27. his first error is to call taxes some sort of punishment

Secondly, I think this is wrong "Republicans may insist with flawless logic that seizing resources from business people does nothing to encourage them to expand, invest or create jobs."

The idea that most of the rich are businesspeople is wrong. Also, it seems to me that lower taxes are a disincentive to hire. If the tax rate is 30% and my business makes another $100,000 then I am probably gonna choose to keep it. However, if the tax rate is 70% then I might as well use the money to hire somebody, because the government is gonna just take it anyway. Hiring and investment become a way to avoid higher tax rates. Because employee costs are tax deductible and money that I put into my business is not taxed either. For every $1 I pay an employee in salary and benefits I save then 70 cents on my taxes. So a higher tax rate makes employees cheaper to me. If the tax rate is lowered, then wages effectively become more expensive.

Third, looking at tax share is not the best measure. The total pie has gotten smaller, so the share of the rich getting bigger is a way to cover up their huge gains. In 2001, the top .1% paid an average rate of 28.2% in Federal income taxes and got 8.1% of all income. By 2007 (pre-recession) they got 11.9% of all income and paid an average rate of 21.46%. Their total income was $1.05 trillion so they gained $70.35 billion from the Bush tax cuts in 2007 alone.

Now the tax rate for the bottom 50% was 4.09 in 2001 and it was 2.99 in 2007. Total income for the bottom 50% was $1.08 trillion (how about that a whole .03 trillion more than the top .1%?). Our savings from the Bush tax cuts - a mere $11.9 billion. That's 1/6th as much money going to 500 times more people. Meaning that for every $1 a person in the bottom 50% got from the Bush tax cuts, a person in the top .1% got $3,000 (did I mention that their average income is $7.55 million?).

So an argument that the Bush tax cuts has increased the rich's share of income taxes paid - isn't worth a dram of spit to me. Although if you do make that argument to me, I will happily deposit said dram of spit into your right eye.

[cui bono]

40. Also, higher taxes is a disincentive to greed. n/t

[spin]

29. If lower taxes on the rich lead to job creation, why don't we have more jobs?

What do we have to do? I suspect that if we stopped taxing them tomorrow, next year they would be complaining that as the "job creators" they need refunds.

[Brigid]

30. I've been waiting for 30 years for an answer to this one.

So far, obviously, nothing.

[Overseas]

31. Don't Punish the Poor. They've already been evicted by loan sharks

and bankrupted by medical care for profit.

[uberblonde]

32. Medved was funded by the right wing from the start.

They actually funded his movie program because of hie right-view views and had planned to groom him as an eventual candidate.

[Octafish]

33. Tar and Feather the little turd with the Truth.

May the public be made aware of precisely what kind of liars, warmongers and traitors
these well-paid appartchiks of Corporate McPravda really are.

[Poll_Blind]

34. Medved is a weeping sore of ignorance...with a moustache.

I though he gave decent movie reviews a few decades ago, though.

PB

[Proles]

35. Aww... those poor, miserable rich people...

Why does everyone want them to suffer so much?

One of the repugs' greatest achievement is convincing the ignorant poor people of this country to defend the disgustingly wealthy.

Not that I have an agenda against rich people, but why is it that we (not we as in us, but many American's as a collective) perpetually idolize and defend these people?

[Urban Prairie]

37. "Lifestyles of the (greedy tax-evading rightwing) Rich and Famous"

Guillotine wishes, tar & feather dreams...



:evilgrin:

[hulka38]

38. Easily one the weaseliest weasels there is.

[guitar man]

39. Wrong Mikey

A little punishment is EXACTLY what they need, they are behaving like petulant, spoiled children. Many of them grew up in the lap of luxury, inherited their wealth and have NEVER had to actually face adult responsibilities for a single day in their life. This is a nation of 300 million who need to be able to work and feed their families. We've been told over and over for 30 years that if we would just ease up on taxing these lords of the manor they would make sure all kinds of opportunities "trickled down" to the little guy. It never happened, it's just become less and less for anybody but them with each passing year. And each time the subject of making them pay their fair share they hold out that old smelly rotten carrot on that same goddamn stick. ENOUGH!! :grr:

No sir, I say it's long past time for a sound thrashing for these spoiled tots, the sooner the better!