Tax the Rich? Answering Elizabeth Warren

The New American ^ | Sunday, 25 September 2011 | Selwyn Duke

[Paladins Prayer]

Former TARP chairman and Senate hopeful from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren gave a shot in the arm to “progressives” everywhere this past Wednesday, with a rousing (or is it rabble-rousing?) extemporaneous speech on the virtues of taxing the rich. Her commentary quickly made the rounds on the Web and radio talk shows — and for good reason. Whatever this law professor said, she said it pretty darn well. Hey, If President Downgrade could articulate himself like that, he wouldn’t be in a bigamous relationship with a Teleprompter.

Unfortunately, though, style doesn’t connote substance. And Warren’s words, while rousing, were also reality-bending. Here is what she said:

"I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you, uh, were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

I guess Warren defines “class warfare” differently than everyone else does, but she is a master of it. Let’s analyze her comments.

[nathanbedford]

She would not have her teaching post at Harvard were it not for the contributions our society has made to Harvard, therefore we should be able to dictate the amount of her salary, the terms of her tenure, the substance and method of what she teaches, her pension and the faculty's admissions policy.

I think she would object to most of this and she might become very indignant at other parts. She wants to protect her rice bowl while breaking someone else's; she will want to protect her turf while trespassing on someone else's grass.

If she wants to tax the creator of goods and services because that is a element of fairness because society created the environment under which he could render those goods and services, she must also acknowledge that the tax will be passed along to the consumer and much of the "fairness" is vitiated. She might also acknowledge that her policies will become so "fair" that the creator of those goods and services will move his operation to China.

[MarkL]

Why can’t the liberals then say we are a land of laws deriving from our constitutions? We don’t live under “social contracts” - they were replaced by written laws.

Because they simply don't believe this. Their concept of "a living Constitution" is flowery words for "the Constitution means what I want it to mean." Simply put, they're against the concept of the "rule of law," but instead want the "rule of man," also known as "mob rule." They have no respect for law, and simply want their feelings to rule the rest of us.

Mark

[bilhosty]

That sounds fair tome. They and their media elected him. As long as they support him they should pay.

[BilLies]

They start upping the taxes on the people and groups noted in the attached link.

I got to this link by tracing a “GREEN COMPANY”.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/bundlers.php?id=N00009638

[ully2]

I think the Democrats should take a pledge to never take contributions from anyone with over 200,000 dollars worth of income.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Roads, Schools, Police and Fire Fighters - these are all local or state supported.

None of them are federal. Even highways are state projects with perhaps some federal funding that comes (or should come) from the gas and other road taxes.

So I ask Ms. Warren - "Liz, name one such service or product that requires the Federal Government."

There is only one: National Defense. And I bet Liz Warren would love to see enormous cuts in that expenditure...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Massachusetts seems to be quite adept at producing glittering jewels of colossal ignorance.

Excuse me, she's a carpetbagger from, of all places, Oklahoma. I can understand why she might find Massachusetts more amenable to her kind of thinking than her home. The Globe is a basket case. Massachusetts legendary liberalism is a by-product of a Camelot hangover and market domination by the Boston Globe, the effects of both of which are attenuating rapidly.

The huge local "education" industry, there are something like 120 colleges inside route 128, only compounds the problem. There is no bigger bunch of rent seekers than the professoriate.

[jospehm20]

As much as I have read about Scott Brown being a RINO, having him as Senator from Massachusetts certainly beats the hell out of the alternative.

[CodeToad]

I love that chart!

[budwiesest]

we should be able to dictate the amount of her salary, the terms of her tenure, the substance and method of what she teaches, her pension and the faculty's admissions policy.

Exactly! It's what they (through their EPA) do to businesses every day. We need the equivalent of such, to scour our universities and rid them of the parasitic, commie ticks whose goal it is to suck the life-blood from a free society and leave a rotting corpse.

Businesses are moving elsewhere (some to Texas) to reduce the burdens these socialists put in place. With Obama's CommieCare soon to affect every aspect of the economy, lots of money is sitting on the sidelines until the program is scrapped completely or, it will go somewhere else (Galt?).

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

- Robert Heinlein

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you, uh, were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

"The rest of us?" Successful people with successful businesses pay the highest rate of taxes. 50% of "the rest of us" pay no taxes at all.

[loveliberty2]

Warren's misinterpretation of the basic principles which enabled America to become a place of opportunity, prosperity, plenty and liberty may be the so-called "progressive" idea, but it is in direct opposition to that of James Madison, as expressed in the following essay. Warren's idea enslaves individuals and gives coercive power to rulers. America's founding premise frees individuals and binds political leaders by the "chains of the constitution." (Jefferson)

Freedom Of Individual Enterprise

The Economic Dimension Of Liberty Protected By The Constitution

"Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise." - Thomas Jefferson

"The enviable condition of the people of the United States is often too much ascribed to the physical advantages of their soil & climate .... But a just estimate of the happiness of our country will never overlook what belongs to the fertile activity of a free people and the benign influence of a responsible government." - James Madison

America's Constitution did not mention freedom of enterprise per se, but it did set up a system of laws to secure individual liberty and freedom of choice in keeping with Creator-endowed natural rights. Out of these, free enterprise flourished naturally. Even though the words "free enterprise' are not in the Constitution, the concept was uppermost in the minds of the Founders, typified by the remarks of Jefferson and Madison as quoted above. Already, in 1787, Americans were enjoying the rewards of individual enterprise and free markets. Their dedication was to securing that freedom for posterity.

The learned men drafting America's Constitution understood history - mankind's struggle against poverty and government oppression. And they had studied the ideas of the great thinkers and philosophers. They were familiar with the near starvation of the early Jamestown settlers under a communal production and distribution system and Governor Bradford's diary account of how all benefited after agreement that each family could do as it wished with the fruits of its own labors. Later, in 1776, Adam Smith's INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS and Say's POLITICAL ECONOMY had come at just the right time and were perfectly compatible with the Founders' own passion for individual liberty. Jefferson said these were the best books to be had for forming governments based on principles of freedom. They saw a free market economy as the natural result of their ideal of liberty. They feared concentrations of power and the coercion that planners can use in planning other peoples lives; and they valued freedom of choice and acceptance of responsibility of the consequences of such choice as being the very essence of liberty. They envisioned a large and prosperous republic of free people, unhampered by government interference.

The Founders believed the American people, possessors of deeply rooted character and values, could prosper if left free to:

acquire and own property have access to free markets produce what they wanted

work for whom and at what they wanted travel and live where they would choose acquire goods and services which they desired

Such a free market economy was, to them, the natural result of liberty, carried out in the economic dimension of life. Their philosophy tend­ed to enlarge individual freedom - not to restrict or diminish the individual's right to make choices and to succeed or fail based on those choices. The economic role of their Constitutional government was simply to secure rights and encourage commerce. Through the Constitution, they granted their government some very limited powers to:

• assure that the ground rules were fair (a fixed standard of weights and measures)
• encourage initiative and inventiveness (copyright and patent protection laws)
• provide a system of sound currency with an established value (gold and silver coin)
• enforce free trade (free from interfering special interests)
• protect individuals from the harmful acts of others

Adam Smith called it "the system of natural liberty." James Madison referred to it as "the benign influence of a responsible government." Others have called it the free enterprise system. By whatever name it is called, the economic system envisioned by the Founders and encouraged by the Constitution allowed individual enterprise to flourish and triggered the greatest explosion of economic progress in all of history. Americans became the first people truly to realize the economic dimension of liberty.

---

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III:  ISBN 0-937047-01-5

[This I Wonder32460]

We’ll all be equal except for those who are our superiors and those they deem as most deserving of what wealth created by others.

[gusopol3]

Shakespeare wrote the books, the rest of us read them; Beethoven wrote the music, the rest of us listen; the Wright brothers built the plane, the rest of us ride on them. The value to society from the creator/ innovator/ entrepreneur is in the product, not the percentage that the rest of us can skim off the profits. Leftists don’t seem to understand this or don’t want to admit it.

[MHGinTN]

The prime illustration is the commie/enemy fool named Van Jones (and oh how he is worshiped by the barry bassturd administration, still) and his fascist belief that forcing the green revolution will make America better, make America the world leader in ‘green living’. [ When mammals are buried in sheets rather than coffins, they are fertilizer, but if that's ‘green living’ then Van Jones is a prophet of our doom worhsiped by the leftist enemies of America.] Valerie Jarrett, major adviser and director of the current oval office crap machine holds Van Jones in the highest esteem. THAT alone should inform US of the enemy that this administration is to the Republic they are seeking to assassinate. This purposed exploitation of the divisions in America is being orchestrated by devils like George Soros and a banking cabal which remains hidden because they control the media whoredom.

[mjp]

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

The accumulation of great wealth is dependent on individualism and individual personal traits. The relative amount of income one earns typically reflects the relative rate of profit one earns on one's capital. Basically those individuals have the greatest accumulated wealth who earn the highest rates of profit and save and invest the greatest percentage of their profits.

[combat_boots]

“The average Harvard professor now has a salary of about $185,000 per year. Professors in the right disciplines, such as business, can reportedly double their salaries through outside consulting and other income sources. In 1980, the salary of a Harvard professor was about 5.5 times the average US per capita income; today, $185,000 is about 7 times the average national per capita income, and can often be leveraged into much higher actual annual compensation. “

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/05/12/is-harvard-just-a-tax-free-hedge-fund

2008 figures

I wonder if Warren gets to keep her Harvard salary in addition to her federal salary.

[combat_boots]

“GOP presses Harvard to end pay for Warren
Democrat in Senate run”

September 21, 2011|By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff

“’Of equal concern is that Harvard runs the risk of jeopardizing its tax-exempt status. As a nonprofit charitable institution, Harvard is prohibited from taking a position on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate. Your payment of a salary to Professor Warren causes reasonable-minded people to conclude that Harvard is supportive of her candidacy,’ Little wrote.”

http://articles.boston.com/2011-09-21/yourtown/30185245_1_harvard-officials-harvard-university-elizabeth-warren

[combat_boots]

From the article quoted in my prior post: "Warren is teaching only one class, contract law, twice a week this fall. Records show she was paid $350,000, plus $182,000 in royalties and consulting fees, before she took leave a year ago to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on behalf of the Obama administration."