Republicans in Silicon Valley explain why rich guys shouldn’t pay more taxes

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 9/26/11 | Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Political Writer

[SmithL]

A key moment in the dueling Obama-House Republican visit to Silicon Valley Monday was when the wealthy, retired-early Google exec told President Obama to raise his taxes. Yes, you read that right.

“I don’t have a job, but that’s because I’ve been lucky enough to live in Silicon Valley for a while and work for a small startup down the street here that did quite well. So I’m unemployed by choice. My question is would you please raise my taxes?

“I would like very much to have the country to continue to invest in things like Pell Grants and infrastructure and job training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am. And it kills me to see Congress not supporting the expiration of the tax cuts that have been benefiting so many of us for so long. I think that needs to change, and I hope that you will stay strong in doing that.”

After he was done meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for an hour Monday after the FB event, we chatted with GOP Whip, Rep. Kevin McCarthy for a bit. Kevin is a self-described Bakersfield guy from the other side of tracks (and a family full of Democrats). So why shouldn’t wealthy guys pay more taxes?

“You know that small businesses are the greatest creators of jobs,” McCarthy said. Between 2001-2007, he said, “if you had a company of 500 people or fewer, you added 7 million jobs. If you had 500 or more, you lost a million. The way that small businesses are run, (those kind of tax increases) punishes them.”

And 60 percent of those small businesses, he said, were five years old or younger. But the former entrepreneur said it is a lot harder to start a small business

[SmithL]

Class warfare!

[Tzimisce]

Community Organizing at its finest.

I’m glad the little people are finally accepting that the hard decisions in our society will all be made in secret by a handful of rich, white millionaires.

/sarc(?)

[ari-freedom]

Google guy: raise my taxes! fun fun fun!
Obama: oh we’ll raise your taxes but the money will go to help Apple and Microsoft because they gave me even bigger donations.

[psjones]

The google guy isn’t even working,, so what taxes is he talking about? Investment taxes? Not much profits to tax these days.

[Oldexpat]

Did he have a pony tail?

[null and void]

Did he have a pony jackass tail?

There.

Fixed.

[Bean Counter]

[HiTech RedNeck]

what’s the asinine equivalent of a pony? a burro?

[null and void]

what’s the asinine equivalent of a pony? a burro?

Jackass.

Asnine adj of, relating to, or resembling an ass

[HiTech RedNeck]

A jackass is simply the asinine equivalent of a stallion.

I was right about the burro. Burros are small donkeys, like ponies are small horses.

[null and void]

Ah! I misunderstood your question, sorry.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Anyhow, this Google ass would not have a pony tail, he’d have a burro tail....

[Captain Beyond]

bflr

[New Jersey Realist]

“I would like very much to have the country to continue to invest in things like Pell Grants and infrastructure and job training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am.”

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I would like to see that too and it would be easy to do: stop paying welfare and unemployment past a 2 month limit and educate people instead. We’ve all heard the maxim, give a man a fish and he will eat one meal, but teach him to fish....... That’s the way to go.