Posted on 03/24/2002 10:26:59 AM PST by The Old Hoosier
Give Bono's Money Away
By Terence P. Jeffrey
The Irish rock singer Paul Hewson—who insists the world call him Bono—visited Washington last week to demand more U.S. foreign aid. He even enlisted President Bush in the cause.
Here’s a suggestion for the President: Slap a 100% tax on all income earned here by foreign rock stars to offset the cost of foreign aid.
Bono—who writes lyrics like "Alright alright, alright, alright, alright/It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright"—sees himself as a poet. The Bono Tax would be such an act of poetic justice you have to believe he’d love it.
Here’s how it would work: He gets taxed. Americans get a tax cut. The great Pharisee of rock’n’roll can still parade from Ritz to Ritz, in sackcloth and ashes (or is it silk shirts and sashes?), explaining to reporters and politicians how his heart bleeds for the destitute masses over there somewhere. American workers right here would keep more of their pay to put clothes on their own kids.
In a recent issue of People, Bono betrayed the kind of shanty Irish class hatred that would make my Irish kin roll their Kerry blue eyes. "There is an old story about an American and an Irishman looking up at a mansion," said Bono. "The American looks at it and says, ‘One day I’m going to live in that place.’ The Irishman looks at it and says, ‘One day I’m going to get the b------ who lives in that place.’"
For this filthy rich Marxist materialist, America is the mansion. American workers are the b------s. And what he wants to get is our hard-earned pay.
This should inspire exactly one application of Mr. Hewson’s ideology: Level it against him and that pernicious class of millionaires to which he belongs, the foreign rock star.
They live in mansions. Many, if not most, are b-------s. Let’s get their pay.
Unfortunately, rather than seize Bono’s U.S. earnings, Bush invited him to a speech at the Inter-American Development Bank. In the speech, Bush proposed a three-year, $5-billion increase in U.S. foreign aid. Yet, in proposing his Bono-driven aid bonus, Bush correctly attacked the underlying premises of foreign aid itself.
"Contrary to popular belief," said Bush, "most funds for development do not come from international aid. They come from domestic capital, from foreign investment and especially from trade."
Right—that’s why development does not happen where governments steal capital and loot foreign investors.
His new aid program, Bush said, will "reward nations that root out corruption, respect human rights and adhere to the rule of law," and "where people can start and operate a small business without running the gauntlets of bureaucracy and bribery." Of course, Bush then correctly conceded, if regimes that receive foreign aid actually do these things "they will really no longer need it."
I’d bet Bono’s mansion that after Bush’s aid proposal runs its course Bono will be back demanding more—and Third World despots around the world still will be looting their peoples.
The principal difference between then and now is that the despots then will have more of our tax dollars.
Perhaps Bono has given Republicans an even better opportunity than the temptation to take him at his word and seize his wealth. It is a chance to debunk the false pretense of his argument.
Bono is right about the problem. Much of the world lives a miserable existence, subjected to disease and poverty it should be the lot of no human person to endure. But Bono is wrong about the solution. It is not government. It is freedom. Man is not elevated by the state, he is elevated by his own exertions when the state gets out of his way.
That used to be the Republicans’ theme song. Have they forgotten how it goes?
He also wrote HEY BABY HEY BABY HEY.....
The guy has talent..LOL..
I liked Bono when I was in HS and early college but then I grew up.
And yesterday, I saw a little Golden Retirever with a limp....broke my heart...I wish you all would do something about it.
Amazing how seeing 40% of you pay confiscated from each check can turn even the most pathos intoxicated liberal into a conservative.
Bono, beating the drum for the Dems, forever trying to improve the lot of all through the toil of others…
Owl _ Eagle
“Guns before butter.”
I dare say that toppling one leftist government would go farther toward true "liberation" of the Third World than all the U2 benefits ever will.
I would agree with you were it not for the fact that Bono wants to force me and other Americans to give our hard-earned money to corrupt third world countries.
Charity begins at home. Especially when it's Americans's own money being taken from them and given to non-americans.
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