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Friday, November 22, 2013
Elizabeth Warren on the Rachel Maddow Show
Two of my favorite people in the same video - how could it get any better than this? :) Seriously, this is why so many of us would like to see Elizabeth Warren in the White House.
After all, they're right. Social Security just needs a very simple fix to be perfectly solvent for the foreseeable future. And really, why should wealthy people - high earners - pay a lower percentage of payroll tax than you do?
That makes no sense at all. But we're so used to giving tax breaks to the wealthy - the very low rates on dividends and capital gains, for example - that we don't seem to think anything of it. Of course the middle class should pay more than the rich, right?
Where's the outrage over the 13% in taxes Mitt Romney paid (in that one year he paid enough that he was even willing to show his tax rate to the American people)? Where's the outrage over hedge fund managers taking advantage of a special loophole made just for them?
No, the outrage, in America, is about poor people - many of them working full time, some even as soldiers in our armed forces - getting food stamps! The outrage is that ordinary people in America, who've worked their entire life, actually expect to get the Social Security benefits they were promised when they paid into the plan.
Insane, isn't it? And you know, wealthy people tend to live longer, on average, than the rest of us, too. So they take advantage of Social Security and Medicare longer than middle class people, while paying a lower tax rate to support it. Why is there no outrage about this?
Most Democratic politicians are terrified to even mention such things. Well, they rely on the wealthy for campaign donations, too. But Elizabeth Warren is making sure these issues are heard. I like that!
Incidentally, this video is from just before Warren's appearance:
Is Warren popular enough to run? I thought only crazy liberals like us loved her.
ReplyDeleteMost people don't know her, John. But I'd be very surprised if she decided to run for president. I've heard nothing from her which indicates an interest. It's just her fans which are enthusiastic about it.
DeleteShe's probably using that speculation, though, to help get her message out - as she should. I think it likely she won't completely rule out a run for the presidency, just for that reason. But who knows?
I must say that, from appearance alone, I wonder if she'd be a viable presidential candidate anyway. She's as different from past presidents as our current president is! And I'm not just saying the obvious, that she's a woman.
I love her. And I do think that her message would appeal to the vast majority of Americans. I suspect that it would be a winning tactic for other Democratic politicians, too.
Then again, the big money would be strongly against them. And it's very typical that even Republicans tend to agree with us liberals when it comes to many policy positions, but that doesn't keep them from believing GOP propaganda and voting Republican anyway.
Most Americans don't pay much attention, most Americans are too gullible, and most Americans probably don't have a clue who Elizabeth Warren even is.
OK, John, I just saw this. That should settle things, I suspect. (Too bad.)
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