The Democrat Party is an arm of the Media-Entertainment Complex. This powerful industry has a near totalitarian control over the US. They literally decide who will be President and what the important issues of the day are. back in 2005, although there were economic issues in terms of wage stagnation, unemployment was at 4.5%. Yet any article from that time period claim the economy was bad. Now unemployment is at 7.7% officially and due to people leaving the labor force, wages have declined yet the media claims this is the best economy in American history. Many Americans believe it because the nice guy on the 6 O’clock news told them. Despite evidence of this bias, Republicans still refuse to treat the media as an enemy entity.
Victor David Hanson points out that the true 1% are the member’s of the Media-Entertainment Industrial Complex. Millionaires like Jay Z, Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Depp support Obama. Therefore, Republicans should target this industry through taxes. He proposes what I have been calling for, which is an Entertainment tax!
Who exactly were the rich who, as the president said, were not “paying their fair share”? The rapper Jay-Z (net worth: nearly $500 million)? The actor Johnny Depp (2011 income: $50 million)? Neither seems to have heard the president’s earlier warning that “at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
Could both zillionaires simply have quit making money at $10 million — and thereby given their poorer audiences a break on ticket prices?
With all the talk of raising taxes on the supposedly conservative rich who make more than $250,000 per year, why not levy a $3 surcharge on tickets for movies, concerts, and sporting events to “spread the wealth” from multimillionaires? That way, LeBron James (approximate annual earnings: $53 million) or Oliver Stone (net worth: approximately $50 million) might at last begin to “level the playing field.”
[....]
If the country is going to turn redistributionist, then we might as well do so whole-hog — given that eight of the wealthiest ten counties in America voted for Obama. Why not limit mortgage-interest deductions to just one loan under $100,000 — while ending tax breaks altogether for second and third vacation houses?
Under the present system, the beleaguered 99 percent are subsidizing the abodes of Hollywood and Silicon Valley “millionaires and billionaires” — many of whom themselves have been railing against the 1 percent. Should the government provide tens of thousands of dollars in tax breaks for a blue-state 1-percenter to live in tony Palo Alto or Newport Beach when there are plenty of fine homes far cheaper and sitting empty not far away in Stockton and Bakersfield?
Blue states usually have far higher state income taxes that are used as deductions to reduce what is owed on federal income tax. Why should working folks in Nevada or Texas have to pay their fair share, while Wall Streeters get huge federal write-offs from their New York or Connecticut state income taxes?
This is what republicans should be doing in the fiscal cliff debate. Turn the tables on Obama and make him defender of the rich. But as always, the GOP lacks imagination nor do they have killer political instinct. If they had any balls, the GOP would propose what Victor David Hanson is calling for. Hit the Progressives where it hurts, in the wallet.
I am starting to think the national Republican party is just a straw-man operation for the Democratic Party. The GOP at the national level is the perfect boogeyman that Democrats and the Media-Entertainment Industrial Complex use to scare voters into supporting them. If Victor Davis Hanson and people on this blog can think of the Entertainment tax, why can’t John Boehner, Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan? Just food for thought!
Tags: Media-Entertainment Industrial complex, Victor Davis Hanson
Tax Obama’s “constituents”!
@ Speranza:
Tax their asses off. And that goes double for Susan Estrich. Give them what they voted for. Give them all of it they can stand.
Johnny Deppp moved to France. Now a lot of millionaires are moving away from France because of the tax rates.
Iron Fist wrote:
Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, tax them all.
Iron Fist wrote:
VDH never fails! He gets it. Go for their pocket books.
@ Speranza:
Tax them all. Tax the jerks in the Upper East side and Upper West side.
@ Speranza:
Actually, Instapundit is reporting that Johnny Depp just bought a $16 million house in Nashville. I guess maybe he feels he’s paid enough California State income tax.
Speranza wrote:
I read where he bought a $16 million house in Nashville. No state taxes in TN, coincidentally.
@ Iron Fist:
Curses, foiled again!
@ Speranza:
Indeed. And frankly, $15,000,000 (plus per diem) for six months’ work to make a movie? You sit around all day. Tax “artist” income over $5,000,000 per year at 75%.
You’re single — why do you need a 35,000 sq. ft. mansion in Beverly Hills? You need to take in a family that lost their home do to the evil Bush mortgage policies.
@ Speranza:
Indeed. And frankly, $15,000,000 (plus per diem) for six months’ work to make a movie? You sit around all day. Tax “artist” income over $5,000,000 per year at 75%.
You’re single — why do you need a 35,000 sq. ft. mansion in Beverly Hills? You need to take in a family that lost their home due to the evil Bush mortgage policies.
….but I repeat myself.
@ MacDuff:
Taxes for thee, but not for me.
Carolina Girl wrote:
I am with that.
Speranza wrote:
Imagine 75% tax on your money. That is just evil.
Iron Fist wrote:
I say we should have an Estate Tax on those making over 1 million. They want higher taxes, give it to them!
Remember when John Kerry tried to scam his way out of paying taxes on his yacht?
And if you make over $10,000,000 and do not list your occupation as “farmer,” no more of those stupid little farm deductions because Patty is growing two rows of corn on your beachfront property in Jersey, Springsteen!
@ Iron Fist:
I heard that a lot of people are leaving the Golden [hah!] State for Texas.
@ Rodan:
Uncle Warren Buffett is asking for an increase in the death tax. Which is interesting for two reasons:
1. He recently assisted a colleague or client in setting up an estate structured to avoid death taxes.
2. His insurance companies make millions insuring against death taxes.
and don’t forget to tax all the ‘devices’ as well…the limos, costume people, ad agencies, camera companies, sock the movie tickets with an extortion tax, the caterers, wranglers, vehicle guys….everyone having anything to do with movie/film/tv production
I have been thinking similarly in my comments here and their about the supine GOP responses to the democrats, wondering out loud if they were complicit.
Urban Infidel wrote:
I do. That stuff just never sticks to them. If he and that hatchet-faced spouse of his aren’t the epitome of the very people they criticize incessantly, I don’t know who is.
@ Urban Infidel:
Business is certainly leaving, due to the oppressive (soon to be more sow) tax structure. The Democrats in Sacramento seem to be working overtime to make business impossible.
It’s especially disheartening when you live here. This state is in so many ways wondrous -- it has, quite literally, EVERYTHING — an most-agreeable climate. In the winter, you can drive to the beach in the morning to surf and by dinner be in the mountains skiing. Beautiful lush farmlands and everywhere a postcard view.
When my son was in rehap, I drove through the Napa Valley (10 miles from my house) every Sunday, and all I could think was “why would anyone want to live anywhere else?” And I could cry at the way the the Democrats and liberals have destroyed it -- starting with the first incarnation of Moonbeam and his public sector unions.
@ Carolina Girl:
Go after their estate loopholes.
citizen_q wrote:
I am starting to really think the nation GOP is just an arm of the Democrat Party. The Republicans play the role of strawmen and the Dems look like the sane rational ones. It could not be any further from the truth.
I just read somewhere that 16 Dim Senators who voted for obamacare are now begging Harry Reid to help them out because the medical device tax is going to impact their state…..whoops
guess ya should have read the bill before instead of after in order to find out what was in it
How about a Liberal tax? If you voted for raising taxes then yours need to be increased a little extra.
Urban Infidel wrote:
That is what VDH is calling for.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Tax anyone who voted for Obama. -- I can get behind that.
@ Rodan:
Indeed. Buffett is such an effing phoney -- he wants the income tax rate raised on the rich -- but he doesn’t pay taxes on wage income; he wants the death tax raised but fiddles behind the scenes to help clients, colleagues and insureds not pay the death tax.
But of course an increased death tax is good for his insurance business. Here’s a couple tricks. My son’s name is on the deed for my house. That way he simply becomes the SOLE owner when I pass on. Even the State gets nothing from this.
@ Carolina Girl:
Seems to me that CA usually leads the country, and the elites want a kind of marxist feudal society. Glen Beck’s metaphor of farmers and cattle also seems to work.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Take as much of Buffet’s and Soros’s money as possible.
Rodan wrote:
Sounds like the GOP is a national version of The Manchurian Candidate.
@ Carolina Girl:
Republicans really need to target the rich Democrats.
Carolina Girl wrote:
I would love to see Susan Sarandon’s and Michael Moore’s taxes go sky high!
This is right. Make Matt Damon, Ashley Judd, George Clooney and
Michael Moore etc pay their “fair share”
It’s because of them that I don’t have more money./
Let them redistribute their wealth!
Rodan wrote:
You mean wealthy Democratic constituency groups.
@ Speranza:
make it public, a tv show…showcase liberals giving up their money to Obama…prove how cool it is to get raped by the feds, make it a contest
RIX wrote:
Matt Daaaamon!
@ Speranza:
I am starting to wonder. I would not be shock is Santorum, Bachmann, Akins, Huckabee, the Bush family and McCain are all paid off by Soros.
In McCain’s case, there are direct links between him and Soros.
heysoos wrote:
I can get behind that!
Rodan wrote:
I think it’s simpler than that; we have a staggeringly clueless electorate and both parties are just playing to their audience -- the Democrates are just better at it.
That, and the fact that statesmanship (like basic education) is a lost art.
@ Speranza:
Yup!
heysoos wrote:
Start with Harvey Weinstein, followed by Michale Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Anna Wintour, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Bill Maher Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Larry David, the faculty of Columbia University -- and go down the line.
@ Rodan:
Good point and that probably is the answer. let me take off my tinfoil hat off!
@ Speranza:
Tax them.
@ Rodan:
@ Speranza:
Or they have long decided that appearance of an party in opposition is useful until enough of the constituency will accept their totalitarian control. Of course there are some in the GOP not in on the plan. They must be turned or crushed.
Now where is that tin-foil hat of mine….. /
How about a tax on Stupid?
@ citizen_q:
@ Speranza:
@ MacDuff:
Many State level Republican Parties are actually pretty good. They get their message out and appeal to a broader audience. But at a national level, the GOP is dysfunctional and many are voters are scared of them. Many people vote GOP at local level, but don’t trust them with the Presidency.
@ Speranza:
Moore lives in New York -- which from what I understand has incredibly oppressive taxes for NYC. But I’ll bet you his apartment is owned by his production company under a holding company and is no doubt leased back to him, or some such permutation.
They’re all so good at telling us how to live. I remember in 2001 when we were enduring the electrical crisis and dealing with brownouts, Barbra Streisass told us all that we should hang our clothes in the fresh air, like our moms did. Meanwhile, some enterprising individual filmed her Malibu beach house during this period -- she had two huge air conditioning units blasting away in the middle of the night. And not a clothesline in sight……
@ Speranza:
For Sarah Jessica Parker, I think we should also check on increasing the taxes for any prize money won in the Triple Crown.
@ Carolina Girl:
Sounds like Bloomberg telling blizzard-bound New Yorkers last year to just relax and ‘take in a Broadway show’.
What frikkin’ planet are they on?
Can we tax these celebs for being annoying?
Personally, I won’t waste much time listening to these hypocritical media nannys until they are living the way they are telling us we should live.
Let them redistribute all their wealth. Live on $50K a year from the current earnings giving the rest away, and live in and own one single home of modest means, say $300k.
Then I might start listing, when they start having real skin in the game they want us all to play. I might start listening, but likely I would still tell them to bugger-off what I do with what I honestly earn is my business.
RIX wrote:
The carbon tax is going to bite them in the ass.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Planet Bloomberg!
Carolina Girl wrote:
His official residence though I think is in Michigan. He films in Toronto because (hold your hat) it allows him to escape from oppressive L.A. and NYC regulations, taxes, and union wages.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Yeah trudge in from Staten Island and pay $100 a ticket for a boring Broadway show.
Rodan wrote:
No, you may not like Michele Bachmann but there is no way the lady is paid off by Soros. I think she just got a little full of herself when she was able to muster the troops during the health care debate. She got over 8,000 at the Capitol on two days’ notice. She probably thought she could translate this into a national forum (you know, for every one that shows up, 1,000 stay home sort of thing). She is not a national office sort of person. Unfortunately, she overstayed her welcome.
But I think as far as the rally was concerning, the participants came to hear Mark Levin (who is very very smart about limiting his personal appearances so that they become events). It wasn’t Michele who drew them -- it was someone you never see make personal appearances. Hell, if Rush Limbaugh had announced he’d show up, she’d have had 100,000 minimum.
@ RIX:
No but if you listen to the liberal media, if they annoy us, we’re allowed to take a swing at them.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Not a good looking gal at all. That’s why that character she played on Sex in the City being pursued by so many men was a bit of a joke. In fact none of the four were particularly attractive.
@ Speranza:
And if what I’m seeing at the Tony Awards show is any indication, there isn’t a whole lot I’d be willing to pay $100 a ticket to see!!
@ Rodan:
That is heartening. I remember similar posts earlier today.
Trouble is I usually only see national. My state of MD is such a democrat swamp, I just ignore most of the local news. Wife won’t even let me watch it any more with her unless I first promise not to say anything,
@ Speranza:
I understand she had her babies by surrogate. Don’t want to ruin that toothpick with a wig look she has going.
Her Sex and the City gig has run it’s course, I’m hearing. The second movie actually pretty much bombed at the box office and the fans are not begging for a third. I also hear her movies aren’t doing all that well -- she’s not a bankable star anymore.
Maybe she can become the spokesperson for “Mane and Tail” shampoo.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Hell no -- just a bunch of bad musicals made from mediocre films.
@ Urban Infidel:
Carbon tax them! Tax them for everything.
They want to do the right thing, let’s help them.
Carolina Girl wrote:
I sound terrible but she should get that mole from her face removed.
@ Carolina Girl:
If you have a union card.
when I’m voted president, my first official act will be to toss Harry Belafonte in prison…not because he is an ignorant black racist, but because he opposes my ideology
citizen_q wrote:
I think I’m going to have to do an article on some stuff from townhall. It will not make anyone love the republicans any more. They are not only following what the dems want, they are also repeating past mistakes KNOWINGLY.
when I’m the president, I’m going to organize my communities to attack any union members when I find more than one standing on the corner, punch them out and destroy their property…there will be blood…vote for me
heysoos wrote:
How about making him ambassador to North Korea and telling the NORKs that you wouldn’t look any harder into a mishap with him then comrade zero looked into Benghazi? /
heysoos wrote:
You have my vote!
Carolina Girl wrote:
Not a fan, but she is right on the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of this administration. Plus she did call out both parties for being patsies of the brotherhood.
He will fit in perfectly with his new teammate “Benedict” Pujols. No loyalty to the fans who stood by him all those years. At least he did not go to the Yankees.
Josh Hamilton headed to Angels $125 million contract
heysoos wrote:
According to the intertoob, he’s worth $28 million. Not bad for a poor black who’s been oppressed by “The Man” his entire life.
Mars wrote:
That she did (and not a fan either).
MacDuff wrote:
Him and Danny Glover ought to relocate to Venezuela.
I am not a fan of targeted taxation.
Flat tax is my preferred choice.
I think it is high time we call BS on the so called progressive taxation.
unclassifiable wrote:
they made themselves the target…so carry on
unclassifiable wrote:
I’m a fan of a 9 or 10 percent sales tax (permanently capped at that without the approval of the majority of voters.) That way everyone pays. Plus it’s essentially an invisible tax.
Speranza wrote:
but leave all their assets behind…fair is fair, right?…
hire someone to hound them and call them out…on tape
@ unclassifiable:
And let me add that I am for eliminating all credits and deductions also.
@ Mars:
That is a fair point. The sad part is she’s such a loon that her truthful accusations get no traction.
@ Mars:
I do not think a permanent cap will ever past muster at the Supreme Court.
IIRC we tried to automate legislative actions with the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget bill the court threw it out because it short-circuited the express fiduciary duties of congress.
I’ll have to research this but that is my recollection.
@ Rodan:
right, points for style?….zero
Susan Rice drops out of running for secretary of state, cites ‘very politicized’ confirmation process
@ citizen_q:
right, explaining failure is politicizing events to a raging lib….she and all her buddies inside the WH are third rate at best
@ unclassifiable:
@ Mars:
Sorry Mars I missed the “majority of voters part”.
We don’t have referendum features in the constitution so I think that has to be established first. But the sales tax has been tossed around also. Got to think on that one a bit but the last lib-whine I heard on that was it was regressive to the poor — like they really give a crap about them huh?
unclassifiable wrote:
That sucks because the government would raise the sales tax every time they are in session.
@ citizen_q:
She is working in the White House and whining about politicizing?
Michael Savage had a saying that an utterance was so stupid that he would be surprise that the speakers teeth hadn’t turned around in their mouth and tried to eat their brain.
…or something like that.
unclassifiable wrote:
Honestly every tax punishes the poor. (I speak as one of them.) It punishes them by reducing the incentive to better their position in life. What’s the point of succeeding if you’re just going to be punished for it?
@ heysoos:
My recollection is that there is lot of fail in her resume, Bhengazi is just the latest and most visible.
I an wondering who comrade zero has on deck in her place, Van Jones? Luis Frakkhan? The Pimp with the Limp?
@ citizen_q:
frankly, it doesn’t matter…at least not to me
heysoos wrote:
Yeah, she is right on what she said. But she is such damaged good, people did not listen.
@ Mars:
Now if you took that thought right there and assembled some real life stories or stats with it and took that to the ghetto we might be starting to get some traction.
Every damn tax that you put on folks who make stuff or provide services will eventually be passed back to the consumer 100%.
@ citizen_q:
He is going to nominate John Kerry.
citizen_q wrote:
I was trying to do research on Rice’s husband, a Canadian from British Columbia, who she met at Stanford. Looks like a huge chance he is white. His grandfather became a timber baron, his father was in the timber business, and bought out by a larger Forestry Company. Lots of dough. The husband worked for the Canadian Commie Broadcasting Company before going on to work in one of the alphabet news agencies in the U.S. Champagne socialists get to marry across color lines and not be photographed. That’s my guess, based on internet fact checking.
@ Rodan:
DC will go on tfk alert:)
@ Rodan:
Isn’t he a rich old white guy? Doesn’t seem a very inclusive, or multi-culty to me.
unclassifiable wrote:
OMG, he is going to be livid!
citizen_q wrote:
He’s a Progressive white, so it’s all gravy.
unclassifiable wrote:
No joke there. I see it every day when I go to get food.
@ Rodan:
Well Obama is white.
And I have decided that it is really white people’s fault for everything.
No really.
He’s half white.
And I am white.
So he’s a white guy.
Right?
Chuck Hagel as Secy of Defense?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-13/hagel-said-to-top-obama-s-list-to-take-over-at-pentagon.html
Bitch if this stuff is soooooo boooooring then please just quit.
@ unclassifiable:
yes, he’s a white guy that hates that part of himself…he suffers from white guilt in reverse…a white guy fucked his momma then cut out…he’s the result and he hates his baby daddy for it
heysoos wrote:
Umm, you got that backwards. His mom is white.
do hurricane Sandy appreciate BO’s promises?…hell yeah!
nice job Half Brownie!
@ Mars:
I did, my bad….good eye
point stands
@ unclassifiable:
He’s Mulatto, that would the correct definition. But for some reason, Mix race is not recognized in this country.
@ Rodan:
my niece is mixed race….she embraces it
@ Rodan:
The reason it is not is because of the Jim Crow laws. It’s a remnant and curiously enough when the worm turned sort of speak the Black Nationalist and their ilk continued the “one drop” premise.
So yes, laws promoted by white racists have left an orthodoxy of thinking that is used by black racists to determine inclusion.
My point still stands. It’a all whitey’s fault.
/irony — it’s what’s for dinner
@ Rodan:
@ heysoos:
BTW I will say that New Orleans more or less embraced the Mulatto concept until the sixties (born there and have family there).
@ Mars:
Yep. And look what the damn leadership and the media did to her
(Our Xmas party is going on upstairs. Now I can blame my misspellings on the Merlot).
@ Speranza:
I liked her when she was an unknown Congresswoman fighting the good fight and supporting the TEA Party. Sadly, she did get a bit of a swelled head. I actually liked her but when she announced for President I was like “oh man, NO…..”
@ unclassifiable:
And furthermore if the type of economic malaise that I think is going to happen comes to pass Obama will be whiter than Ron Howard by 2016.
/and no I am not a racist, I am just pointing out how ignorant the main premise of his elevation to power is
unclassifiable wrote:
I was trying to point that out and deleted it…mostly because I knew you knew that…opposition to mixed people seems to be historical and regional, when in fact it’s just a matter of numbers…everybody is mixed
Susan Rice and her husband Ian Cameron
@ heysoosheysoos wrote:
Everybody’s mixed. Man ain’t that the truth in this country. A lot of itinerant folks on both sides of my family. I really am a mutt if you look at the DNA.
@ unclassifiable:
my nieces dad is black, self educated and into engineering and robotics…he grew up in Mississippi where they hold a massive biannual reunion, 2-300 people…I’ve been invited but never attended altho I’ve seen plenty of pics of all the festivities…there are a LOT of white people mixed into his family, hard to describe a ratio but white people in about every picture…nobody down there seems to think much of it
citizen_q wrote:
Politicized confirmation process ? Really ? I thought the confirmation process is about fashion and entertainment. Politicized…. how dare they.
Never liked Michelle Bachmann; don’t like her or trust her now. She comes across as a wacko to me—a wacko who is occasionally right, but you can say the same thing about Ron Paul.
heysoos wrote:
100% correct! we are all humans with varying DNA which has been mixed up, isolated, mixed again, isolated again, ad infinitum.
you can imagine how difficult it is for me to be the representative from my area at work on the site-wide “Diversity Council”.
Carolina Girl wrote:
It would have been really nice if the “TEA Party” had had the sense to build an organization instead of setting itself up to be coopted and marginalized.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
100% spot on.
Taking it to the house folks.
Feetball beckons.
Later.
Guggi wrote:
Thanks. Ian Cameron is clearly not one of “Holder’s People”. Some days the hypocrisy exceeds the corruption, but mostly corruption is the one to expect. In Toronto, nobody looks twice at mixed race couples because it’s so common.
New Thread.
The state income tax deduction is the biggest ripoff ever.
@ 122 heysoos: When I was growing up there was a parental message not to marry outside of race because the kids of the union will be treated badly. Like the dust children are in Vietnam or their counterparts in China, Korea, Nigeria, and Romania.
But lo and behold two the kids went out and married inter racially and had a total of 7 kids. And the previously hard edged grandparents melted with love and spent hours spoiling the kids they themselves thought would be rejected. They would probably even kick the ass of anyone who still talks like they did 40 years ago.
Rodan wrote:
Hell. Yeah.
Rancher wrote:
The upshot is that states with low taxes subsidize the high-tax states via the federal grabbermint.
yenta-fada wrote:
Hagel is one evil (and incompetent) creature.
Mars wrote:
That isn’t even an option for me. I’m doing the best I can and still getting nowhere.