***CORRECTION***
Mark Levin led off with this clip tonight, which comes via Breitbart. I’m not sure I follow Lautenberg’s logic here, but that’s half the point. Coherence never has been a prerequisite for U.S. Senators coming out of New Jersey. Maybe Lautenberg meant to say we should eliminate tax loopholes for the rich, or something, but I’m probably being way too kind with that interpretation. He said we need to “eliminate the rich” to help close the federal deficit. What? I thought liberals wanted to tax the rich more, not eliminate them. How are we supposed to tax…
Ah, I’m probably over-thinking this. I’m afraid the best explanation here is that Lautenberg is just a blithering idiot.
Notice too though how Lautenberg – whose net worth is around $50 million – nobly suggests that he wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes, and predictably he invokes Warren Buffett while making the point. (More on that below). Well, for the umpteenth time: Rich people like Lautenberg and Warren Buffett are free to write checks to the IRS to their hearts’ content if they feel they are undertaxed. Nobody’s stopping them.
Speaking of Warren Buffett, check out this excellent commentary by Lee Doren (the part on Buffett is toward the second half of the video):
***CORRECTION*** Upon further inspection, Lautenberg clearly said “we’ve got to eliminate the waste” – NOT “the rich”. So at least that part of Lautenberg’s comments makes sense now. Glad I didn’t knock myself out trying to figure out what he meant by eliminating the rich. Hat tip to Amanda Carpenter for pointing this out. I should have listened more closely to the audio.
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