Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explained President Obama’s push for higher taxes on the wealthy – they need to bear a higher burden for the privilege of being American.
“That’s the kind of balance you need,” said Geithner. “Why is that the case? Because if you don’t try to generate more revenues through tax reform, if you don’t ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American, then you have to — the only way to achieve fiscal sustainability is through unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for middle class seniors, or unacceptably deep cuts in national security.”
This coming from a rich guy who cheated on his taxes.
If Obama wins a second term being an American will be a burden, not a privilege, regardless of one’s economic status.
Update: Check out the price for oil and Brent crude on the ticker above his head.
Update 2: Linked by Frugal Cafe – thanks!
Ok, so now in order to be allowed the “privilege” to be an American we have to fork over money? On the contrary, it is he who has the privilege of being the “Treasury Secretary” and it appears that needs to be revoked. Screw you Timmy. I’m an American no matter what.
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If you’re a born American, it’s a PRIVILEGE?? What, don’t register as a good socialist and we’ll deport you to Siberia??
I’m about to start cussing these idiots in Washington out and get myself barred from this site !
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I’d like to tell Timmy to his lying face what a delusional cheat he really is.
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If we don’t tax the wealthy more, national defense will suffer. What a load of horse hockey! The military is already losing a massive amount of funding. Timmy go back to whatever rock you crawled under from and leave the complicated problems to those who aren’t corrupt lying weasels.
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This comes from Timmy “the tax cheat” Geithner, spare me.
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[...] America’s financial crisis by — wait for it — the redistribution of wealth and the punishing of the wealthy to pay for the federal government’s exploding, out-of-control multi-trillion-dollar [...]
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This is what we’ve come to a commissar tax cheat pontificating to his subjects about the virtue of other people coughing up their money, not his. Then blaming the serfs for loss of national defense.
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I knew something was up when Obama came up with …
This “envy” thing must have polled really bad in some focus group. But that meant that something had to replace “envy.” So when I saw the Geithner statement yesterday, I knew that the latest “talking points” must have been distributed around the Administration.
I found the “privilege of being an American” breathtaking, but why must only the “rich” be so “privileged” ?
We now seem to have rights to “gay marriage,” a “living wage,” to “life,” to “”choice,” to “die,” to “know,” to “forget,” to “privacy,” to “be forgotten,” to “education,” to “work,” to “play,” to “bear arms,” to “carry,” to ‘bare legs,” to “health care,” to “research,” to “read,” to “food,” to “organise and to bargain collectively,” to “hike,” to “vote” (even when dead),” to “counsel,” to “free speech,” to “protest,” and to “remain silent.”
But alas, citizenship is now a “privilege.”
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Well, I’ll agree with one thing Secretary Geithner said: it really is a privilege to be an American!
Of course, Mr Geithner felt so privileged that he tried his hardest to minimize his personal tax burden, and wound but being one of those who didn’t pay his fair share. Then, when caught, due to confirmation, he first tried to pay just that tax which was due for which the statute of limitations had passed.
That’s the part that gets me. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that Mr Geithner simply made a mistake — for several year’s running — concerning reimbursed payroll taxes. But when the mistake was discovered, he paid in only the taxes for his 2003 and subsequent years, because the statute of limitations had expired for his 2001 and 2002 returns, which also had the error. He then voluntarily paid back for 2001 and 2002, once a Senate confirmation hearing was coming up. The original mistakes could have been just that, mistakes. Initially withholding the payments for 2001 and 2002 is simply rank hypocrisy . . . or Democrisy.
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Others have covered it, but it bears repeating. This was said by a tax cheat. A tax cheat who was made Treasury Director. You cannot parody this administration. They’ve beat you to it.
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Director should obviously be Secretary. He’s still a putz
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