In this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler take on the “fake magnanimity” of billionaires like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett suggesting they pay more taxes.
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: You read that Tom Steyer, the left-wing Stanford-area activist guy who ran for president, who made his fortune funding financing coal plants in Indonesia, says, “I need to be taxed more.” He’s worth about three billion.
And then Mitt [Romney] came out. Remember Mitt? Mitt said that he thinks that people should be taxed more, and he wants to pay. No, you’re not a big humanitarian, Mitt. You’re almost worth a billion dollars.
So, what you’re saying at the end of your life, you think that you should pay a few hundred thousand more out of your multi-billion-dollar fortune or hundreds-of-million-dollar fortune. But young Mitt didn’t say that. And young people who are making 80, 90, 100,000 and trying to buy a house don’t say that.
Getting so tired of this fake magnanimity, humanity by these very wealthy, wealthy people who say they need to be taxed more. [Like] Warren Buffett, then pay it. Pay it. All you have to do is write a check to the government and say, “I’m under taxed.”
Well, Victor, that wouldn’t cover everybody. Well, don’t worry about anybody. Sit by your moral example. Open up a foundation and say, pay 60%. Join me. You can do it. Just do it.
But don’t tell Joe Smith out there who’s driving a tractor all day long and then goes to a forklift night job so he can make $80,000 that he needs to pay more taxes. It’s disgusting. And in California, of the 40 million people here, 1% of the households pay 50% of the taxes. And they’re leaving. They’re leaving.
Joel Kotkin has a great article out. He writes variations of it, but they’re all unique and original, and he’s just pointing out that the whole blue state model—Minnesota, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New York—is imploding, four or five million people a year are leaving.
JACK FOWLER: This Joel Kotkin? That’s who you’re talking about, right? Where did he write? He writes all over.
HANSON: I’m not sure, I just read it this morning at 4.30 in the morning so I can’t remember where, but it’s listed in realclearpolitics.com, so you can all go there. And it’s a very good article.
It just points out what he’s tried to warn people that the blue state model allows young people not very much job opportunities, no housing opportunities, gas, electricity, all highly regulated by very wealthy people who are up in the attic looking down at you, and they pulled up the ladder.
That’s what the whole psychology is.
FOWLER: I don’t think they’re in the attic. I think they’re in the penthouse looking down.
HANSON: Exactly. You know, it’s depressing to see this fake magnanimity by very, very blessed people who now suddenly want to pay more taxes and yet they don’t.
FOWLER: Yeah, they do have that Buffett-[Bill] Gates effort with quote unquote, “It’s not charity, it’s philanthropy,” where they could be addressing real issues, poverty, whatever they want, local, but instead they’re more interested in spending money on abortion overseas.
HANSON: I have a better idea. I would tell Buffett and would tell Mitt, you made enough money. Don’t make any more money. You want to pay any taxes? Don’t worry about the taxes, Mitt, just don’t keep investing all the money you have. You’re trying so desperately to get 8% here and 7%, 10%. Why not just put it in, I don’t know, Bank of America at 4% and just relax?
And then you wouldn’t feel so guilty because you wouldn’t be making so much money without physical labor. And then you wouldn’t have to worry. This idea that you made all this money, and you had this elite lifestyle, and you’re still an investor, and all of a sudden you decide … don’t pay capital gains. Just take your money, Mitt, and pay it at the income tax rate.
Just say, “You know what? It’s a technicality. This is income tax. This is money that came from capital gains, but I’m going to pay the income tax rate just like Joe Blow.” You can see what happened to the Republican Party. I know there’s internal divisions and rifts in the Republican Party today, but the Bob Dole, the McCain, the Bush, the Mitt model did not have a lot of empathy for the working middle class. George W. Bush had more than the others, but not a lot of empathy.
This is what also I think bothers us, because I pick up the Wall Street Journal, I know people who write there, I like it, it’s a great, but their news division is not their op-ed. You look at almost every person who is writing now for the Wall Street Journal and just hit their name and go down on their bio.
It’s the Atlantic, it’s Politico, it’s Washington Post, it’s New York Times. That’s where they came from.
And I always say it’s Monday now. They’ve had the weekend to digest last week’s good economic news that inflation is down to 2.7 from the 3% that Trump inherited, that there is a lot of strong forecasts that the economy may grow 4% in the first quarter, could even go up to 4.5.
And job growth, unemployment went a little higher, but job growth was much higher than expected. But more importantly, this is really the first jobs report where all the growth came from legal employment and not illegal immigrants. Two million people who were largely on the dole are gone.
I thought, “Well, they have 48 hours now.” And sure enough, you pick it up. And it’s Trump, it’s not working. The terror’s not working. Nothing’s working. It’s bad.
And then by the end of the week, they will be forced to report a good economic data point and then they’ll have the weekend to revision it.
Monday, you’ll see how bad everything is.
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