Geithner: Rich Should Have to Pay More to be Americans
Tim Geithner serves as the Treasury Secretary under President Obama. He was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. You may recall that Mr. Geithner had some trouble during the nominating process to his present position. It was revealed that he had not paid $35,000 in self-employment taxes for the years 2001–2004. Geithner eventually paid the IRS the additional taxes owed, and was charged $15,000 interest, but was not fined for late payment.
In a statement to the Senate Finance Committee, Geithner called the tax issues “careless,” “avoidable,” and “unintentional” errors. He said he wanted to “apologize to the committee for putting you in the position of having to spend so much time on these issues.” Try this if the IRS ever audits you. So come the privileges of working in the Obama administration.
But privileges have their exceptions. Speaking on CNBC, the tax scofflaw said the following about the rich paying higher taxes:
“That’s the kind of balance you need. 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.”
Now people with money have to pay for the privilege of being American? Where is this found in the Constitution? All it takes to be an American citizen is to be born here. Is there an amendment that I’m not aware of that requires rich people to pay more in taxes for the privilege of being an American?
The Democrats are keen on making all illegal aliens citizens and making the tax payers fund their privilege. Their goal is to have these newly constituted citizens vote Democrat. As the rich are deprived of more and more of their success, the Democrats will buy more votes to keep them in power.
We owe rich people. They invest their money, buy lots of stuff, build big homes, are first to purchase new technology that later drops in price so the not-so-rich can also enjoy the new devices. We wouldn’t have cell phones, tablet computers, smart phones, the internet if it hadn’t been for rich people who had the means to invest in these new companies.
I think rich people have earned the privilege more than Mr. Geithner has since all he can do is spend other people’s money. As Secretary of the Treasury, he was involved in allocating $350 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). It’s easy spending someone else’s money.