At times, I have thought that Michael Moore has done more to hurt the left than help it. I tend to agree with him on most issues, but the way he presents them can be, well, less than tactful. And he’s been known to play a little dirty with the facts, like his right wing counterparts. Perhaps it’s just his refusal to cut anyone any slack. And a bit of it has to do with making a career out of being a pain in the ass. When something becomes very profitable, you begin to wonder about the pureness of the motives. As if any of us had completely pure motives.
I almost skipped over reading his cheering over the defeat of the 700 billion dollar bailout plan. Like a lot of people, I got reeled in with the scare tactics and stopped thinking. It seemed like the only thing that could be done. Everyone seemed to be for it, even though they didn’t like it. It just had to be done, right? If there were other ways to get out of this mess, they would have thought of them, right?
So today, I got another of Mike’s emails from the list I had signed up to years ago (back when I didn’t find him annoying). And imagine my surprise to find myself agreeing with pretty much everything, including Mike’s typical snideness. In at least this situation, it seems to be warranted.
One of my favorite parts from his letter:
If they truly need the $700 billion they say they need, well, here is an easy way they can raise it:
a) Every couple who makes over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year will pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years. (It’s the Senator Sanders plan. He’s like Colonel Sanders, only he’s out to fry the right chickens.) That means the rich will still be paying less income tax than when Carter was president. This will raise a total of $300 billion.
b) Like nearly every other democracy, charge a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This will raise more than $200 billion in a year.
c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders will forgo receiving a dividend check for one quarter and instead this money will go the treasury to help pay for the bailout.
d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raise the corporate income tax back to the level of the 1950s, that gives us an extra $500 billion.
Now this sounds pretty damn fair to me. It solves the “crisis”, it avoids burdening the average tax payer, and it draws its funding from the people who were likely benefiting the most from the crazy market conditions that got the U.S. into this mess and are therefore the most responsible for it. Way to go, Mike! I may have to keep reading your emails. You’re loud and belligerent, and I don’t always agree with you, but I have to eat a bit of crow and admit once again that you’re a hell of a lot smarter than most of the folks running your country.
Read the whole thing here.
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