Freedom Line Blog

Leftists constantly claim to support higher taxes, but then whine the loudest when they can put their money where their collective mouth is.

Under President Trump’s proposed framework, taxpayers in blue high-tax states would lose the writeoff for high state and local taxes that they currently enjoy.  No wonder Chuck Schumer hates the idea of tax reform so much:

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Blue State Tax Writeoffs

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According to German shipping tycoon Peter Kramer, “the state” should control private charitable donations and “determine what is good for the people,” not the individuals making those charitable donations.  In an interview with Der Spiegel, regarding the Warren Buffett/Bill Gates Giving Pledge, Kramer ripped America’s tax deductions for charitable gifts and demanded, “what legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?”

I find the U.S. initiative highly problematic.  You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the U.S.A.  So the rich make a choice:  Would I rather donate or pay taxes?  The donors are taking the place of the state.  That’s unacceptable. It’s all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires.  So it’s not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide.  That’s a development that I find really bad.  What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?  In this case, forty superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for.  That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state.”

Call us crazy, but don’t alarms sound when a creepy German demands that the state “determines what is good for the people?”  Meanwhile, as noted by economist Mark Perry on his blog Carpe Diem, citizens of Kentucky outstrip Germans in the best indicator of economic wellbeing, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

Mr. Kramer, perfect your own supposed workers’ paradise before you attempt to lecture Americans.