Senator Elizabeth Warren is probably the most dangerous politician in America. Her ability to spew forth populist rhetoric is unparalleled. Her ability to take a complex issue and reduce it to a poster quick hit is outstanding. Her planting of hot buttons in every speech is amazing. She appeals to every under-informed person seeking an excuse or someone to blame. She knows every key word that resonates like banks, 1%, fair or unfair, student loans and rig the game. She is good at what she does, very good.
Like most on the left she assumes more government action solves all the problems she targets and like most on the left she ignores the human factor and the fact that money thrown at these and other problems for decades has failed because of the human behavior factor.
She is also a hypocrite and a phony.
Here is a women who frequently complains about student loans or the interest rate on them and ignores the cost of the education causing those loans. While at Harvard she was paid an average salary of $350,000 and most recent her salary was over $400,000 reportedly for teaching one course. Could such salaries contribute to the cost of an education? Elizabeth Warren is the one percent.
Her campaign against the wealthy and their rigging of the system is incredulous. Here is a person with a net worth averaging $6,990,514 in 2012 and reported recently as high as $14 million. She, like many Americans accumulates her wealth using the stock market. Warren owns a home in Cambridge valued at about $2,000,000 and a condo in Washington, DC purchased for $750,000. She has no mortgages.
While ranting about influence in Washington among lawyers, lobbyists and others, she raised $42 million for her senate campaign, much of it coming from the very people and institutions she hammers in her rhetoric.
And then we have paying ones fair share and taxing the wealthy. Like most politicians she talks a good game. In Massachusetts citizens can voluntarily pay a bit more in their income taxes than required by law. Despite her high income she did not pay the extra 0.55%.
Earlier this week Elizabeth Warren was asked by the Boston Globe a seemingly simple and straightforward question about her taxes: In 2011, did she pay the 5.85% rate (which is voluntary) on her Massachusetts state tax form? Since 2001, as I explained in a previous post, residents of the Commonwealth have had the option – if they so choose – to pay a higher tax rate than the 5.3% minimum. And since the former consumer advocate raked in more than $700,000 last year, the Globe believed their inquiry was an appropriate and reasonable one. At the time, however, she refused to answer the question and though I was quick to criticize her silence, I acknowledged that it was still possible she paid the top rate. Unsurprisingly – according to the Brown campaign – it’s clear she did not.
After avoiding the question all week, Elizabeth Warren finally confirmed today that she did not pay the higher 5.85% rate on her state tax form, a legal option available for Massachusetts taxpayers who believe they should pay more.
For the last few weeks, Warren has lectured others about their moral responsibility to pay higher taxes. In 2011, Warren earned more than $716,000, and has a net worth of as much as $14.5 million.
“The problem with running a campaign based on self-righteousness and moral superiority is that you had better live up to the same standard you would impose on everyone else,” said Jim Barnett, Campaign Manager for Scott Brown. “Millionaire Warren lectures others about their obligation and responsibility to pay higher taxes, but she refuses to pay the optional higher rate available in Massachusetts. This is the sort of hypocrisy and double-speak voters are sick and tired of hearing from politicians, especially those who can’t keep their hands out of others’ pocketbooks.” Source:Townhall.com
Sounds good right, neat divide and conquer strategy. She makes it sound like there is an issue where there is none. Everyone knows we all benefit from public services and facilities. What she ignores are the little things like the jobs created by such organizations or the payroll and other taxes paid, the donations frequently given by businesses for hospitals, colleges and the arts, the foundations created by many companies and even small businesses work in community activities and organizations.
She creates the impression these businesses and entrepreneurs don’t pay their fair share when in fact they pay a disproportionate share for the very things she cites including such things as road tolls and gasoline taxes in many cases.
Some people will read the above quote and cheer, “sock it to em Liz‼️” Some people are naive and gullible too. That’s why Elizabeth Warren is a dangerous politician and perhaps more of an ideologue than Barack Obama.
Oh yes, then there is Harvard; no not the Cherokee thing, but the affirmative action thing. How does a law “professor” from the second lowest ranked law school get tenure quickly at Harvard? Is something rigged?
Of course, Senator Warren is not unique in her actions among politicians. What is unique is her attempt to position herself as the champion of average people, her over-the-top rhetoric and her focus on bashing those she doesn’t like while benefiting from these people and institutions. Getting past her rhetoric is a challenge.
Elizabeth Warren writing in the Chicago Tribune
It’s not about big government or small government. It’s not the size of government that worries people; rather it’s deep-down concern over for whom the government works. People are ready to work, ready to do their part, ready to fight for their futures and their kids’ futures, but they see a government that bows and scrapes for big corporations, big banks, big oil companies and big political donors — and they know this government does not work for them.
The American people want a fighting chance to build better lives for their families. They want a government that will stand up to the big banks when they break the law. A government that helps out students who are getting crushed by debt. A government that will protect and expand Social Security for our seniors and raise the minimum wage.
It’s not the size of government that worries people; rather it’s deep-down concern over for whom the government works.
Americans understand that building a prosperous future isn’t free. They want us to invest carefully and prudently, sharply aware that Congress spends the people’s money. They want us to make investments that will pay off in their lives, investments in the roads and power grids that make it easier for businesses to create good jobs here in America, investments in medical and scientific research that spur new discoveries and economic growth, and investments in educating our children so they can build a future for themselves and their children.
Before leaders in Congress and the president get caught up in proving they can pass some new laws, everyone should take a skeptical look at whom those new laws will serve. At this very minute, lobbyists and lawyers are lining up by the thousands to push for new laws that will help their rich and powerful clients get richer and more powerful. Hoping to catch a wave of dealmaking, these lobbyists and lawyers and their well-heeled clients are looking for the chance to rig the game just a little more.
But the lobbyists’ agenda is not America’s agenda. Americans are deeply suspicious of trade deals negotiated in secret, with chief executives invited into the room while the workers whose jobs are on the line are locked outside. They have been burned enough times on tax deals that carefully protect the tender fannies of billionaires and big oil and other big political donors, while working families just get hammered. They are appalled by Wall Street banks that got taxpayer bailouts and now whine that the laws are too tough, even as they rake in billions in profits. If cutting deals means helping big corporations, Wall Street banks and the already-powerful, that isn’t a victory for the American people. It’s just another round of the same old rigged game.
Yes, we need action. But action must be focused in the right place: on ending tax laws riddled with loopholes that favor giant corporations, on breaking up the financial institutions that continue to threaten our economy, and on giving people struggling with high-interest student loans the same chance to refinance their debt that every Wall Street corporation enjoys. There’s no shortage of work that Congress can do, but the agenda shouldn’t be drawn up by a bunch of corporate lobbyists and lawyers.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
She says: “…There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. …”
We’ve heard our president make comparable sentiments. And, perhaps from his perspective and that of Senator Warren, it is true – neither of them ever built anything.
I never built anything tangible. Nope, my efforts (re)built corporate benefit plans that include a defined benefit pension plan with a FTAP funding percentage of 138% that still extends benefits to individuals hired today, a 401(k) plan of such quality that FORMER employees have left over $1B in the plan after terminating employment (approximately 40% of plan assets) where over 96% of active employees are contributing, a retiree medical program that is almost fully funded (using a 401(h) account) and where individuals hired today have access to post-employment health coverage (though, not so sure about five, ten years from now – expect a change to a HRA program to avoid the Cadillac Tax). From time to time, the best reward I receive the top benefit from my 25 years comes from former coworkers who all seem to be smiling and who let me know that their retirement is great.
So, I never built a business nor a factory. OK. But, I have now paid in hundreds of thousands of dollars (perhaps over a million dollars) in various taxes (federal, state, local, FICA, FICA-Med, sales and fees over the past 46 years (all of them while fully employed, including almost 15 years of employment when I pursued higher education at night) – taxes and fees that financed those roads, public education, police and fire workers. Senator Warrren, I paid in. I paid, and paid, and paid – and I am still working and still paying into these government systems/programs. My parents funded my Catholic grade school and I funded my catholic high school with $1 an hour in summer work/wages. So, if I had built a business or factory, is there some reason why my payments towards those public services are not to be given as much credit as your payments, Senator Warren? When you say say “the rest of us paid”, aren’t I one of the “rest of us”? Are you saying the hundreds of thousands of dollars I paid in, where I have never received a penny in unemployment, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other government service, where I spent my time in the Army (at less than poverty wages) during the Vietnam era, none of that counts if I had built a factory or a business?
From my perspective, not only did I build a career, but I built/financed those public services as well – roads, schools, police and fire, most of which I never used – just as much as you or anyone else, and frankly, more than most people given the progressive nature of income taxes and the progressive nature of FICA and FICA-Med taxes relative to the benefits they are designed to fund.
Unlike you, Senator Warren, I’m not one of the 1% from a financial perspective … but like my parents and grandparents before me, who came to this country penniless and without significant skills, like almost all other working Americans, we have built this city, state, country. … unlike you, Senator Warren … just because you didn’t build it doesn’t mean we did not.
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