The return of mean Woods

 

 The return of mean Woods

 

 

Back in 2007, when Ron Paul announced his first run for the GOP presidential nomination, I defended him in print and on video quite a few times against establishment outlets that couldn't believe he was saying things that weren't on their little sheet of paper of the things we were allowed to say.

Most of these attacks took the form of "15 extreme positions Ron Paul holds." I would proceed to defend each one and show that there was nothing "extreme" about it at all, unless we're defining "extreme" as "bound to make the New York Times upset."

I could get a little sarcastic, even nasty, in these replies, but man did those people have it coming to them, and my readers and viewers genuinely enjoyed my replies.

Well, a little bit of that spirit crept back in on social media over the past few days.

We spent some time last week in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts (my home state), and had a wonderful time. I know the politics there are terrible, although it kind of bothers me that I have to insert that caveat every time I say I'm visiting

there. I ought to be able to spend time in places that bring me joy without having to provide ideological justifications.

At any rate, my wife reminded me of the extra tax that Massachusetts voters decided to impose some time ago on people earning $1 million or more per year, on top of the existing state income tax that everyone else pays. For some reason this set me off, and I wrote a long post about it.

I'm reproducing a modified version of it here.

If you don't like a person who's full of righteous anger and who calls bad people names, this is not the issue of my newsletter for you. You have been warned.

Here we go:

One could write an entire book about the economic idiocy at play here, but first, the sheer immorality of this.

It takes a lot of [blankety-blank] work to earn that kind of income. We're taught to believe that people making those incomes must be somehow underhanded and wicked. Maybe that makes these voters feel better about looting their fellow citizens.

And that raises what to me is the key issue. How is this up for a vote in the first place? "We don't earn as much as that small minority does, so we've voted to take some of what they have"? What kind of person would you have to be for your brain to work like that?

My wife and I give away an enormous amount of money, and I can absolutely guarantee you with zero fear of contradiction that that money has done far more good and helped far more people than it would have if it had gone into state coffers, where 70% of it would have been eaten by bureaucracy, never to be seen again, and the other 30% blown on God knows what.

Moreover, people simply assume that if a state program has a nice-sounding name, it necessarily accomplishes its stated goal. A professor friend of mine once looked up how many people in his state in a year went through a state job-training program and then got a job in the field they'd been trained for.

Know the answer? Two. TWO. TWO $%#^@ PEOPLE.

Since nobody knows stuff like this, these sinkholes go on and on, lining the pockets of bureaucrats and other leeches and parasites. This is what you're funding with your stupid, envy-driven surtax on millionaires. Congratu-blankety-blank-lations.

But to the point: you are not entitled to the fruits of someone else's work. You're not. They can choose to give it to you if they want, but you consider yourself entitled to it just because you exist? Get bent.

You're entitled to millionaires' money because they're rich? Well, guess what, Chuckles. By global standards YOU'RE RICH. If you're making $35,000 a year you're in the global 1%. So why shouldn't the rest of the world impose a surtax ON YOU?

Suddenly you're not in favor of envious bastards grabbing money they didn't earn, are you? How about that! I guess it depends on who's doing the grabbing!

The amount of economic activity that will now not take place in Massachusetts is potentially off the charts. Who feels like paying an extra $90,000 out of every $1 million, especially when already paying property taxes, sales taxes -- and the nearly 40% top federal rate?

When choosing between places to live, who wouldn't just live right across the border in New Hampshire and keep his $90K?

Meanwhile, all those services our hypothetical millionaire might have hired Massachusetts people for, get offered instead to people in New Hampshire (or wherever else he decides to live). All the products he would have bought from Massachusetts vendors he simply buys from somebody else.

But since economic activity that never occurs in the first place can't be seen by anyone (because it never occurs), the morons who voted for this won't understand what they should blame when life continues to get more and more expensive in Massachusetts. They'll just go after the rich again, and the cycle will continue.

People like this deserve what happens to them.

Yes, you're darn right I favor "tax cuts for the rich," because the rich are people with rights, too, and aren't just cash cows for losers and morons to milk.

I could add that it's "the rich" whose savings fund capital investment, which is literally the only thing that improves the standard of living across the board, but I think I've said enough.

Now I feel better.

On a happier note, during my previous visit to Massachusetts earlier this year I had a chance to introduce my wife and daughters to Mario Giordano, my high-school Spanish teacher. Now 80, Mr. Giordano joined us for lunch at a popular local eatery, and when it was over 9-year-old Sarah Woods asked if he could move to Florida to teach her Spanish.

Because of my occasional international travel I've once again become interested in language learning. I've benefited tremendously from the Italian and Spanish programs from Rocket Languages, which I listen to while driving, but they also offer plenty of more exotic languages, too.

You've got one day more to take advantage of their 60% off Halloween sale, and since I myself have benefited from it and I know the co-founder personally, I thought I would tell you about it:
 

https://www.tomwoods.com/rocket

Tom Woods