Ben Nelson Attributes His Zeal for Defending the Interests of Rich People to the Public at Large
The absolute most annoying tick of the “centrist” block of Democratic Senators is their tendency to deny their own agency in the legislative process. A set of political institutions that is and always has been entirely wrongheaded has given Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, and others vast authority over the fate of the nation. And while wielding it, the wielders have a horrifying tendency to simply deny that wielding power and making choices is what they’re doing. Here, for example, is Nelson slamming the idea of paying for health reform with higher taxes on the wealthy:
“Tax is a four-letter word” with voters, said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Even families not ranking in the top 1 percent of earners “hope they’re going to be there someday,” he said. “So they don’t necessarily think it’s fair.”
Jon Chait reminds us that we can actually just look this up:
Taxing the rich is popular. Really popular. Maybe Ben Nelson thinks it’s unfair. But if so, he should say so. He’s a US Senator! Tons of people are eager to hear what he thinks about things and understand his point of view. Instead, he just tells us that other people don’t like the idea.
69 Responses to “Ben Nelson Attributes His Zeal for Defending the Interests of Rich People to the Public at Large”
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July 15th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I notice “with voters” is not inside the verbatim quote. So maybe he was thinking of something like “with my donors” instead.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
That poll, if anything, overstates anti-tax sentiment as it would actually play out. No one but tea-baggers (if even them) will vote against a politician for raising someone else’s taxes.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I would submit this goes farther than taxation:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/blue-dog-districts-need-health-care.html
On major economic issues, Blue Dogs in either House are generally acting against the interests of their constituents.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Also, “tax” has only three letters. Why does no one acknowledge that Nelson can’t even count? Is this some sort of genteel conspiracy of silence?
July 15th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Taxz.
As in, “Pleaz don’t raiz rich peoplz taxz”.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
If journalists would make a regular habit of pointing out when people like Ben Nelson say things that aren’t true, politicians would stop saying them.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Call it ‘constituent service’, insofar as any Senator’s real constituency is only the regard of the other 99 Senators.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Geez, I hope I am there some day too. I’ll pay 2% extra if I get rich..do I hear 3?
Nelson ctaers to a non-existant constituency and his business interest contributors. I can just hear it..”Ben, your contributions go way down if my taxes go up..”..maybe he should talk to one of his constituents, Warren Buffett, about all this.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Matt, bone-heads reside in the Senate and at The Atlantic Magazine. Watching your eyebrows go up every time Megan made a dumb comment in today’s Bloggingshead video made my day. Non-verbal communication: the most revealing.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
To be fair, approximately 98% of the constituents Senator Nelson listens to and cares about are opposed to raising taxes on the wealthy.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Seriously, what a load of garbage from Nelson. Here we have a proposed tax hike that only really effects people making substantially over $250,000 (i.e if you make only slightly more than $250,000, hardly any of your income gets taxed at the higher rate).
Not only does hardly anyone make that much money, but anyone who even dares to dream of such earnings is very likely aspiring to make more than double, or triple their current salary. At that point, it’s just ludicrous to think these dreams of wealth are somehow marred by the knowledge that they’ll be paying an extra 2 percent in taxes.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
You spelled “tic” wrong.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I’m a bit surprised Matt didn’t add another perfectly apt description of Sen. Nelson: liar.
However, I imagine he wants to save that label for when someone tells a serious whopper, rather than a commonplace, inaccurate cliche.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
NEWSFLASH: U.S. Senators of both parties are by and large numbskulls …
July 15th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
This guy is a tool. But if ever there was a party that does not deserve power, it is the Dems. These idiots can’t get anything done. Health care reform was an ‘effing Dem tier one priority. Now that they have the numbers and the power, and a Dem President pushing for it, these a-holes are getting cold feet. I think they might just find a way to f*** this up.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Ben Nelson enjoys good healthcare.
Precisely what is it.
I object strongly to either my an any other taxpayer’s money being used to provide Nelson with heathcare that others can’t get just as well.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
If journalists would make a regular habit of pointing out when people like Ben Nelson say things that aren’t true, politicians would stop saying them.
Or they would just be declaimed as horribly liberal biased, and blacklisted.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
That reminds me of someone: I don’t make that much now, but I totally will once I start my own business doing something I’m not licensed to do. Or maybe I’ll be a journamalist. America! Fuck Yeah!
Ben Nelson, meet Joe the Plumber. Who will never vote for you.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Nelson isn’t dissembling. He never meets any voters who aren’t making more than $250,000 a year, so of course he thinks taxes on rich people are unpopular.
To most of our legislators, people who are not rich are not citizens. They are nonpersons, somewhere above illegal immigrants on the human food chain, but not too far above.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
This poll and these comments are the kind of thing that happens when about half the nation pays no income tax. Consider this people, the budget for all individual income taxes in 2009 is roughly $1.2 trillion. The deficit alone is $1.7 trillion.
Obviously raising taxes on the rich isn’t going to pay for anything major, just shrink the the tax base further. It’s time to levy an AMT on every taxpayer even if it’s only $100. It’s time for the bottom half to pull it’s weight and get off the free ride.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Nelson knows it is true, that is what Joe the Plumber told him. Joe just might become a billionaire plumbing mogul next year.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
You tell ‘em, shooter! Save the rich — eat the poor!
July 15th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
It’s time for the bottom half to pull it’s weight and get off the free ride.
Agreed.
The way to do this is to give them Goldman Sachs stock.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Y’know, shooter242, I remember when Rush Limbaugh went on about this a few years back when he first discovered serving his material on the web, with pie charts showing which brackets paid what.
He helpfully provided a link to the raw .XLS data back at the IRS. From it, I saw that Rush wasn’t lying, but he was leaving something out:
Most Americans don’t make Jack Shit…
…and as Harry Bailey once said, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this nation. I’ve heard this “pull their weight” bit before. So, you want your $100 AMT? Fine. In the meantime, in the spirit of the Ron White school of debate:
Fuck you.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
1) So why doesn’t someone send letters to the People of Nebraska telling them how Ben Nelson is screwing them? And us. Shouldn’t cost that much –there ain’t that many of them.
2) One consolation is that Nebraska will be repaid one day for sending Ben Nelson to the Senate. A year or so ago, Nebraska asked FEMA why they did not have a PEP communications link that would allow them to get rapid warnings of catastrophes (Major Nuclear attack, terrorist strikes,etc) in the same way the State Emergency Operation Centers in most of the other states receive alerts. FEMA rather tactlessly replied that Nebraska did not have sufficient population to justify the cost of the PEP link.
3) FEMA was kinda dissembling. In reality, FEMA studies show that Nebraska would be buried under about 15,000 Rem of fallout radiation if a nuclear war ever occurred. Not even the cockroaches would survive. It’s downwind from the Minuteman missile fields in Montana and Wyoming.
FEMA’s National Recovery Plan calls to entering Nebraska several months later — after the radiation has declined — and raiding the grain silos,warehouses, etc. The fallout would have killed off any looters or natives well before then. In that sense, the intense fallout is not a problem –it’s a feature.
See http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/pix/benson0201-5.gif
July 15th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
By the way, why don’t we just scrap the US Senate with a Constitutional Amendment. Great Britain has pretty much emasculated the House of Lords — what’s holding us back?
July 15th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Gosh, $100 is too much to pay for living in this great country of ours? Tsk. Why don’t you guys just advocate for the top quintile to pay 100% of the income taxes rather than just 86%? Man up and make your demands clear, so we can see who you are. Whining just makes it worse.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Don, even though I live in a penny-ante state, and my current job depends on the kindness of a crazy-old codger in the Senate, I think that’s an outstanding idea… even though I might momentarily regret it when my party doesn’t control the House.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Personally, I don’t have a problem with a minimum tax for just about everyone to pay. But, the argument is a red herring.
The top quintile makes ~67% of the income
The 2nd quintile makes ~20% of the income
See where this is going? I reiterate: most Americans don’t make jack shit. So, tax the bottom 50%, don’t tax the bottom 50%, I don’t care. But, don’t play act like if only those lazy so-and-so’s were paying their “fair share” it’s going to make any difference, other than to stop your whining.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
shooter242- you are truly dumber than a sled track. As my daughter’s third grade math book printed at the end of every chapter- “Extend your thinking.”
Please tell me you’re the product of home-schooling.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Fuckwit shooter wants to pretend that the only taxation is that of “income.” The number of people who don’t pay at least $100/year in taxes is vanishingly small – too small to be of any use talking about them.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
There are lots of people who have libertarian tendencies in Nebraska (well, apart from the farm bills!). But most of them would care not a whit about higher taxes on the very rich. The “poor rich farmers” (my Michigan-born mother’s derisive term for those who bought out all the smaller farmers in the 1970s) might.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
#9:
The widened eyes followed by the polite-but-exasperated full-face cover, followed by a Sweep-Hands-Down-Length-of-Face Classic Edition(TM), at 45:16 are delicious.
A little-known fact is the OED’s entry for “stupid” consists solely of a picture of McArdle.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Re: It’s time for the bottom half to pull it’s weight and get off the free ride.
The bottom half pays FICA, various excise duties and “user fees” and, yes, even some income tax. I can’t think of a time when I was so poor that I didn’t have some money deducted from my pay check and sent off to the IRS– and no, I did not get it all back at the end of the year.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
what’s holding us back?
Article V of the Constitution, on amendments, which provides in relevant part:
July 15th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Re DTM at 35: “Article V of the Constitution, on amendments, which provides in relevant part:
[N]o state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”
———
Well, then strip the Senate of all its powers –make it into a ceremonial something with political powers ranking somewhere below those of the Mummers of Philadelphia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummers_Parade
July 15th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Hey, it worked for Augustus Caesar. People are less likely to resist being made irrelevant if they are allowed to carry on a charade of being important.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
“So why doesn’t someone send letters to the People of Nebraska telling them how Ben Nelson is screwing them? And us. Shouldn’t cost that much –there ain’t that many of them.”
You’re welcome to try. I don’t imagine it will accomplish much, though. We Nebraskans like Ben Nelson and dislike progressive dimwits like yourself.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Even families not ranking in the top 1 percent of earners “hope they’re going to be there someday”
I used to think that was a myth, that people actually thought that way. I was at the US Open golf tournament in La Jolla last year, waiting for a bus, and a bunch of us started chatting. They were terrified, of course, of the Evil Socialist Hell that Obama was going to unleash, so I started to lay some stats on them. This one guy pauses and said “Well, *in case* I get rich one day, I want taxes to be low for the upper part”. I replied “So, instead of living in reality and having a tax base that helps middle-class dudes like yourself, you’re banking on winning the lottery or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”.
The topic suddenly shifted to Tiger Woods short game.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I wonder what pooter69 actually does — apart from turning tricks for closeted GOP legislators, that is? Because I’m not sure if he declares that on his 1040, though he’ll be paying sales tax on lube.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:06 am
“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” Leo Tolstoy.
What a crappy US Senator Tolstoy would have made.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:49 am
you guys have to check out the “Obama not a legit president, where is his long form birth certificate” discussion raging on the 9/12 project site set up by Glen Beck. These nut jobs are hilarious and have congregated at this site.
http://theglennbeck912project.com/2009/07/14/715-a-soldier-claims-obama-is-not-a-legitimate-president/#idc-ctools
July 16th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Taxing the rich, is a nonsense BS statement. Do any of you think that Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold, John Kerry, John Edwards, or Ted Kennedy, to name a few, are going to pay one penny more in taxes? Not gonna happen.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Re: Shooter242
I’d also like to point out that the rich are the folks who are most dependent upon services provided by the Federal Government. Take Rush Limbaugh, for example, this is a guy whose income is entirely, and directly, dependent upon the Feds making sure that no one else transmits a single on the frequency he is using. This is not a trivial thing, nor is it something that he can do on his own. So, of course, shooter feels it’s really unfair of Rush to have to pay for the services he uses, rather some poor guy, who himself has little need of services from the Feds, should pay for what Rush needs.
And it’s not like this applies only to Rush. Other services from the Feds include the value of incorporation, copyright protection, security of physical and financial assets, negotiating trade deals, and I could go on. The rich need the government, the rich can pay a fair bit for it.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Very true, and they pay 96% of the income taxes. Why not just make it 100% and just make the free ride official? OTOH if the bottom 3 quintiles paid $100 that would be an extra $7 billion to apply to our $1.7 trillion deficit.
Hmmmm. It seems that all the income taxes we pay won’t even cover the deficit. What the hey, let’s give everybody an income tax holiday this year.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I see and the bottom half of the country doesn’t need government? Two thirds of the budget is taking from the top half to give to the bottom half. I can live without that, how about you?
If you read the comments you’d know the rich already pay their share and part of yours. Find a rich person today and say thanks.
July 16th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Anyone who wants to bitch and moan about how the lower income workers don’t pay enough income taxes needs to go have words with Ronald Reagan, whose Earned Income Tax Credit was sold with the idea being that government is a burden which shouldn’t be placed on the shoulders of those workers earning the least money.
Pfft. Acting like this is some Democrat shit when it’s another god damned Reagan initiative.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:10 am
donc en fait ce soir au motel y’a miggles christ, jb rochelet et ben shades qui jouent, et joe the lion, voxpop, coulon & fish qui mixent !
July 16th, 2009 at 9:20 am
As usual you’re half right…. actually that may be an improvement. It was started by Ford in 1975, and expanded by Reagan. So in reality, for most in the bottom quintiles, $100 isn’t coming out of their earnings it’s coming out a government subsidy. Sounds pretty painless to me.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:57 am
AllenS,
Feingold, by US Senate standards, is FAR from rich. I believe he is one of the few non-millionare Senators. So it baffles me why you include him. Kohl, yeah, he’s very rich. Despite serving the same state, they are actually different people.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Nelson is a hero; he is defending that optimistic 40% from the rampaging greed of the majority.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Ben,
You are correct and I was wrong. Let’s substitute Jay Rockefeller, Dianne Feinstein, or Frank R. Lautenberg.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Very true, and they pay 96% of the income taxes.
a. Income taxes are not the only taxes. Many people, and most low-income people, pay more in other taxes than they do in income taxes.
b. Income in general and taxable income in particular is a highly imperfect measure of wealth.
Find a rich person today and say thanks.
For the hell of it, I just looked it up…just sneak into the very bottom of the top quintile. So I guess I don’t need to go looking.
Still doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind foregoing a few trips to Starbucks a year to make sure that less fortunate people around me aren’t helping make me sicker because they won’t or can’t get medical attention and are unable to buy what I sell because out-of-pocket medical costs have bankrupted them.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
The aspirational part of the “don’t tax the wealthy” has always been a puzzle. It is a unique American phenomenon: altruistic greed. In reality, to be wealthy means savagely guarding your self interest. Now, if you are middle class and you apply that principle, then, as a middle class person, you want the rich to pay much, much more taxes than they pay now, so you can benefit. As you go up the ladder, your self interest changes. So that when you are rich (I’m pretending this fantasy can come true) you change your tactics and fight for lowering the taxes of the rich. One principle – self interest – leads to different strategies in different situations.
This shouldn’t be hard. But apparently, the notion that the same principle can dictate different actions is well beyond the capacity of the self-lobotomized. Which is why their brains relax so, in a nice warm urinous puddle of Limbaugh-ism.
July 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
This is a rich composite of “I deserve something for nothing,” and the “ends justify the means.” Greed isn’t wanting to keep more of what one earns, it’s coveting what the other guy earns.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Shooter242–In 2005 (latest stats I could find), the effective federal tax rate (all federal taxes) for increasing quintiles of income was 4.4%, 9.9%, 14.2%, 17.4%, 25.5%–ie. most people pay taxes. And that doesn’t include state taxes and sales taxes, which hit poor people the hardest since most of their money gets spent. Like other posters have stated, to focus only on income taxes is stupid.
This is coming from a wage earner somewhere in the middle quintile who sent checks to the IRS and my state this year, in addition to withholding.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
“Greed isn’t wanting to keep more of what one earns, it’s coveting what the other guy earns.”
Those last six words are pregnant with meaning. A truly wealthy person got (or stayed) there by skimming the surplus value created by others. Ergo, greed.
To have that person then moan about bearing a greater portion of the cost to maintain the state that provided the environment for wealth creation and maintenance is laughable, but not unexpected.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
To Julie, here is a good table with 2006 numbers. You’ll notice that the income tax share for the bottom two quintiles is a negative number. They are actually getting more from the government than they pay. Also note that Fed tax numbers include FICA and excise taxes.
Good arguments about this disparity are here in a piece advocating an income tax rate of zero for the bottom three quintiles.
To cmholm, rich people are rich because they produced something a lot of people are willing to trade their dollars for. Unlike of course someone like yourself who thinks somebody else should pay their way. By force if need be. Leeches have better manners.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
rich people are rich because they produced something a lot of people are willing to trade their dollars for
Oh shoot, I thought it was because they were smarter. Most rich people are rich because they were born rich. As for the outliers, neither Shaq nor the Cavalier’s owning partnership, nor the NBA management, nor the networks, nor the sponsors work in a vacuum.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Our conservative shows just what I meant by self-lobotomized. Can’t follow simple logic, doesn’t understnad the difference between greed and self interest. And is likely one of those altruists about the rich.
It really is a servile mentality. Conservatives live under a do tread on me banner. They have a slavish disposition. And because they have never had a creative idea or any imagination, they imagine that you must have to be paid big bucks to make that mental effort.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
To Shooter242:
The “good” 2006 CBO report you refer to is scarcely different than the (apparently crummy?) 2005 CBO report I was quoting in my post. In 2006 the effective tax rates, which as I mentioned before includes ALL federal taxes, were 4.3%, 10.2%, 14.2%, 17.6%, and 25.9%. I still don’t see how you can have a discussion of fairness in taxation without considering the total tax burden.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
From shooter242
The bottom half of the country pays a good bit for government and makes use of services provided by government far less. The distinction is even more marked if the distinction is between the top 1% and the bottom 99%. And if the bottom part of the income scale can produce valuable services that the top part can use to make money, I have no problem with the bottom part getting something significant in return. I call it commerce.
Why would taking money from the rich be a problem. I take money from my employer every two weeks for the labor I do and in a community theater I work at we take money from patrons at every show. Merchants are constantly taking money from me for goods and services they provide. If the poorer folks in this country provide services (such as incorporation, secure use of the electromagnetic spectrum, copyright protection and the rest) they should indeed “take” money for it. It is called trade, and no, I can’t live without it.
The rich pay no where near their share. The economy today is dominated by the government providing enormously valuable services, at a fraction of their market value, to a select group of people who are made rich thereby. Poorer folks are forced to pay a disproportionate share of the federal budget as a consequence.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
[...] Dogs are going to mount a campaign to make the bill cost more and do less. Meanwhile, Ben Nelson believe he’s some sort of automaton, controlled solely by imaginary constituent [...]
July 16th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Which has what, to do with the tax rate? As you can see, the top quintile pays 69.3% of all Fed taxes (the actual burden). And they don’t make that much in income. So, it’s documented that the top quintile and subdivisions are subsidizing the other four quintiles. Like I said, find a rich person and say thanks.
Most? As in over 50%? Let’s see you document that.
I see, and what services would that be, which the bottom 99% is denied?
This ought to be interesting. Heh.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
The only thing interesting is the oddity of your question. It is not an issue of being denied the services. It is question of who is using them. Those who are making money by using the services provided by another, will pay the expenses of those who provide the services. Anyone not using the services should not be expected to pay for them whether, or not, they are permitted to use those services.
As for what those services are, I’ve only listed them twice. Perhaps the third time will work:
Copyright protection
Guaranteeing sole use of frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum
Sharing risk via incorporation
Securing financial and physical assets
Negotiating trade deals with foreign nations
You see, those who use these services to make money, can then pay for them out of the income they earn by using them. That is trade.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Yep it was interesting…
You obviously haven’t thought this through. The rich don’t use social services, other people’s pensions, NASA, or the Secret Service. So, by your logic they don’t have to pay. Great, when do the refunds go out?
On the other hand, how do ordinary people who use or benefit from the items you listed get dinged for all that single purpose expense.
* Anyone that takes a picture can get a copyright,
* Are University stations in the top 1%, how about the local mom and pop stations across the country? How about the advantages to the listeners?
* Anyone can incorporate online these days,
* EVERY body gets their assets secured,
* And I can call Japan anytime I like to order Bonds from their government.
It seems that your pay to play plan falls apart under casual scrutiny. Like I said, find a rich person and say “thanks” for paying part of your share of the tax burden.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Shooter242
No, you haven’t thought it through. The rich aren’t paying for those things. The rich are paying for the services that I mentioned. The Federal Government, having been paid for the services it provides, then spends the money on things that are of value to the population. Furthermore, the general public does pay money to have the services you mention. It is just that the rich derrive a great deal more income from the services they use, and so the prices charged are considerably higher.
Your list suffers again from your problem of assuming that if I’m allowed to do something like incorporate or to get a copyright then I owe as much as those who do these things and make a lot of money off of them. That’s absurd. The copyright protection we provide to Disney corporation is worth a great deal more than the copyright we provide to you for taking a single picture. As a consequence, they do, and should, pay more. Likewise, having the US Government protect your assets is worth a great deal more if your assets are worth $60 Billion than if they are worth $60.
University stations are generally not in the top 1%, probably none are. You seem to be suffering from the logical fallacy of thinking that if folks in the top 1% own broadcast stations then those who own broadcast stations are in the top 1%. That does not follow. The advantage to the listeners is certainly a consideration that should be taken into account by the government is how it sets its prices. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is a very valuable service, it is provided by the government and that therefore the government may well charge money for it.
I am at a loss as to figure out what you ability to purchase Japanese Bonds has to do with this. I suspect a logical fallacy is at work.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
I suspect you are pushing my leg.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:00 am
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