“The law, in its
majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges,
to beg in the streets, and to steal bread” -- Anatole France
While the net worth of the hapless members of the lower 99
percent have been plummeting for some time, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal ($$-CT),
a member of the 1 percent clan, last year realized an increase in net worth,
according to a story in the Stamford Advocate, “Blumenthal at high end of Senate millionaires' club.”
The story compares Mr. Blumenthal’s wealth last year with that
of current U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, a relative pauper.
Mr. Blumenthal’s jump in net worth – from $73 million in 2010
to $112 million in 2011 -- makes Connecticut soon to be senior senator the fourth
wealthiest member of the Senate and the ninth richest among all 535 members of
Congress.
Mr. Blumenthal replaced former Senator Chris Dodd, author of
the Dodd-Frank Bill, a mischevious regulatory waterboarding gag placed over the
blistered body of American enterprise. Like Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Dodd was a
relative pauper when he left the Congress to accept a position as a Hollywood
lobbyist and the head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Since then, fortune has smiled upon the former senator. Mr. Dodd patiently
waited to leave the hallowed halls of Congress before cashing in on his years
of service. Mr. Blumenthal brought his wealth with him when he stepped into Mr.
Dodd’s empty senatorial shoes.
Last January, Mr. Dodd threatened his former colleagues with reprisals if they did not support SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act," and PIPA,
the "PROTECT IP Act.”
"Candidly,” the new head of Tinseltown warned, “those
who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this
industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their
job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job
is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at
stake."
Dodd’s effort to badger politicians into supporting SOPA
came to grief when, objecting to language in the bill that granted the U.S.
government the right to block from the internet entire Web sites carrying copyright-infringing
content, some sites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing shut down theiroperations in protest and blacked out their services.
On taxes, Mr. Blumenthal favors implementation of the so
called “Buffet Rule,” a measure, Mr. Blumenthal writes on his congressional site,
that “is a crucial first step toward tax fairness and reform and fiscal
responsibility. The federal government should not subsidize millionaires and
billionaires. A majority of Americans, including most millionaires, agree. This
measure is a critical and necessary start toward creating a fairer tax code,
and comprehensive reform to make our tax system simpler, fairer, and more
effective. Very simply, people who make more than a million dollars a year
should pay the same percentage of their income in taxes as middle class families
like firefighters and teachers do. And today we have lost the battle, but not
the war.”
Others have pointed out that the Buffet Rule could easily be
self-applied by all three of the Democratic millionaires who serve in the
state’s congressional delegation: Mr. Blumenthal and U.S. House members Rosa
DeLauro and Jim Himes. None of Connecticut’s millionaire congresspersons appear
to be willing to put their tax money where their mouths are; and that includes,of course, Mr. Buffet.
In 2010, a Hearst newspaper asked
Mr. Blumenthal to furnish it with the cover page to his most recent IRS filing
for a profile the paper printed in March. . The profile does not include
information from the requested filing, which suggests Mr. Blumenthal did not
furnish the requested information in time for publication.
The Hearst profile contains the following brief information
on a previous filing: “Would you provide us a photocopy of the front sheet of
your most recent IRS tax filing, including income, tax deductions and taxes
paid? His 2008 tax return lists total income of $307,998. His federal taxes
were $39,191, and he claimed a $794,498 refund because of estimated taxes
applied from his 2007 return. Filed a married, separate return.”
According to this information, Mr. Blumenthal paid 13% of
his 2008 earnings in taxes – and then requested a $794,498 refund on estimated
taxes for 2007. Mr. Buffet would not cheer Mr. Blumenthal’s effort to pay “the
same percentage of [his] income in taxes as middle class families like
firefighters and teachers do.”
It may be important during the campaign season now upon us
to ascertain from Mr. Blumenthal whether he has paid more or less in taxes
during his time in office -- which would include his 16 years as Connecticut’s
Attorney General -- than, say, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney,
whose tax payments have been questioned by President Barack Obama and Mr.
Blumenthal’s Democratic colleagues in the U.S. House.
A fair, simple, effective flat tax would assure that
millionaires such as Mr. Blumenthal would, like ordinary mortals, pay the same
tax rates as their secretaries, which could be computed on a form the size of
an index card and would dispense with the complex and expensive tax avoidance
apparatus that has made the progressive tax into little more than a joke easily
circumvented by millionaires who can afford to hire armies of lawyers and
accountants to protect their assets from raids by such as Mr. Blumenthal.
The easiest way to level the playing field between
millionaires and their secretaries is to expropriate all the assets of
millionaires when they die, thus preventing the flow of wealth to their
children. The assets easily could be dedicated as a down payment on the present
$16 trillion Bush-Obama national debt or be distributed to soup kitchens and those
who live under bridges. This elegantly simple reform, which once and for all
would dispose of the problem of monetary inequity and sooth the anxieties of millionaire
congresspersons such as Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Himes and Mrs. DeLauro, is not
likely to be approved by any of Connecticut’s Democratic congressional
millionaires.
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