There has been one demographic that has been under siege from the left since Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump: the poor. Leftists, despite claiming tolerance for diversity of opinion and demanding respect for society’s most vulnerable individuals, have made it clear that they are no friends of the impoverished, a group that voted for both Trump and Brexit. For two years, the working class has been denounced, demeaned, and degraded because they dared to dismiss what their supposed betters directed them to do come Election Day.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg evidently shares this view.
Speaking recently at the World Bank Group 2018 Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C., the billionaire media mogul suggested that raising taxes on the poor is a “good thing” because otherwise they will be uneducated and they will die.
Michael Bloomberg
He told the crowd:
“Some people say, well, taxes are regressive. But in this case, yes they are. That’s the good thing about them because the problem is in people that don’t have a lot of money. And so, higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves.
So, I listen to people saying, ‘oh we don’t want to tax the poor.’ Well, we want the poor to live longer so that they can get an education and enjoy life. And that’s why you do want to do exactly what a lot of people say you don’t want to do.”
He added: “The question is do you want to pander to those people? Or do you want to get them to live longer?”
In other words: the poor are too irresponsible and too stupid to look after themselves, so the government must take more of their paycheck to ensure they don’t perish.
The Arrogance of the Left
Bloomberg isn’t the only person in America who shares these smug and odious views of the poor.
Hillary Clinton, the woman who will never be president, uttered similar views earlier this year in India, where she said that she lost in places that were “looking backwards.” Clinton admitted to the world that she thinks Americans who do not reside in “dynamic” and wealthy big cities are dumb bigots.
The affluent left maintains the same attitude of the impecunious, whether it comes down to school choice or what they put inside their bodies. Because they view themselves as the ubermensch, the elites surmise that they can control the lives of millions of people through the means of central planning. It is important for the rich and powerful to ensure portions of the population depend on the government from cradle to grave, and, most importantly, to institute generational enslavement to the state.
During a 1981 episode of the iconic political talk show, Firing Line with William F. Buckley, legendary economist Thomas Sowell debated feminist attorney Harriet Pilpel, who essentially argued that poor black people are too ignorant to know what is best for their children and that the government needs to impose its will to regulate their lifestyles.
The arrogance of Bloomberg, Clinton, Pilpel, and other liberals is astonishing.
But it isn’t just the idea of superiority that hurts the poor. It is big government in general.
Big Government Affects the Poor
In April 2017, The Heritage Foundation published a report, titled “Big Government Policies that Hurt the Poor and How to Address Them.” The paper outlined how taxes, regulations, and a diverse array of other public policies increase the cost of housing, energy, food, and clothing – all items that the poor dedicate greater percentages of their incomes to.
Soda taxes, fruit and vegetable marketing orders, import restraints, occupational licensure, renewable fuel standards. They may not seem like much at first glance, but as they accumulate, the cost of living intensifies, which then suppresses the opportunity for cash-strapped Americans to climb the ladder.
The conservative think-tank wrote:
“All Americans should have the opportunity to get ahead, and opportunities abound in the U.S. market economy when it is allowed to function freely. If the government would just get out of the way by curtailing cronyism, eliminating unnecessary regulations, and eliminating other government interventions that needlessly drive up prices, those in need would have a better chance to succeed.”
But why would big government advocates and bureaucrats even want anyone to succeed on their own? If they did, then the serfdom would dwindle and their power would wane – and they can’t have that.
‘Egos of the Elite’
When former President Lyndon Baines Johnson launched his Great Society initiative in the 1960s, he ignited a state-sponsored firestorm of poverty, inopportunity, dependence, and failure. The crude, uncouth, and alleged KKK member’s poverty war did not benefit anyone, except the monstrosity of the bureaucracy and a new constituency for politicians, who virtue-signaled to the extreme by showcasing their moral superiority. Thomas Sowell may have said it best when he described what welfare was really about: “The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.”
Do you support raising taxes on the poor? Let us know in the comments section!
