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Kristol: 'It Won't Kill the Country If We Raise Taxes on Millionaires'

The conservative pundit warns the GOP not to 'fall on its sword' defending rich folk

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by Dain Fitzgerald

Staff Writer t +

Image: YouTube

Are Republicans willing to bite the proverbial bullet on the so-called "fiscal cliff"? If the opinion of neoconservative staple William Kristol is any guide, then yes, just maybe.

Kristol told "Fox News Sunday" that the GOP shouldn't "fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires," reports Raw Story. He hoped to coax the more stubborn (or principled, if you like) Republican members of the House to concede to the Obama administration's plan to raise taxes on households with an annual income of 250k and up to help reduce the federal deficit.

"The leadership in the Republican Party and the leadership in the conservative movement has to pull back, let people float new ideas," said Kristol. "It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires." Besides, he points outs, many of these millionaires are Democrat-voting, Hollywood-hills-living liberals anyway.

Via Raw Story.
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Do you agree with Kristol?

149 Comments (view in Forum)

  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    We seriously need to purge all the RINOs out of the party. We have too many so-called conservatives who are just itching to join the liberals in destroying the country. I'm developing a RINO list and hopefully by 2014 they are all purged from the party.
  • FollowTheMoney
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    No, we need to purge the parties from the government. The Democrats and Republicans offer no solutions, because they would first have to admit that they are the problem.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    @FollowTheMoney - The Republicans actually try to do some good but end up getting caught up in compromising with the liberals. This is why we must purge Kristol and Christie's ilk from the Republican party. We need to exhibit a backbone and not give in and not compromise with failure.
  • VCP
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix It's attitudes like yours that has this country in such a mess. I thought you were going to Canada? Why haven't you and your hard line, never get anything accomplished grey matter left yet? And take those who think like you with you!! This country needs people to work together for its betterment. Not fight and argue about everything.
  • FollowTheMoney
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix I was once a member of the Republican party. I left and voted independent. Then I realized the core or root of the problem was the professional politicians instincts for political survival is paramount to them. And in order to survive they need political capital. That capital is gained by selling and trading law. Not by doing the right thing because it is the right thing.

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  • LetsAllBeHappy
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    I am not a millionaire-I do not know-I know that to have a million dollars in mid or rural America-counts for a lot more cash than if you live in a coastal town-or a blue state-
  • Jasonopolis
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    @Thunderchicken So very correct on that. Even though I am not against raised taxes on the wealthy, bottom line is still the bottom line and any company knows that you cut costs before you try to raise revenue.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    Billy Kristol is just disgraceful. He bad mouthed Romney the whole time and helped ensure that we'd get a second term of socialism. Kristol, your time is up and it is time for you to find a new party. Go be a liberal if you think they are so much better than us.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    Thanks for this post. I never knew Kristol had roots in liberalism. I'll have to do some research on him. He sounded very liberal in this clip though. Liberals are always trying to steal from someone more wealthier than themselves instead of working harder to achieve their dreams. I passionately hate what this country has turned into.
  • RedFloppyShoes
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix check the history of most of those on "the panel of experts" who claim to be Conservative. Most have Liberal roots. Kristol, Krauthammer, Morris, et al.
  • DARSB
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    First Hannity "evolves" on immigration, now Bill Kristol seems to be open to compromise on taxes...

    This may be an opportune time for this, too. Rep Paul Ryan is term-limited as chair of the Budget Committee (unless he gets a special waiver). Without the fiscal wunderkind in charge there may be more slack in the discussions.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    Liberals are too happy and excited to loot the bank accounts of millionaires, foolishly thinking their is enough money there to fund all of their wildest fantasies. Oh what a sad day it will be when liberals realize that unfortunately, there just isn't enough money for all the spending they want to do. We need to CUT SPENDING, CUT TAXES, and so much more if we are to survive. Luckily I have options to get off the ship before it sinks.
  • dkpayton
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix well we have had the great gwb tax cuts for how long now? obama lowered them even more. so where are all the jobs from the job creators? how much more proof do you need that its not working ? so if we do raise taxes on millionaires what are they going to do not creat jobs? the gop is starting to wise up they know if they dont they wont have a job come 2014

  • hwyangel
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    @dkpayton
    We raise money on millionaires they take their money somewhere else. Not a new concept. The point here is not to protect millionaires. It is about protecting the economy. Republicans have been burned before by agreeing to deals in which Congress hikes taxes and the promised spending cuts never materialize. It failed in 2008 too, but they don’t seem to have learned a lesson.
  • FollowTheMoney
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    Sign me up. I like the idea of everyone ( business too) paying the same percentage on their income. If one earns $1.00 they pay $ .10...if one earns $1,000,000,000 They pay $100,000, no exceptions, now that's my idea of fair. I've also heard this called a flat tax.
  • Jasonopolis
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    I once liked the idea of it, but I can't get on board with a purely consumer tax and here's why. Because of unions and democratic taxes on industry and manufacturing, our economy now runs on consumerism. The amount of money needed to to cover the welfare and medicare benefits, defense spending, and infrastructure alone would require such a tax as to kill our own economy. Now sure, the fair tax should be able to eliminate the corporate taxes that chased businesses away in the first place, but they would not return to produce here while the minimum wage was still in effect, our consumerism economy was in the tank, and they already had plants built in other nations.
    In my mind the fair tax is now forever dead. The recent additions to welfare payroll assured that.

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  • Dan_Tien
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    He said "It's time to float new ideas." If the old ideas keep getting sunk, then it makes sense to try something different. If it makes a certain very vocal group unhappy with the way the Republican party is changing, and they want to keep pushing the same old failing ideas, then let them form another party that can fail all by itself.
  • marine1
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    Three step solution Kristol should be able to get behind and it MOST happen in the order identified.
    1 No new spending
    2 cut farm and corporate aid in half, today. totally gone in 3 yrs.
    3 raise taxs on all those makeing over 500K per year.
  • Thegrif
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    I agree it will not kill them, or even hurt them to much. My issue is what it could force them to do in order to keep their profit untouched. Raise prices of their goods, lay people off, or worse case, lock their door putting everyone on the street. Already more employers are cutting employees hours down to part time. So no insurance, no retirement, no real money made, and more people needing to be on assistance.
    Bottom line in my opinion, we are all screwed.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Why should their profit be untouched? It's just greed. Most of us are making less while the prices of basic goods and services have gone up. Why don't business owners have to suck it up and tighten the belt like the rest of us? Why is Richie Rich unwilling to part with a yacht or a Ferrari or one of a fleet of corporate jets?
  • Chrysalis
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    It's really a cycle. We need to learn that it is a cycle and that the economical process is not linear. To make profit you have to have people spending money, if you have less people spending money,then you will have less profit. If they cut jobs in order to pocket more of the short-term earnings, they are just hurting their potential profits instead of growing their profits. I think the problem with the economy is there isn't enough people with enough money as opposed to the imbalance of people with a majority of the money that we have versus people with little money. Maybe it's just me but when I have less money, I spend less money, therefore I contribute less as a consumer and as someone pointed out we live in a consumer economical driven society. This is how individual consumers work right? How can capitalism survive if only a small percentage of people have the majority of the money if your economic system is "consumer" based and the majority of your consumers have little money? How much business would disappear if there wasn't any welfare? Think about it. Say welfare would disappear tomorrow. All these families would be left taking care of family members or communities and churches would be left scrounging up goods for all these people with nothing. If families ended up picking up the burden for their jobless and needy family members, they would have less money to spend on everything that wasn't a "need". How much toilet paper does one rich man need in a month's time compared to how much toilet paper millions of people need in a month's time? If millions of people can't afford to buy toilet paper, but a handful of rich people can, what is better for your business if you sell toilet paper? Many of us might not want to admit it, but the existence of "welfare" also contributes a certain degree to helping the economy out. We are screwed if we continue to think of the economy as more than supply and demand.
  • Thegrif
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    @Denizen_Kate LOL. Why should their profit be untouched?
    Well you said it, "Their Profit". I profit every year as you do, I assume, and I don't want to pay more, do you? 99% of us do our taxes every year writing off everything we can, and why? Cause we don't want gov't getting their hands on our money.
    The price goes up on their goods because you, like lots of us, demand their goods, stop demanding so much and price will come down.
    Business does pay more. Cost to produce their goods goes up. Such as material cost, labor cost, and utility cost, cost of employer matched retirement plans, cost to truck their product all over the country, fuel cost, etc. all those things go up in cost to the company. Now we want more of his profit too? Well what if we wanted more of your profit? They make the big money because they spend money to make a product, they spend money to advertise that product, and we want that product, so we spend our money to get our hands on it.
    After we bring the Richie Riches down to size, who is next? Who pays next? They (1%ers ) already pay 40% of the bill, while giving you the goods and services you demand.
    As for their fancy cars and corp jets, I would be more interested in how many trips Air Force One makes for Obama, cause that is huge money every time it flys to a talk show, but not just Obama, look at all politicians and all the wasteful spending, thats where you find the money for helping the less fortunate.
    Look at it like this a pizza place with 50 employes for 2013, will have to cut 2 full time positions or 4 part time position to cover their 40,000 dollar tax increase. Every company faces that same problem and they all will cut staff to cover it, hope you ain't one of those cut. So to give health care to a lot of people that do zero productively, people that were working and producing have to go to the unemployment line and non production.
    Less working and less production for a country that is increasing in population.
    When that finally reaches its equilibrium we will all be below poor,
    Hey, just like Kenya, hmmm.
  • Thegrif
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    @Chrysalis well the 1%ers do not have most of the money. All the 1%ers put together only have 14% of all the money, and with it they live well, own companies that give jobs and produce all the goods "America just has to have". Now we want to punish them for succeeding at it. Punish them, take from them, all because they believed in the American dream, worked toward the direction of that dream, and succeeded. Well thats a fine how do you do, ain't it?
    Promoting do nothing, just sit home and we will just take that guys profit and GIVE it to ya.
    Well after rich are taken down a few pegs, who pays next? I guess it will be you and me that pay, I want to see them squeeze money from a stone
  • Chrysalis
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    @Thegrif I don't think we need to punish success. I just think we need to put in in perspective and that the economy will not pick up until we realize what the function of the economy is. I mean there are people who work their butts off and never acquire the American Dream and then there are people who sit on their butts in Washington and collect thousands of dollars off of taxpayers even after they leave the job for accomplishing very little. I just think we should put a cap on somethings, let everyone who works get a piece of the pie that they work for. We should definitely not promote welfare. We should put a cap on that too, such as putting a limit on the number of children that qualify for welfare in order to discourage irresponsible family planning or in other words, actually make people plan.

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  • VCP
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    Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August of that year, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers. Additionally, through the implementation of spending restraints, it mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years. By the end of the year 2000, under President Clinton, the United States of America had a budget surplus of $236 billion dollars.
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  • Jasonopolis
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    I am not in total disagreement. It should not have even been an issue in this election (raising taxes on the rich). Aside from that most rich people voted to have taxes raised on themselves. So how do you explain that away?
  • jessejaymes
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    Has this nation gone stark raving Nuts? Calling Kristol a RHINO? The man is an ultra conservative. And he is absolutely right. The man understand politics and ramifications. I can't believe anyone is actually calling him a RHINO
  • Nemesis3X
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    $250K is hardly a millionaire. Go ahead, raise taxes on the "millionaires". Do you honestly think that they will just bend over and take it? Any "rich" business owner will just pass the cost to the consumers. All the others will just find other ways aroud it. The only ones that will pay the liberals "fair" share are the ones hovering at the low end of the "rich" tax brackets. Yea, that's fair. I can't wait until my kids are frown up and I can quit my job and get some crappy job where I don't have to bust my ass, collect my food stamps and contribute nothing. Then maybe I'll vote democrat. What's fair is fair!
  • DABurroughs
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    (A) a little late on the fall on the sword thing. Ask Mitt who still has the sword stuck in him that the falling on the sword already happened to him. Just a matter of how many more republicans want to fall on theirs.(b) raise all the taxes you want on the rich, they will find a way to avoid them. Tax their income and they will shift the money so it is no longer classified as income. There are hundreds of ways to shield money from taxation and millionaries know all of them. How do you think they got that rich?
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