AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

I heard Senator Schumer had said this a week ago. Since Schumer never met a tax he didn’t like, I had to go to his website (click here for press release) to get the scoop. Here is what I learned.

Senator Schumer is urging the House to pass legislation which would prevent the winnings of Olympic medalists from being taxed. Schumer, of course, was instrumental in getting this bipartisan bill passed in the Senate.

The US Olympic Committee pays medal winners $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. Since this is considered income, it is taxed accordingly. Schumer wants to exempt the value of the medals as well as the prize winnings from being taxed by the IRS.

Schumer said: “it is unfair to tax the winnings of these medalists who work hard year-round to represent their country on the world stage and achieve victory“.

Here are a few observations.

-Bringing this bill up during the Olympics is purely political. Schumer could have pursued this legislation months or years ago if he was truly concerned about these athletes. This kind of grandstanding is why I hate politics.

-Hard work should be rewarded??? This big government central planner has never believed this. He wants to punish individuals who have succeeded in our free market system. He believes successful people cheated or gamed the system to acquire what they have produced. It is almost impossible to make a hard working person a ward of the State. As we know making individuals wards of the State is how the establishment stays in power.

– Schumer sees achievers in the same light as Obama sees them. It can be summed up in one phrase: “you didn’t build that”. Here is what Obama said: “...look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own….I’m always struck by people who think……It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole lot of hard working people out there. If you were successful…..if you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

-If Schumer was true to his socialist central planning roots, he would have passed legislation that redistributed the medalist winnings among the non medal winning US Olympians. “There where a whole lot of hard working non medalists out there”? Is it “fair” that these medalists, because of the genetic lottery, where blessed with more talent than the other Olympians? Is it fair that Phelps, Biles, or Ledecky dominate their competition? Not in the eyes of people who are believers in social justice.

-Normally people like Schumer would hate people who far exceed their piers. So why is it different in this case. The reason Schumer is not treating the Olympic medalists like he would treat you or me is precisely because they are the elites of their sports. Since he is a member of the Government elites, he feels a kinship with these elite athletes. The elite should not have to be encumbered by the same rules the masses have to follow.

CONCLUSION

The above thoughts are a part of Schumer’s DNA. They all play a part in the decisions he makes everyday. If he was a plumber or an electrician, his world view wouldn’t affect the rest of us. Unfortunately, since he is a US Senator, it does.

I loathe grandstanding politicians, and central planning socialist elites!

This entry was posted on August 17, 2016 at 6:31 am and is filed under Government and Politics, Miscellaneous. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: 2016 Rio Olympians, Biles, Chuck Schumer, Ledecky, Olympic Medalists, Phelps, Senator Schumer Tax Breaks For Olymipians, socialist Central Planner