Rich Guy: We Should Get More Votes Than Poor

boozeman

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[h=1]Rich Guy: We Should Get More Votes Than Poor[/h]



SAN FRANCISCO - Tom Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who compared the plight of the wealthiest Americans to Jews in Nazi Germany, offered up a provocative new idea on what the rich deserve: more votes in public elections for every dollar they pay in taxes.


"If you pay a million dollars, you should get a million votes," Perkins, the retired co-founder of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, told an audience at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club in comments that he later said were meant to be provocative. He also said that only taxpayers should have the right to vote.





Last month, Perkins wrote a much-discussed letter-to-the-editor published in The Wall Street Journal that likened the Nazi party's war on Jews to what he called "the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich.'"

He later apologized for the analogy, which included a reference to Kristallnacht, the 1938 attack on Jews in Nazi Germany and Austria. He expressed regret again on Thursday for those words, saying, "You shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust."

Venture capitalist Tom Perkins, shown in San Francisco in 2011, said: "If you pay a million dollars, you should get a million votes." But on Thursday night, he doubled down on his comments about the treatment of the nation's wealthiest citizens.
"The extreme progressivity of taxation is a form of persecution," he said. "I think if you've paid 75 percent of your life's earnings to the government, you are being persecuted."

He also discussed editorial attacks on his ex-wife, the best-selling novelist Danielle Steele and posited that if Germany had U.S. gun laws, "there would have never been a Hitler."



Later in the talk, Perkins made it clear he was trying to goad the audience.

"It's going to make you more angry than my letter to The Wall Street Journal," he said, before floating his idea about allocating votes based on taxes. "How's that?" he said when finished, throwing up his hands and looking out at the laughing audience.
[h=3]— Reuters[/h]
 

Smitty

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He has an important point that, even if as a policy you don't agree with, it's hardly ridiculous. The people who have nothing can vote how to spend other peoples money. Where's the sense in that?
 

Cotton

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He has an important point that, even if as a policy you don't agree with, it's hardly ridiculous. The people who have nothing can vote how to spend other peoples money. Where's the sense in that?
So, maybe the people that are on welfare shouldn't have a vote?

Hmm... That's an idea I could get with. It does seem like a conflict of interest of sorts.
 

dallen

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So, maybe the people that are on welfare shouldn't have a vote?

Hmm... That's an idea I could get with. It does seem like a conflict of interest of sorts.
The upper class loves to turn the middle class and the lower class against each other so we don't notice they are f-ing us both
 

Smitty

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As far as I can tell both the rich and poor are screwing me.

Unless the increase in taxes that went through last year was for rich people instead of all the social programs the President said they were for.
 

Bluestar71

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So, maybe the people that are on welfare shouldn't have a vote?

Hmm... That's an idea I could get with. It does seem like a conflict of interest of sorts.
It's not really an extreme idea. While you're taking assistance you lose your vote. When you get off you get it back. Make it one incentive not to stay on for life for those who care enough about their citizenship to make an effort.
 

Cotton

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The upper class loves to turn the middle class and the lower class against each other so we don't notice they are f-ing us both
I just hate that we are turning into a socialist nation. And, it's not new. We have been headed this way for 30 years. Keeping the non-contributors (leeches) as a sway factor in our political elections makes it even worse.
 
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Cotton

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It's not really an extreme idea. While you're taking assistance you lose your vote. When you get off you get it back. Make it one incentive not to stay on for life for those who care enough about their citizenship to make an effort.
I dig it.
 

Clay_Allison

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I just hate that we are turning into a socialist nation. And, it's not new. We have been headed this way for 30 years. Keeping the non-contributors (leeches) as a sway factor in our political elections makes it even worse.
No worse than the corporations begging for bailouts and subsidies. Corporate welfare is real and they have much more influence than the lower class leeches. Someone taking a golden parachute paid for with taxpayer money bugs me more than someone buying food with it.
 

Plan9Misfit

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It's not really an extreme idea. While you're taking assistance you lose your vote. When you get off you get it back. Make it one incentive not to stay on for life for those who care enough about their citizenship to make an effort.
So you want to make liberty a privilege of convenience rather than a Constitutional right which no one can take away. Good to know. Are there any other anti-liberty, authoritarian values of yours that you wish to share?
 

BipolarFuk

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Wow, laughing so hard right now at some of the people on here that claim to love this country and its Constitution.

You can only have rights if you have MONEY!!! :lol
 

L.T. Fan

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As far as I can tell both the rich and poor are screwing me.

Unless the increase in taxes that went through last year was for rich people instead of all the social programs the President said they were for.
I agree. I believe I am giving more to the poor than I am the rich. I don't hold a line on voting but I get tired of the belly aching about how bad rich people are. Most of them earned it or it was inherited but none of them has tried to keep me from making my own fortunes.
 

Smitty

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No worse than the corporations begging for bailouts and subsidies. Corporate welfare is real and they have much more influence than the lower class leeches. Someone taking a golden parachute paid for with taxpayer money bugs me more than someone buying food with it.
Agreed.

And I'm not saying Rich People should have more votes (actually, that is a very bad idea). Even the idea I was more hinting at would be more in line with "you don't get your 1 vote unless you own real property" -- and I'm not even saying I advocate that, just an interesting idea.

It is a very real problem that the people who have absolutely no stake in the creation of our country's resources can simply vote them away. There may not be any way around that problem, but it is a problem.
 

Smitty

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Wow, laughing so hard right now at some of the people on here that claim to love this country and its Constitution.

You can only have rights if you have MONEY!!! :lol
No, you'd still have rights. The Bill of Rights would still protect you.

You just don't get to say how to spend other people's money if you haven't put up some of your own.
 

Cotton

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No worse than the corporations begging for bailouts and subsidies. Corporate welfare is real and they have much more influence than the lower class leeches. Someone taking a golden parachute paid for with taxpayer money bugs me more than someone buying food with it.
And, that type of welfare is just as bad if not worse.
 

Kbrown

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Agreed.

And I'm not saying Rich People should have more votes (actually, that is a very bad idea). Even the idea I was more hinting at would be more in line with "you don't get your 1 vote unless you own real property" -- and I'm not even saying I advocate that, just an interesting idea.

It is a very real problem that the people who have absolutely no stake in the creation of our country's resources can simply vote them away. There may not be any way around that problem, but it is a problem.
The easiest fix is to repeal the 17th amendment. Then half of the legislature I think would be less beholden to both corporate and mass majority interests.
 
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