"I've found that wealthy people and very wealthy people are just as patriotic as poor people, but nothing's been asked of them, and they haven't asked for."
That's what Joe Biden had to say about the American's that have 35% of their wealth taken from their in the form of Federal Income Taxes every year.
This morning on radio, Glenn had a few things to say about Biden's most recent ridiculous comments.
"Nothing's been asked? You're not asking. You're beating us over the head," he said.
"In the United States the highest federal bracket is 35% on income," Genn added, "and that's nothing? Well, it is 35% away from nothing. But the good thing is, when you add the state income tax and the property tax, you're still only talking about the government taking around 50% of everything that these people make."
So, while Joe thinks that "nothing's been asked of them," the truth is, after taxes, they're income is about halfway to nothing.
How much is enough? What is number? What is "fair" to this administration?
"We forget, that it wasn't until 1913 that Americans were asked to pay anything in taxes," Glenn said. Americans, all Americans paid zero federal income tax, none. We really did ask nothing from the wealthy, the middle class, or the poor. And that was by design. And even then when they instituted the income tax in 1913, it was supposed to be temporary. From our founding of this nation until Woodrow Wilson, no income tax, none whatsoever."
There is a reason for this: our founders.
Glenn points out that Thomas Jefferson said,
"the democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give it to those who are willing not to work. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyranny."
Alexander Hamilton, who Glenn has told us was the closest to a progressive you'll find amongst the founders, said this:
"If congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, the powers of congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of limited government, established by the people of America: That's the one who wanted a federal reserve."
John Adams:
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and that there is not a force of law in public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
James Madison:
"As a man is said to have the right to his property, he may equally be said to have property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possession. If congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is sufficiently obvious that persons and property are the two great subjects on which governments are to act and that the right of persons and the rights of property are the objects for the protection of which government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated. There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
Madison's comments, Glenn noted, sound very similar of today.
"No man is safe in his opinions, no man is safe in his person, no man is safe in his faculties or his possessions. That is today," he said.
Glenn continued:
Benjamin Franklin:
"I'm doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty but leading or driving them out of it."
Franklin's opinion holds true to the heart of many charitable Americans. You want to help that person who is struggling - struggling to get themselves out of their current situation. It's the people who just take it and don't do anything but live off of it, those are the people who often will close your heart. You can't help a person that won't help themselves.
"You know instinctively you are destroying a person," Glenn said. He added, "The hardest thing for a charitable person to do is to not help someone."
Benjamin Franklin said, "in my youth I traveled much and I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves and of course became poorer. And on the contrary the less that was done for them, the more they did for themselves and they became richer."
These are the principals that shaped America to be such a great country.
In Russia the top tax rate is 13%, Glenn told his listeners. They don't even have a progressive income tax, but America does. How is that?
"How is it possible we have gone so far astray from our principles?" Glenn asked.
Most Americans would agree that the men Glenn quoted were infused with a special kind of wisdom, a specific purpose at a specific moment in time.
"They were the 56 best political and philosophical minds to have ever gathered together in one place at one time. It was a miracle," Glenn told listeners. "And any honest historian will tell you that. In no other time in human history have 56 men so brilliant come together."
So, how did America go so astray? How did 56 of the brightest and most wise men to walk the earth end up in a debate against Joe Biden 236 years after the issue was settled?
"I think I'm going to stick with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and James Madison," Glenn said. "I think I'm going to stick with those guys. Men who believed that a nation of liberty will only come from a place where you can keep what you earn. And you need to earn what you have."