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Hey AOC, this is what taxing the rich really looks like

December 11, 2020
www.shop.ocasiocortez.com
Jonathon Dunne

Contributor

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made news last week when she unveiled a sweatshirt for $58 with the message of "Tax the rich." From a political marketing point of view, this message is brilliant. It is simple, vague, easy to remember, sounds catchy, and easy to repeat on Twitter so it can become a trending hashtag.

From a principled and informed point of view, it is a message that is misleading at best and downright dishonest at its worst.

Why?

Because our friends on the left, who promote this message, never fully reveal their plans of precisely what taxing the rich looks like. They will share a few policies, but you must trust them with the economy's keys to get the final destination of what they believe is fair. Today, I want to show you what taxing the rich looks like in reality, and you can decide for yourself how reasonable it is.

Definition of "Rich"

When you hear "tax the rich," the first question everyone should ask is: "What is the definition of rich?" You should expect an accurate and detailed answer. If you ever engage with people on social media, you have likely gotten vague replies like:

  • It's clear who is rich
  • Top 1%
  • Fat cats
  • Bankers
  • Millionaires & billionaires, etc.

The kind and compassionate people who support taxing the rich are always quick to promote taking other people's hard-earned money, yet equally quick to complain when their income is taxed more.

Socialism and big government policies eventually come for everyone...

Socialism and big government policies eventually come for everyone because there is always someone less fortunate than you. The only question is how long it will take before the crowd turns on you and demands you pay your fair share. Let me answer this for you.

I will share with you the taxation policies of a country for which many Americans have positive feelings: Ireland. Ireland is a socialist nation, and its government is very proud of its progressive taxation policies. As I go thru each level of taxation, ask yourself what would happen if America adopted these policies tomorrow.

Note: The figures quoted below are in Euros. Currently, the exchange rate is approximately €1 to $1.20.

Wages

The simplest place to start is with your wages. We have three taxes on our direct income:

  • PAYE – Pay As You Earn
  • PRSI – Pay Related Social Insurance
  • USC – Universal Social Charge

The rate of PAYE is 20% on the first €35,300 of income. Every additional penny above is taxed at 40%*.

PRSI is 4% of income. However, if you annually earn under €18,304, you can apply for a yearly credit of up to €624.

The rates of USC are based purely on income:

  • Up to €12,012 — 0.5%
  • €12,012 to €20,484 — 2%
  • €20,484 to €70,044 — 4.5%
  • €70,044 and above — 8%

*Taxation in Ireland is a complicated matter because of individual/couple tax allowances and credits, which can vary from person to person, depending on their circumstances. You will always pay a lower rate of PAYE with these deductions.

Sales Tax

Ireland has a national sales tax, which is called Value Added Tax (VAT). The standard rate of VAT in Ireland is 21%. This rate is charged on the majority of items people purchase – including your grocery shopping, accessories around your household like televisions, PlayStation, and furniture. It also includes personal items like jewelry and clothing.

There are a few exceptions.

We have a reduced rate of 13.5% for items like home utilities (natural gas, electric), building maintenance, and cleaning services.

To help stimulate parts of the economy, the government added a third rate of 9%. This mainly applies to the hospitality sector – pubs, restaurants, and hotels.

Gas Taxation

Americans complain if gas prices go to $3.50 per gallon, get upset at $4.00 a gallon, and if it increases to $5.00 a gallon, watch out!

Gas prices are one of those issues about which Americans complain (and rightfully so), but non-Americans will not sympathize. So why do non-Americans have no sympathy?

For most of the last year, Irish gas prices (similarly worldwide) have been low because of crude oil's cheap cost. Depending on where you shop, the average price has been around €1.20 per litre or €4.55 per gallon ($5.46 per gallon). Note that this is considered inexpensive in Ireland. In the past, Irish gas prices have been closer to $8-$9 per gallon. So why is it so expensive?

America is blessed with oil fields that produce the majority of oil consumed by your country.

America does hold a natural advantage when it comes to oil, purely because crude oil is quoted and traded in U.S. dollars. America is blessed with oil fields that produce the majority of oil consumed by your country. Although U.S. gas prices include some taxes, Irish gas includes FOUR separate taxes:

· Excise tax is €0.50 per litre

· Carbon tax is €0.06 per litre

· NORA levy is €0.02 per litre

· VAT is 23%

Let's put these prices into context. If oil became free for everyone worldwide with Irish taxation, it would be virtually impossible to see gas prices of less than $4.00 per gallon.

Double Taxation

In Ireland (and most countries with big governments), it is prevalent for income to be taxed more than once. Ireland has very progressive tax policies when it comes to people using their money to advance themselves. Let me share some examples.

  • DIRT Tax (41%)

This stands for Deposit Interest Retention Tax. It is prevalent (mainly in working-class areas) to take a portion of your paycheck and save it in the credit union. The credit union then uses your money to fund its business and gives interest at the end of the year. During the year, any interest earned is taxed at 41% and is taken directly by the credit union.

  • Capital Gains Tax (33%)

After all these taxes, if you are lucky enough to have some money left, you may decide to invest in the stock market, buy some gold or other investment. Any profits from these investments are taxed at 33%.

  • Gift Tax (33%)

If you decide to give someone a gift of money or an asset, it will be taxed at 33% if you surpass the different thresholds. You can currently give your friend or extended family (i.e., cousins) €16,250 or a sibling/parent €32,500 ($39,000) tax-free. Everything above is taxed at 33%.

  • Inheritance Tax (33%)

Inheritance taxation is similar to the Gift Tax and has similar tax free thresholds. It is also charged at a rate of 33%.

Additional Taxation

There are countless other taxes, but here is a small sample of additional taxes:

  • Stamp duty of 1% is due on all house purchases
  • Property tax of up to 0.25% of your property value must be paid annually
  • Car tax on your vehicle is based on engine size (noting that U.S. vehicles are much bigger). A standard SUV will likely cost €570 - €750 annually.
  • Benefit in kind: If you are lucky enough to work for a company that provides you with a work vehicle, you will pay a tax on your wages because you are deemed in receipt of a benefit from your employer.
  • If you own a pet, you also have to pay a tax to get a dog license, etc. These are about €20 annually.

Conclusion

This is what paying your fair share looks like in Ireland 2020. To those who read this and think it's not enough, fear not, as Ireland is not the finished article. I do not doubt that it will only be a matter of time before the Irish or European governments develop new and innovative ways to ensure everyone pays his/her fair share.

This is what paying your fair share looks like in Ireland 2020.

After reflecting on these numbers, I would ask you to think about whom these taxation policies hurt the most. Are they taxing the rich or hurting the poor?

I hope you have never been poor or had to worry about putting food on the table. If you have, you will know that every penny counts. There will be weeks that you have nothing left in your wallet because everything is so expensive.

  • With this in mind, how could anyone possibly justify a 23% tax on all you buy?
  • How can anyone justify taxation on gas being so high that it costs €65 to fill a car?
  • If someone is careful with his/her money, saving all they have to buy a first home or move to a better place, how can someone justify taking 33% or more of their savings?

Socialist and progressive policies can sound great in theory and may even come from a place of well-meaning. In reality, they always hurt society – especially those at the lowest income levels working hard to improve their financial future.

Jonathon hosts a weekly one hour show exclusive to the Blaze Radio Network called Freedom's Disciple where he highlights the IDEA of America, promotes the eternal principles of freedom & and shares his passion of America's Founding documents. Please check out his show for FREE on The Blaze and is available on all major platforms.

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The great switch: Gates trades climate control for digital dominion

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.