MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” is a tough enough venue for the right with pseudo-conservative Joe Scarborough as the host, but take him away and an appearance becomes even more of a challenge.
Up against a panel on Tuesday that included “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, former Tennessee Democratic Rep. Harold Ford and advertising mogul Donny Deutsch, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan challenged the Obama Administration’s frequent talking point that taxing corporate jets was a solution to the country’s fiscal woes. (Rush Limbaugh delivers tea to tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo.)
“You know what the number one export is? Aircraft and space,” Buchanan said. “We sell these things abroad. We make the best planes in the world. You get them with a hundred taxes, you’re going to hurt the business. The business will start to move abroad as all our other businesses have. This is — excuse me — the same liberal demagoguery that got us in the mess.”
While a new luxury tax might sound good, it would cost U.S. jobs, Buchanan said, citing Congress’ 1991 tax on high-end yachts, which was promoted in much the same way as the current proposed tax and resulted in a decline in the U.S. yacht industry. Buchanan continued on, despite the objections of his co-panelists, to criticize a tax system that imposes high taxes on some and none on others and a government that spends 40 percent of a country’s GDP.
“I’m a small business guy,” he said. “I’m self-employed. My first $50,000 I make, I send 56 percent of it straight to the government initially — before you pay property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes. And then you tell me half of the country pays zero taxes? You got a government that’s spending 25 percent of GDP. Add state, it’s 40 percent of GDP. You got socialism here. And this is what’s bringing down Western civilization.”