Radio host Mark Levin disagreed Monday with Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on tax hikes, and said that he is aiding “Obama’s attack on capitalism and successful people.”
As a panelist on “Fox News Sunday,” Kristol has argued that the Republican Party should be willing to raise taxes and that the tea party wouldn’t care if “a few millionaires pay a couple percent more in taxes.”
But Levin — a prominent figure within the tea party movement — ripped Kristol’s analysis.
“Among the others who I think it’s time just to go someplace and talk among yourselves, would be Bill Kristol,” Levin said. “I don’t know what he’s added to anything other than giving aid and comfort to Obama’s attack on capitalism and successful people. This has to be the 40th time he’s said something on this.”
Levin, author of “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America,” suggested that Kristol is succumbing to a liberal ideology. After cutting to Kristol’s remarks on FNC, Levin ripped into his analysis.
“He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about,” Levin said. “Takes it to 39.6 and depending on your capital gains situation, when you sell your home that’s another 3.8 percent, and we’re talking about a million small businesses. I mean, he doesn’t understand the gravity of this situation. On top of that, the principle behind and I don’t mean a theoretical principle, I mean a real, live, moral, tangible principle. It does nothing to slow the spending. This money’s not going to the debt. This money’s going to be spent before it’s even collected.”
Levin went on to defend the traditional conservative low-tax argument on ideological grounds and suggested Obama wouldn’t stop at raising taxes on the rich, which Levin argued seemed to be a deficiency among Republican intellectuals.
“And then finally, does Kristol know what Obama’s all about?” Levin continued. “You think Obama’s going to be satisfied with whatever he gets here? You create a head of steam for the guy. Oh then one other finally — you just undermined your base in the Republican Party. It’s not a base for the rich. Stop talking like the lib you used to be, Bill. We’re talking about defending private property rights. We’re talking about defending people whoever they are, however much they earn, whether they’re white, black, yellow, whatever — defending their right to earn a living, to create, to produce.”
“We want investment to come into this country from overseas,” he continued. “This is how you create a prosperous vigorous economy. Not by cutting another deal with Obama, not by cutting another inside political deal. These guys, our own commentators — very few of them have participated in the economic market. They’ve been writers or they’ve been in the press, or they’ve been at universities. They haven’t been in the real world either, and so you get a line like this.”