Cruz and Scott use Cantwell and Sanders as Floor Mops in CNN Debate [VIDEO]

Cruz and Scott use Cantwell and Sanders as Floor Mops in CNN Debate [VIDEO]

Cruz and Scott use Cantwell and Sanders as Floor Mops in CNN Debate [VIDEO]

After last night’s CNN debate between Ted Cruz, Tim Scott, Maria Cantwell, and Bernie Sanders, my husband turned to me and said, “Well, unless you’re completely in the bag for the Democrats and have absolutely zero economic sense, there’s no way you can not see how badly Cantwell and Sanders were beaten.”

He was correct.

Cruz and Scott brought hard numbers. They brought statistics. They brought facts. Sanders blabbered incoherently about “tax cuts for the rich” without showing any understanding of actual economics or tax policy, while Cantwell arrogantly accused Cruz of “not working hard enough” to lower every taxpayer’s tax bill.

While the debates between Cruz and Sanders, including this one, have generally been affable, with friendly jabs, but no resentment or animosity, Cantwell brought a certain smarmy snottiness to the debate floor. She struck me as angry and bitter, hammering the same “tax cuts for the rich” and “we must increase productivity” message (as if increasing worker productivity is somehow a function of the federal government).

While Cruz and Scott debated the specifics of the bill, Sanders wandered off the reservation more than once, derping about single-payer health care and how 13 million people will lose health insurance if the GOP tax bill passes (LIE) and how “free” college for everyone is the way to go.

While Bernie talked platitudes, Cruz schooled him on the particulars of the death tax, which prompted Sanders to complain about the moniker, as if that matters.

SANDERS: It’s the estate tax. They call it the death tax.

CRUZ: No, it’s the death tax, because it kicks in when you die. You paid taxes your whole life.

SANDERS: No, your family pays it. Yeah.

CRUZ: And then, when you die, you see two people, the undertaker and the tax man. That’s not fair.

SANDERS: Well…

CRUZ: And — and — and let me point out, you know, again, the rhetoric behind the estate tax is, oh, this is all about the rich guys. You know the George Soroses of the world don’t pay estate tax. They have armies of lawyers and accountants. They do all sorts of trusts and generation skipping. They don’t pay it. The people who pay the death tax are farmers, they’re ranchers, they’re small- business owners.

Now, Bernie said a minute ago — said, oh, there are only 80. You know, there might be 80 in Vermont, but those facts are not right. And let me give some real facts. According to the U.S. agriculture census, there were 3.2 million farmers in America. Thirteen percent of the estates subject to the estate tax included farms. One-third of all farmers are over 65. And if you look at from 1995 to 2016, 102,000 closely-held businesses and 36,000 farms paid the death tax. What does that mean? That means a family farm, when the farmer passes away and his or her kids inherit the farm, often the first thing they have to do is sell the farm or take out big debts. A small business, if you’ve got a factory in a town and you’ve got equipment that is employing — that has workers working, and the owner of that small business dies, under the death tax, a small-business owner doesn’t have the fancy lawyers and accountants that George Soros has. So the small-business owner ends up having the kids sell the business and end up having to fire the workers. It’s not fair. It’s not…

You ever see one of those dogs looking really confused? That’s me listening to Bernie ramble on about the evil rich, blindly blathering about issues about which he’s obviously uninformed, while admitting he wants to see taxes increased on everyone, but claiming it’s not a bad thing, because they’ll save money in the end. Or something…

Look, the GOP tax bill is far from perfect, but it’s at least a good start.

The repeal of the individual health care mandate in the bill is not going to result in millions of people losing their health insurance. There’s no such provision in the bill. What it WILL do is stop forcing people who can’t afford the exorbitant health insurance premiums brought on by ObamaCare to pay a tax penalty to the IRS. It will give them a choice about whether or not to make a purchase without the government going after them to do so. It cuts no subsidies, and forces no one to remain without coverage.

Person: I can’t afford to pay $700 per month for health insurance. I’m healthy, so I’ll take my chances and pay out of pocket for any medical care I need.

Government: How DARE you make the choice not to purchase insurance? We don’t like that. The insurance companies in whose pockets we reside don’t like that. They need their profits, dammit. Here’s a $1200 tax penalty for failure to do as we say.

Person

But people like Bernie Sanders and Maria Cantwell don’t like giving people a choice. If it’s not under the thumb of big government, they consider it bad. Choice to the Democrats means there will be people who make choices of which they don’t approve, and they just can’t have that!

So they twist the issue to suit their message: we shouldn’t give tax cuts to the richest people in the country – as if the rich aren’t entitled to their earnings, and as if the government needs to punish their achievement. The attitude is that your money doesn’t belong to you, and that cutting taxes and allowing you to keep more of it is somehow depriving government of its money. But let’s not forget who pays the majority of the taxes in the United States.

Fact is if we want to make this country more competitive, we have to give job creators reasons to remain here. Otherwise, they will continue moving operations to countries that offer them a lower tax and regulatory burden.

Fact is if you force corporations to pay high taxes, ultimately, it’s consumers – the very people who purchase these goods and services – who suffer, because these corporations simply pass the burden on to them through higher prices.

Fact is the United States has the highest marginal corporate tax rate in the world. If you think consumers aren’t picking up the tab for this burden, I have this bridge…

Full debate transcript is here. Enjoy.

Written by

Marta Hernandez is an immigrant, writer, editor, science fiction fan (especially military sci-fi), and a lover of freedom, her children, her husband and her pets. She loves to shoot, and range time is sacred, as is her hiking obsession, especially if we’re talking the European Alps. She is an avid caffeine and TWD addict, and wants to own otters, sloths, wallabies, koalas, and wombats when she grows up.

22 Comments
  • Romey says:

    There are very fundamental ideas that these Leftist fools/tools just do not understand, or refuse to accept as the truth.
    1. Confiscating money from people who have earned it is not “giving to the rich.”
    2. Giving people less money for doing nothing for it is not “stealing from the poor.”
    If they do realize these, and then ignore them, that would make them liars and thieves. A very real possibility.

    • GWB says:

      That possibility is an absolute certainty. At least for the leaders.

    • Your hypocrisy is showing says:

      > Giving people less money for doing nothing for it is not “stealing from the poor.”

      Yes, that’s EXACTLY the argument for the estate tax.

      You nailed it. Unless “your daddy fucked your mommy and here you are” is “doing something” according to what passes for analysis around here.

      • Ashby says:

        Typical liberal can not see beyond the first level of logic/facts. The person EARNED the money (or worked the farm) and that amount has already been taxed, and the estate tax applies to take even more. Why should the “poor”, who usually have more than enough money for cellphones etc. get a single dime of what those hard working people earned?

      • Scott says:

        Wow dude, you’re smoking some good shit there… Why, on Gods green earth is the govt entitled to tax money twice. The person that earned the money paid taxes on it at that time, the death tax forces the heirs to pay taxes a second time, on the same money, often forcing them to sell the family business / farm, as Cruz pointed out in the debate. Please, educate yourself, and come armed with some facts before you return.. of course stupidity like yours is good comic relief, but it does get tiring after a point..

      • Nicki says:

        It’s called “passing property from one person to another” – property they earned and have already paid taxes for, you smarmy fuckwit. It’s not “stealing” from anyone, because said property doesn’t belong to the poor; nor does it belong to the government, and you shouldn’t pay politicians for the privilege of owning it – especially since it’s already been previously taxed.

  • Doug Purdie says:

    Did you notice how desperately CNN tried to cut to commercial when Mr. Cruz started showing his charts of prosperity: Reagan vs Obama? Hillarious!

  • JeffS says:

    Cantwell has progressively (see what I did there?) gotten more and more arrogant. I think this comes from having to play to her base in western Washington, which is getting more and more “progressive” (or socialist/communist/Marxist, if you prefer). She wasn’t always such a harpy. Mayhaps Murray is mentoring her too much.

  • Norm says:

    Funny to see that my old state of WA sent the “smart” one to make silly accusations…I mean “debate”. Imagine if Murray had been there…

  • M. Tagliaferro says:

    Liberals are good. They believe everyone should have a free college education, free emergency care service and access to affordable health care.

    Conservatives believe free simply means let force someone else to pay for it. Conservatives are evil.

    • Ashby says:

      Wow. Emotion without logic much? As usual where are you getting the money? Earn it, is the conservative model, give it to me, is the liberal model. Which is sustainable (?) because you do run out of other people’s money. Oh btw, there is already free emergency care.

  • Oldfogey says:

    Remember the old “Bernie Shave” signs by the side of the road?
    “Take money from..
    the rich patricians…
    and give it to us…
    politicians”
    Bernie Shave

  • Bandit says:

    The Dems can’t help themselves – they’re addicted to OPM

  • TBlakely says:

    “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

    The unofficial motto of the Democrat party.

  • Yes, half of taxpayers pay 97% of the taxes.
    BUT that same half also owns 97% of the nation’s wealth.

    The bottom 50% don’t pay taxes because they only own ZERO percent of the nation’s wealth.
    If you look at CBO figures, the lowest quintile actually gets the LEAST money back from the government in raw dollars. The middle quintile gets the most, followed by the top quintile. And that doesn’t even count the huge cash infusion the top 20% gets from things like QE-subsidized mortgages and QE-subsidized stock market growth.

    The poor get their government checks directly.
    The rich launder their government checks through their mortgage and stock accounts, so that they can pretend to themselves that it was their intelligence and business acumen which justifies the government subsidies they receive.

    Look, I a HUGE fan of Ted Cruz, and I don’t think any American should be paying any income tax at all.

    BUT, that doesn’t give me the right to misrepresent what is going on. The estate tax screws EXACTLY the people Cruz says it screws. But saying the top 50% pays all the taxes while NOT pointing out that the top 50% ALSO OWNS ALL THE WEALTH is really dishonest. It is a disservice to what Cruz is trying to do, which is to be fair.

    Be fair with the facts.
    Don’t just report the ones you like and ignore the ones you don’t.

    • steveH says:

      Your numbers don’t add up: You’re asserting that 3% of the nation’s wealth isn’t owned by anyone. Worse, you’re ignoring the generally “progressive” nature of tax rates.

      The fraction of earners who aren’t taxed at all own *some* fraction of the nation’s wealth; of course they “get the LEAST money back from the government” since they’re not being taxed in the first place. Get a grip.

  • Howard Hirsch says:

    One little-noticed element of the GOP proposal is the increase in the standard deduction to $24,000 for a married couple. This is big stuff, and not getting the attention it deserves. I am appalled that the GOP is not playing this up, and going on the offensive by pointing out that it enhances fairness by allowing a greater deduction for those who cannot afford or choose not to be homeowners taking advantage of mortgage interest and property tax deductions.

  • Doug Purdie says:

    Has anybody heard from Progressives/Leftists/Democrats about how white the Democratic debaters were – a white female Democrat and a white male Democrat (Socialist) vs a hispanic male Republican and a black male Republican? I didn’t. I guess diversity is only required of others.

  • gastorgrab says:

    It’s not just the material wealth that parents leave to their children that is responsible for their success in life. It’s also the wisdom they leave them.

    How do Democrats propose to redistribute wisdom?

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