During his closing monologue on Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that there already is a lot of socialism and taxation of the rich in the U.S., but it’s not really helping.
Maher began by saying, “I paid, to the government, if you add in state tax, local, sales, property, fees, Obamacare, probably almost 60% of what I earned. That’s a lot, and I still wouldn’t mind, if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would stop saying the rich don’t pay taxes.”
He then joked, “And while I’m sure the super rich, with their army of accountants and corporate loopholes, get away with murder, us regular rich people pay a shit-ton of taxes, and who stands up and gives us a pat on the back? Nobody, that’s who.”
He then said, “The top 10% pays 72% of all federal income taxes, and the bottom half, 3%. The Democratic Socialists talk about socialism like we don’t already have a lot. Social Security, unemployment, Medicare, nutritional assistance, Medicaid, Obamacare, disability, housing subsidies, again, not against it, just the same question: How can you be soaking the rich and failing the poor so badly?”
Maher further stated that “somehow, the ultra-rich keep getting ultra-richer, while a growing percentage is feeling truly desperate.”
Maher also said that “the governments and the healthcare bureaucracies…for whatever reason, no matter how much they take in, never seem to get enough to the people” and discussed people who rely on Remote Area Medical for healthcare and said, “[H]ere’s the truth: You’re not going to get healthcare to these people by threatening to tax and eat the rich. You raise billionaires’ taxes, they just leave the state or they leave the country, or, in some cases, the planet.”
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