The ongoing misinformation campaign related to the GOP tax plan continued on Monday evening.
During commentary on the game between the Timberwolves and the Lakers, former basketball players Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley wandered into a political conversation about President Trump and taxes.
Here is the pertinent portion of their exchange:
BARKLEY: Hey, at least we got our tax break. … I just want all these poor people to keep waiting for this “trickle down.” They’ve been waiting for like 400 years. It ain’t trickled down yet.
O’NEAL: You like that tax break, Chuck?
BARKLEY: Ah yeah, I don’t like it for poor people. Rich people should not get tax breaks, Shaq.
O’NEAL: I agree, Chuck. I agree.
As The Daily Wire has noted multiple times, the GOP tax plan will offer breaks to the poor and middle class, not just the wealthy. In fact, we even ran ten scenarios in which poor and middle-class families and singles save under the plan.
Beyond the erroneous yet persistent idea that the GOP tax plan will benefit millionaires and billionaires at the expense of average Americans, the most striking part of the back-and-forth between Barkley and O’Neal is the suggestion that “rich people should not get tax breaks.”
The idea that wealthy Americans shouldn’t benefit from lower taxes is one of the most powerful and frequently-used weapons in the progressive arsenal. Such an idea implies that wealth isn’t earned, but somehow stolen, which in turn provokes envy and resentment among poor and middle-class Americans. Democrats use this resentment to pull in votes.
We don’t live in a binary world. Some wealth is indeed ill-gotten, but much is also earned through incredibly hard work and perseverance. Progressives want Americans to believe that the wealthy are always immoral, and that they need to be brought down Robin Hood style.
Ironically, it’s the progressive position that’s immoral. Placing a greater tax burden on an individual (or giving them a smaller tax break in the event of a reduction) solely because they earn a higher income is government-sanctioned robbery.