Why are Democrats so stupid?
Bloomberg News has a video here on the Cherubini yacht makers, how they flourished after WWII and what happened in 1990 when Congress last felt like bashing the rich. If you remember, small boat yards from Florida to Maine simply disappeared, and Cherubini was one of them. Sales dropped 70% in 1991 as buyers of these playthings ($100,000 and up) stopped buying American boats and turned instead to Europe and Asia. The rich weren’t hurt, of course, no revenue was raised, and thousands of blue collar, high paying craftsmen jobs were destroyed. The tax was repealed in 1994 but Cherubini didn’t resume boat building until 2004.
As with every failure of the left, the results of their laws are irrelevant just so long as their intentions were good. Why attempting to punish the rich is a “good” thing is something you’ll have to ask a Democrat about but there’s no denying it hurt the people they claim to champion and had zero affect on their targets.
Alternative Minimum Tax, anyone?
For What It's Worth 
Hey, Republican president in 1990. I guess Republicans are guilty of punishing the rich too! Either that, or like in Connecticut Republican Chief Executives are just savage wimps in the face of the Democratic Party. You republicans need less wimpy Presidential candidates like Mitt Ro……um, check that. Carry on
George “Read My Lips” Bush was indeed in office in 1990 and the luxury tax was indeed part of the Democrat tax package he approved. The irony is that he was thrown out of office for that bit of apostasy while the Democrats kept office. I’ll give you guys this: your policies are insane and deeply harmful to our country, but you sure have the populace bamboozled. No wonder you hate voter id laws.
Remember how all those boat builders had to start seeking Japanese buyers? That market has changed, too.
But, but, but…. Why does the press keep telling us that the Lefties are the smartest guys in the room???? Could it be because the only other guys in the room are journalists?
@LA, I think you meant “the only other guys in the room are lefty journoLists”.
The wikipedia partial list of JournoList members was “temporarily” removed from the main article over two years ago but can still be found here if one cares to review it. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=JournoList&oldid=375023860#List_of_members
One of the few taxes to actually get repealed, unfortunately not quick enough to save many boat builders. Why would the rich care about how much they pay in taxes? Lets see how the French fare with their 75% tax rate…..
“Hey, Republican president in 1990.”
FF – Right you are. It is known as bipartianship, reaching across the aisle, using a balanced approach, etc. And it generally advances bad Democratic policy ideas like the luxury tax. But many stupid Republicans, like the Bushes, fall for it. The bien-pensants all praised it at the time, remember?
Revenue results? No matter. They got to bash the rich and indulge their hatred of success, if only for a brief while.
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