Bloomberg: Raise Taxes on the Poor So They Won’t Accidentally Kill Themselves

Most of the time people talk about taxes, they do it with a resolved notion of civic responsibility – a grim reality of living together as a nation.  A responsibility.  A chore.  A duty.  But billionaire 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate Michael Bloomberg speaks about taxes as an almost “mystical life-giving force.”

His taxation-to-give-life-to-the-poor plans emerged he was talking to Christine Lagarde, then-managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

They include some jaw-dropping admissions.

“Some people say, ‘Well, taxes are regressive.’ But in this case, yes they are.  That’s the good thing about them because the problem is in people that don’t have a lot of money. And so, higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves,” he said.

“So, I listen to people saying, ‘Oh, we don’t want to tax the poor.’ Well, we want the poor to live longer so that they can get an education and enjoy life.  And that’s why you do want to do exactly what a lot of people say you don’t want to do. If you raise taxes on full sugary drinks, for example, they will drink less, and there’s just no question that full sugar drinks are one of the major contributors to obesity, and obesity is one of the major contributors to heart disease and cancer and a variety of other things.”

Peak Nanny Bloomberg is pretty unsettling, no?  What if a part of “enjoying life” means making one’s own decisions about what to drink and eat without the heavy arm of Big Brother coming down and taking them away?  The Feds have been intervening in our food production and consumption for decades, to harrowing results, but that didn’t damper Bloomberg’s big government enthusiasm.

Watch his partial speech below:

“When we raise taxes on the poor, it’s good because then the poor will live longer because they can’t afford as many things that kill them.”
~Nanny State Mayor Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/23p443ieg4

— Rob O'Donnell (@odonnell_r) November 28, 2019

At Citizens for Self-Governance, we believe that decisions are best made as close to home as possible.   Know what the opposite of self-governance is?  When the government decides it has the best interests of “the poor” in mind by raising taxes on them so they don’t accidentally kill themselves.

This ridiculous and stunning admission, however, which came in April of 2018, and no one paid any attention to it.  (And this was before Bloomberg instructed his new agency not to critique his lame ideas.)

The Democrats still have plenty of time to eliminate Bloomberg from being a viable option in 2020.

However, with his “progressive” big government tendencies, he’ll probably go to the top of the pack.

Image Credit: World Bank Photo Collection on Flickr