January 30, 2004
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Call me Al
BROKAW: Reverend Sharpton, should wealthy Americans or people who are well off, for that matter, pay more for their Medicare benefits? Should we begin now a real test of means and apply it to the Medicare costs that are beginning to run exponentially out of control?SHARPTON: I think they should pay their share, which is more. I think that when you have the present set-up that you have and you go above $80,000 and they pay nothing, I think that is absolutely ridiculous. I think that they must pay their share.
Spoken like a man who hasn't received a paycheck recently. Medicare withholding has no ceiling. The Medicare cap was removed in 1993. This was, ironically, the year in which Sharpton copped to failing to file a return (for prior years).
Frankly, it's unclear whether Rev. Al has made much of a contribution to these funds himself.
btw, Is it me (and the distractions I had while watching), or did Dean get precious little air time last night?
UPDATE: Commenter Kate asks why I bother with Sharpton, referencing (her presumption) a blase attitude re. Alan Keyes and Pat Buchanan. Taken in order:
1."Then there's the Rev. Sharpton factor. He had the best performance last night, the best lines and the best appeal to an important South Carolina voting bloc: blacks, who were told a vote for Sharpton guaranteed them a voice at the convention. A poll last weekend had Sharpton running third at 15%, two points behind Kerry and six points behind Edwards. The more divided the field, the harder for Mr. Kerry to put up numbers to blow his rivals out of the race." - OpinionJournal's Political Diary, Friday January 30
2. Keyes never had numbers like Sharpton. Buchanan did in a few states and the only reason I didn't blog furiously about him is because I wasn't blogging at all during the elections. I started in October of 2001. Nut job that he is, it is worth pointing out that Buchanan appears less prone to fraud, tax evasion and willful ignorance of the facts than Sharpton.
Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at January 30, 2004 9:23 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksKate, Sharpton should be taken very seriously. He is precisely what is wrong with the Democratic Party.
Sharpton is literally holding a gun to the head of every Democratic party candidate and demanding kiss-ass obedience to a black agenda that really doesn't even have anything to do with the majority viewpoint of the black community. Sharpton isn't some sort of minor flaw in the ointment. He's what's gone wrong with the Democratic Party.
Here in NYC, we experienced the worst of what Sharpton and his ilk created. This city was ungovernable prior to the Giuliani administration. Democratic administrations refused to enforce the law equally in every community in order to escape the wrath of Sharpton and the other race hustlers. The people who paid the price for this insanity were middle class black folks in the boroughs. The police were not allowed to enforce the law in black communities as they did in white communities. The result was to turn black communities over the the thugs.
The Democrats are knuckling under to this racist extorionist and thug because they are desparate to maintain the coalition of blacks, women and gays that is the mainstay of the party. The coalition is about to fall to pieces, and the mystery element in this puzzle is that the black community is overwhelmingly religious in the old fashioned sense. In other words, the Democrats are able to fracture as blacks rebel against the gay, anti-religious left that has taken over the party.
The Democrats are desparate because the coalition is about to die. Kissing Sharpton's butt is about all they can do, and it is an act of desparation.
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