additional commentary by Timothy Horrigan; February 29, 2012
On Sadie Hawkins Day, February 29, 2012, Wayne Root reversed gender roles by issuing an invitation to Kim Kardashian. It wasn't a proposal of marriage: he is happily married (to a former Miss Oklahoma, as she makes a point of telling Kim) and Kim is not ready to remarry just yet. (Maybe in a few months, but not now.) He says she should move to Las Vegas, Nevada, so them mean old California liberals can't denigrate her and can't tax her.
Original URL: http://youtu.be/E6NaPSDmKjo
I would love to have Kim move to my hometown, Durham, NH— but my state has some of the highest business taxes in America, and Durham has especially high property taxes as well. (Wayne says his property taxes in Las Vegas are half what they were in Malibu, for a home twice the size.) One good thing I can say for New Hampshire is that she wouldn't need to use any of her hard-earned savings to buy a ski chalet in Park City, Utah (over 400 miles from Las Vegas.) We have world class skiing right here in New Hampshire. (Come to think of it, they have great skiing in Nevada as well, though not anywhere near Vegas.)
We New Hampsters don't hate Kim's sucess or her ambition, and we
certainly like her Moxie. In fact, the company which
makes Moxie is based in New Hampshire, and the stuff was invented
in Maine.
The "Laffer Curve" argument is that California's tax rates discourage Kim from working more. I don't know if that is a bad thing from the viewpoint of society as a whole. If she scaled back her activities due to even higher taxes, she would just be making more room for other talentless but vavavoom starlets. Higher taxes might not even hurt her own family, since she has four sisters who are all talentless starlets in their own right, each of whom would be more than happy to pick up where Kim left off. (I don't sense that Kim is in it for the money anyway: I think she is mostly doing whatever the hell it is that she does for the attention— and the free stuff.)
Wayne was railing against a video put put by an organization
called
the "Courage
Campaign" which is pursuing two causes: marriage equality
and
the "millionaire's tax." Marriage equality is good for Kim
Kardashian: it adds lesbians to the pool of potential marriage
partners for her future reality shows. The millionaire's tax would
be not so good. California currently has a graduated income tax
which tops out at 10.3%; the average Californian pays 9.3%.
Supposedly
Kim Kardashian's taxable income is $12 million. I don't
know how we know this, but in any case she must be way above the
average, which is $47,000. She almost certainly is over $1
million,
which is where the top rate of 10.3% kicks in. The millionaire's
tax
would add an additional 3% for incomes over $1 million, going up
to
5% for incomes over $2 million. The money would be earmarked for
education and infrastructure. Ms. Kardashian may not care
much
about public education (she never attended college and went to a
private high
school) but she is famous for her well-built infrastructure.
Original URL: http://youtu.be/XI0xZI455ZI
See Also:
"Morning in America" (about the day Reagan was shot, which Wayne and I remember very differently.)
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