A Marginal Tax Rate of 90%?

If you missed it, go read the whole post over at Instapundit (all emphasis mine):

I explained to [Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton)] that even people who make $150k in Northern Cal. are not “rich” and should not be taxed as if they were…I also expressed my concern that about half the people in the country now pay no income taxes, so there is overwhelming incentive for them to keep voting for democrats and therefore higher taxes for the rest of us. He told me that he thought tax rates should go up for the very rich and that the top marginal tax rate should be 90%. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, so I asked in a voice that many in the room could hear if he really meant 90%, and he said yes. Several people asked me after my turn was over if they heard correctly what he said, and were amazed when I said yes.

I also asked how a congress that was very critical of republican ethics and vowed “change” could justify letting Rangel, Dodd, and Murtha keep their committee chairmanships with their obvious ethical issues. His response was that Republican’s ethics were worse because of their “unjustified aggressive war”.

This is just my small example of the anger and frustration of people in liberal Northern California.

Read it all, and then take a look at this NY Times story from TEN years ago:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
by STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
…
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

Wait – doesn’t this same newspaper show President Bush warning Congress in 2003 that Fannie and Freddie needed some overhauling to prevent a crisis when the housing bubble burst? Didn’t the Bush Administration ask for action numerous times?

Seems they did. What was the response of the spineless GOP and feckless Democrats? Oh yes….now I remember:

“Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound.”

“They are not in danger of going under….We’re doing three separate things that make it much less likely — very, very unlikely — that we’ll have this kind of a housing crisis six months or a year from now.”

“Looking at the financials, they’re solid.”
— Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank, (D, Massachusetts) July 14, 2008

“We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines…What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission.”
— Maxine Waters, (D, California)

Questioned by former congressman Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, about Fannie’s teensy 3 percent capital cushion, Raines said of the multi- and single-family loans the company holds: “These assets are so riskless that capital for holding them should be under 2 percent.”

Look where we were in May of 2008, and consider what happened in June of that year.

The whole nation is trembling under the weight of a bill that Congressman McNerney (of the 90% marginal tax rate) admits he voted for unread. It’s a bill they all voted for, unread. It’s the bill the President pushed through with cries of doom and moral imperative and then waited four days to sign – not because he wanted to read the thing, but because he wanted to take his wife out to dinner, shoot some hoops and otherwise occupy himself.

This economic emergency has its root in a policy that allowed people to sign contracts they either did not read or could not fulfill, and the elected “leadership” of the country has decided they can “fix” that problem by voting for and signing a bill they did not read and likely should not fulfill. Oh, irony.

Let’s keep up with the growing tea party movements. Insty is also updating with pictures and links here and here.

Malkin has more and here is a how to throw your own tea party guide.

I think it’s all interesting, and I would hope to see something a bit more organized like a march on Washington, but let’s face it, the pro-lifers march in DC every year – tens of thousands of them – and they get ZERO media coverage. For a DC march to force some coverage, it would have to number in the millions.

But if these little tea parties can encourage millions…well, that might be something.

Also, the White House amused by Rick Santelli, and trying to use him for cover – or something.

Related:
Lucas: $500,000 salary caps are stupid
Fausta: Obama vs Cicero and Rick Santelli
Mad as Hell: And that’s pretty mad
Strata: Watch the job market; it will tell the story
Doubling: The Misery Index
The End is Nigh: if we can watch all three do we get a prize?
Profane: But it’s got Stewie