Second Acts
By Mitch Berg
America loves second acts.
The child star who disappeared under a mound of blow at age 15, coming back with a stellar performance.
The team that started the season in the cellar, going to the championship.
The 35 year old short reliever who started as an 18 year old prodigy before getting stuck in AAA ball for a decade and a half that pitches a shutout to get the save, and a little bit of immortality, in the big game.
The political party that squandered a $18B surplus to create a $6B deficit, while blowing up the budget 40% and jacking up taxes, rebranding itself as tax hawks for the children…
Wait. Wut?
And kudos to the social media intern for that clever job of editing all the facts out of the interchange, to make it look like Rep. Gomez was winning the discussion. It was…creative.
March 28th, 2025 at 2:32 pm
Would that it were true.
I oppose the concept of progressive taxes. Why should people pay more for government, just because they have more? If all men are created equal, why shouldn’t they pay equally?
10% of your income, however much that is, that’s what it costs to fund drag shows and transgender opera and colleges in Australia. What’s that? You don’t want to fund them? Then vote for a different Democrat, one who won’t piss away your money.
Everybody needs skin in the game.
March 28th, 2025 at 2:45 pm
A few decades back, some rich guy built a “cabin” on a lake about an hour West of the Twin Cities. Okay, a 12 room, six bath cabin with a private creek and waterfall – you get the idea. He used all local help – lawyer, banker, cabinet shop, etc – and we all got invited to an open house when it was done.
One kid said to the owner, “Must be nice to be rich” but he replied, “You can be rich. All you need to do is work 12 hours a day, six days a week, for the next 35 years like I did.” The kid laughed but none of the rest of us did. We knew. He was married but had no children, no life outside work, just go-go-go busting butt all the time.
Why should he pay a higher percentage of his wealth than the slug who dropped out of school to join a gang because it was too much bother to go to class?
I don’t envy the guy. I envy his money but I frankly admit I’m not willing to make the sacrifices he made to get it. He should get to keep it.
And honestly, he’s less likely to use government services than the slug. No cops picking up brass from his 9mm pistol spraying lead around the neighborhood. No welfare for his baby mommas. No guard to watch him in prison. If he and the slug paid an equal percentage, he’d already be overcharged for what he gets. The slug should be paying more because he uses more.
March 28th, 2025 at 7:13 pm
This I can identify with…..worked from the age of 16, usually 2 jobs until I gained enough experience in my field to move up and make more $$. Bought an old duplex, and spent 20 years repairing and updating basically everything, and became a landlord as well. At age 48, I had established myself enough to open my own business. When I turned 50, I woke up one day, completely amazed at the thought that this home was mine, and in great shape with beautiful yard and awesome tenants. It was as though I had been so nose-to-the-grindstone for so long, I didn’t recognize what I’d accomplished. Great feeling.
March 29th, 2025 at 2:10 am
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March 29th, 2025 at 8:11 am
I see that the MN GOP hired Michael Brodkorb to do PR. This is the same Brodkorb that cheated on his wife, betrayed his kids, lied to his friends and colleagues, smashed his car into a bridge driving home blind drunk after balling his girlfriend.
Brodkorb took GOP donors money, then endorsed Tampon Tim and Karmela. David Hann is a moron, which is why he wasnChairman of the MNGOP.
You live in a shit-hole state because you choose your leaders from reprobates, scumbags or idiots. There is no hope for Minnesota.
I know this will upset Mitch, since Brodkorb is his pal.
https://x.com/mngop/status/1905409044707508541
March 29th, 2025 at 8:24 am
Now that I think of it, the very fact that Brodkorb makes a comfortable living as a “pundit” at all is an indictment of Minnesota “conservatives”, in and of itself.
No one out side Minnesota knows who the fuck that garbage human is, and that’s not an accident. He is smart enough to keep his profile local, because if he projected himself outside Minnesota, he’d be dragged by the ear through glass by smart people.
Imagine it; Brodkorb absolutely destroyed the GOP while he was vice-Chair. Got booted, started trashing the GOP, endorsing leftists and became a content creator for the got damned MinnPost! What’s the current Chairman do? Hires him!!
There’s plenty of rubes willing to keep him comfortable in MN; he’s found his niche.
March 29th, 2025 at 8:49 am
Which explains Laurene Powell Jobs, Mckenzie Scott, Baby Soros, Mark Dayton and Alida Rockefeller Messinger.
One can argue marital assets, property rights, inheritance and flat taxes all they want – but when the peasants come shrieking across the lawn with torches and machetes – well that puts another spin on it.
There is a middle ground on the flow of wealth between Karl Marx and Ann Rand and it isn’t so much that we pay progressive income, property and inheritance taxes as it is the sicky fingers that pick apart and feed on the processes.
Not sure what is going to happen when AI can reason and robots repair plumbing – but we damn well better get it figured out before that happens.
March 29th, 2025 at 9:29 am
Greg, using emotions instead of economics makes for bad legislation.
A progressive income tax creates a disincentive to work, invest, save, because the more you make, the more they take. It’s the same with the threshold for welfare and post-retirement work – earn too much in wages and you lose even more in benefits, so you’re better off sitting around doing nothing productive (or cheating the system by working black market or off-book). Bad legislation. A flat tax rate would cure that, boosting national productivity.
As for trust fund kids, they would pay the same flat tax rate on their income as everybody else. The fact they inherited money instead of brains, looks, athletic ability or work ethic (which is how the rest of us get ahead) is not relevant to tax policy, only to jealousy and envy. Bad basis for legislation.
As for hordes of peasants, well, that’s what ARs are for. 🙂
March 31st, 2025 at 6:54 am
John, let’s substitute profit margin for taxes. Using your logic, there is a disincentive to enter high volume/low margin businesses like say, groceries. I mean, why not avoid low margin business altogether because the more you make, the less you keep because the competition intensifies?
Who wants to take higher risks and work harder for low margins – even though you make more money on volume?
Instead, the disincentives on progressive taxes or simply higher taxes are remaining in a place that imposes such things. People don’t stop working in Minnesota because progressive taxes are high since they still are making more money than the guy next door – but they might move to Florida or Texas.
Peasants own ARs too. Actually, by count, they own more.
When I speak of peasants, I am not necessarily making arguments for tax policy – rather for a broad range of policies that includes taxes.
2024 was an “AR” election.
People revolted by electing Trump, not because their taxes were too high – that is a pre-Trump GOP thing. They revolted because their jobs were shipped to China, their schools were taken over by Marxists, their incomes were devalued by inflation – these are things that rile the peasants – but here is the thing – if they had perceived that the sacrifice was shared with the elites, the vibe would be different.
When times are good, no one cares about the tech-bro’s and nepo-babies, but when enough of the peasants can’t find a job – the guillotine gets rolled out in the public square, metaphorically and when things get really bad, literally.