Elizabeth Warren vs. Logic

I am going to explain to you why the following quote by Elizabeth Warren is misleading, false, and preys on the ignorance of her constituents.

Original Quote:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Breaking down Elizabeth Warren’s idiocy:

“You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for.”

Warren attempts to paint a picture in which companies don’t pay for the roads they use. Of course she blatantly ignores the fact that if a firm moves its goods on public roads, then they are paying fuel taxes (which fund road building and maintenance), and thus they have paid to use the roads.

“You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.”

Again, Warren pretends as if businesses don’t pay taxes. Any business that owns property, which is all of them, has to pay property taxes, which are used to fund local schools.

“You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory”

Never mind the fact that Warren assumes that without local government police departments there would be no police at all, and that the world would turn into one which mirrors the one in the Mad Max movies; one again, the police department is funded by property taxes, and thus, businesses have paid for them.

“Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Warren acts as if it is a privilege to keep “a big hunk” of the fruits of your labor, as opposed to…. All of it. How does Warren justify “taking a big hunk” of it away from the people that earned it? Well, she cites the ever elusive social contract. In her view, as a politician, she gets to arbitrarily decide how much of your earnings the government is entitled to. And she justifies this theft by saying that the social contract, a document that has never been seen or signed and only exists in theory, allows her to do it. 

Warren preys on the ignorance of her constituents in order to push her misguided message. In her short speech, she repeats the line, “that the rest of us paid for”. She uses this line in order to make it appear that businesses and wealthy people don’t pay taxes for the public services they use, even though they do. Not only that, but Warren is calling for higher income taxes on wealthy individuals on the grounds that roads, police, and schools need to be paid for. Anyone who knows anything about taxes will immediately notice that funding schools and police departments are the responsibilities of local governments, which receive funds from property taxes. Additionally, public roads are paid for by fuel taxes. This means that calling for higher income taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals will not do anything to increase funding for police departments, schools, or public roads. If Warren didn’t realize this, then she truly is ignorant. The other possibility, which I think is the case, is that she once again is preying on the ignorance of her audience. 

Original video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-P-CoSNYaI