Friday, October 19, 2007

Clinton Fundraising

First Norman Hsu, now this:

Los Angeles Times article
NEW YORK -- Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door.

And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.

All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate -- Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.

Poor Chinese immigrants don't give money to politicians. Something is fishy...

Money. Every two weeks I get mugged on my paycheck by politicians. This progressive tax rate stuff does not make any sense to me. Fine, I'll pay more taxes if I make more money but why should I pay a larger percentage as my salary increases? Why not a progressive sales tax? Pay 5% tax on your burger, 10% tax on a computer, and 20% tax on a car. How stupid would that be yet that's what we do on payroll taxes.

As I keep telling Leon, "Quick, send your kids to public school. I'm paying for somebody else's kids to go to school with my state taxes; may as well be your kids."

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