The “Going Galt” phenom spreads; Whoopi goes on anti-tax rant
“Going Galt” is going viral.
The phenomenon Dr. Helen Smith first diagnosed last fall has spread noticeably since our discussion of it at CPAC/CS2.0 last week and my column/blog posts/your comments throughout the past week.
The NYTimes (disparagingly, of course) picked up on it today. The Liberty Papers has a comprehensive round-up of recent blog coverage from all sides. And here’s an interview with Dr. Helen. Excerpt:
Smith was a little ahead of the curve of what has become an incredibly popular meme. Across the broad conservative movement, from members of Congress to activists to economists, Rand’s final, allegorical novel is being looked at with fresh eyes. According to the Atlas Society, a think tank that promotes and analyzes Rand’s work, sales of “Atlas Shrugged” have tripled since the presidential election. One congressman says that Rand wrote a “rulebook” that can guide conservatives through the age of Obama; another calls Obama’s policies something right out of the mind of Rand. One economist says that Rand’s fantasies have become reality. Smith is one of many activists citing Rand to explain their decisions to sell their stocks, or to explain why the president’s “demonization” of run-amok CEOs is aggravating the economic slowdown. The popular meme is giving critics of the president’s policies a way to explain why, they believe, it’s doomed to fail — because Rand predicted all of this…
…he activists who have latched onto “Atlas Shrugged” don’t spend as much time thinking about the heroic-capitalist side of the analogy. For Dr. Smith’s readers, like their counterparts writing in to libertarian blogs and protesting Obama at “tea parties, ” the novel is most useful for the concept of “going Galt.” “I do some consulting on the side and the taxation on that income is unbelievable,”wrote one reader to Michelle Malkin. “So, to heck with this. I’m ‘going Galt’ on my consulting.” “I’m considering moving to a small family farm in a foreign country,” wrote a reader to Smith, “and looking into the practical side of the issue right now. It will take a year or two of preparation, but might be feasible and even comfortable.”
Smith, who’s still mulling over ways that she can “go Galt,” sees a possibility for a moral stand. During the Iraq War, she read about a painter who’d painted less, reducing his income, in order to dodge taxes and thereby make sure he didn’t fund the war. “I’d go John Galt just to not pay for programs I don’t believe in,” said Smith. “If we’re opposed to socialistic concepts — if we know they don’t work — why should we pay to support them?”
***
Well, well, well: Whoopi doesn’t like getting taxed out the wazoo. She went on a little rant today, complaining: “I don’t wanna get it comin’ and going’…BACK OFF ME! (fast-forward to 3:30):
(hat tip – reader Glenn)
Reap what you have sown, sister.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
CPAC vs. the Occupiers: Keep calm and carry silly string
February 9, 2012 10:15 AM by Michelle Malkin
109 Comments
Femme-a-gogue Debbie Wasserman Schultz smears Tea Party, exploits Tucson massacre anniversary
January 11, 2012 02:13 PM by Michelle Malkin
185 Comments
Romney: I’m the Ideal Tea Party Candidate; Update: Des Moines Register Endorses Romney
December 17, 2011 04:05 PM by Doug Powers
158 Comments
New DNC Ad Portrays Newt Gingrich as Tea Party Godfather
December 11, 2011 11:59 AM by Doug Powers
105 Comments
Occupy Wall Street Shuts Down Production of Law & Order Episode About Occupy Wall Street
December 9, 2011 03:20 PM by Doug Powers
67 Comments
Document drop: What Scholastic is teaching your kids about the Occupiers
December 9, 2011 11:30 AM by Michelle Malkin
102 Comments
Video: On Beltway Newt, Cupcake Mitt, and Lame-Duck Barney
December 1, 2011 09:12 AM by Michelle Malkin
163 Comments
Categories: Going Galt,Tea Party
Babalu Blog
» Greece is BurningPatterico
» NYT hails the safety net: Poor hardest hitDaily Caller
» Inside Media Matters: Sources, memos reveal erratic behavior, close coordination with White House and news organizationsNice Deb
» Former DEA Chief Tells Fox News: 3 Other Federal Agencies Knew About Operation ‘Fast and Furious’Gateway Pundit
» Notre Dame Tells Obama: HHS Mandate Is a ‘Grave Violation of Religious Freedom and Cannot Stand’AmSpecBlog
» Weekend Political Wrap-UpJustOneMinute
» I Guess I'm Still Stuck On StupidThe Hill
» Rep. Ron Paul not conceding Maine vote
Reducing income to reduce your tax burden is legal…it’s not a dodge!
I guess I’ve got to stop letting that mischaracterization bother me since it appears everywhere.
Nope, it still bothers me!!!
Wish I could drop out and go Galt. That’s sort of the conservative version of becoming a hippie! Except without drugs and poor hygiene…and there’s a point to it beyond just yourself. Okay, it’s nothing like being a hippie.
“The rich” are not a cow to be tied to a rail and milked. We move – we adapt – we respond to tax increases with behavioral changes. Good luck, BO, explaining why tax increases have to head down the income scale to your precious “working families”. Quoting The Princess Bride: “I do not think that means what you think it means.”
These are truly amazing and very frightening times we are in. Ayn Rand’s book is so accurate that it has me spooked. Thanks for helping to keep me and all the other readers informed Michelle, you are truly the best. Thank you.
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-president-is.html
It would be interesting to see the first nation or state to make things easier on the producers of wealth – the rich – and how fast they would come out of this recession.
China. Whoda thought it?
According to “the One”, if you make over $250K, you’re not “working”.
I’m still trying to figure out what we all are doing.
Somebody wake me up – I can’t believe Whoppi Goldberg would wake up to the fact that infinite taxes isn’t the answer.
I know, right? I couldn’t believe it either. I thought maybe I misheard her when i was agreeing. But Joy Whatsername is still as clueless as ever.
Hey Whoppi, STFU, you are one of the people that put this miserable failure in office. If anyone can complain, it is me and all the rest that can say (without lying, which I believe there are soon to be many) I DID NOT VOTE FOR HIM!
On March 6th, 2009 at 5:45 pm, hunter said:
Now, now – never a good idea to beat up on someone who’s recovering from a bad case of the hive-minds.
Always welcome the formerly infected back to health.
Joy, you ignorant sl*t:
Obama was still in the IL Senate debting traffic light placements when the Senate voted on the Iraq war. Paying taxes for porkulus is NOT designed to “build the country back up”.
I love how now that a Dem president and Congress are failing, the View chickens put the fault in both GOP and DNC laps.
And Whoopi- The AIG and other bank bailouts were Nancy’s , not George’s.
I…can’t…watch…Whoppi.
MM: Thanks for providing the partial quote so we could get the gist without having to endure watching her talk.
And another thing-
I think there are some
idiotspeople in the country who think taxes go to charitable things- helping the poor, therefore the govt is seen as a charity to them. So they don’t mind paying taxes for that. (Evcen Clinton gave a sermon at the natl. cathedral once saying that the congregation had to give to “our ministry”.)So…what if we take going Galt to the next level?
What if…just a what if…everyone one of us who decided to live within our means…keep our debt down…make our house payments on time all decided to just not pay on our mortgage for the month of April? Do you think that might wake up a few of the Obamaton Zombies?
I don’t ask this lightly. I’ve never missed a house payment…my cars are paid off…my TV is a 10 year old 27″ CRT. After getting laid off (quite suddenly and without warning…out for 9 months) in 2001 I decided to never again carry debt beyond my house payment (and yes…I pay extra each month).
I take that obligation serious but I really don’t want to pay the mortgage for people I know who make no more than me but just had to go buy a $600k house (compared to my 150k house) that they have no “right” being in. Why should we bail them out? They knew better but just had to have a few more square feet than the Jones’s. Why is that my problem to pay for now?
I worked for 45 years and never even came close to 250K a year. However, I always thought it might be possible. It was always a goal to do better personally and financially. Because the possibility of doing better was always there I kept striving and still do. Without the dream we are doomed.
One thing I learned from that video is Behar is totally void of any intelligence.
Rush played the clip during lunch. Buyers remorse to the max.
The Messiah Obama (otherwise referred to as that Chicago Thug) turns out to be a pig in a poke!
WHY does this blog and HotAir both continue to give this idiot show ANY publicity at all? Nothing these women say matters in the least, they’re just chanting talking points and previously-stated biases, so to HELL WITH THEM. AND their stupid show. Forget them.
About a month ago, I started “going Galt” before I even knew really what that meant. I’m trying to relocate from very blue Maine to very red South Carolina, where the taxes are considerably lower, not to mention the cost of living in general. I’m also willing to cut my pay down from what I get now, because as I see it, the true loss in dollars out of my pocket is about the same. I’ve postponed buying a car and appliances because I can do without for now and keep using the old ones. If I can get my house sold, I intend to hold onto my profit and not buy another house for a while because there is a glut of cheap rentals on the market now. As a white straight Republican male that is continually attacked as evil by the Obama team on down to my local government, I have no incentive anymore to work as hard and advance myself just so that I can fund these people that hate me. I can get by with a lot less than I have, and I intend to do that. And the truth of the matter is, I will be perfectly happy doing it, while the liberal haters remain miserable.
On March 6th, 2009 at 6:02 pm, havok said:
I’d much rather see everyone refuse to pay their income taxes, OR see everyone start pressuring their local State representatives to declare independence from the tyrannical federal government.
hunter said:
Hey Whoppi, STFU, you are one of the people that put this miserable failure in office. If anyone can complain, it is me and all the rest that can say (without lying, which I believe there are soon to be many) I DID NOT VOTE FOR HIM!
There are at least 57 million of us that can honestly say it
How do those of us get out of paying income taxes? Mine are taken out by my employer?
Maybe we should all go change our tax with holding to married with 400 dependents…that would drop the taxes going in quite a bit….
Hey Whoopi, I know what you mean. Good thing we didn’t go ga-ga over Obama, heh? Oh, wait you did.
Moron.
She’s probably still ga-ga over Obama. It hasn’t occurred to her feeble little brain that he’s the reason this is happening, she probably blames Bush for the tax increase.
Whoopi and her cowmate Behar need to grow up and take a good hard look at themselves. They are absolute idiots.
On March 6th, 2009 at 6:22 pm, havok said:
Yep, and I don’t think there’s any law against claiming maximum deductions (you just have to pay it later). If everyone claimed max deductions on their witholdings in one month’s time, it would probably cripple the government.
Honeymoon over; notice the shifty eyes in this illustration:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_11/b4123016507664.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5
Whoopi don’t wanna get it comin’ and going’
No problem from me Whoopi-but we do reap what we sow.
cowmate Behar?
RogerCfromSD, you are my hero
A Whoopi, a cowmate and BaBaWaWa all one one show–damn that has to be ugly.
—
Keep the change-I’ll keep my guns
i gotta go with Bradley on this one. The hell with that show!
That illustration should earn Philip Burke an IRS audit–thou shall not criticize, challenge nor mock He Who’s Middle Name is Hussein.
cowmate Behar! I am still laughing.
—
Keep the change-I’ll keep my guns
Wrestling fans:
Can you SMELL what BA-ROCK is cooking!??
If it feels like a backlash and smells like a backlash….
I keep saying it – she is Larry King in a dress.
How can Joy be so stunningly stupid? How do these idiots make a living, and such a large one at that? For this show to be on TV year after year with a large enough audience to justify its existence shows you how doomed we are unless people wake up to and defeat the sheer lack of common sense and ignorance that seems to be overwhelming our society.
Looks like Whoopsie was worried about the wrong presidential candidate forcing her (and everyone else) into slavery….
Personally I don’t think anyone on that show has two brain cells to rub together…..
I encourage everyone here to go Galt. It just means more work for me!
It sure does, but you show your stupidity, because you will eventually be working for nothing and waiting for the government to dole out to you what they see fit. Have fun with your new master, idiot.
I’m not clear when that step comes in.
Whoopi and Joy,
What did you expect? Seriously, who do you think Obama was talking about when he said “neighborly?”
The depth of your ignorance on this is impressive.
But Joy… oh Joy… for you to say “we’re going back to the tax rate we had under Clinton, and we ran a surplus, so let’s give it a chance,” is the stupidest thing I’ve heard since “I’ll still respect you in the morning.”
It shows not ignorance, but *staggering* ignorance. Unforgivable ignorance. Criminal ignorance.
The differences between the economies that Clinton and Obama inherited, as well as their economic policies, are – well, insert your own hyperbole here.
Could somebody show me one redeeming feature from this human being? I’ll settle for one…
If zero keeps getting everything he wants by the spineless congress we have, probably about next October.
Right on, right on.
On March 6th, 2009 at 6:14 pm, tonyinmaine said:
Our family moved from Maine to S.C. in 1999. It was great! We’re in Georgia now, but as beautiful as Maine is, we’d never move back North. In addition to the lower taxes and lower cost of living, you’ll love having people who aren’t crunchy granola libtard birkenstockers to talk to.
What can I say….. I told you so…. nan nan nan nan boo boo….. forgive me, Friday and my soul is telling me to decompress and fight tomorrow….God bless all and have a safe night…… Patrol down and back in camp…..
One part of the economy to get an immediate stimulus from Obama was the Portuguese water dog breeder who sold him a puppy for his kids for between $1,500 and $2,800. The new White House dog is that breed, and the prices are listed on a multiple breeder web site http://www.nextdaypets.com.
Of course, he COULD have twisted an admirer’s arm and gotten it free. That’s the Chicago Way. Send Rahm to get it. And, Rahm, pick up those things on the lawn tomorrow, will you? Twice a day. That’s a good boy. Dance for your dinner.
You don’t have the skill set to make a decent soda-jerk or pop-up target at the range. Just keep pickin fly s@&t out of pepper and be happy that you have that as a marketable skill.
Practice saying it now: “the failed policies of Barack Obama.”
This is really funny. I NEVER watch that stupid, infuriating show. But today, I was flipping channels and happened to hit that show just as Whoopie was yelling about something, so I stopped to listen. I was flabbergasted that she was on a rant about the tax-crazy Obama! I even told my husband about it. Then, Rush Limbaugh mention it on his show. I only watched about 5 minutes, but it was exactly the five minutes that everyone is talking about. Of course Behar defended His Holiness…she is a piece of ugly crap. But Whoopie has always had a good head on her shoulders. I have heard her with Bill O’Reilly, etc. and she is respectful and actually makes some sense, for a liberal, that is.
As an aside, Rahm Emanuel’s bio states he graduated from an Evanston (IL) ballet school, then went to SARAH LAWRENCE college (a former all-girl’s school) due to their having a great dance program. Wonder how good Sarah Lawrence’s football team will be this fall?
No offense sky, but you may have just dated yourself!!
None taken. I… forgot what I was going to say… gotta go, Matlock’s on!
Somebody tell Joy Behar that Obama couldn’t vote against the war because he was not a US Senator at the time. That woman is not very bright, just nasty.
Just mis-punctuated it. It should have been “a decent soda, jerk.”
My point is that even if those in the highest tax bracket go galt, it doesn’t mean that the work will simply disappear. Those in the lower tax brackets will be in higher demand, and thus have more incentive to work more (because they’ll get paid more).
I’d assume most people here are not in the highest tax bracket. I think you’d love to get more money for your work.
Ha! I said that exact same thing on another thread this morning! I don’t know if you saw it, or if two great minds came up with the same thing, but it is a great moniker for him!
A
Too ugly to watch more than 5 minutes without burning your eyeballs.
You really have no clue as to what you are talking about do you? IT WILL NOT MATTER IF YOU ARE MAKING MORE! Especially if the top enders go Galt. That means that there will be more yes, but the government is going to need more and more money from each worker that even if there is plenty of work at “great” wages you will be making less overall.
BTW, I think that bumper sticker would make more sense if it said, Honk if I’m paying your mortgage
I always thought Rahm seemed a little light in the loafers. Um…Not that there’s anything wrong with that!!
bluesoc – Yes, the work will disappear. Not only do the so-called rich make more money, but they also do most of the buying. If they are not buying new homes, cars, vacations, remodeling, etc., there just isn’t as much work to do. And this doesn’t include the lost business to business purchases.
So what? I remember ice boxes.
It seems you’re arguing that the government will have to raise taxes for lower brackets if the top bracket goes Galt.
I don’t really think that’s obvious. Going Galt doesn’t mean stopping production altogether. It simply means cutting back on production to the point where your marginal benefits = marginal costs. Since marginal benefits have decreased, you stop producing earlier. It’s possible for the government to increase taxes and increase revenue, so long as the cut in production is not too much. That’s arguably the case here.
It’s even more possible if those in the higher tax bracket receive marginal benefits from things other than the money they earn. Lots of people who make lots of money simply enjoy working. They’re work-aholics.
In that case, the distortion to the economy would be ever less.
Your ignorance is stunning. Not even worth debating you on this.
And an actual milk man that wore a white uniform and delivered the milk in funny shaped glass bottles. Memories.
bluesoc – With all the “producers gone, who is going to hire you?
On March 6th, 2009 at 7:33 pm, bluesoc said:
That is absurd. You must not have ever studied economics.
Who is going to pay the lower tax bracketers to do any work?
Those in the highest tax brackets are the ones that invest capital into business. They will flee the country, just like the did France, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Sweden, the UK (pre-Thatcher), etc.
Unemployment under confiscatory collectivist countries always goes to stratospheric levels. Make it confiscatory enough and eventually the only employer left is the government, and standards of living drop to slavery levels.
On March 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm, bluesoc said:
Fine, why don’t you come over to my house and do work for me for my belly lint? I’ll lock you in the basement and feed you scraps. Once in a while I’ll take you for a walk. But don’t get used to any liberties I grant you – after all, you are a work-a-holic and aren’t working for money.
You just love the work.
The utter stunning arrogance of your assumptions! The complete and total disregard for anyone’s liberty is completely disgusting!
sky, I helped get this small glass bottle milk plant in NE Nebraska up and running. Neat stuff!
http://hartington.net/?p=702
Did you really, Hunter? Cool. I do miss those old glass bottles! Funny story… My mother, the next-door neighbor, and the lady on the corner all had left-handed boys born within a month of each other! We went so far as to ask the milkman if he was left-handed because it was always fun to blame the milkman on everything. Turns out, he WAS! Fortunately, none of the boys looked like him.
Is Joy Behar the dumbest woman in the world? Can we get a special tax just for her a dumb as doorknob tax.
That is a great story!
Hmm, Rosie and Rosanne might have opinions here…
When my wife was a baby my father-in-law used to joke that she was Sam the milkmans child. One Sunday at church he was talking to a man that commented how cute Mrs. Boomer was as a baby and he gave his standard line. It turned out he was their milkman and his name was Sam.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: Come and take them!
Is Whoopi beginning to hope Obama will fail?
It’s rapidly becoming clear that the current administration is not the next Camilot, and Obama is not Kennedy. There is nothing similar about their tax policies. The following quote makes that abundantly clear:
Me too, and hand crank washing machines.
Not to worry about everyone going Galt. When people find out there is no incentive to working to get ahead, the whole system will Galtize.
Why yes, when the rich stop producing and investing, someone else will simply get promoted to rich, because, like, rich is just another job, right?
Leftists shouldn’t even try to think…
Ha! Good story! Those poor milkmen really did get picked on. But just think, they came to your house every other day, and if you weren’t home, they had permission to walk right in and put your cold stuff in the fridge. They had access to your house and access to the wife too! Hmmmm….
Happyscrapper – I was very young, but I remember the milkman just walking in the house and putting the milk and the Black Cherry drink in the fridge. But I also remember him leaving right away too. lol
The last time I checked I am still free, a private citizen, and in spite of all rewrites by liberals our Constitution is clearly balanced with the emphasis on citizens rights and freedom, and all the checks on the government side of the scale.
In light of what is happening it is your duty to “Go Galt” or disrupt whatever passive aggressive means you can to help affect a government that is clearly out of control. Obama’s regime has not only lost sight of the meaning of the same constitution, it is acting exactly contrary to its intent.
Whatever you can do to fight back is as Patriotic as you can get.
Can anyone tell me about the last time anyone one in the Democratic party actually addressed “Individual Freedom, Individual property rights, or States Rights”. With this bunch those just don’t seem to exist.
Joyce Behar is an ignoramus-maximus.
“He [Obama] voted against the war”.
Calm down sweet cheeks, Obama opposed the war, he didn’t vote against it. He wasn’t in the Senate at the time the Iraq War was voted on, remember?
Kindly remove head from your posterior – THEN talk.
My wife says we can’t afford cube steak. Instead she serves what she calls round steak. But I noticed the casing it came in said Balogna. Please sir, may I have some more porridge?
I wish I could stay and talk, but my grandson is staying overnight and my computer is in his room! G’night all.
Welcome to the party Whoopi. Could it be that she gets it?
No she does not.
How cool is that! But peach flavored milk? It takes me back though. I remember in the summers, I had a kool-aid/lemonade stand and I could always count on the milkman for a nickle for a cup of lemonade. He had to talk to me because I was using the ice box for the milk as a seat for my stand.Simpler times.
freebiebabe said, “Joyce Behar is an ignoramus-maximus.”
Not to mention a gluteous maximus.One big, ginormous maximus!
Sorry. It’s all the little voices in my head that made me write that.
#84 – LMAO
No “r” there RogerC, it’s Feebie.
Half of this woman’s ignorant statements go completely uncorrected/unnoticed because she is usually squealing over other people’s conversations. Yaowwww!. But, oh well… The View seems to love their pet mental case.
Wonder if ear plugs are made available to the View’s camera crew. The sound technician for that show must be driven to drink, daily.
As with bluesoc practice, practice.
@#$%^&* liberal tree huggers screwed up that too the &*()+XYZ’s
Yes, soda jerks, milkmen, a 396 engine in my 1968 Super Sport Camaro. Still have the Camaro. Too bad no Double Eythal gasoline
—
Keep the change-I’ll keep my guns
Liberals are all for evolution unless it means people evolving to outsmart Obama and his lemmings…not that it’s hard to do.
When I see clips like that of the View or hear such stupidity, I get so pissed, then I think of what they said and my anger all goes away, realizing just how really stupid some people are.
As Ron White says “ya can’t fix stupid”.
Go to a small local airport and barter for some airgas, I believe that it just might be the stuff you are looking for.
Goldberg gave herself a coat hanger abortion pre-Roe, I know she is very proud of that.
But by the time she was a teenager, New York and California (the state she lived in and the state she moved to) had already legalized abortion, so besides killing her baby, she is an idiot.
(Abortion was already legal in some states before Roe, although most liberal idiots don’t know that).
Anyway, as one of the queens of BDS and supporters of the Demonrats, she is one of the few ‘rich’ people I will enjoy seeing taxed out the wazoo.
Whoopi doesn’t want to get taxed too much, but when tax-cutter Reagan was in office she was insulting him as sodomizing ordinary people. I find her comedy routine now much more entertaining than the one then.
Whoopi’s channeling her 2004 character.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-9dsbCt8eE
Wish we could just rewrite this a bit, it would be even funnier now.
My Dad WAS a milkman back in the early 60′s. Lots of women on his route always invited him in for pie and coffee and were surprised when he ate the pie, drank the coffee and LEFT!!! My dad was hopelessly in love with my mom and could not keep a secret from her, so he was safe with the wild women on the milk route!!
What kills me is that Republicans will go to all sorts of lengths not to pay taxes (hey, I do too), but then line up to pay money to Hollywood and NBC … basically bankrolling a good chunk of Obama’s propaganda fund. If Conservatives and Libertarians stopped patronizing these groups for two years they’d be toast. Tragically, most people don’t have that sort of self-control.
Good Gawd, now Bill O’Rielley is going to have to apologize because some conservative used the word “Idiot” in a disparaging manner. Someone get him the DNC address.
And Whoopie – You go girl!
Up is down, black is white, right is wrong…..Whoopie is complaining about taxes being too high. I have been saying since election day to anyone who cared to hear that “buyers remorse will be setting before Obama’s term is half up” I was wrong, it is happening already.
Joy Behr has to be the most ignorant woman alive on the face of the earth. She makes Maxine Waters look like a scholar.
Great quote Pappa Louis
Poor Whoopi. How about the “tax breaks” for the working class. Cigarette tax; 80% of smokers are low income folks. Cap and Trade will dramatically raise electric, natural gas, fuel and everything from groceries to shoes. When are the Obamidiots going to wake up?