Ed Asner Narrates ‘Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale’

Actor and activist Ed Asner is the narrator of a new video called “Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale.”

It was produced by the California Federation of Teachers (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The video was written by the CFT’s Fred Glass, who according to EAGNews.org earned $139,800 in 2011.

As the fairy tale began, Asner said, “Once upon a time, there was a land that was happy and prosperous. They had a great education system, safe streets, and jobs for everyone.”

“There were a few poor people and a few rich people. Most were in the middle,” he continued.  “The people of this land paid for their good life by investing in their future together. They called this ‘paying taxes.’”

From there, Asner said the tax system was set up so that the poor paid a little in taxes, the middle paid a moderate amount, and the rich paid a lot.

But the rich of course didn’t like this, and according to Asner, they began changing the tax code so that they would pay less while creating loopholes and even breaking the law through tax evasion.

Of course, Asner completely ignored the immutable fact that in the past 50 years, changes to the tax code have continually shifted the burden of taxation from lower wage earners to higher wage earners so much so that today almost 50 percent of workers don’t pay a cent of federal income taxes.

That didn't come up.

Instead, Asner said that as a result of rich people's greed, “Schools, public safety, the roads, parks, libraries, public transportation all went into decline. The rich people didn’t care.”

Needless to say, Asner chose not to address how tax revenues at the federal and state level continued to rise during this period, or that the fiscal problems were caused by spending growing at a faster rate than the growth of receipts.

Liberals always ignore this.

Not surprisingly, Asner also took aim at Wall Street, “a place where money makes money.”

Somewhat disgracefully, midway through the video, there’s an image of the rich actually urinating on the 99 percent.

No, I’m not kidding.

Sadly, according to Asner, a crash eventually happened, which of course was all the rich people’s fault, and as a result, the government decided to only bail out rich people NOT “ordinary people whose houses and jobs were broken by the crash.”

I guess Asner forgot about President Obama’s stimulus plan which according to a chart created by the New York Times did the following:

- Help states prevent cuts to essential services like education – $53.6 billion
- Extend and increase unemployment compensation – $35.8 billion
- Health coverage under Cobra – $25.1 billion
- Increase food assistance – $20.9 billion
- Increase the maximum Pell Grant by $500 – $15.6 billion
- Provide cash payment to seniors, disabled veterans and other needy individuals – $14.4 billion
- Provide additional money to schools serving low-income children – $13 billion
- Provide additional money for special education – $12.2 billion
- Create new bonds for improvements in public education – $10.9 billion

As the video drew to a conclusion, Asner claimed the rich began blaming everyone else for the fiscal problems in the country including public teachers.

In Asner’s view, the 99 percent weren’t believing the one percent, so the rich hired politicians to continue placing the blame on police, firefighters, teachers, librarians, and other public employees.

But not everyone bought this said Asner. They believed the crash was all caused by the one percent.

“People began to say, ‘Maybe rich people have too much money now,’” claimed Asner.  “‘And maybe our problems have to do with the one percent not paying their fair share of taxes. And also, maybe rich people should pay the same rate of taxes they used to when our land was prosperous and more people were better off.’”

Predictably, Asner - like the current President and his Party - didn’t recommend that ALL taxes should go back to where they were under Clinton when things were supposedly so much better.

This is a little bit of hypocrisy the left and their media minions conveniently ignore in this debate.

“This is where we are now,” said Asner at the video’s conclusion. “And we have a question: is there no alternative, or can the people of this land do something to live happily ever after?”

Predictably, Asner chose not to mention that you could tax every cent of the rich's income and it wouldn't balance the budget.

This math is too complicated for people on the left.