A wowOwow conversation with Joan Juliet Buck, Lesley Stahl, Liz Smith and Whoopi Goldberg. This post appeared in its original form on wowOwow.com, and can be accessed here.
WHOOPI: I am outraged. I'm outraged. I looked at my cable bill. I looked at my phone bill. And there are taxes on there ... it goes anywhere from $10 to $15 a month that I'm paying for stuff I don't know. There are letters -- the LMNOPQ fund of the jacka-jacka ... and no one says, "The what!?" And when you think about it, it's every month that you're paying it. So it's ten bucks here or fifteen bucks here or twenty-five dollars there.
Then you're writing out -- they take the 50 percent of your income and it goes to God knows where. When I first started working I said, "OK. I don't mind paying out because I know it's going to go for some stuff I hate, and some stuff that I like." But I'm looking and I see my friends who haven't done as well as I have financially. You know, they've got kids, they've got house payments, they've got mortgages. They've got gas to put in their cars. Friends who are putting, you know, in a 500 gallon or 2500 gallon tank -- they're only taking 50 gallons of oil because they can't afford it! They can't afford it. I don't understand why --
LIZ: Well, it's pretty discouraging when Congress keeps doing these earmarks where they consign millions of dollars to stupid things like, you know, "We'll study the button," or "We'll study ladybugs," or something. Or they build these bridges to nowhere in Alaska. And then you do resent paying your taxes when that's happening.
WHOOPI: I don't mind paying them. I resent this idea that everything I do now is taxed. And I get no bang for my buck. I feel like I want to just dump tea in the river, because there's no representation. And if I'm bitching about this, I can't imagine what somebody who's just living, literally, paycheck to paycheck is going through. Because there's no government agency that says, "You know what? We're going to pay this much to the oil company so that everybody can get the oil."
LIZ: Well, I don't believe we're ever going to get rid of big taxes as long as America is in the industrial munitions manufacture business. And that's the business the government is in -- is constantly making these war machines and then they go obsolete and they junk billions of dollars worth of 'em. And they just go on and on. And I don't know. I know we have to protect ourselves, but --
WHOOPI: Here's what started it, just so you guys know.
JOAN: Yes, let's hear.
WHOOPI: I had a radio program, which did not work out. Very smartly, I was in a pay-or-play deal. So everybody said, "You know what? This isn't working. But, yes, we know we still have to pay you." They were supposed to give me my lump sum. Well it turns out that you can no longer be given a lump sum without 10 or 15 percent being taken out -- as a penalty ...
JOAN: As a penalty.
WHOOPI: ... for getting paid a lump sum.
LIZ: Well, that makes no sense.
WHOOPI: It makes no sense. And what you have to do is you have to then defer the other half of your money. So you can take some now and then you can't take it for another year.
LIZ: And then the company disappears and you never get it.
WHOOPI: Well, yeah. Or they go under. I said to the guy, "Who made this law? Did anybody put it on the books to discuss it?" No. This went into law about a year ago. If you're getting ready to get paid a lump sum, you have a 20 percent tax on it -- tax on top of the 50 percent they already took.
LESLEY: What always surprises me is when you see these people on Wall Street just cleaning up. Did you see the story the other day where these hedge fund owners -- in this crisis and this recession that we're in -- in this Wall Street debacle, are making 3.5 billion dollars? And they're the ones fighting taxes. They don't --
JOAN: And they're the ones that don't pay the taxes!
LESLEY: They're the ones that don't pay the taxes. And that's what always gets me going when I read the newspaper. I look at those kinds of stories about people who ... it's always the richest who fight the taxes the most.
LIZ: Well wasn't there something Bill Gates investigated proving that he paid like the normal percentage less --
LESLEY: Warren Buffett. It was Warren Buffett.
LIZ: Warren Buffett. You're right.
LESLEY: He paid ... his rate was less than his secretary's. And he said, "I'm willing to pay my taxes ..." Warren Buffett. "I'm willing to pay more."
JOAN: OK, this is also so interesting with what's going on in the election right now. There was a story in the New York Sun about Bloomberg saying it's not a good idea to threaten to tax the rich in New York City because they would leave. And that's the tax base. You can't touch the rich. You can't threaten to touch the rich. You can't tax them because they are power. So the way we're structured, you can't tax the people who have the money, who have the power, because they may get pissed off and go away. So you have to treat --
WHOOPI: Is he saying that you can't tax the rich because they're rich? Because that I understand. Why ... that's, to me, un-American. If you're paying 50 percent, somebody shouldn't be able to come to you and say, "Oh, and by the way, because you did everything you needed to do and you made a little more money, we're penalizing you and taking 15 more percent." Either say it's now a 70 percent tax, or don't be pissed because I made it. That's the thing. I don't mind paying it. But I don't want to --
LESLEY: But they often have a lower tax rate.
WHOOPI: I don't.
JOAN: They have a lower tax rate. Here we are. This is Bloomberg quoted in the New York Sun, speaking for the first time about the new tax proposal, said that the first rule of imposing taxes should be, "Don't try to raise the taxes on those who could pick up and move out tomorrow because you won't get even what they've been paying. I can't think of a group that is more portable, actually, than hedge fund managers, or some of those private equity firms. They could move to Connecticut overnight." So we've got to allow the richest among us to pay proportionately lower taxes ...
LIZ: To make them happy.
JOAN: So that they'll be happy and stick around with their SUVs and their dinner reservations.
WHOOPI: Are you saying they are paying proportionately less tax?
JOAN: Yes. They are paying --
LIZ: Well, you know, we've come a long way from WWII when Carole Lombard, one of the greatest stars, made a public declaration that she was pleased and proud to pay all of her taxes because she loved the United States. It's that the United States has changed enormously since then. Those were days when people made sacrifices because we were at war. And they worked hard and ... I don't know, it was fairer, I think. But maybe I'm nuts.
JOAN: It sounded to me always like it was fairer. It sounds like ... I mean, today the thing is we're at war, so therefore we don't make sacrifices.
LIZ: Well, we have been at war ever since then, really. You know, we produced a great armada in order to win that war. And the Pentagon has gone on gobbling up everybody's money ever since then.
JOAN: Where did this spirit of sacrifice go?
LIZ: Well, we never were really asked to sacrifice anything about the Iraq war. I mean, right after 9/11 President Bush's advice was that we should go out and spend more money and keep business going and keep everything status quo.
JOAN: Did you do that, Liz?
LIZ: You know, actually I did. I bought stocks right after 9/11 when the stock market was tanking, because I thought it was a patriotic thing to do. Now I think I was just a jerk.
JOAN: What did you do, Whoopi?
WHOOPI: What did I do after 9/11?
JOAN: Did you go out shopping?
WHOOPI: I packed. Came home.
JOAN: You were away from New York?
WHOOPI: The sacrifices that people are making, I think, have to do with their children and have to do with a lot of things. They're not the kinds of sacrifices that we remember.
LIZ: No. It's only these young men and women that are being killed and wounded so mortally and what we've done to our own domestic economy as a result of all of this.
WHOOPI: And I don't understand why no one is screaming. I mean, I know that this idea of tax ... I understand the taxes. I didn't know rich people paid less because I still pay 50 percent. And I'm paying 50 percent, you know, of ... not Oprah Winfrey money. You know, not Bill Gates money. But enough. And I've got five people ... 12 people to support.
JOAN: Whoopi, I think these people are paying, I don't know -- 15 percent, 10 percent? They aren't paying anywhere near what you're paying.
WHOOPI: But why isn't that the issue? Why isn't someone saying we all have to pay the 50 percent? If you make this much money, this is what you have to pay?
JOAN: I think that's what Obama and Hillary are trying to say. But they can't say it on television in case the rich people hear them and dispatch the Frank Sinatra dudes to kill them.
WHOOPI: Good Lord. Then they're just going to have to come kill me because I'm not going to, you know, I don't want to turn into a sneak.
LIZ: I don't think anybody really does. I want to pay my taxes. But I'd like everybody else to pay theirs.
WHOOPI: To pay theirs, too.
JOAN: I believe that paying one's taxes and burying one's dead are the two most profound acts one can commit. And that they bring all good things. But that means nothing good can happen for the rich. I'm disgusted that the rich don't pay taxes like the rest of us do. I'm disgusted when I meet interns, young people between 20 and 30, who are paying off college loans that are like $40,000, $50,000. Who are paying off 600 bucks interest-only, every month.
LIZ: I know. It's just outrageous. That's another outrageous thing. We don't want to invest anything in education, when higher education is the only thing that probably would save this country in the future -- for us to develop real scientists and engineers and creative people. And you've got to go to school to do that. And we make them pay through the nose so badly that they can't even get themselves established. I'm surprised any young people come to New York anymore, like they used to, to write plays and to dance and to act and to invent. There's no place for them to live. There's nothing anybody can afford.
WHOOPI: If we are bailing out the bank system, who has sent all of these people into this downward spiral by saying, "Listen, we got your back. You take this loan, you can live the American dream." And suddenly everybody said, "Oh, well this was just built on sand." But nobody is saying, "Why are you credit card companies sending these kids, at the end of high school, six and seven and eight credit cards?" Why is that legal?
LIZ: It's terrible. Well, you know, I think both Hillary and Obama have vowed to attack these credit card companies and make them straighten up and fly right. I hope so.
WHOOPI: Why isn't this being screamed about on the floors of the Senate and the Congress and the House? Why isn't this discouragement of people being able to live a dream - why isn't that being talked about? They're killing the country. They're killing the country.
JOAN: It is the credit card companies, absolutely. It is the banks that are making the money off the students by offering them these loans that balloon up. And it's the profit motive all along the line -- it's a complete lack of social conscience about what builds a society. And that vanished somewhere.
LIZ: Well, no. This is why people have responded to Barack Obama -- because he's talking about hope and ethics and all of that. And it's great. But I'm so afraid that neither he nor Hillary, if elected, can accomplish even a portion of their hopes and promises.
JOAN: I don't think they can do it.
LIZ: Idealistic. Ideas don't get done.
WHOOPI: Well, at this point in time, the truth of the matter is it doesn't matter who gets it; they are screwed for the first four years.
LIZ: That's right. You're exactly right. They're going to be so disappointing to their backers because they're inheriting the biggest shovel of trouble that's ever been heaped on anybody, except maybe after the Civil War.
WHOOPI: And that's the first thing that everybody has to sort of gear themselves to, is that it doesn't matter who gets in. It is such a big pile of -- as you said -- a big pile of dog doo that it's going to take four or eight years to just clean it up. So trying to get anything done new, through Congress or the Senate, is going to be difficult -- not because they're going to be voted against. But because there's so much other crap to take care of to keep the ship, not just afloat, but from really falling apart. We are as close to falling apart, in my lifetime, as I've ever seen.
LIZ: Oh, you're so right. This is a terrible moment for a great nation. It looks like it's going to hurdle down and imitate the Romans.
JOAN: Could this be why there is only one shaky candidate for the Republicans? Could this be why --
LIZ: Well they only need one.
JOAN: But could it be that nobody particularly wants to be the guy steering the Titanic?
LIZ: Oh, there were a lot of people trying to get their hand on the helm.
WHOOPI: If the Democrats win, it's the best thing that could happen to the Republicans because for the next 8 years they'll have something to bitch about. And they can say, you know, it's the Democrats --
LIZ: Well, there are people who say we should elect John McCain and let him take the brunt of what's going to happen next. Then we could elect a Democrat, later.
WHOOPI: Yeah. I mean, it's going to be -- as the Chinese say -- "It's going to be a very interesting ..."
LIZ: May you live in interesting times. And they weren't wishing you well.
JOAN: Electing a Republican and then, you know, waiting eight years, four years, for the good Democrat. That's like waiting for Him to call, you know.
LIZ: Exactly. You're right. It's a very depressing thought. I don't want to do that. And anyway, I don't think there'd be two terms for whoever gets it.
WHOOPI: No, I don't think so either. And their hair is going to go white instantaneously, as soon as they find out exactly what's really been going on because, you know, they keep saying, "Well, we didn't know that this was happening with the White House." But, in fact, that was done four years ago. When they find out all the stuff that has gone on that nobody knew about, except them -- the deals that were made, the selling of the United States of America to all these countries. And countries that don't even know they own pieces of us. We are so ... we are so screwed.
JOAN: I'm very, very polite to every Chinese person I see on the subway because I know --
LIZ: You know they own your ass.
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