Clinton: ‘We tax everything that moves and doesn’t move’

By Saturday October 31, 2009

The leadership of Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday. “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to,” she added.

“Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know… As far as we know, they are in Pakistan,” Clinton told senior Pakistani newspaper editors in Lahore, AFP reported. “The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world… We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

That’s great, Hillary!



20 Comments
  1. Hmeyers says:
    10/31/2009 at 5:06 pm

    The puzzling thing is how are taxes in the USA or Pakistan related to Taliban?

    This is the ultimate non-sequitur.

  2. McCullough says:
    10/31/2009 at 5:09 pm

    That’s one scary broad.

  3. chris says:
    10/31/2009 at 6:52 pm

    Pakistan = Good.
    Low Taxes = Pakistan.
    Low Taxes = Good.

    Sounds good to me.

  4. Mr. Fusion says:
    10/31/2009 at 7:11 pm

    What Clinton really said.

    DU again copies the extreme, but successful, FOX method of bullshitting their audience.

    CLINTON: I appreciate too the idea of a sustainable, long-term partnership, and to highlight the opportunities that exist and to use the tools that are already at our disposal, tools like OPIC or the Export-Import Bank or making sure that travel visas get issued. These are all the kind of nuts-and-bolts issues that we can address and try to resolve together.

    But I think too that it is only fair to take a hard look internally about what Pakistan needs to do. And at the risk of maybe sounding undiplomatic, Pakistan has to have more internal investment in your public services and in your business opportunities. By any fair measure, for example, the percentage of taxes of GDP is among the lowest in the world. The United States, we tax ourselves, depending upon who is in power, somewhere between 16 and 23 percent of GDP, and right now, it usually hovers around the 20 percent. You’re less than half of that.

    And so at some point, when you ask for partnership, you have to ask what the equity state is that Pakistan itself is looking to make, because it is difficult to go to our taxpayers and say we consider Pakistan a strategic partner, we consider it a long-term friend and ally, we have supported it since its inception in 1947, we want to continue to do so, and have our taxpayers and our members of Congress say, well, we want to help those who help themselves, and we tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see happening in Pakistan.

    And I can say that because I think there has to be, in any partnership, but more importantly in any plan for your own economic future, a hard look at where you’re going to get the resources to meet these needs. You do have somewhere between 170 and 180 million people. Your population is projected to be about 300 million as the current birth rates, which are among the highest in the world, continue – 2.6 birth rate. I don’t know what you’re going to do with that kind of challenge unless you start planning right now

  5. The Ox says:
    10/31/2009 at 7:18 pm

    Mr. Fusion, it’s not so much DU as it is Guilherme. Out of all of that, GC goes for the most irrelevant thing he can find. Why he has posting privileges at DU is a mystery to me.

  6. goldbug says:
    10/31/2009 at 7:29 pm

    Mr F, I think you’re reporting on a monologue from 10/29, rather than a Q&A with Pakistanis on 10/30.

  7. StoopidFlanders says:
    10/31/2009 at 8:36 pm

    Seems like a simple equation to me. If Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, then why the hell are we not bombing them immediately?

  8. Col. Ollie North says:
    10/31/2009 at 9:42 pm

    That Hillary Clinton is a loose cannon! The Míshlê Shlomoh in the Tanakh said it best, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”.

  9. Father says:
    11/1/2009 at 5:42 am

    Col. North, agreed.

  10. MikeN says:
    11/1/2009 at 6:04 am

    Fusion, that’s even worse! Hillary is calling on other countries to raise their taxes!

  11. Dale says:
    11/1/2009 at 6:07 am

    Obviously, Mr. Fusion, honesty isn’t the motivator on this blog…clicks are. All that quote is much to boring for a dynamic web blog such as the DU. It’s in the comments where it belongs.

  12. Thomas says:
    11/1/2009 at 7:34 am

    #4
    Frankly, I don’t see how your extended quote changes Hilarity’s core sentiment: if you want to partner with us you have to tax your people more. Her argument is ridiculous and this is the woman that is Secretary of State? We went from someone with a doctorate to this tool? For all the arguments about Bush’s stupidity, how come we don’t hear anything about the massive drop off in intelligence at Secretary of State?

  13. JohnathanStein says:
    11/1/2009 at 8:41 am

    RE #7: If Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, then why the hell are we not bombing them immediately?

    Um, maybe because they have nukes?

  14. Michael_gr says:
    11/1/2009 at 10:11 am

    Thomas#13: so it’s fine with you that the US will give aid to Pakistan (that’s what “partnership” means in this context, you know) even though Pakistan could raise the money themselves by taxing, but won’t? You sure are generous with the American people’s money.

  15. chuck says:
    11/1/2009 at 10:18 am

    What Clinton is telling Pakistan is that the simplest way to control your people is to provide them with government services which they eventually become dependent on, which justifies the higher and higher tax rates.

    Right now, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al-Quaeda are more “attractive” to the local population than the government because they provide relative security at a lower cost.

    Here’s a simple way for the US to “win” in Afghanistan: buy the entire poppy/heroin crop from the Afghan farmers. Pay them in whatever currency they want, collect the harvest, destroy half and give the rest directly to US drug dealers. The result will be full support of the US forces in Afghanistan by the local population. The Taliban, with no revenue from exporting the heroin will be driven out, or simply give up.

  16. soundwash says:
    11/1/2009 at 12:46 pm

    Considering Pakistan’s GDP and public debt numbers are way better than ours, me thinks she should put a sock in it.

    if she needs to know where al-qaeda is she should just ask the CIA. they control them..

    could she make herself (and us) look any more pathetic?

    -s

  17. LibertyLover says:
    11/1/2009 at 5:56 pm

    I am not sure what the big deal is.

    From Section 8 of the Constitution:

    To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

    Since the federal gov has the authority to tell the States what to do internally via the commerce clause, they can obviously tell other countries to do the same.

  18. Somebody says:
    11/1/2009 at 10:29 pm

    Well, Hillary, why don’t you just ask him where he is staying at the next CFR meeting? I can’t believe you haven’t thanked him yet for taking care of your Barbra Olsen problem.

  19. Somebody says:
    11/1/2009 at 10:33 pm

    “I am not sure what the big deal is.

    From Section 8 of the Constitution:

    To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”

    Pakistanis are NOT Indians, you insensitive clod!

  20. LibertyLover says:
    11/2/2009 at 11:02 am

    #21, 😀


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