Taxes are among the most reviled and resisted necessities of civilization. Nobody wants to pay them, but if you want the services and security of an organized society, everybody with the means has to pony up their fair share.
Unless you’re a billionaire, in which case you simply buy the government and have your lackeys rewrite the tax code in your eternal favor. (See Elon Musk, et. al.)
Chris Kelly (TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE)
There were no billionaires on Courthouse Square in Scranton on Tuesday, but the space crackled with rage against “broligarchs” and the simping politicians who sell out everyday Americans in exchange for power, prestige and profit.
U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s name came up often.
“He’s a two-faced SOB,” Dave Mattern spat matter-of-factly. The 68-year-old retiree from Clarks Summit who relies on Social Security cited as evidence the freshman MAGA Republican congressman’s robust stock trading and two votes for a budget “framework” that would require massive cuts to Medicaid and other bedrock services to fund tax cuts for billionaires.
Bresnahan campaigned on banning congressional stock trading, but was exposed in a New York Times report as “one of the most active stock traders in the freshman class,” according to Capitol Trades, a site that monitors the stock market activity of lawmakers. Since January, Bresnahan reported 264 stock trades, according to the site. He bought up to $1.7 million in stock since taking office, according to his periodic transaction report, and sold up to $3.03 million.
Bresnahan has repeatedly promised not to vote for a budget that slashes Medicaid, but Mattern said he pays attention to what politicians do rather than what they say.
“He’s already voted for it (the budget framework) twice,” he said. “You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”
Ellen McGuigan, a retired teacher from Glenburn Twp., also blasted Bresnahan for “choosing billionaires over families.”
“I cry every night” over Musk’s chainsaw massacre of our government and institutions, the 63-year-old said, clutching a sign that read, “Hey, Rob, where’s the most likely fraud and abuse?”
The answer, she said, is billionaires who don’t pay their fair share.
“People don’t understand,” she said. “A tax break is a government handout.”
The Tax Day protest, organized by the bipartisan nonprofit Action Together NEPA, was one of four “Families over Billionaires” rallies across the region. The Scranton edition drew about 75 protesters. Many pointed out that any event held at noon on a Tuesday isn’t easy for working people to attend.
“We’re here!,” declared Beth Perry, who I’ve bumped into at a few protests. Although the crowd was a little smaller, the Clarks Summit retiree said older Americans are ideal candidates for activism.
“We do so much calling and writing letters and showing up because we have the time,” she said. “And coming together like this allows us to have some camaraderie, which is really important.”
At 74, Perry said she’s been retired for “14 glorious years,” earned every penny of her Social Security checks. I asked what she did for a living.
“I sold drugs,” she said, to titters of laughter from her friends. Actually, Perry worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and said she’s “blessed to have a pension” in addition to Social Security.
“And I saved and saved and saved so my kids would never have to worry,” she said. Now she worries the “broligarchs” are looting the futures of her grandchildren. Her sign – one of many carrying pointed messages for the square head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – harkened back to Musk’s “Sieg heil” salute:
“HELP CONTROL THE NAZI POPULATION – HAVE YOUR DOGE SPAYED OR NEUTERED!!”
I asked Perry if she had anything to say specifically about Elon Musk.
“Nothing you could publish,” she said with a grin.
I’ll ask her again at the next protest, or the one after. Perry said she’ll keep showing up. History is on her side.
“I’ve been doing this since Vietnam,” she said.
That war ended 15 years before Rob Bresnahan was born.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, started paying Social Security tax at 16. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook.