Joe Rogan it’s raising some big questions about where tax money really goes. In an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” he took aim at what he sees as government waste and called out the idea that simply taxing the rich will fix everything.
Government Waste At the Center of the Debate
“See what to do with the money they already take from everybody,” Rogan said on the May episode with fellow comedian Jimmy Carr. “And you’re not doing a good job of it. That’s the problem. The problem isn’t that rich people aren’t paying their taxes.”
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Rogan questioned whether increased taxes on wealthy individuals would actually help struggling Americans. “Poor people will get that money? No. Will their services improve? No, you’ll just get more government,” he said.
Carr, who once faced public backlash over a UK tax scandal, added humor to the subject, saying, “It was tax avoidance, not tax evasion. There is a difference, and the difference is about 18 months in prison.”
Rogan pushed back on the idea that simply collecting more from the rich would improve something for regular people. “What are you going to do? You are going to get rich [the government],” he said. “They’re just going to get bigger and stronger and have even more power… It’s not going to help you if they tax rich people.”
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Carr pointed to countries like Norway and Denmark, where high taxes result in real public services that people seem to value. Rogan replied that those systems work because those societies are small and manageable. “When you scale that to like hundreds of millions of people, things get really weird,” he said.
Profit On People
Rogan often expresses his opinions on the role of money in today’s society. In a recent conversation on his podcast with the comedian Ian Edwardshe warned that when money becomes the only goal, rich people lose their connection with others. “They don’t give af**k about you. They’re trying to make more numbers,” said Rogan about ultra-rich individuals focused only on profit.
He also said how the pandemic pushed great wealth into corporate hands while small businesses were left behind. “You can only go to Target during a pandemic… You can’t go [to a small business]it’s a pandemic,” he said. That change, he argued, legally diverted money away from local economies.
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This article Joe Rogan Asks What Happens When You Tax Rich People. ‘Will the Poor People Take That Money? No, You’re Going to Get More Government’ originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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