Senator Joseph Biden

September 21, 2008

Senator Joseph Biden
@Obama for President
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, Illinois 60680

RE: “Be a patriot. Step up and pay more taxes” or so you say

Senator Curley,

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as
low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which
best pays the Treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to
increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have
said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to
keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and
poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public
duty to pay more than the law demands.”
Judge Learned B. Hand
United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Gregory v. Helvering

I mention the specifics – Judge, Court, and case – because you don’t hold attribution in the highest regard.

A bouquet, of schandefreude surrounds you – almost like Justice Douglas’s beloved permutations – when you open your gob. Who knows what is coming out next? The umbrella term covering it would normally be “rhetorical incontinence”. If I believed the clap trap nonsense about your “blue collar” roots I would call it “verbal diarrhea”. Since the only time “blue collar” would apply to you would be after a trip to Brooks Brothers Shirt aisle I can’t.

There is an urge to poleax you with the quote from Samuel Johnson – the original Doctor J, if you will – about “patriotism” but it would be out of context. Doubtless you are a “scoundrel” but it can’t apply to you in this instance. Drat.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in any of the better “blue collar” bars in Bayonne, New Jersey. Suffice to say but if you stuck a finger in any patron’s chest and told him to “work on his pecs” you would have it snapped off and stuffed up your nose. I say nose because there may have been ladies present.

Is it true that you were raised in what was/is known as Chateau Country in Wilmington, Delaware?

Were there any shop classes at Archmere Academy when you were there? How about working on engines?

Do you and Senator Kennedy [D-Ma] and Senator Rockefeller [D-WVa] gather in a saloon, one that has a juke box and a pool table, tossing back some shots and beers and talk about the good old “blue collar” days? If you do it must be a hoot.

You and the missus – that’s the way “blue collar” guys talk about their wives – averaged about a quarter of million dollars a year in income in the paste 10 years. 10 X $250,000 equals $2,500,000, right? How many extra bucks did you send voluntarily to the Treasury in those 10 years?

If you sent none would that make you less of a patriot? Would it make you more of a scoundrel?

Maybe I should revisit the quote about scoundrels and patriots.


KS

PS – Why do you have 2 offices in Delaware? Alaska has 5 golf courses, two of them Par 3s, bigger than your whole state