Bill O’Reilly says that he will move to Ireland if Bernie Sanders is elected president. He acknowledges that making this pronouncement might help Sanders by giving Democrats a real incentive to prefer him over Hillary Clinton but he doesn’t care because there’s no way he’s paying a 90% marginal tax rate on his income.
“If Bernie Sanders gets elected president, I’m fleeing,” O’Reilly said Thursday. “I’m going to Ireland, and they already know it.”
The long-running host of “The O’Reilly Factor” cited Sanders’ plan to increase taxes on the wealthy as his reason.
“I shouldn’t say it publicly because that will get Sanders more votes, but I’m not going to pay 90 percent of my income to that guy,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m not doing it.”
Pretty much everything about this statement is bullshit. Let’s be clear about what O’Reilly is referring to. Donald Trump recently told people that Sanders wanted to tax them at 90% which was rated as a pants on fire lie by Politifact. Sanders has actually promised not to raise the highest marginal tax rate that high on more than one occasion.
But, even if Sanders wanted that kind of tax reform, he’d never be able to accomplish it. He couldn’t accomplish it even if the Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
And, if O’Reilly moved to Ireland, where would he get the income he currently enjoys from working at Fox News?
To be sure, O’Reilly makes plenty of money from other sources, including his many best-selling books. He wouldn’t be poor if he gave up his gig at Fox News, but he would lose more money than he’d gain by avoiding high marginal taxation.
O’Reilly would never leave this country for Ireland and it’s a lie to suggest that he would. Everything he was communicating was a lie or based on lies.
And that’s why people who watch Fox News are less informed about current events than people who watch no political news at all.
BTW, what’s Ireland’s top rate? I know we have someone living there.
Frank
Please keep BillO to yourselves. You have no idea (and neither does he) how out of touch he is with developments in Ireland. Our high rates of income tax would be the least of his troubles…
all the more reason to send him over to you ASAP
No we enabled him to become the blowhard he is, we keep him.
No good reason to subject the Irish to what we allowed here.
We send lots of our waste abroad.
Story in the Irish Times from Sep 2015: It’s 51%, but the total income taxation is increase by a Universal Social Charge (like France’s cotisation sociale):
I wish O’Reilly would go, he deserves it, but it’s not going to happen.
Doesn’t it bug O’Reilly that someone who just lives on inherited wealth pays a lower rate than he does on his salary and book income? Words (clean words anyway) cannot express my contempt for this pig, but I will concede that he has a television show that requires actual physical and mental work and that writing books is also an intensive endeavor (unless he has a ghost writer), substantially different from checking the brokerage statement.
Assume all books by politicians and media celebrities are ghost written and you won’t often be wrong.
Yeah, remember that Ted Nugent was either going to be dead or in jail if Obama was reelected. And Rush was going to leave the country if Obamacare passed. And their asses are all still sitting on this side of the border, raking in millions of U.S. dollars. And I’m sure there were other celebrities who threatened to leave for any number of Bush/Obama reasons. Bill-O’s job is the marketing of hyperbole and faux right wing outrage. It would be a much less credible sell if he was sitting across the pond.
By the way, Ireland is not exactly tax free.
Yeah, idle threats by shills for the rubes. Near or more than half the people in this country would say, “Go already” to these jerks.
Oh no, is O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” an incredibly hypocritical claim that is violated by Bill many times per minute?
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
“where would he get the income he currently enjoys from working at Fox News?”
How much more money does he need? I would have thought with his income over all these years he would have invested enough not to have to work by now.
Since I believe everything I read on the internet I was almost giddy thinking about Bernie actually becoming President PLUS Bill O’Reilly going to Ireland to at last be finally gone.
As far as people who watch Fox News being less informed about political events than people who watch no political news at all, Fox News is getting some real competition from the Hillary Clinton Carl Rove style attack machine.
In my opinion, comparing – equating – the HRC campaign to Karl Rove’s public, nonstop lies and smarmy deceptions, is unfair. All politicians make mistakes and missteps. Remember when Obama said he had visited all 57 states ? Hillary’s misrepresentations of Bernie’s positions are normal campaign memes and rants – an error, in my opinion, and not helpful to her campaign. I hope she is called on to explain them, tonight.
I’m kind of tired, also, of people faulting pols for “flip-flopping” when that is part of (a) campaigning and (b) “life.”
HRC is certainly aiming for centrists, independents (so-called). It is a strategy, and whether it is clever or not will be revealed in the course of the campaign.
I would like each of them to behave themselves, show sincere respect for one another, explain some (to me, very minor) differences in policy and temperament, and explain clearly how the Republicans are evil, destructive morons.
To my mind, the actual difference between Hillary and Bernie is that he is more passionate (and might benefit from being more nuanced) while she is more nuanced (and might benefit from being more passionate).
Neither has really discussed very much how any of their prescriptions might become law, given the current Congress. Well, they have a little: Bernie calls for a “Revolution,” and Hillary claims more electability. Interestingly, I kind of believe both of them. I think Bernie could win, but I still think Hillary could win a bigger landslide, which is the single prerequisite to getting anything done.
Finally: Thanks to all, here, from Bloggers to Commenters, for some of the most cogent and warm-hearted, uplifting essays on line.
Not only would he be paying higher taxes, but he’d have to give up his guns. And the police there aren’t armed either.
https:/www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/01/16/bill-oreilly-will-flee-to-ireland-if-s
anders-is-elected-hes-in-for-a-shock?postshare=2381453037251560&tid=ss_tw-bottom