Like many Democrats, Sen. John Kerry does not hesitate to suggest that his fellow citizens should pay higher taxes. Indeed, the cap-and-trade energy bill Kerry is currently championing would mean higher costs for businesses and individuals alike.
But when it comes to his own finances, Kerry is apparently always on the lookout for ways to pay less.
The Boston Herald reported last week that Kerry, who has homes in Nantucket and Boston, docks his family's new $7 million yacht in Newport, R.I., which allows him to avoid paying about $500,000 in taxes to Massachusetts.
If he docked the Isabel here, Kerry would owe $437,500 in a one-time sales tax plus an annual excise tax of $70,000. Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993.
Kerry, according to filings compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, had a net worth in 2007 between $284 million and $388 million, making him the wealthiest member of the U.S. Senate. But he must think paying one's fair share of taxes is for the little people.
Kerry spokesman David Wade said the 76-foot sloop was being kept in Newport not for tax purposes, but "for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes."
The yacht flap could not express more clearly how tone-deaf our senior senator is to the concerns of everyday Americans.
Even if one believes his spokesman's "maintenance and upkeep" story, are there no Massachusetts boatyards capable of servicing Kerry's yacht? Shouldn't our senator be steering business to our state?
The yacht was constructed in New Zealand. Again, are there no Massachusetts — or even American — shipbuilders capable of building a vessel to Kerry's standards?
Ordinary Americans are not puzzling out how to dodge taxes on their yachts. They're desperately trying to figure out how to keep up with their bills.
Meanwhile the Democratic administration and Congress think nothing of throwing a trillion here for bailouts and a trillion there for health care. And if Kerry and his colleagues allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011, all Americans will see their taxes jump.
Kerry has voted again and again for more spending and higher taxes. The National Taxpayers Union gave him a grade of 'F' in 2009, ranking him as one of the Senate's "big spenders."
Cap'n Kerry's yacht tax dodge illustrates the problem with members of our entrenched political class: They want us to do as they say, not as they do.
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