Wealthy to Get More Votes?

Billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins thinks the right to vote should be based on paying taxes as Catherine Thompson reports on Talking Points Memo.

"The Tom Perkins system is: You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes," he responded, as quoted by CNNMoney. "But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"

The venture capitalist argued Thursday that the rich have increasingly come under attack during the tenure of President Barack Obama, whom he called an "amateur." 

"The fear is wealth tax, higher taxes, higher death taxes -- just more taxes until there is no more 1%," he said, as quoted by CNN Money. "And that that will creep down to the 5% and then the 10%."

Apparently, Mr. Perkins is not aware that the wealthy already have outsized influence on our political system.  Does he really think the influence of, say, the Koch brothers is limited to one man, one vote? This latest outburst provides further illustration of the astonishing myopia, paranoia and sense of entitlement of the "makers vs. takers" crowd. They really do seem to confuse net worth with self worth and therefore believe that their wealth makes them fundamentally better than others.