Joseph Lieberman Seeks Loopholes For Luxury Fabrics
The Boston Globe once wrote, “The word ‘cashmere’ evokes thoughts of luxury, warmth, and indulgence. But cashmere can also be synonymous with high price.” The Wall Street Journal has described camel hair garments as part of a “luxury-store wish list”, including a mock turtle neck shirt made with camel hair selling for $395.
These are the kinds of items that only the exceptionally wealthy could think of as necessities. In hard economic times like these, most working Americans won’t be buying or receiving any camel hair or cashmere garments as holiday gifts. They’re fabrics designed to pamper the most affluent people in our country – people like the finance company executives who have taken us all for a nasty ride over the last couple of years.
Yet, Senator Joseph Lieberman seems to believe that it’s these people who really need help from the government. Last Thursday, Senator Lieberman introduced 10 separate pieces of legislation designed to lower the cost of importing cashmere wool and camel hair into the United States. The bills create special loopholes in the law to grant exemptions from import duties for importers of the luxury textile materials.
If companies importing cashmere and camel hair have lower costs, then they can pass the lower costs on to American consumers. So, the economic benefit of Lieberman’s legislation is that the suffering financial elites of America will be able to save a little cash when they’re buying their cashmere sweaters and camel hair coats.
The rest of us, working Americans who can’t afford to spend money on camel hair and cashmere, will have to pay the price. Reduced federal government income from lowered import duties will have to be made up for somewhere – ultimately in higher taxes or higher national debt.
These bills provide a sad insight to Joseph Lieberman’s idea of economic need. When Senator Lieberman talks about economic relief, chances are he isn’t talking about someone like you.
