Orrin Hatch invokes Gilligan's Island to defend the Bush tax cuts:
At a Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) argued that Thurston Howell III already has his millions. “Thurston and Lovey don’t care if you raise the income tax,” Mr. Hatch intoned. “The people who would care if income tax rates were jacked up in the name of social and economic equality are the people who are not rich now, but might be in the future. It is the entrepreneurs and small business owners who would get hurt.
“In the name of socking it to Thurston and Lovey, it is the Skipper and Gilligan who get whacked,” Mr. Hatch concluded.
First of all, the Howell's probably don't care if you raise the income tax, because their income almost certainly comes from capital gains. they would care a lot if you raised the capital gains and estate taxes, though, which Obama does in fact propose.
Second, you hear versions of this argument all the time, but Hatch is making an especially cartoonish version, and not just because he's invoking a cartoonish sitcom. He's saying that raising taxes on the non-rich hurts them because they may one day become rich. But he also argues that raising taxes on the rich doesn't hurt the rich. How does that work, exactly? If these non-rich folk are hurt by taxing the rich because they can become rich, then wouldn't the pain be felt when they become rich? And, if so, wouldn't this contradict the claim that taxing the rich does not harm the rich?
There's no remotely plausible mechanism here. The desire to defend tax cuts for the rich is so strong that members of Congress will literally just spout gibberish on its behalf.