Clinton: "...We Tax Everything That Moves", Read the Part Fox News isn't Telling You

While in Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Clinton said something at a roundtable discussion that the conservative media (Fox Nation, Drudge Report and others) is deliberately distorting to make it sound like Clinton said Americans tax anything “that moves and doesn’t move”.

Here is what she said, in context:

CLINTON: I appreciate too the idea of a sustainable, long-term partnership, and to highlight the opportunities that exist and to use the tools that are already at our disposal, tools like OPIC or the Export-Import Bank or making sure that travel visas get issued. These are all the kind of nuts-and-bolts issues that we can address and try to resolve together.

But I think too that it is only fair to take a hard look internally about what Pakistan needs to do. And at the risk of maybe sounding undiplomatic, Pakistan has to have more internal investment in your public services and in your business opportunities. By any fair measure, for example, the percentage of taxes of GDP is among the lowest in the world. The United States, we tax ourselves, depending upon who is in power, somewhere between 16 and 23 percent of GDP, and right now, it usually hovers around the 20 percent. You're less than half of that.

And so at some point, when you ask for partnership, you have to ask what the equity state is that Pakistan itself is looking to make, because it is difficult to go to our taxpayers and say we consider Pakistan a strategic partner, we consider it a long-term friend and ally, we have supported it since its inception in 1947, we want to continue to do so, and have our taxpayers and our members of Congress say, well, we want to help those who help themselves, and we tax everything that moves and doesn't move, and that's not what we see happening in Pakistan.

And I can say that because I think there has to be, in any partnership, but more importantly in any plan for your own economic future, a hard look at where you're going to get the resources to meet these needs. You do have somewhere between 170 and 180 million people. Your population is projected to be about 300 million as the current birth rates, which are among the highest in the world, continue - 2.6 birth rate. I don't know what you're going to do with that kind of challenge unless you start planning right now.

This is what the conservative media wants you to think:

The Drudge Report: "Hillary: 'We tax everything that moves and doesn't move.' " The Drudge Report linked to the Daily Times article on October 31 with the headline, "Hillary: 'We tax everything that moves and doesn't move.' "

Fox Nation: "Hillary: 'We tax everything that moves.' " Linking to the Daily Times article on October 30, the Fox Nation featured the headline, "Hillary: 'We tax everything that moves.' "

So what does the Daily Times article say exactly? And why is everyone linking to it and quoting from it?

Here’s the Article:

*US taxes everything, and ‘that’s not what we see in Pakistan’
* Pakistan must start planning for challenges posed by population growth
* US secretary of state meets COAS

LAHORE: The leadership of Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.

“I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to,” she added.

“Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know... As far as we know, they are in Pakistan,” Clinton told senior Pakistani newspaper editors in Lahore, AFP reported. “The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world... We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

“You do have 180 million people. Your population is projected to be about 300 million. And I don’t know what you’re going to do with that kind of challenge, unless you start planning right now,” she said.

“If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together” then “there are issues that not just the United States but others have with your government and with your military security establishment”.

Separately, Clinton also met army chief General Ashfaq KayaniAshfaq Kayani and exchanged views on a host of security-related issues.

That’s was the Daily Times article. All it did was chop up Clinton’s words and present them to fit the author’s “facts”. The title of this article was Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan: Hillary Clinton.

What does the title have to do with the article…I don’t know. Tried to see where the Al Qaeda comes in. Is it Hillary Clinton that’s the Al Qaeda leadership, or Clinton is meeting with the Al Qaeda leadership? May be you can figure that out.

Anyway, you can read the quote in context and decide for yourself what Clinton said and meant.