Tuesday, December 25, 2012

10859: Jerry Della Femina Is Mad, Man.

The New York Post printed a rant from Jerry Della Femina, where the iconic adman whined about having to sell his Hamptons estate and pay higher taxes because of President Barack Obama. Looks like yet another political conservative has emerged to dispute Carl Warner’s contentions. However, Della Femina has displayed his Republican leanings before this latest complaint. In 2007, he defended Don Imus with a culturally clueless perspective. In 2008, Della Femina apologized for a racist column (not written by Della Femina) on Obama that appeared in a newspaper he published. Grumbling about unloading a $25 million home completes the trilogy of stupidity.

Ad guru reveals why he sold Hamptons estate

I’m paying unfair price for working hard

By Jerry Della Femina

Jerry Della Femina was a poor kid from Brooklyn who went on to create one of the world’s most famous advertising agencies, Della Femina Travisano & Partners. He recently sold his 8,000-square-foot oceanfront Hamptons estate for $25 million, just in time to avoid next year’s rise in capital-gains taxes. He estimates he would have had to pay an additional 8.6 percent — for a total capital-gains tax bill of $3.7 million — if he had sold it after Jan. 1.

I’m happy to pay my fair share — which is whatever the tax is right now.

The thing about capital gains is, I made the investment. I put in the original money. The house cost $3 million and then I put in an additional $6 million because the house was in terrible shape. We added rooms, sections, areas, and basically it was my investment.

When I bought that house I think Obama was in high school, and I certainly have paid taxes ever since.

I don’t come from a lot of money. In fact, I don’t come from any money.

So I literally started with zero. I worked very hard. And I’ve been very good to the people who worked for me. At one point I had over 800 employees, and I always paid all health care for my people — including a man who was my assistant who got HIV. I wound up paying his medical bills, which went into the hundreds of thousands. I’m not making myself out to be a saint. I did the right thing.

Now I’m being told the right thing is to do more. And because I can afford it, I have to pay more.

At this stage of my life, I want to have money to leave to my five kids and seven grandkids. Why would I want to give that additional 8 percent from capital gains to Obama instead?

God knows how that money would be spent.

I made the investment while Obama might have been in high school or smoking dope in college or whatever he was doing. He didn’t make the investment; I did. He didn’t take the risk; I did. He didn’t improve the house; I did. And then in the end, he’s saying I must pay him more.

I always was happy to pay my fair share of taxes. I’m careful to pay every single penny on my taxes. I don’t have any money offshore. But the fact is that at this stage the general feeling in the country is, “You have it, give it to us.”

And I worked too hard to get it. I spent too much time, working too hard, to get it. Where was President Obama when I was working until 1, 2 in the morning and basically not spending as much time with my kids as I would have liked to? Where was he when I worked on Saturdays and Sundays?

Well, he’s here now. And what he’s saying is: “OK, you made the money, now you have to pay your fair share.”

I think my fair share can be what it’s been all along.

I work hard and I pay my taxes. No matter what the administration.

This is an administration that is spending more money than any administration in history. To spend more money, they need more money.

That’s where I object.

It’s a case of a president who really wants to redistribute wealth.

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