Sen. Orrin Hatch Displays Gilligan’s Island Portrait To Senate In Tax Debate

In an act of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Congressional floor surrealism, Sen. Orrin Hatch presented the Senate floor today with an image of beloved Gilligan’s Island character Thurston Howell III during a monologue on tax policy. Suggesting that Democrats, and especially President Barack Obama, were being unfair in calling those that make $200,000 a year as rich as millionaires like Howell, and brought a photo with him to remind Democrats of what millionaires look like.

Sen. Hatch accused those suggesting to raise taxes of “going ballistic” because he suggested raising taxes on some of the lower classes, then continued in fairly typical Senate floor form to argue that “the wealthy and middle class are already shouldering almost 100% of the tax burden.” But he had another problem, which was the way the Democrats were defining “rich.” To him, a $200,000/year salary was not enough to justify “lumping in” those people with millionaires. He gave a few examples: Bill Gates, LeBron James, Warren Buffett, and, yes, Thurston Howell, III.

Then, somewhat inexplicably, an economics chart gave way to a smiling portrait of the legendary sitcom character. “There’s Thurston,” Sen. Hatch beamed at the photo. And just as swiftly as he appeared, Thurston was gone, making way for another relevant graph. Did he have to be there in portrait form? Probably not, but as far as quick and easy attention-grabbing stunts go, this one was fairly pleasant in its strangeness.

Sen. Hatch’s floor speech via C-SPAN below:

[h/t TPM]