Ben Carson, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital whose comments during a presidential prayer breakfast have gone viral, said Sunday the remarks about taxation were not meant to be political.
“I don’t think it was particularly political,” Carson said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding he was “overwhelmed” by the response.
His comments at the prayer breakfast were in regard to the biblical concept of tithing.
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“If you make 10 billion dollars, you put in a billion,” he said. “[If] you make 10 dollars, you put in one. Of course, you've got to get rid of the loopholes.”
He described President Barack Obama as a “talented politician” but said he disagrees with a lot of the leader’s policymaking.
“I’m a physician,” Carson said. “I like to diagnose things. There are a number of policies that I believe don’t lead to the growth of our nation and don’t lead to the elevation of our nation.”
He also likened members of Congress to third-graders.
“What we really need is to be able to tone down on the rhetoric and be able to discuss things in a reasonable and rational way and come to conclusions, rather than one side or the other side winning,” he said. “It’s unbelievable to me the way people act like third-graders, and if somebody doesn’t agree with him, they’re this, and they’re that. It’s so infantile.”
Obamacare:
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As for his own ambitions, Carson, 61, is retiring from practicing medicine this summer. But he said he’s not ruling out a future bid for political office.
“That’s not my intention,” he said. “But I always say, ‘I’ll leave that up to God.’”
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