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With the economy the way it is, Obama's plan to place more troops in Afghanistan (thus negating any savings from a possible withdrawl from Iraq), his health care subsidies, and college subsidies, how can anyone realistically expect taxes will be cut for "95% of the population"?
Many politicians in the past have promised the world, but didn't deliver. I think many Obama supporters will be bitterly disappointed over the difference between what he proposed on the campaign and what he will be able to do.
As a small business owner (making over $250k), I have no problem paying a little more in taxes (we owe it to our children). Bush and Cheney squandered our children's future with an astronomical deficit. During the Clinton years taxes were higher and everyone got by just fine. IMO returning to a Clinton era tax rate will NOT destroy our economy. On the contrary, it will reduce the budget (assuming cuts are made to spending as well).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix lady
No one likes to pay more taxes, but someone has to.
As a small business owner (making over $250k), I have no problem paying a little more in taxes (we owe it to our children). Bush and Cheney squandered our children's future with an astronomical deficit. During the Clinton years taxes were higher and everyone got by just fine. IMO returning to a Clinton era tax rate will NOT destroy our economy. On the contrary, it will reduce the budget (assuming cuts are made to spending as well).
What I was making in the service in 1998 bought a whole heck of a lot more bread, milk, and gas than it would today.
I make twice that now, but gas is about 3 times higher, bread 4 or 5 times higher, etc.
Peoples pay hasn't increased like the price of commodities and fuels have. The situation during "Bills Years" was much different.
Capitalism has winners and losers, inherent in the system. People have different levels of intelligence, different levels of ingenuity, drive, desire, etc. In a system of free markets, these differences invariably manifest themselves in the form of disparate income. The opposite appeal is to raise the floor, while lowering ceiling, to achieve some sort of parity, or as Obama said to the plumber yesterday about "spreading the wealth around".
Oh my God, this is such ridiculous and simplistic tripe, and selfishness and anti-citizenship dressed up as high-falutin' ideology, that I can't believe it anymore. This is the brain-damaged, selfish, and crude Right Wing ideology of Limbaugh and Savage come home to roost in the common parlance of a chat board.
As if living in this country is some kind of zero-sum economic game. Get real! There should be, and is, plenty of room in this country for persons with various degrees of drive for wealth to live together and prosper, each to their own aspirations of happiness. The bigger question has been, and it was focused by the nation's experience of the Great Depression, how low do we allow the lowest of our fellow citizens to fall without assistance from society? Social Security represents a part of society's answer to that question for the elderly and disabled, Medicare is another part, etc. Do you somehow think it is in the interests of the majority of Americans for there to become entrenched a permanent lower class and shrinking middle class? Do you think that ever-increasing crony capitalism is in the best interests of the majority of Americans? Do you think that the ongoing exporting of jobs, rather than the encouragement of rational additional investment in improved technologies for domestic manufacturers, is the interests of the majority of Americans? (Why is it that the owners of these companies have decided to chase the lowest wage overseas instead of INVESTING in their companies as domestic enterprises? PLEASE ANSWER ME!) Why is it that Americans continue to tolerate the absence of national health care, when the cost to companies of providing health insurance puts American workers at a cost disadvantage compared to those in America's economic competitors?
Do you even have the concept in mind of what the "majority of Americans" means?
Last edited by ParkTwain; 10-15-2008 at 03:11 PM..
Hold a sec, though. If you read this article in its entirety, there is one very telling quote:
"Given the bad economic news of the last several weeks, voters are fairly evenly divided on what is best to help the economy, cutting taxes or getting the government more involved. Forty-four percent (44%) like more government; 41% prefer cutting taxes. The rest are undecided."
There it is: free markets vs Stalinism. It's really close right now. And I keep saying this, but the Democrats have an end game here: Remove a majority of voters from responsibility for income taxes This is the biggie, and they've made no attempt to hide their goals here. The Democrats have been working on this plan for decades,with no small amount of help from the cowardly Republicans. The idea is simple. Using "refundable" tax credits and deductions and such ideas as the fraudulent Earned Income Tax Credit the Democrats are working to shift the entire burden for the payment of federal income taxes onto a minority of US taxpayers. Right now the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay almost 96 percent of the taxes. The Democrats are close to their goal. When the majority of voters have no federal income tax liability it will be almost impossible to pass any meaningful tax cuts, and further tax increases will be a piece of cake, especially if the taxes only affect those to be considered to be rich.
Your words in read remind me of something I read the other day, which makes a whole lot of sense and is scary!
On the "new electorate" - Ninety percent of the immigrants coming in are from Third World countries and every single minority population which comes from the Third World votes Democratic -- anywhere from 60 percent to 95 percent. These folks are predominately poor -- and they believe in government. And the reason they believe in government is the best of reasons for them; they get more out of it than they pay in.
I agree. It's capitalism versus socialism. Socialism seems preferrable these days.
For the life of me, I will never understand the opposing viewpoint. I will never understand the desire of many who want people who earn money to pay a higher % in taxes. It's punishing achievement. But parallels can be drawn. Witness the recent bailout. People who have made poor decisions were rewarded. Persons like myself, who chose to buy a modest home, save money for retirement (in the form of 401k) instead of indulging, have been punished.
When you have a majority that favor government confiscating money from one citizen, and give it to another citizen, you are sowing the seeds for future tyrannical rule.
It will backfire on them, it has throughout history. Punish the hard working in order to give handouts to the lazy and eventually there will be no more hard working and everyone will starve. That or we will have a war and hang all the lazy and greedy getting back to square one again. /shrug
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