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47% of those surveyed say yes, the government should redistribute wealth through heavy taxes on the rich.
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71% of Democrats
43% of independents
28% of Republicans
42% of men, 52% of women
41% of whites, 64% of nonwhites
31% of those making $75,000+
51% of those making $30,000 to $74,999
63% of those making less than $30,000
This is very interesting because I believe the official figure is about 47% of all people pay no federal income tax, whatsoever. Even more interesting is that this demographic is more likely to consume government services. So basically you have the government taking from one group and giving to another, yet the recipient class consistently clamors that they want even more from the productive class, and that the productive class is greedy and selfish for wanting to keep the spoils of their own labor. The productive class is shrinking by the day, and the recipient class is getting bigger and bigger. What will happen when there's no more worker bees left to carry everyone else on their back?
47% of those surveyed say yes, the government should redistribute wealth through heavy taxes on the rich.
This is very interesting because I believe the official figure is about 47% of all people pay no federal income tax, whatsoever. Even more interesting is that this demographic is more likely to consume government services. So basically you have the government taking from one group and giving to another, yet the recipient class consistently clamors that they want even more from the productive class, and that the productive class is greedy and selfish for wanting to keep the spoils of their own labor. The productive class is shrinking by the day, and the recipient class is getting bigger and bigger. What will happen when there's no more worker bees left to carry everyone else on their back?
There are a few flaws in your argument and rhetoric. What I find particularly painful is your referring to the wealthy as the 'productive' classes and therefore implying that those who don't pay federal income taxes because of their low income levels are 'unproductive.' The fact is, most people in the lower economic echelons are very productive citizens, often working well over 40 hours a week. They simply don't work in the right sectors of the economy, or weren't given the right opportunities, to become millionaires. You're putting down students, you're putting down single-parents who work 50 hours a week just to make ends meet, you're putting down factory workers, civil servants, teachers... all productive people who simply don't make a lot because they didn't go into a profession that makes people rich. I myself don't pay federal taxes because I'm too poor; I'm a grad student who also teaches. I feel that I'm being productive insofar as I am teaching and preparing to be a professor who will teach thousands. But I certainly don't make much money now. Meanwhile, an advertising exec or someone working high up in any financial sector job is going to be making a lot of money. Often times, the most lucrative professions monetarily are among the most harmful to society generally. Not always, but in many cases.
Beyond that, in the modern, globalized world it's becoming harder and harder to make ends meet for people who were once considered middle class. More and more have to turn to government welfare programs, whether Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, worker retraining programs, education loans, food stamps, etc. just to ensure they have food on the table for their families despite the fact that they are working just as hard if not harder than they would have been 30 years ago.
The wealthy pay taxes, but not enough. The advertising executive whose raking in 2 million a year isn't inherently better than, more productive than or more valuable to society than the teach whose raking in $40,000 a year. If salaries and wages were dependent on one's overall productivity and, more important, value to society then I might agree with you. Unfortunately, one's actual level of productivity and actual value to society has little to nothing to do with how much they make.
Answering this question is like answering the question, "Should everybody on earth be happy and healthy?" It is not within our power to accomplish what is being proposed. Certainly not with our government, and probably not with ANY government.
Why? The answer should be obvious to anyone who is over 10 years old. The "very rich" make the rules, and the laws, and have 99% of the power in the nation (which is as good as 100%). Under no circumstances will they allow even a tiny bit of the nation's wealth leave their hands through taxes. Any cries for "tax the rich!" will result in yet another big tax increase for the few working professionals left (doctors and similar types) who already pay a fortune in taxes (my family is one of these, and we are ALMOST at the point where we'll just quit and live cheaply somewhere with low taxes).
I'm not saying we should be complacent and accept what the ultra-rich have done in America, I'm saying nothing will change until we address the actual problem: the complete and utter selfish evil of our nation's top wealth-holders.
Although people are generally the same over history, I think the leadership and uber-powerful of modern America are among the most unethical, selfish, and greedy group to ever be in one place at one time. I say this because of the conscious decision, at the highest level of the nation (both Big Business and Big Government as their loyal employees), to sell out America's Middle Class in the Free Trade fiasco that we were warned would destroy the job base. By doing so they destroyed the consumer spending that the entire world economy needed to function. It was a decision to kill the Golden Goose to eat it for dinner, instead of letting it continue to lay golden eggs forever.
America will not recover from the current Depression, because the jobs that allowed the Middle Class to prosper have been permanently sent overseas and devalued with desperate foreign workers. Notice how economists always note that the latest Recession is in a "Jobless Recovery?" And notice how "structural unemployment" is now being used to get us used to the fact that massive unemployment and underemployment are the New Normal?
Remember, those at the very top know full well that America's decently-paid and prosperous Middle Class fueled the entire world's economy, not just America's. But with the advent of the Robber-Baron CEO, suddenly it was not disgraceful to bring a major corporation to ruin and bankruptcy, while one scam artist walked away with the liquidated wealth of the corporate shareholders, employees, and probably taxpayers to boot. Suddenly the entire upper class of the American business world cared nothing about the long-term health of the businesses they were hired to oversee (and yes, the CEO is just an employee!). Suddenly it was okay, even admirable, to become rich by ruining a company and at the same time stealing the worker's pension fund. We have allowed a perverse upper class to grow, and they happily sold our nation's wealth to foreigners in return for riches for themselves. We did not put these people in jail, nor did we even storm their mansions and do what our corrupt justice system would never do--treat national traitors as such. No, we watched them go by in their stretch limos and helicopters and envied them.
I do like the line "What will happen when there's no more worker bees left to carry everyone else on their back?" very much, because America's leaders have chosen the path of a very, very few workers being "allowed" to work, and having to work insane hours, while being largely deprived of the benefit of their work. More and more are bailing out, more and more are being forced out by the greedy businesses who think "One worker can do 3 former jobs, so let's make him do 4 (then 5, then 6) for no extra pay!" and more, like my spouse and myself, are saying to ourselves "Why are we working 80 hours a week until we die, when we'll never have enough to retire and can't even take a vacation to enjoy life before it's over?"
Raising taxes is not the answer. Taking our monstrously corrupt government (the servant of Big Business) and cutting it down to NOTHING, is the only way to allow small businesses to grow again and provide job opportunities and a new economy that isn't strangled with a huge parasitic government.
As long as we allow Big Government to exist (as the Founding Fathers clearly told us), we will be slaves to the Military-Industrial complex and Big Business--which is the form of business that is grossly unfair to the Working Class.
Cut government down to 1% of its current power and money, and America may rise from the ashes. Anything else is just spitting into the wind.
This is very interesting because I believe the official figure is about 47% of all people pay no federal income tax, whatsoever.
This poll is a lie and this statement punctuates it. Policies are made by the wealthy for the wealthy to maintain their wealth or to make their wealth exponential.
So no, I don't care to see wealthy people taxed at a rate of 80% but they've done it to themselves via K street. I don't care to see small business getting the shaft for decades relative to zero accountability corporations dodging taxes and the law. There is economic illness when symbiosis is not minded. Every argument you guys put forth is the byproduct of think tank propaganda sponsored by the primary benefactors- trans national corps set on maximum avarice, even if it destroys America in the process. Enough with the lies. America can't afford it.
Raising taxes is not the answer. Taking our monstrously corrupt government (the servant of Big Business) and cutting it down to NOTHING, is the only way to allow small businesses to grow again.
You had me up to this point. Cutting government service- what purposes are they serving before you break out the hatchet? Corruption shouldn't exist but it does thanks to legalized bribery in DC, and thanks to overzealous deregulation removing the teeth out of cops. Y'all don't seem to grasp that wall street profits wildly from strife, and that deregulation that fails to arbitrate evenly for both sides is false prosperity.
Bottom line is that real conservative principles hinge on accountability and the more folks trick themselves into believing another dose of the hair of the dog deregulation is going to cure them, the deeper the hole gets dug.
As for your 13k property tax- I hear you but this is not a national issue. When that went on in Long Island it had to do with a handful of noisy constituents who wanted free lunch or their complimentary morons who wanted the state to subsidize their gated community existence. The tax burden falls on home owners exclusively for what reasons? Point of sale taxes would solve this. Paring down your local government you need to ask yourself which services wind up paying for themselves and which are not needful when citizens groups could pick up a shovel. Rural has disadvantages financially, but it also has advantages when communities are civic minded. Time to take stock of that asset.
47% of those surveyed say yes, the government should redistribute wealth through heavy taxes on the rich.
They're going to be in for a big surprise, because redistribution would last about 3 days before the party's over.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
What I find particularly painful is your referring to the wealthy as the 'productive' classes...
Yes, I guess it is painful to admit that you don't have what it takes upstairs or in your pocket to create jobs. You need to get over it.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
The fact is, most people in the lower economic echelons are very productive citizens, often working well over 40 hours a week.
That is of little consequence if they are receiving more in benefits than they are producing.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
They simply don't work in the right sectors of the economy, or weren't given the right opportunities, to become millionaires.
Or it could be that they just don't have what it takes. Not everyone can be an "artist."
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
You're putting down students, you're putting down single-parents who work 50 hours a week just to make ends meet, you're putting down factory workers, civil servants, teachers.
Making ends meet, oh, and that includes Cable/Satellite TV? Internet? Cell-phone? 3-5 cars? A McMansion instead of a "starter home?" The horror...the horror...
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
.. all productive people who simply don't make a lot because they didn't go into a profession that makes people rich.
But how much effort did they put into it? Did they stand around holding out their hat looking for a handout, or did they get down and dirty?
"Gosh, if only I had gotten $120,000 in student loans I could have been rich."
Here's a novel idea, work your way through college. I did, and not a part-time job either. I worked 40+ hours as supervisor at a meat-packing plant, and still managed to pull "A's." True, my party-time was cut down to a mere 48 hours per week, but how badly do you want it?
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
I myself don't pay federal taxes because I'm too poor; I'm a grad student who also teaches.
Been there, done that. I got a stipend and taught intro-classes to get my course work in gratuit. And I still worked another job.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
I feel that I'm being productive insofar as I am teaching and preparing to be a professor who will teach thousands.
You aren't nearly as productive as I was. I also worked at the federal court house while taking night classes and saving up money to finish my both of my bachelor's degrees.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
But I certainly don't make much money now.
But that is a choice that you have made. You certainly could make more money if you really wanted to do so. Don't blame others for your lack of zeal and desire.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
Meanwhile, an advertising exec or someone working high up in any financial sector job is going to be making a lot of money.
No doubt you didn't take any economics courses. Wages/Salaries are determined by Supply & Demand. Advertising Executives are in high demand and short supply, Doctoral Candidates who did their dissertations on Family Life of Transvestite Lesbians in 17th Century France are in low demand.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
Beyond that, in the modern, globalized world it's becoming harder and harder to make ends meet for people who were once considered middle class.
That's your fault, but fortunately for you, you also get to blame your parents and grand-parents.
You tilted the playing field so far in to your advantage and you benefited from that, but you lacked the mental capacity, foresight, will and intestinal fortitude to consider the possibility that one day the playing field would be leveled and you would have to compete with the rest of the world on equal terms.
That day has come.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
More and more have to turn to government welfare programs, whether Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, worker retraining programs, education loans, food stamps, etc. just to ensure they have food on the table for their families despite the fact that they are working just as hard if not harder than they would have been 30 years ago.
Prove it. I'm from Missouri, so you'll have to show me.
I do not dispute the fact that 43 Million households are receiving Food Stamps. I dispute the fact that they need Food Stamps. You show me that data that says Cable/Satellite TV experienced a commensurate drop in customers. You show me where ISPs have experienced a decline in customers or internet usage. You show me where wireless services providers are suffering a loss of business.
You can't, so people aren't getting Food Stamps, they're getting Cell-Phone Stamps, which allows them to continue receiving cell-phone services, which is a luxury, and not a necessity.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
The wealthy pay taxes, but not enough.
And who are you to be the arbiter of what is enough?
Is that an unbiased opinion, or are you selfishly motivated? You want me to pay your health insurance so you can have cable/satellite and cell-phone service?
Wrong freaking answer.
You want those services, then you pay for them. Neither I nor anyone else is morally, ethically, or legally obligated to subsidize your life-style.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
The advertising executive whose raking in 2 million a year isn't inherently better than, more productive than or more valuable to society than the teach whose raking in $40,000 a year.
"Who's" not "whose." And you're a grad student? Okay, whatever. I'll bet the Advertising Executive knows the difference between the contraction "who is" and "whose" which is a determinative possessive pronoun.
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Originally Posted by Ever Adrift
If salaries and wages were dependent on one's overall productivity and, more important, value to society then I might agree with you. Unfortunately, one's actual level of productivity and actual value to society has little to nothing to do with how much they make.
Again, it's based on Supply & Demand.
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Originally Posted by Jaggy001
The purpose of taxes is to pay for services. They should not be a form of social engineering.
Amen brother.
The function of government is to coordinate services, not provide them.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
Answering this question is like answering the question, "Should everybody on earth be happy and healthy?" It is not within our power to accomplish what is being proposed.
That's because they are totally subjective and not quantifiable. That's why any form of national health care in the US would simply be another disaster and one more thing on a growing list of things that Americans cannot afford and never will be able to afford.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
Why? The answer should be obvious to anyone who is over 10 years old. The "very rich" make the rules, and the laws, and have 99% of the power in the nation (which is as good as 100%).
That is because of voter ignorance and apathy.
Being wealthy does not grant anyone any special rights or privileges, yet that is exactly what you have done, grant them such rights and privileges. I suppose in part it might be due to the fact that everyone believes they will be wealthy one day, and they want to right the rules.
You can end that any time you want, you just have to want to put an end to it.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
Under no circumstances will they allow even a tiny bit of the nation's wealth leave their hands through taxes. Any cries for "tax the rich!" will result in yet another big tax increase for the few working professionals left (doctors and similar types) who already pay a fortune in taxes (my family is one of these, and we are ALMOST at the point where we'll just quit and live cheaply somewhere with low taxes).
That's exactly what will happen. Everyone is willing to pay their fare share, but fare share means providing needed services, not subsidizing life-styles of those who cannot live within their means.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
I'm not saying we should be complacent and accept what the ultra-rich have done in America, I'm saying nothing will change until we address the actual problem: the complete and utter selfish evil of our nation's top wealth-holders.
Again, they have no moral, ethical or legal obligation to subsidize your life-style.
You are the one who is evil, demanding that others subsidize your life-style. If you want to live in a McMansion, fine, but you need to pay for it, not the über-rich.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
Although people are generally the same over history, I think the leadership and uber-powerful of modern America are among the most unethical, selfish, and greedy group to ever be in one place at one time. I say this because of the conscious decision, at the highest level of the nation (both Big Business and Big Government as their loyal employees), to sell out America's Middle Class in the Free Trade fiasco that we were warned would destroy the job base. By doing so they destroyed the consumer spending that the entire world economy needed to function. It was a decision to kill the Golden Goose to eat it for dinner, instead of letting it continue to lay golden eggs forever.
That isn't true at all.
The Truth may be painful, but it is the Truth nonetheless. You tilted the playing field so far to your advantage that you denied others in the rest of the world the opportunities you have.
Now BRIC is working their magic, doing those things that a, um, "Christian Nation" like the US should have been doing all along, investing in people, building schools and roads, putting up electrical power, sewers, water lines and such and sharing the profits from the resources of those developing nations with the people of developing nations, and now the playing field is being leveled, and you're getting a taste of your own medicine, and it would seem you don't like it.
Whether you actively participated or stood by on the sidelines like a cheerleader, you caused this to happen.
And you can't whine and snivel, because you have benefited from this regardless of your current financial situation.
NAFTA and all the other "trade things" don't matter. What matters is reality, and the reality is that the US economically oppressed 3/5th of the world's population.
Except now the US no longer has the power to do that, and BRIC is enriching the lives of people. They have money now, and they want to buy things.
GM cannot build cars in Detroit and export them to China for sale and make a profit when Romania is building cars cheaper than Detroit and exporting them to China or when the Germans are building auto plants in China to manufacture cars for domestic sale in China. Those are economic realities so NAFTA and other free trade agreements aside, if GM wants to compete on a global scale, it must move manufacturing plants to developing countries.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
America will not recover from the current Depression, because the jobs that allowed the Middle Class to prosper have been permanently sent overseas and devalued with desperate foreign workers. Notice how economists always note that the latest Recession is in a "Jobless Recovery?" And notice how "structural unemployment" is now being used to get us used to the fact that massive unemployment and underemployment are the New Normal?
But you did that. Quit blaming others for your own short-sightedness.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
Remember, those at the very top know full well that America's decently-paid and prosperous Middle Class fueled the entire world's economy, not just America's.
Yes, by threatening and coercing others through military action and by supporting dictators.
Again, you were prosperous because you slanted the playing field in your favor, and now that BRIC is turning the tide, you're angry because you can't continue to oppress others so that you can lord over them.
You're like the Borg. You swarm in like locusts, extract the wealth and profits from a nation and oppress the people with dictators, and when you're done, you move on, except now there's nowhere to move onto.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
I do like the line "What will happen when there's no more worker bees left to carry everyone else on their back?" very much...
How ethnocentric. You aren't the only bee and America isn't the only bee-hive. There are 6.3 Billion other bees on the planet, in case you hadn't noticed.
Raising taxes on anyone without first getting the Fed spending under control is wrong.
What will happen because history has a way of repeating itself is, we raise the taxes. Our Fed gov will say wow we have all this money. Lets spend it on more pork, more earmarks and more waste. The debt wont be touched and we will have an even deeper hole to dig ourselves out of.
What we need to do is do what any smart people do when in a money bind.
Tighten up and cut out all unnecessary spending. After we get ourselves out of this hole we evaluate carefully every tax dollar that we spend.
example we need a military. But do we need 13 or 14 aircraft carriers?
Well yeah when we stick our nose in every squirmish around the world.
Stop being the worlds cop.
Do we need to spend billions in foreign aid? first question we should ask is whats in it for us whats the return.
But to simply raise taxes????? thats just wrong.
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