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Our household falls into the "Obama Rich" bucket now. Which is a surprise to me.
Yes, we have a comfortable lifestyle - when my husband is off work. However, he works in the oilfield, and anyone familiar with careers in that field can tell you that the work is nearly unbelievably hard physically - not to mention long hours, a lot of time away from family and home, etc.
I'm not complaining - what I'm doing is putting reality with the myth of the wealthy upper class with maids, luxury vehicles, long vacations in St Lucia, kids in private schools, and wives who dress in designer clothes to go shopping for Louis Vitton handbags.
We've never had a maid, we live in a 2500 square foot house, I drive a Nissan and my husband drives a Ford truck, we haven't even had a vacation this year, kids went to public schools, and until April of this year I worked full time in a bank in a little town. My daily attire is jeans and a t shirt, I don't get my nails done, and I do a lot of work outside in my little suburban yard. My husband goes to work in coveralls, a hard hat and steel toed boots and works harder than any person I've ever met.
We have a good life but it's far from luxurious.
I do think this though - I believe in a progressive tax system, and I do think we need to close some tax loopholes. In fact, that would be preferable to me over this "class warfare" mentality. It doesn't do a bit of good to raise taxes as long as the same tax loopholes are in place. To be completely honest, my husband and I paid a HIGHER percentage of our income in taxes UNTIL we got to this level of income. Now we pay a lower percentage, even though the amount of our taxes is higher, if that makes sense.
As a nation, we need to get out of debt and quit racking up more debt. Unfortunately we don't seem to be learning from Europe. It's simple math, really. The best approach in my simplistic opinion would be to REDUCE EXPENDITURES and COLLECT MORE MONEY. It can't be one or the other, or that's nothing more than wealth distribution.
Everybody needs to sacrifice to get ourselves out of this mess. EVERYONE. I don't mind paying more in taxes, as long as other people aren't getting a tax "refund" on taxes that they DIDN'T EVEN PAY IN. How can you get a refund if you never paid the amount you get back?????
That right there is nothing more than wealth redistribution and that's unethical to me.
When you're a young single making $50k, $100k sounds like a lot. When you're a young couple making $100k, $200k sounds like a lot. When you're a family making $200k, you realize that it isn't a lot at all.
I'm not young, I'm not single, we don't have a family income of $200K and I'm not poor.
I remember as a kid the wealthy all lived in $100,000 homes, today that can't buy you a shack in most cities. Given a little inflation over the next few years we'll all be making over $250k a year. Did you ever think as a kid you'd make $100k a year ?
With a little time that will truely be a tax on the lower to middle class.
They've selected a number that pertains to a relatively small group.
.61% of wage earners (or 400,691 wage earners) had net compensation more than or equal to $250,000
There were 150,398,796 wage earners in this country for 2010.
oh please
the average nassau county PO (police officer...not LT or SGT, or Chief)) makes over 150k
12 of my High School friends went into law enforcement... 10 retired with 30 years service. The highest ranking one receives 180k for life at age 51 and he never made it to chief.
again are you going to call a workingclass cop..rich????
I think the GOP should make this their campaign slogan.
We will just have to keep in mind that when they say "middle class", they are talking about those with 250K and over incomes.
Why don't they just come and say "we wil lhelp the middle class, - those who earn 250K and over", and see how well it is received.
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lol...
