And calls Obama a Socialist ( which is an insult to both Obama and Socialism), I’m going to use some variation of these words:
I came to this country and worked hard also.. and, like you, have been lucky enough to be successful. This country is wonderful that way – if you work hard you have a good chance of being successful. But many people work very, very hard and are not successful – and not because they are stupid, or lazy. The difference between Obama and his predecessors is that he realizes that the people who work hard and don’t make a lot of money, or work hard and don’t have health insurance, or who worked hard all their lives and now – in their golden years- have little to show for it also deserve some minimum level of dignity.
And yes, someone has to pay for it, and I’m happy for it to be me and people like me, because there for but for the grace of God. It’s not punishing the successful, it’s realizing that hard work is only part of the equation and we as a society need to recognize our obligations to those people who have held up their part of the bargain but didn’t end up on the winning side (and children get an automatic pass).
I like the sentiment as it pretty much sums up my take on the realities of the world.
FUCK THIS 5 TIMES.
You losers may volunteer to pay other peoples mortgages and to put their sprogs through school. Me, I decline.
How exactly do you justify stealing from me and my children? What gives you the right to steal from me?
Why should I not make a good faith effort to kill you for attempting to steal from me and my children?
If there is such a thing as a “social contract” then should it not have both our signatures on it before you demand to collect my share on it? I never signed up for this shit. I’m neither a communist nor a socialist.
The fact that you and your friends are does not bind me to your blood pact. You give as much as you want and you leave me and mine the fuck alone! What are you? Some kind of x wife? Do you feel that entitled to my money you bitch?
If you really believe what you write skippy, send them a signed blank check.
I’ll be signing no checks, except to the IRS. ( And even then-based on current projections-I’ll probably pay about the same and get the same refund I got last year). I not going to see the place where my taxes are getting increased and if I was ever going to make over 250,000-I’d still be able to live quiet comfortably. I do now and I make A HELL OF LOT less than that I assure you. I’d bet that neither of you sees the plus side of 250K either. Your tax burden is probably the same.
However, the point is-I’m not against the tax increases that Obama has proposed. Nor am I against government doing things-I believe there are things that government has to do and should do. The argument here, of course, is whether government has made the right choices. Could Congress have done better-yes. So too could rich bankers who pissed away a lot of money.
My niece just lost her job, Laid off when the company down sized to save money. Basically they threw her to the sharks to protect their own incomes. She was not lazy-nor a slacker. But she is out there now, and the job market where she lives is not great. She is luckier than most-she has health insurance and won’t lose it. But she has been done dirt right now. Its life I know-but its not fair.
As for your children-well I’m still not so sure they won’t be just fine. And they will be better off in a world where there is a decent safety net and they have proper services. They just won’t live in as big a house or drive as many cars is all.
Most people I talk to are not against safety nets such as health care, they are against how it is being implemented. First of all his health care initiatives are being slipped into the budget and spending bills with little to no debate about it. Such a major item should have its own legislation instead of being slipped in. Plus the tax increases on the rich to fund it (which will not be enough money to fund it) creates nothing but class warfare.
If the US wants health care reform it should be funded with a Goods and Services Tax where a certain percentage that is enough to fund the program is taxed on every good and service. That would mean everyone would pay into the program and the tax would be progressive because wealthier Americans shop and buy more expensive items meaning they pay more tax. This is a way to fund health care without getting into class warfare rhetoric as well as creating honest debate about the bill.
I have no issues with a 15% Flat Tax coupled with a national sales tax. However the flat tax is probably not progressive because of the fact that above a certain point-assuming you are not a total spendthrift, you just can’t buy that much more. There is a plateau effect where your needs are met. The rest goes to savings. ( Or should….).
It is not class warfare save for the fact that the middle class is shrinking and its opportunities to move up are shrinking too.
The opportunities to move up are shrinking because the current administration & congress thinks that capping executive pay helps the guy at the bottom.
When they whack the top income, how does that help the guy at the bottom. It does not put one dime in your pocket. It only creates class warfare.
Polititians are only temporary stewards of our nation and they should not try to remake our country into what they believe.
We got out of the recession of the 80’s how. With tax cuts.
Liberal policies and ideas are cruel. Americans can live in houses they can’t pay for and drive cars they can’t pay for, for how long? Until the majority of Americans wake up and say enough.
Before you think it was tax cuts that got us out of the 80’s-you might want to go back and re-look at what really happened:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.green.html
What is left in the Republican toolbag that Bush didn’t already try? We got tax cuts. We tried privatizing government operations, cutting environmental oversight and deregulating finance. We invaded a foreign country just to watch it die. America codified every point in the Republican agenda short of killing the inheritance tax, and as long you count ‘success’ as the overall well-being of America, none of it worked.
Plus, there is no cap on executive pay-except for those who took government money to correct mistakes they themselves made. Capping their pay is probably a small price to pay-when they should be in jail.
To whom much is given-much should be required. There are countries that make government provided services work-have clean streets, good public transportation and good health care for all their citizens. If they can do it we should be able to do it.
So you think government can spend our way out of this?
In the short term-yes I do. If the spending is the right kind and its done quickly and decisively. I agree with Krugman the stimulus is not big enough and has too many tax cuts.
For the long term though-5 years out, the goal should be to balance the federal budget, which means that more revenue has to be found. And the US needs to retrench a great deal overseas, so as to invest in America. Acknowledge the rise of the multi-polar world and figure out how to thrive within it.
Brother!!! You do have a lot invested in BHO?
Actually I have a lot invested in myself-and I’ve seen its value drop 18% over the last year.
Even if McCain was President-the country has to do something different than its done since 1990. Which was the last year a President recognized the need to do the hard thing and raised taxes. (and revenue).
So you agree that your X wife is more entitled to your money than you are and she has a better plan to spend it and she should also be entitled to double the amount she takes from you whenever she feels like it?
You socialists can never pass the sobriety test when pulled over by the cops. You don’t know what a straight line is.
For every story like your niece, I can think of another one of just the opposite: lazy POS barely getting by on a government paycheck. I see them every day here in Ames…they come from Chicago, live in government subsidized Section Eight housing, they have no job, they pay no taxes, and they drive up the crime rate. (It’s pure coincidence, I’m sure, that the crime rate here has shot up the past few years, the same time in which Section Eight housing increased sharply.)
Point being that individual examples/extreme cases make for poor policy prescription. Every time I see a politician touting a sob story as the justification for their bill, I naturally get suspicious. The justification for this entire arousal package has been built around sob stories. It’s like ROK Drop said: it’s being rushed through the back door (insert your joke here about stimulus and the back door) without any serious debate and (similar to what Bush did) without any honest accounting of what is going where.
My X has really nothing to do with the discussion-except the courts have pretty much said that already. 🙂
Seriously though, I am always amazed at how in an uproar people get about defending rich people when they are not rich themselves. Never quite understood that. I’ll be full of righteous indignation when I get to the 250K threshold. Its not going to happen any time soon I assure you.
I think we need to get back to the fundamental point of the quote-good people get screwed. A lot of them, probably more than we realize. The playing field is not level anymore and has not been for a long time. Wages are stagnant, prices ( till this year ) have gone up. The middle class is falling behind-and key essentials like housing are way too expensive.
There are separate issues that need to be debated:
1) How to make the tax system fair-while generating enough revenue to allow the government to do its job.
2) The proposals that were included in the Stimulus bill-could probably have been included in separate bills-but you have a lot of economists, on both sides of the fence ( e.g. read Ben Stein) saying time was of the essence. It is clear that Nancy Pelosi did the President no favors. That’s one reason she needs to be run over by a bus. Do I worry that government will over-reach? You bet I do.
3) What is the role of Federal Government and State government-and what are the services that a citizen has the right to expect. That’s a debate as old as the republic itself.
Liberalism doesn’t believe in punishing success/wealth-creation any more than conservatism believes in perpetuating the wealth of the rich on the backs of the poor/middle-class. Everyone agrees that this country would be better if more of its people were successful. So, we disagree on the manner of achieving that outcome. Big Deal. Let’s have the argument about the specifics of that, and refrain from silly/rote/easy demonizations. This program may be antitheical to Republicans-but its not Socialist.
And finally-if I did live in a European “socialist” country, I would not have to worry about getting pulled over on the way home. I’d be able to drink as much as wanted and take public transportation home. 🙂
The most content people in the world are the Danes, or so said a recent “report” where socialism is rampant and the government pays for everything.
60 minutes also did a profile of this paradise on earth.
I just have no faith that OUR government will spend the money wisely. My goodness. you ex military have seen first hand the incredible waste and mismanagement of tax dollars.
An endless stream of “bridges to nowhere”
If anyone should be against government bailouts I would assume you guys would be at the forefront.
Take a taxi, and if your lucky the “cabbie” will have Rush Limbaugh on the radio for your listening pleasure.
Skippy,
Our number one problem with the people voting for politicians who advocate uncontrolled unrestrained spending and tax increases is the Democratic Party alone holds that line and 40% of the electorate pays no taxes and sees nothing but more bread, crack and blow jobs if they stick it to the rich. Now of the 60% that pay taxes we know that the top 5% pay the bulk of the tax but will still always have the money they need to send their kids to Harvard and have the yacht and ski chalet, summer house, island house in Hawaii, etc. It’s the rest of us that find out that we are fucked for financial aid for college tuition and will get no government assistance, own one house, have no yachts. So yeah your dems like Feinstein (Plutocrat), Kennedy (Plutocrat) all other democrats are just thieves and tax cheats, which leaves a very small handful of us paying the bills and we don’t much like it.
IF ANYBODY PAYS AN INCOME TAX, ALL SHOULD PAY AN INCOME TAX. Let them vote for tax increases then. Otherwise, we, the conservatives have lost 40 percent of the voting base to thieves, losers, tax cheats, deadbeats, crackwhores, welfare queens. I am, however, aslosh with the milk of human kindness so I have no problem with you forking over every dime to pay their bills since you seem to have the same appreciation for their right to vote to have me fork over every dime to support their needs.
Tell you what, you agree to disenfranchise those that pay no taxes and I’ll meet you in the middle. Anything that the 60% of voters that remains with a vote agree to, I’ll sign up for as part of the social contract. Forfeiting 40% of the electorate to the SPQR invites the same outcome.
Tax got your tongue?