Really? Double their taxes is far less than the top paid in the US during the 50’s and 60’s, quite arguably the conservative “Golden Age”. Where was the great drain then?
The US is being Walmarted to death by short sighted short term planning. We should be retooling for globalization instead of simply shipping out those operations and uplifting economies in those 3rd world countries. We need to pay for elections publicly, give everyone the same dollars and get special interest money out of the equation.
Corporations are not citizens and we need to stop treating them as if they are. Especially since they currently reap many of the benefits and pay virtually none of the costs.
I find it hilarious that anyone could have such little comprehension of how money moves as to think rich business owners and corporations pay ANY taxes at all. ALL taxes are paid by end users and employees.
But why has the working man been taking it on the chin? Why are we losing our middle class?
It’s happening because we’re exporting our high paying jobs, and importing a lower standard of living. It’s not happening because of unions or rich guys, so instead of trying to decide who should get screwed, why not put a stop to the real cause of all this shit.
The US is still the largest market in the world, so let’s throw up carefully managed tariffs, suck up the resulting inflation, and tell everyone else to get screwed.
You’re not the one who has to be convinced. Until I see some evidence that Governor Walker (Remember him? Subject of this thread.) is willing to spread the pain around, then I have no problem with the democrats opposing him tooth and nail.
The group I was involved with owns a bus and traveled all over the state. I didn’t canvass even once in my hometown. But maybe Wisconsin has been so degraded that such a group isn’t possible there, I don’t know.
Sheesh, don’t take it so personally. And take that cheese off your head!
Correct me if I’m wrong, Sam Stone, as I may have glanced over it…but your argument is very much misdirected for the topic of this thread. More specifically, as I understand it, the unions have agreed to all the financial concessions asked of them by Walker. So, there isn’t any argument that unions (in this case) have to kick in their fair share.
Rather, it’s Walker’s attempt at eliminating collective bargaining itself that’s the issue.
I’m imagining a Mission-Impossible conspiracy theory where your head will literally explode if you defend this proposition in any coherent way whatsoever.
I think Wisconsin needs to be provoked to further anger, and needs that anger to be directed at the right targets. I think they are plainly being lied to and jerked around; the wealthy are turning the middle class against itself and turning the debate into “Who among the middle class is going to take cuts?”
Let me borrow Shot From Guns’ excellent cites to repeat some information that has gotten buried in this discussion
Sam Stone can talk about cookies until he’s blue in the face, it’ll still be a bunch of crap. The fact is that taxing the rich (temporarily!) can amount to 100% of the solution to Wisconsin’s problems, without causing anybody any pain at all. I say tax them a little more to give the teachers a raise- WI needs better education IMHO.
And Scott Walker is a motherfucking liar when he says public employees are ‘not paying their fair share’. Their pensions come out of their compensation package- it is deferred wages. No one is being ripped off.
Disseminating this information far and wide across Wisconsin would do a lot to add pressure to the governor to change his douchey ways. Yes, I still stand by my prescription for action for WI, namely getting away from the TV and reading. And getting angry. But I mean that as a doctor, not a provocateur. Forgive me, Shot From Guns.
And you don’t think that WHAT is being obstructed has anything to do with why the liberal douches think its terrible when Republicans use obstructionism to stop everything from health care reform to extending tax cuts for 98% of the population unless the other 2% get their tax cuts too but think obstructionism is OK when a governor attempts to eliminate government employee bargaining rights.
In other words, how are they any worse than you? Or do you think that the liberal douches don’t realize taht fleeing the state isn’t a form of obstructionism?
I think he meant it in the sense that we are experienceing a recent surge of new right wing posters. On this board, noob does have some significane because there are a lot of rules here that are meant to cull out disruptive posters and maintain orderly debate (or as orderly as it can get on the web).
At least in the case we’re discussing here, i.e., the state of Wisconsin, your understanding of the situation is 100% wrong. In fact, since I’ve repeatedly cited the relevant statistic, I can only suspect that you’re (a) illiterate, (b) retarded, or (c) deliberately lying to support your position.
Public-sector workers in Wisconsin make, on average, 5% less than their private-sector counterparts.
That means:
1.) For every cookie that someone from the “everybody else” group gets, a government employee in Wisconsin gets 0.95 of one.
2.) Public sector employees in Wisconsin are *below the median *in total compensation.
Benefits for Wisconsin government employees are generous–because they have, time and again, *chosen them **over *other forms of compensation. That’s one of the things that happens with collective bargaining: when employees have a choice between making more money now, and having the peace of mind knowing that their kid getting cancer isn’t going to bankrupt them, or another stock market crash isn’t going to mean their retirement will be spent eating cat food out of cans, they generally tend to take the latter. When you look at all of the factors–salary/wage, *and *benefits, *and *hours worked, *and *experience, *and *education–they make *measurably less *than they would if they had the same job with a corporation as their boss instead of the taxpayers.
Gonna debate honestly (hah!), or are you going to continue ignoring the facts and trumpeting your lies?
That can not be correct. i was watching Fox yesterday and they explained how overpaid public workers are. They don’t work and make lots of money. The ones who deserve your sympathy are the poor bankers who are so misunderstood now.
The fact is we can balance all state budgets by slashing workers pay and benefits. Once that is accomplished a new tax break to the rich and corporations could be done greatly increasing jobs .
My biggest concern is that we tax the rich at all. Logically I think they should be taxed at 0% so they can create tons of jobs and make us all rich in the process!
This is a worn out argument. It’s not either or. Everyone uses the whole palette of strategies. There is a vast, vast difference between using a tactic rarely and using it as your default.
Republicans win by doing nothing and even if they undermine the existing administration, because that “proves” that government doesn’t work, so it’s essential that it be made as small as possible to minimize the not work part.
I’m not sure why that doesn’t apply to the parts of government they like.
