"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Politics & Elections
641

You speak like someone who has absolutely no idea what life is like for the poor.

Safety nets are invaluable. If you don’t have money to afford food, you’re wasting energy trying to find ways to not starve all the time. If you don’t have consistent housing, you’re wasting energy trying to put a roof over your head. Poor people are constantly in survival-mode, and it’s not a fun place to be. You aren’t going to be able to focus on schooling and making the most of it if you have to spend all your time working. You’re not going to be able to start a business if you’re going to lose your apartment and all your savings if just one thing goes wrong.

Your argument, again, is ideological. It’s not ground in anything real or economical. There is real, data-driven benefit to having safety nets. You just don’t want to do it because you think putting that net into place “encourages laziness” even though the data doesn’t support that view. It’s always easy for people to cherry-pick and fall victim to confirmation bias by looking at cases where people DO abuse the system, but this isn’t the majority by any stretch of the word. It’s just another right-wing talking point.

Would you rather have a nation of people constantly struggling to keep their heads above the water, or do you think there would be some value to pulling them out instead of just uselessly yelling, “Learn to swim!” at their general direction? Once people are up out of the water, you’ve now got people who are able to focus on better things in life and make society a better place.

642

You missed the point, and made an unwarranted assumption that might apply more to you than to me.

We’re talking about risk-taking at the moment. I maintain that the safety net does not increase useful risk taking because for middle class people there is little difference between losing everything and dying. Some actually do kill themselves if they fail rather than live on food stamps. The safety net does not increase risk taking for the poor either, at least not as much as it encourages sloth.

There are many reasons to support a safety net, but changing the way people view risky endeavours isn’t one of them. I think the example of Europe is instructive here, they seem to have a more conservative society when it comes to risk-taking despite a far more generous safety net. Fewer people start businesses.

Less of a startup culture and mentality. It’s more typical to get a “job for life” and hang on to it for all you’re worth. Many Italians are tremendously creative, industrious, inventive people, but are going to find it more difficult to express that in some form of business.
Now there’s a lot more than he wrote, he’s not saying Europe’s worse than the US, and he even makes the same point you did about the safety net being helpful. But Europeans do seem more risk averse than Americans.

643

I didn’t miss the point. I am indeed talking about risk-taking as well (and I explained how).

Keep in mind though, to get back on track to the topic at hand here, we’re talking about raising taxes, not just about safety nets.

The point here is that by raising taxes and putting those funds into our infrastructure, we improve schools, improve transportation, fund special programs, etc, that lower costs and make life easier for the average American. By allowing the average American to have more wealth, you get value back with less risk, and can even generate synergies from those who grow huge value that they couldn’t do otherwise.

Let’s start with a basic example here.

A: I flip a coin. If it lands heads, I earn nothing. If tails, I earn $2,000,000.
B: I flip 2 million coins. For each head, I earn nothing. For each tail, I earn $1.

If given the choice between these two, what would you pick and why?

644

But that’s just the thing, we aren’t talking about raising taxes to pay for infrastructure. All new tax revenue will go to support entitlements.

645

Really? Whose proposal is that, by name and citation? Because it certainly isn’t what the President’s been talking about.

Could you please explain how federal budgets work, for those, like me, who don’t understand how your statement could possibly be true? Could you also explain how governmental infrastructure projects are funded, how this is different from entitlement programs funding,* and how that supports your statement?
*It is.

646

If you disagree with how the government allocates its budget, it seems to me that the time to raise an objection is when the spending is being debated. Once that debate is over and the spending has been decided, trying to stop the government from raising the necessary revenue is decidedly irresponsible.

Furthermore, declaring that any particular dollar of the income tax is going to any particular spending is meaningless. Would it console you if I assured you that your entire income tax bill is going to pay for maintenance on Army helicopters?

As for your claim that no one opposes infrastructure, by my count about $167 billion of the Economic Recovery Act was spent on education, transportation and information infrastructure, science, and R&D. What was your opinion on that? I seem to recall more than a few people opposing it.

647

That’s not a proposal, it’s just how things work. Infrastructure spending is squeezed by entitlement spending. The entire discretionary budget is squeezed, which is why the President makes the claim that discretionary spending is the lowest since Eisenhower. If we can’t spend money on infrastructure now, with a $1.2 trillion deficit, how will we be able to spend money on infrastucture just because we get the deficit down to $1.1 trillion per year, which is what the President’s tax proposal does.

648

It was borrowed money. Much of our infrastructure spending is supposed to come out of the gas tax. If we’re being responsible we won’t talk about raising taxes on businesses or the wealthy, we’ll discuss an increase in the gas tax.

649

Haven’t seen Colbert’s bit, but the most important part of Stewart’s take is the intercut speeches where Romney makes the exact same points about how many people help successful people be successful. It’s amazing.

The rest of it is pretty standard ribbing a flailing candidate, but that was just insanely damning.

650

Our country’s entire infrastructure should come from gas taxes?

651

No, but the roads and bridges should. Currently, the general fund is supplementing the highway trust fund.

Is the President proposing raising taxes to put more general fund money into transportation?

652

Where did you get the notion that infrastructure spending is limited to what is generated by the gas tax? The gas tax can only be used for transportation infrastructure, but there is no law that says such spending is limited to revenues from the gas tax.

653

I don’t know Lebron or Reggie.

What I do know is that one reason why American basketball is so great is the NBA.

I follow Rugby - the Super 15 series. The toughest rugby competition in the world.

It breeds great players because they are constantly playing against other great players.

The player from the Canterbury Crusaders, Dan Carter, is probably the best in his position in the world right now.

He works hard and he is a fucking inspiration for his talent.

A talent that has been nurtured since he was five with age grade competitions, regional competitions, coaching, school competitions, free clinics.

He is paid well and able to devote himself to rugby because of the fans, the stadiums that generate the money from people willing to go watch him, the television networks and transmission structure that allow us to admire his perfection when he is playing 10,000 km away.

To many he is a god, he is the epitomy of personal talent. But there is no way in hell he would have succeeded without all the infrastructure around him. he did not build any of that, anymore than he hatched from an egg, strong muscular, talented and imaginative at age 25 as the world’s best 1st five.

That is all the argument is about.

654

I don’t really care that much. You pick. But since its the same number you and I and everyone else other than the truly destitute will pay, I have confidence that it will be 1) as low as practical and 2) fair.

655

But what makes one rugby player stand head and shoulders above other rugby players. The league is there for everyone, but only a few really stand out.

We understand this intuitively with sports, but in other walks of life we seem to expect more equal outcomes.

656

Yes, but that’s not the point.

The point is, there are probably a dozens of people with that one player’s innate talent. But one of them might have been underfed as a child, and another got shot because he lived in an area where the police couldn’t keep him safe, and another couldn’t participate in sports because he never learned to read and flunked out of high school, and another had an hour-and-a-half commute on broken-down busses to and from school so couldn’t possibly manage any after-school rugby.

And of the extremely few people blessed with the physical and mental fortitude to be successful rugbyists (rugbyers? rugbites?), even fewer of them benefited from the infrastructure necessary to truly become successful.

657

I realize it’s not really the point of this thread, but being poor seems to HELP athletes rather than hurt them. I don’t know if it’s that way in rugby, but America’s major sports generally feature stars who grew up poor.

Now in other walks of life, it helps to grow up middle class or better, but in sports and other forms of entertainment it may actually work against you to not have adversity in your past.

658

That’s a part of it - but only a part.

Dan Carter is at the very pinnacle of World Rugby. He deserves to be there for the talent that he is, for his personal initiative, talent and whatever else you might want to say.

The thing that must be recognised, he never would have been recognised, never would have had the opportunity, never would have even picked up a rugby ball but for all the infrastructure, all the opportunities that others have built.

And NO, these are not a given. It takes a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, a great many very talented, imaginative, clever and committed people making sacrifices big and small.

You might call that “back ground noise” or “a given”.

I don’t. You look at the difference around the world of how sportspeople are nurtured and developed, the opportunities they have and the infrastructure that supports them. Is anybody really willing to say that ANY sportsperson, in this day and age, achieves greatness solely on their own talent? Anybody that claims their success is soleley their own is a self deluded fuckwit.

That doesn’t in anyway take away from their greatness, or from the way that I admire them.

In the business world it is the same. Anybody that claims they could have succeeded without the greatness that is “The American System” are screwed up.

Sure - you got the same opportunities (theoretically) as anybody else in America. But the fact remains, somebody had to create those opportunities. they had to create and maintain that system. You sure as fuck didn’t. That you have the initiative, the balls, the determination to succeed given the opportunity means that I respect, perhaps even worship you.

To think that you could have done it alone, you are prick of the highest order. So what, you worked harder, you were smarter, you recognised the right opportunity.

How great do you think Dan Carter would have been if he had been born in Manchester, and instead of Rugby was playing soccer?

NB: on re-read this sounds rather strident, I’m not taking issue in anyway with what you have said Reyemile

659

None of which creates a justification to ask for more money. Our need for infrastructure is not growing faster than tax revenues. Our need for entitlements is growing, however. All I’m asking is that the President be honest about where the money’s going to go. Successful people need to pay more so that the government can give the money to the less successful(not the poor, just the slightly less successful. The poor don’t vote.)

660

“Not available outside U.S.” What is America trying to hide from the world!?

(I know, it’s on Comedy Central up here. I’ll look for it later.)

“Paging adaher, paging adaher…”

Aw screw it. He’d never own up to it anyway.