I didn’t post it to impress you. I posted it to rebut the inference from Live Better Electrically! that I was a child of privilege. To refresh your recollection, that poster said to me:
It was in response to this comment that I revealed my humble family origins.
So if something isn’t perfect, your preferred approach is to destroy it rather than fix it? C’mon, you’re no nihilist, just a rationalizer.
Etc. Well, la de frickin’ dah. All other things are never equal. That has to be one of the most fatuous things said recently on this board, and believe me, there’s a lot of competition for that. Revenues have to equal expenditures over the long term, but you don’t even address the unpleasant half, just the part that affects only yourself most directly. If you take that smug approach, then yes, you are responsible in part for the consequences that you cannot pretend won’t exist. If you’re not as interested in balancing the budget as you are in keeping a few more dollars, then yes, you are simply borrowing from my grandchildren and making them pay it back. The world is larger than yourself, and you have a responsibility to it even if you shirk it.
If you’re in a hole, stop digging, okay?
I think parents should have the right to transfer their wealth to their children without losing huge amounts to tax. I wish my parents had a huge estate that I could look forward to.
I grant you that this is not “earning,” but the state has no particular moral claim on that money. The owners of the money have every right to give it to whomever they wish.
I’m not opposed to some sort of estate tax, I suppose, but I hope to give my own son a nice chunk of change - something my folks could not do for me. And I don’t believe the state has a right to steal any of it.
My preferred approach is to fix it. I think you and I have different ideas about what constitutes “fixing” and what constitutes “destroying.”
One of the classic reasons to justify a deficit is a war. We’ve had a war. I don’t pretend that there are no consequences for deficit spending – I just aver that right now is an appropriate time to write checks against the line of credit. That’s what it’s there for.
That tax cut of Bush’s was responsible for the economic turnaround. When I say that I want my taxes cut, I do so mindful of the results that will ensue. When people have more dollars, they spend or invest them. This stimulates the economy, exactly as Bush said it would.
Please excuse this post. I did not see the Tim Russert interview of our President- Mr. Bush.
It must have turned out poorly because after I woke up this morning I read this Straight Dope thread and counted 29 different posters attacking President Bush and only 4 posters defending him.
Strange.
Anyway, all of this early morning reading and counting made me sleepy again so I went back to bed and had the strangest dream…
*I was looking down on a mid-western town, maybe somewhere in Kansas. Near the outskirts of town a parade was forming…no…it wasn’t a parade it was a mob. On the outskirts of town a mob of angry men and shreeking women was gathering, and soon, they began to march down Main Street.
It was a procession from Hell. Twenty-nine cursing, shouting, sloganeering, fire-branding men and women and demons marched, crawled and slithered down through the clean steets of this peaceful town. What a racket.
As they drew closer I could see that soon of them were carring signs…one read…BUSH IS NOT A MAN another…** BUSH IS A BIG FUCKING LIAR** and an especially big one read…LOOK IN THE MIRROR BUSH _ SEE THE INARTICALATE HYPOCRITICAL COWARDLY GREEDY CHIMP FACED ASSHAT?_ THAT IS YOU!
Mmmm…this was a mean bunch, I decided. But then, as they turned a corner, I began to see their faces, familiar faces. There was good ole elucidator and both tomndebb, and ** mintygreen** and of course, BobLibDem followed closely by Elvis. Drooling as he walked Hector The Barbarian carried a big sign that read…GEORGE W BUSH IS A LYING PIECE OF SHIT.
Then came a more boisterous group, led by rjung who appeared to be drinking. Guan9. squint, quixotic78, Merkwurdigliebe, Master Wang Ka, ccwetback, olanu, Phantom, and finally, came ** Live Better Electrically** who was carring a sign that said, self-servingly LIVE BETTER ELECTRICALLY.
This was truly a frightning sight. As I watched this motley band of malcontents pass by my position sitting on the curb, I turned my head to see how the poor townfolk were reacting to this angry mob of marchers.
I was flabergasted! The shopkeepers had not barred their doors. Men had not hidden their wives and children. Ladies were stll shopping in stores, menfolk were getting haircuts,and little boys chased yellow dogs. The whole town continued going about their everyday chores and no one gave a single nod to the macabre band of marchers as they suffled past City Hall and then continued on down Main Street.
With tears swelling in my eyes I watched this hopeless and sad parade until it disappeared from everyones view. No longer did they look angry or threatening, they just looked tired and disheartened; unhappy bearers of a whining message that no one wanted to hear.
It was a sad dream but full of portent.* 
I think I missed some lines there, what I meant to say was: that I am not impressed by you having a conservative (or libertarian) opinion regarding taxes even if you had a humble origin, considering our current situation; it is still the wrong position.
OTOH, I am impressed on finding another Guanaco* in these boards. 
*[sub]If you don’t know what that means, ask your old folks[/sub]
Gosh, Milum, that was a nifty visual you drew. Very creative and I enjoyed it immensely. My dream was a little different. The shopkeepers were up in arms because so many cityfolk had lost their jobs and could not buy things any more. The women weren’t shopping in their stores, they were burying dead menfolk shipped in from overseas. The children weren’t playing in the streets, they were working in sweat shops to repay the loans of their grandparents. In the whole town was an overpowering sadness, knowing that if they had only listened in 2004 they could have had a much better life. How they wished they had listened to those that tried to warn them.
Based only on your previous comment about the social welfare system being imperfect justifying your refusal to support it even minimally. The criticism, being unrefuted, stands.
The fatuity continues. The Bush budgets were deep into deficit and worsening before the war. Any analyses of the causes that I’ve seen attributes the bulk of the deficit to the tax cuts, and show no lessening of them for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, this latest budget does not include the costs of the war at all (that supplemental request comes right after Election Day) but is still the most imbalanced in history, in both absolute and percentage terms. But if you’d phrased that as “The main reason used to *rationalize * this deficit is the war, and it’s convinced those of us who wanted to believe the people who did it,” you 'd be right.
What turnaround?
If only. That is not what the evidence shows.
If the shoe fits…
Let me put it in language that even Grover Norquist could understand. If you work for yourself, you have to buy or rent the materials and tools you need to do your job, and also pay for your own living expenses, including health care, retirement savings, and the other things you mentioned. You sell the goods or services you produce, and keep all the revenue. If you’re lucky, your revenue exceeds your expenses, and you get to keep the excess. After all, you produced it.
If you work for Mr. Smith, then Mr. Smith hires a manager to buy or rent the materials and tools you need to do the job, and pays you and the manager a salary and benefits. Mr. Smith sells the goods and services you produce. If Mr. Smith is lucky, his revenues exceed his expenses, and he gets to keep the excess. After all, he earned…wait a second, you did the work. Mr. Smith didn’t produce the excess, he was golfing at Pebble Beach. You say he deserves the excess because he risked his money? Well, to risk your money, you have to have money to risk. That doesn’t seem fair, right off the bat. And if Mr. Smith gets to keep all the profits, he’ll have more money to risk, so he can make even more profits. Eventually Mr. Smith will own damn near everything, and he won’t have to pay you enough to live on if he doesn’t feel like it. Eventually you get sick of subsidizing Mr. Smith’s idleness, so you go and set fire to Mr. Smith’s house.
Perhaps we could avoid all this unpleasantness if we put some reasonable restraints on the advantages of capital. We could, for instance, take a percentage of Mr. Smith’s profits and distribute it among those who most need it. Alternately, we could allow Mr. Smith to hire goons to hit you with a baseball bat when you get near his house. Which route would you prefer?
Here is a link that leads to a critique of Bush’s Meet the Press remarks point by point.
See above link under the “Economy/Budgetary Priorities” heading.
Only in your world.
Elsewhere on the SDMB there is a thread about the tactics the GOP will use in the upcoming election, and Milum’s post provides an excellent example. They’ll avoid the issues and attempt to portray Dems as negative whiners who exist outside the mainstream, a characterization that isn’t supported by public opinion polls.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
And I don’t believe the state has a right to steal any of it./QUOTE]As you were a lawyer (I believe I heard you no longer practice, but I might be mistaken), I find it dubious at best to claim your money is yours alone. Second only to people employed directly by the state, I would think lawyers would recognize that taxation is not theft, nor are progressive schemes particularly “unfair.”
Without a government, there is no property[sup]*[/sup]. Without taxation, there is no government. Where does theft come into play?
*[sub]As we know it, anyway.[/sub]
Just an interim note to let you all know I haven’t abandoned the thread just yet. I originally posted in IMHO because I was stating an opinion, and the mods moved it. I’ve stopped contributing because the argument has gone so far afield from the intention of the thread, which was to relate my stunned disbelief that Bush believes the public will buy his total load of horse hockey.
The discussion seems to have degenerated into whether or not we should pay more or fewer taxes, and whether or not people should be able to do well in our society merely by wishing on a star and grabbing their non-existent bootstraps. There are folks in this nation who are merely trying to survive on a day-to-day basis. When and how exactly are they supposed to grab the brass ring?
It’s my opinion that Bush managed to indict himself on the economy and on Iraq during the interview, Russert’s wishy-washy questions notwithstanding. Perhaps the discussion could revert back to the intent of the thread? Thanks.
First off, it seems you’ve excluded corporations since you’ve ignored the substance of Bricker’s rebuttal. Presumably you see nothing wrong or unfair with such collective endeavors.
Sticking with your examples, you claim that it is unfair that Mr. Smith has money to risk. Perhaps. Perhaps not. You say that if your work for yourself you need money to buy materials, rent, expenses, etc. Isn’t this requirement for capital just as unfair?
The capital requirement exists in both examples. It appears that it’s a condition of life, rather than a system flaw. I.E. it’s hard to make something from scratch.
Suppose you have the money don’t want to risk it? Is it ok to work for Mr. Smith, let him have a share of your work profits in return for the security of not risking your own capitol? Is that not a value for value arrangement?
How do you know that Mr. Smith is not providing value? Presumably he has seen the market opportunity, done the preliminary investigation, made the purchases necessary to start his company, takes responsibility for it’s actions, lines up the customers, etc etc etc. Do you think these things are not work?
Even if he hires a manager, do you think that managing your managers and overseeing them and training them, etc etc etc. Is not work?
Why do you want Mr. Smith to put all his work and time and money and effort and risk into this enterprise for free?
It seems to me that if you feel you could do a better job than Mr. Smith instead of firebombing his house you could use the money you earn working for him and the expertise gained to set up your own shop. That however, would entail both responsibility and a work ethic.
And as for your last question, I think we should let Mr. Smith hire the goons to keep you away from his house, since you seem so set on firebombing it. I find the idea of attempting to blackmail you and give credence to your sence of inept entitlement, morally repugnant.
The last part of your argument about giving it “to those who need it,” begs the question “According to who’s criteria?”
The fact that you are unable or unwilling to understand Mr. Smith’s POV, nor the value and merit of his work hardly entitles you to share in it.
You yourself are free to do something of merit and distribute the money in the way in which you see fit. You’re inability to do something meritorious doesn’t give you the right to piggyback off of the activities of another.
It’s already been answered effectively, Chefguy. Bush not only believes that a large part of the public will buy it, he’s right about that. There are even Dopers who buy it. What else would you like to discuss - *why * they do so? Bricker’s your man.
You’re making a lot of moralistic and ad-hoc arguments but not addressing the central fact that profits are produced by workers and taken by capitalists because the system is set up to permit it.
Mr. Smith didn’t actually have to do anything at all except entrust his money to a manager. Since he didn’t create any value, his actions cannot be said to have “value and merit” in any but a moral sense. You and Bricker are both missing the basic message: A person with a stack of money to invest, i.e. a capitalist, can put his money in a mutual fund and over the long term just sit back and watch the dividends roll in. No effort required. I know, because I do it myself, unfortunately on a small scale. Those dividends don’t just magically appear - they represent real value that a real person (not me) had to create, but I get the proceeds, not because I worked, but because I put up the money.
Actually, I don’t have an inherent problem with profit. What I do have a problem with is people equating taxes with theft. Theft is when someone breaks into your house and takes your TV. If your definition of theft is simply depriving a person of the fruits of his labors, then surely profits, as well as taxes, are theft.
When the left started thinking of profits as theft, it was a sign that they were ideologically overextended and losing touch with reality. I believe the same thing is happening today with those on the right who call taxes theft. Think back to what happened to the left, and you can see what is in store for the right.
oops, I thought I was in a thread about Dubya’s interview.
scurries out
Rick,
I was lucky enough to grow up middle class, but my Dad wasn’t. His Dad died young, and his mother lost everything they had in the Depression, and she worked as a seamstress to support three kids. But even though my father couldn’t afford to go to college, he managed to get a good job and work his way up.
Now, I bet when you were young your Dad didn’t pay enough taxes to fund the school you went to, or the police who protected you, or the fire department, or the roads he drove on, or the army that protected you also. My father helped pay for that. If you are young enough, I might have helped pay for it also. You know what? I’m glad he did, and I’m glad I did. That’s what living in a society is all about.
By the way, don’t you think a teensy little tax increase on the rich to support the war on terror would be justified? Sure, you might run a deficit during war, but you don’t cut taxes, and you don’t dump the cost of the war on your children while you live it up. Seem a mite wrong to me.
I think those of you who think Shrub’s daddy had to make a deal to get him an honorable discharge are wrong.
sheesh, George HW was a sitting Congressman. What National Guard Commander in his right mind is going to try to go through the paperwork to dishonorably discharge someone whose Dad is that powerful, especially when the kid just didn’t show up. It’s not like the kid strafed the French Quarter or something. Get real, people!
Eh, all that shows is that monkeys have more sense than Bricker – or any other “it’s mine and you can’t have it” Republican. 