No, I’m not sure about how faithfully Mr. Trump would support the Republican principles important to me.
However, I am sure that Mrs. Clinton would not support them at all.
Which Republican principles are the most important to you?
Both of them!
Country and western.
Taxes, gun control, gays, Muslims, Mexicans, or abortions?
Which of them do you fear the most?
Directly, none, but I fear the liberal attitude that less freedom = more equality.
(Not a Republican)
Based upon the two snarky responses that followed your post, I’m tempted to just let things lie as they are. Those two posters and their ilk do not seem to have a genuine interest in how a Republican thinks or to respect an honest opposing belief; they would view whatever I say as only more grist for their sarcasm.
However, Czarcasm, I believe you asked your question honestly and with genuine interest, so it merits a reply, though I warn you: it will be somewhat long-winded. (As if it isn’t, already.)
First, my background—the reason for which will become evident as soon as I get to the meat of your question: I was born to a lower-income family. Not at the poverty level, but no more than a step or two ahead of it. My parents did not take any government assistance, state or Federal. (In those days, there wasn’t much of it, anyway.) What they did was both work at jobs (in an era long before two working parents became commonplace), slaving away to provide for my younger brother and myself.
When I was sixteen, nobody bought me a car, and forget about luxuries like computers and cellular telephones, which my folks couldn’t have afforded for me, even if they had existed then.
And nobody else paid for my college degree. My folks did not, nor did I take a government loan. I took a job while still in high school to pay for my first year of college tuition. Once in college, I worked a forty-hour work-week to pay for further years’ tuition, all the while taking a full load of courses.
The point of this is that never in my life did I, or my parents, take a single dollar of assistance from the government. The only money I have ever taken from Uncle Sam is the salary that I earned as an officer in the United States Navy, and my pension, after I retired.
The same for my wife. In some ways her youth was easier than mine; in others, it was a lot more difficult, but she never took a hand-out from the government. Now, we’re not seven-or-eight-figures rich, but thanks to her income, my pension, and wise investing, we’re comfortably set. No inherited wealth, here.
Now, another diversion, also necessary. What the Republican party should not and has no business being in—social matters. I’m talking about things like abortion and gay marriage and stem-cell research. These are the things which—as a shorthand term, not a denigration—I term “Because God Said So” issues which radical conservatives insist on sticking their nose in—on the principal justification of “because God said so”.
These are matters of common sense. I have no dog in the fight over abortion. Personally, I don’t care whether it’s illegal or not. But, if I have to proffer an opinion, logic says the decision to abort belongs to the pregnant woman, and her alone. It’s not the government’s job to decide for her.
The same with gay marriage. Again, I don’t personally care one way or the other. But I have a definite opinion on this. The various levels of government see fit to insert themselves into the institution of marriage. State and local laws bestow certain privileges on spouses. Although it has not always followed it in practice, this nation was formed on the central principle that equal rights extend to all of its citizens. If spouses are afforded certain rights and privileges under the law, then gay citizens of America cannot be denied availability to these rights.
Stem-cell research is a no-brainer. The life-altering possibilities it presents to the physically and mentally crippled are too potent to toss away over some philosophical argument over when life begins.
What the Republican party was formed to represent, and the only thing for which it should stand now, is (1) the reduction of government spending; and (2) the restraint (and, as things are now, the redaction) of government influence in the lives of its citizens. These are the two things which are important to me. And it’s why I am so diametrically opposed to the Democratic party.
The Democratic party is the party of the hand-out. You can dress “hand-out” up with any replacement term you want but, I’m sorry, they’re still hand-outs. The idea, they say, is to make life fairer for people. (And, if they can manage to work in some wealth redistribution, that’s O.K., too.) Sure, life is unfair. Abundantly so. But the problem with making life fairer for people who started out with less in life is that any attempt to make life more fair for them results in making it less fair for another group. You cannot “level the playing field”; any attempt to add favour to one side results in penalising another.
As a prime example of this: the varying income-tax rates, staggered so that the more income one makes, at certain levels, the higher proportion of taxes he pays. This is abundantly unfair, and not by the vicissitudes of life, but by legislation; it’s a imposed inequity. My wife and I worked hard for what we have, obtained it through honest labour. Why should we have to pay more (proportionately) in taxes than someone else who didn’t try as hard, or made poor life choices?
This is the tenet of the Democratic party with which I disagree, the idea of gouging those with money and give it to those who don’t in the form of hand-outs: welfare, food stamps, college loans.
Bear in mind, I have no problem with the government offering aid to persons whom, through accident of birth or misfortune in life, are physically or mentally disabled—blind, deaf, crippled, mentally impaired. Yes, that’s a decent and honourable thing. But I protest, in the strongest, taking more of my money away to give it to people who started off in low incomes (I did it on my own, so they can, too) or made poor life choices (why should I pay for their stupidity?).
But, the Democrats will yell, if we don’t take your money away from you, no-one will help these unfortunates. You people with money won’t help them, if the government doesn’t make you, they say. That is the presumption of the Democrats with which I disagree vehemently.
My wife and I donate to several charities. And, yes, we do take tax deductions for them. (It’s the only way to combat the unfairness of the larger tax bracket.) But here’s the thing: if to-morrow, the United States converted to a flat-tax, say fifteen, or even twenty, per cent for everyone, then we would still give to those worthy causes. In fact, with the additional discretionary income we would realize from a flat tax, we would donate to more.
You see, most people who have reached a comfortable station in life feel the obligation to give back. Not just people at our level, but the rich and the *uber-*wealthy, as well. Most of the folks at the rarefied income levels donate massive sums to charities, and not just because of the tax advantages.
That is my objection to the Democratic party; it has no problem screwing me over and considers it fair.
I trust that answers your question, sir.
It always good to hear inspiring stories of exceptional men who pull themselves into a comfortable status. Probably not as good as telling them, no doubt, but still…
But another question remains: what about all the unexceptional people? What do we have for them, outside of our somewhat fragile charity?
Actually, I’m not all that fond of telling stories about myself, but I related my background to preclude someone responding with something along the lines of, “Yeah, it’s easy for you to dismiss the underprivileged. You probably came from parents with good incomes who paid for your college.” That sort of thing.
And here’s something that seems to have been overlooked: I’m not that exceptional. I was just willing to work hard (and frankly, I could have worked even harder) and didn’t make stupid choices in life. Those two things any “unexceptional” person can do.
And let’s say the government does provide the “unexceptional people” with hand-outs. It doesn’t obviate or justify taking more of my money (proportionately) because I was responsible enough to work hard and not make stupid choices. I disagree with hand-outs, but I purely resent being gouged because I was successful in order to pay for those hand-outs.
Why do you confine your analysis to income tax only (and it sounds like you’re referring only to federal income tax)? When considered as a percentage of income, there are other taxes (payroll, sales, etc.) that fall hardest on people with the lowest incomes. I found this article which includes a chart that breaks down total taxes paid as a percentage of income. The middle 20% of earners pay 27.3% of their income in taxes. The average for everyone is 30.8%, and the top 1% of earners pay 33.7% in taxes. Now, that’s still not exactly equal, but it’s not the gouging redistribution that you attribute to Democrats, either.
Citing only the graduated rates of the federal income tax, and then declaring taxes unfair, is to leave out some very relevant data. The limited view you present is misleading.
Ah! I see, a pre-emptive strike! Prevent someone from saying something stupid by saying it for them. That works? Well, son of a gun!
And they always work? Anybody who does those things will succeed, anyone who does not will fail, and if anyone fails, its because they didn’t?
OK, but if your sure-fire path to comfort and security doesn’t always work, maybe it isn’t as sure fire as you seem to think?
Are you operating under the assumption that we have an ample supply of jobs that assure a respectable middle class income and require nothing more than adult responsibility? I would take that as excellent news, if you can prove it!
Agree or disagree with anything else I said, this is one statement I made with 100% accuracy.
See, the funny thing here to me is that you seem to recognize that the Republican party is not just about what you claim it should be about, but completely ignore it. The Republican party has, pretty much since Reagan, defined itself heavily on moral issues. It’s explicitly used things like abortion, gay marriage, and the like as wedge issues, and even when it comes to the track record on the one issue you seem to care about… Well, compare Clinton to Bush, and see which one actually does a better job when it comes to balancing the budget or reducing handouts. Or compare Bush to Obama when it comes to government influence in the lives of its citizens. It’s not exactly clear-cut.
“Fair” is not the issue here. “Survivable” is. Most of what gets labeled “hand-outs” has little to do with making life “fairer” and everything to do with ensuring that people don’t end up starving in the streets. You do realize that most Food Stamps recipients actually have jobs, right? Crappy jobs, jobs that don’t pay enough to support themselves or their families, but it’s generally not for lack of trying. Virtually nobody wants to rely on food stamps or welfare.
Or got unlucky. You forgot that important factor (indeed, possibly the single most important factor when it comes to success). You worked hard to get where you are. Congratulations, I really don’t want to detract from that. But you were able to get a job that you could somehow combine with your college schedule. You were able to find work after college. You were in the military and didn’t die. The difference between Bill Gates the multibillionaire and Bill Gates the man struggling to get by on disability payments is whether or not he gets clipped by an out-of-control bus on his way to purchase the software that would later become Windows. Luck matters, and not everyone is lucky.
…Not that this matters for the income taxes, mind you, because progressive income taxes is based on the simple reality that the more money you have, the less each individual dollar matters. If you’re working minimum wage, virtually every dollar you have is going towards the bare necessities of living, with little to nothing left for savings or luxury. If you’re making a million dollars a year… Well, how much of that is going towards rent, food, electricity, water…? It only makes sense to tax income likely to be spent on luxury and frivolity more heavily than income likely to be spent on survival. Or to put it another way: losing every second dollar you make past a million is annoying, but not the end of the world. Losing every twentieth dollar you make when you only make barely enough to get by might be.
College loans aren’t handouts. You can’t even divulge them in Bankruptcy. You’re paying those back no matter what. But what would you propose the people on welfare and food stamps do? And please don’t say “get a job”, because that’s not really an option.
Good on you. I say that completely unironically. But do you think these charities are enough to cover the need of those who can’t get by otherwise? Even if they could most of the time, there’s still the issue that they’re most likely to fail during precisely the times they’re most needed - recessions. And in fact, we have historical precedent on our side here:
Informal networks of local support, from churches to ethnic affiliations, were all overrun in the Great Depression. Ethnic benefit societies, building and loan associations, fraternal insurance policies, bank accounts, and credit arrangements all had major failure rates. All of the fraternal insurance societies that had served as anchors of their communities in the 1920s either collapsed or had to pull back on their services due to high demand and dwindling resources. Beyond the fact that insurance wasn’t available, this had major implications for spending, as moneylending as well as benefits for sickness and injuries were reduced.
Care to explain what “screwing me over” means in this case? Are you going to lose the right to marry who you love, the right to bodily sovereignty, or the right to use the bathroom in public? Are you going to lose access to the funds that keep the water running and the heat on and food on the table (because the job you work doesn’t pay you well enough to do those things)?
…Or are you just going to end up with slightly less money at the end of the month, but still enough to live very comfortably?
Again, I don’t mean to make light of your situation. Maybe there’s something else I’m missing. But you can see how, the way you’re describing it, it sounds an awful lot like “It’s not fair that the government takes the money I’d use to buy a bigger flatscreen and gives it to someone else so that they can afford to buy groceries, and because of that I’m willing to overlook every other issue”. I’m well aware that that’s not what you’re trying to get across, but think about what you’re saying for a moment. You’re upset that you pay a higher marginal tax rate than a person getting minimum wage pays, and that the democrats favor “handouts”. That seems phenomenally selfish.
No, but appealing to racist stereotypes painting them as criminals, drug-dealers, and rapists might be.
Yes, but saying that you want to prevent any Muslim from entering the country no matter what, and stirring up fears by claiming that all Muslims hate the USA, and backing that up with lies might be.
No, but parroting racist and dishonest memes about black-on-black crime, refusing to rent to African-Americans, and birtherism might be.
Um… you’re mistaking “liberal” with “gun manufacturer”.
You can’t possibly believe that this is the extent of the issue, can you? Here, let me give you a hint: opposing legally referring to birth control medicine despite the best advice of non-partisan medical organizations? That’s a problem. A major right-wing talk-show figure (and indeed one of the most influential right-wing media figures) responding to testimony about this with a week-long, extremely sexist tirade against a college student? Slightly indicative of deeper issues.
Maybe you could list just one that is actually real?
To Budget Player Cadet,
Thank you for an obviously reasoned and considered reply. And you deserve a reasoned and considered response in kind. Unfortunately, I’m backed up for time and have one other whose post deserves consideration. As soon as I can, I will address yours. Again, I appreciate the degree of your reply.
First, let me say my post which followed yours did not apply to you. I appreciate your level-headed, reasoned response.
Now, to your points. I did not address state taxes in my commentary because I live in a state which levies a flat tax on income. Therefore, whatever hand-outs the state distributes with which I disagree, at least I’m not paying more than any other resident of the state.
The information you attached merits consideration, to be sure. I’ve had time only to scan it; I will definitely be reading it more closely later. I do see one area of concern. While the author correctly breaks down the Federal tax rates, thereby demonstrating how it is progressive, when it comes to what he considers “regressive taxes”, he simply makes the blanket statement that payroll taxes, sales taxes, and some state/local income taxes are “regressive taxes”. He does not demonstrate specific instances of such things.
For example, sales tax. It varies from state to state, but not within the state. If the sales tax in a given state is, say, six per cent to the dollar, it is six per cent for everybody—not two per cent for millionaires and six per cent for poor people. Thus, it’s a flat tax, and how can a flat tax be regressive.
Also, as I stated, sales tax—and payroll tax and state income tax—vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. How did the author factor that into his statement that they are regressive taxes?
Let me be clear. I’m not saying the information is wrong, or dismissing it out of hand. I simply need validation of his assessment of regressive taxes before I can consider his point valid. But, that said, I’ll allow there is certainly the potential for me to have to go back and re-assess my stance on this point.
But, setting that aside, the fact remains that the Democrats believe in increasing government spending and expanding the involvement of government in the lives of the citizenry—two things I am devoutly against. And, thus, would have no truck with any Democrat in office, even if the tax article you provided proves valid.
No problem, I understand completely. Thanks. 
Here, let me add one more thing:
Because the poor spend a far greater percentage of their income on everyday goods. If you’re living month to month, chances are good that you’re paying sales tax on all of your income. If you make ten thousand a month, that’s probably not the case. You’re far more likely to be spending your money on other things - such as saving, investing, or the like. The end result? The rich pay a far lower portion of their income on sales tax than the poor. According to one report by ITEP, the bottom 20% pay, on average, half the rate that the top 1% do. Sure, they pay the same overall rate, but the poor spend far more of their income on things this applies to than the rich.
[quote=“Budget_Player_Cadet, post:257, topic:739332”]
No problem, I understand completely. Thanks. 
Let me lead off by saying I appreciate the good things you stated about me and my life. I could tell they were genuine comments and not sarcasm. I appreciate your graciousness.
You raised some good points. But as with most complex subjects—and few things are more complex than societal interaction—things aren’t quite as cut-and-dried as you submit them. (Or as I did, either, for that matter.)
You eschewed my comment that the Democrats push for “fairness”. I would disagree. On the surface at least, Democrat politicians constantly refer to the things they want the government to hand out to the disadvantaged as “leveling the playing field” or “giving everybody a fair chance”. (What the more liberal Democrats won’t say, but what they mean is “wealth re-distribution”.) The Democrats claim fairness is the objective; I simply held them to it.
But you’re right. In many ways, it is about survival. But it’s also about why has it come to that for a given individual. You stated (boldface mine):
You do realize that most Food Stamps recipients actually have jobs, right? Crappy jobs, jobs that don’t pay enough to support themselves or their families, but it’s generally not for lack of trying.
I emphasised those particular words because it goes to my belief that a person is responsible for his own actions and the consequences thereof. I’m guessing that right now, as you read that sentence, you’re mentally agreeing with it. And one of those responsibilities is the matter of children.
No parent—rich or poor, single or having a significant other—has the right to complain about the disadvantages having children visits upon him. There’s no validity to moaning and groaning about the cost of raising them, or the travails of rearing a disabled child, or the inability to go to a nice restaurant, or anything else.
That’s because those parents chose to have children. Those kids just didn’t materialise like a disease; the parents opted to have children. And that means taking responsibility for every problem and inconvenience that goes along with it. So you and the wife can’t go on vacation this year because you just found out your twelve-year-old needs braces? Don’t come crying to me about it; that’s on you.
Now, I took this deviation to underscore the concept of “bad life decisions” that I mentioned. I don’t know any statistics regarding people who require food stamps, but I’d be willing to bet that most people who need them aren’t single. After all, for years I worked a minimum-wage job, put food on my table, a roof over my head, and still managed to pay for college. I imagine that most households that rely on food stamps are those with children. And people who opt to have children when they are financially unprepared for it—or if the possibility of being unprepared for it exists—have no business having them. This is one of those bad life decisions that my extra tax money is being asked to remedy.
Discussions of this sort always come down to the single parent—usually, the mother—who is stuck with raising the children alone. Let’s go with the mother. Again, those children didn’t magically appear. Mom had to willingly partake in the actions which led to her being pregnant. (Naturally, this excludes the very, very small number of women who become pregnant due to rape.) She willingly carried each child; she willingly gave birth to it (and, yes, maybe she had a religious or moral objection to abortion, but it was still her decision), and she willingly kept it.
Now let’s say the man who fathered the child runs out on her. Yes, he’s a bastard who should be caught and made to pay for his responsibility in the matter. But the hard fact is, biology sticks the mother with the child. And some women don’t stop at one child or two. And even if the father isn’t a louse, maybe he’s a good guy who stands by the mother, maybe he gets run over by a bus or falls off a ladder. The risk of the loss of one of the parents is there in every family.
So again I say, why should I be compelled to pay for someone’s decision to have children when (1) it goes south due to misfortune; or (2) it was a bad idea in the first place?
Now, you brushed away my criticism of lack of hard work and surplus of bad decision-making by emphasising that many people find themselves in financial straits due to bad luck. I’ve heard this argument before, and it’s true—some people get snakebit through no fault of their own and find themselves in financial trouble. But what that sort of situation doesn’t do is wipe away every instance where the distressed person is such because of his lack of effort or his making stupid life choices or both. I would contend that most of the people who find themselves in trouble like that are there because of their own actions (or inactions), and not because they got hit by a bucket-load of bad luck out of the blue.
This transcends the issue of me paying more taxes (proportionately) than other folks. I shouldn’t be paying any tax at all that goes to providing hand-outs for those who won’t work or created their own problems.
So what about times when employment is difficult to come by? You have a point there. The recession of 2008 created a huge unemployment problem, and while I grant you, my knee-jerk reaction is to insist that a person who wants to work can get a job even in a recession, my brain tells me that’s just not so. I’m not sure how to handle that situation fairly and I’m willing to entertain the idea of hand-outs then without prejudice.
But speaking of the 2008 recession, I want to point something out: that was 2008; this is 2016. The wife and I watch Restaurant Impossible and Kitchen Nightmares, and even now, when the owner of the failing restaurant is asked why he was doing so well when he opened his place up, but now is losing tons of money, most often than not, he’ll reply “We’ll, it’s the economy.” No, it’s not. It was true in 2008, and '09, and probably '10. But not now.
There’s no recession, now. And whatever I would have blessed giving to the unemployed in 2008, I would argue bitterly against, now. If one can’t get a job now, it’s not a recession; it’s because he didn’t finish school, or he committed a crime, or he didn’t pass a drug test, or because his previous work record stinks—and all of those things are on him. Again, bad life decisions.
As for college loans, no, they aren’t hand-outs—yet. You’re right again when you alluded to some rigourous terms attached to those loans. They can’t be divulged in a bankruptcy and they have non-transferable and non-amendable terms. Nevertheless, folks accepted them as fast as they could sign their names (and get someone to co-sign). Understand, these persons willingly accepted the loans.
Now, there’s a huge surge from people having to pay off those loans now. They’ve discovered the strict terms of those loans and, guess what, they don’t think it’s fair. They’ve gone whining to their governmental representatives, and there’s a couple of Democrat-sponsored bills in Congress, at some level of the process, intended forgive these loans or lift the restrictions to the point where most of them would be reduced to paying only a fraction of what was leant.
I have no idea what kind of viability either of these bills has, but even if they die on the vine, it goes to the fact that a great many people, instead of working to get ahead, simply want the government to give them stuff.
Now, let’s go to my complaint about having to pay (proportionately) more in Federal income taxes. Besides the fact that the Democrats would send a lot of my money to people who don’t deserve to get it. You implied that my “marginally” higher tax rate only means that I can’t buy a new Jag this year. How I wish that was true.
Yes, to the rich and the über-wealthy, a few per cent more in taxes doesn’t hurt them all that much. But, you see, my wife and I fall into that income bracket in which we make too much to be considered middle-class income, but not enough to be considered rich. At our level, a “marginally” higher tax bracket means paying an extra three or four thousand dollars a year in taxes. Survivable, yeah, but it leaves a dent, one deeper than “Damn, we won’t be able to vacation in the Bahamas this year!”
So, yes, I resent any Democratic effort to increase government spending for hand-outs when it costs me. I’m being penalised for a lifetime of hard work. You justify this by saying the disadvantaged person needs the money more than I do. You strike me as an honest man, so let me put to you a hypothetical situation.
We have two cars, for my wife and myself, and let’s say they’re reliable, serviceable cars, but nothing really special. And figuring it would be nice to have a really nice car for road trips, I go out and buy a third car, a nice luxury job.
Now, on the other side of the city lives Mary, a single mother with three children, who are subsisting on Mary’s minimum-wage job and food stamps. Now, Mary has been offered a better job, almost double the minimum wage with better benefits, but the job is in the next city, thirty miles away. There’s no public transportation to get her there, and she cannot afford to buy a car. Without the ability to get there, she cannot take the job.
Under these circumstances, do you feel it would be morally right for the government to say to me, “Sorry, Commander Benson, but Mary needs a car and you really don’t need three cars, so you have to give one of them to Mary. And, no, you won’t get compensated for what you spent on the car you give her.”
This is the essence of the discussion.
For those state programs, other residents may very well be paying more than you; at least as a percentage of income, which is the standard for fairness that you established in post #247.
Budget Player Cadet has already given an example of how sales tax is regressive. I’ll also mention the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax. Details are here; portions of the tax are levied only against compensation up to a certain point, amounts over that threshold, and investment income, are not taxed. The greater your income, the lower the tax rate works out to be.
For all of my political life I’ve heard Republicans blather on about fiscal responsibility, and never seen them do a blessed thing about it. Perhaps my favorite example is Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit. It was introduced by a Republican, passed by Republican-controlled House and Senate, and signed by a Republican president, and with no attempt to pay for it. It increased spending and increased government involvement in our lives. It was only 13 years ago; what was your opinion of it at the time?
I’d like to see our government become a lot more disciplined on budget matters. When times are bad we don’t need to panic and cut spending to the bone. When times are good we don’t need to pass massive handouts and tax cuts as if the bills will never come due. I just don’t understand anyone who votes for Republicans on this basis; you don’t put the people who caused a problem in charge of fixing it.
Why are you limiting your argument to just the Federal income tax again?
I’m not going to debate ideology; Budget Player Cadet is already doing that ably. But you’d better be ready to deal with some ribbing. Whether or not you agree with all of the policies of your party, you are tacitly approving of them by associating yourself with them. And there are, to my view, some very backward and anti-democratic (little ‘d’) policies included in that ideology.
My comment was exaggerated for comic effect. I don’t paint every Republican with the same brush, but I also don’t absolve you of responsibility for the more irrational views of your party-mates as long as you vote with them, whatever you think of them.