This is something my father pointed out to me. He said that the REAL problem, is the rich do not want higher taxes, but the poor don’t want less free shit. The Repubs want to make abortion and stem cell research illegal, but reduce funding for programs like WIC and TANF. "You can have as many babies as you want, but the US Gov’t is NOT taking care of you. The Dems want to increase taxes on the rich because “That money belongs to everyone!”, and they want to give people who can’t (or sometimes won’t) work MORE money and MORE programs. On the surface this, what the Dems have in mind seems pretty good, I will admit that. “Why should I work? Uncle Sam can take care of me and my family for the rest of our lives!” But when you dig deeper, you realize that the money that Uncle Sam uses to keep you clothed, sheltered, and fed HAS to come from somewhere, right? Where is it coming from? It comes out of the working man, who doesn’t draw from welfare programs, and uses the money he breaks his back trying to earn to feed, clothe, and and shelter his family. However, the Dems want to raise his income tax, so that more of his hard earned money goes to families that don’t work. My dad’s the kind of man who doesn’t expect, nor want, the government to do things for him, and prefers to work for his money that provides for him and his family. I keep thinking of The Captain from Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here, is failure to communicate.”
There’s so much factually wrong with this OP, I can’t help but think it was meant for the Pit rather than GD.
I think you’re painting with an awfully broad brush here. Do you really think that poor human beings in the US just have so little dignity that they are willingly choosing handouts instead of work? Some people just can’t make it no matter how hard they try. Should they be left to die in the streets? Does that make the US a better nation somehow?
The real problem with the US is the fear of helping people because it’s “socialism”. Needing help from time to time does not make a person less of a human being or less of an American. We all fall on hard times and often due to circumstances beyond our control. If and when this happens to you, remember what you said here.
PS: If you don’t like the poor (who rely on the government for help) you should be very pro-abortion. And stem cell research will benefit the rich long before it benefits the poor.
Actually I’m very pro-choice, but if you think that I’m going to help you out with some of my hard-earned money WITHOUT expecting some kind of repayment in a reasonable amount of time, I think you are asking for too much. No, the poor should not be left to starve. I am trying to take a no-partisan stance, here. Both parties are stymied as to what is best for us, and unless someone gives in, we are heading for disaster
I don’t know about dignity, but yes. Why work when you can get stuff for free?
WIC costs the feds about 7 billion a year, TANF is about 20 billion. This is when employment is at 8%, when we’re not in a Recession the costs are lower by about a third. Neither is a particularly odious drain on the tax-payer.
Your tax burden is almost entirely due to the elderly and the military. Poor parents and their children are a pretty small fraction.
I’m pretty Conservative-leaning, and most people here are pretty Liberal, as far as I can tell. I don’t think it’s right that my party should outlaw abortion, but kill welfare programs, and I don’t think it’s right that Dems should be forcing high-income families to pay more. Our parties are at an impasse, one of us has to letup on the other, and the way I see it, it might as well be you.
Let’s just take a quick look at some of the things that are factually unsupported in the OP:
Got cites for those being real in any way?
Got a cite for anyone saying that?
They do? then surely you have a cite for it, right?
This is a rant, not a topic for debate. It’s just a bunch of bullshit posing as fact, and is better suited for the Pit than for GD.
I’m not allowed to cite my father, who is older than I am, is a distinguished combat veteran from Desert Storm, and is far wiser than I?
Actually since Reagan, the wealthy have paid less and less taxes. Many think they should pay their share. Top tax rate during Ike was 90 percent. NOw the rich pay far less and can escape a lot more through offshore accounts and semi-legal tax evasions.
Our tax base does not keep up our infrastructure. We have to tax sufficiently to maintain it.
The Dems obviously have not forced the rich to pay more and more, since their taxes have been dropping for 40 years.
Oh and here you are picking out all the little bits and pieces that offend you, but are factual, yet you refuse to see it. You aren’t going to comment about the right-wing stuff I find wrong? How biased of you. I am trying my best to have no bias toward any party here. Lolumadbro?
Interesting to note that despite a wide-ranging top marginal tax rate over the last 75 years, tax receipts as a % of total GDP have remained remarkably constant at around 17.8% (bottom quartile = 17.3%, top quartile = 18.5%). Wish there was a way to post pics in this forum, because I have a chart that makes this point nicely.
That is to say, jacking up (or down) the highest tax rate doesn’t necessarily add all that much in tax revenues (although fair enough that at a 90% marginal tax rate you can bet people are doing anything and everything to “adjust” their reported numbers).
I just think it’s good that the OP’s dad was in the military rather than getting paid by the government with my taxes.
Am I the only one to think that The REAL problem of the US is that people at the level of OP imagine they have insight to offer?
I am insulted. Are you satisfied that you have attempted to make me into some kind of moron? Some people, you just can’t reach, I guess. but since you clearly are an expert, why don’t you break it down for me and show me what you imagine the REAL problem to be?
Good. The poor are not living in luxury. There are over a million foreclosures every year since the super rich bankers trashed the economy. Bankruptcies are rampant and most of them are caused by health care costs.
Your vision of the poor sticking it to the downtrodden wealthy is wrong.
Why is it that Conservatives always assume that people won’t work, given the choice? Is it because Conservatives won’t work if they don’t have to, and thus everyone else won’t if they don’t have to?
Because as a Liberal, I would work even if I was filthy rich.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2011-05-05-tax-cut-record-low_n.htm Yep taxes are low. Too damn low.
You do make an excellent point, but still, people, both rich and poor, are making bad decisions. For example, let us assume that I am currently drawing from welfare, I am in good enough health to work, but have not been actively looking for a job in months. My check comes in, and I’ve been saving up most of my paychecks not to buy food or medicine or clothes, but instead I’ve been saving up to buy a copy of Portal 2 for XBox 360. Did I really need that? No. I just made a bad choice. Now a better choice would have been to use that money to pay of some of my utility bills. Now assuming that I keep up this pattern of procrastination, am I doing anyone any good, am I contributing in some manner by sitting and playing Black Ops all day?
So yeah, in an extremely poor year tax receipts as a % of GDP might be a whole ~2.5% lower than their long term average. That’s going to happen in a recession. Just saying.
My general philosophy is to trust actual data over alarmist media reports.