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Walker takes broad swipe at public employee unions

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whysoserious said:
I don't have a listing of median benefits nationwide, (I don't think).

I do have this:

May 2009 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates


In 2009, teacher's in Wisconsin were paid a median of $49,000, I think. So that's just over this average of all jobs. Again, since we've shown that income - expenses = profit/loss, and we've also shown that Walker decided tax breaks were more important than negotiating with teachers, I think the news that Walker is discussing politics with who he thought was a major campaign contributor should have destroyed what little credibility he had left.

However, if you do have some shocking statistic that compares teacher's salaries + fringe benefits to other salaries I would love to see it. I know they do have some excellent benefits since they are government employees.

Let me know where those WMD's are?
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You do realize that the teachers also have benefits included in their compensation and those benefits are quite lucrative but aren't included in the calculations. Nor is the fact that teachers work 9 months out of the year and are funded entirely by the taxpayers. Because they are public unions funded by the Taxpayer, FDR got it right, public unions should have no collective bargaining rights.
 
Ockham said:
I provided facts this morning which you did not address, which destroyed your opinion, which you've ignored and have not addressed with anything whatsoever either.
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LOL! In your mind possibly!
 
Catawba said:
We most certainly do, review the 2010 Census, read the newspaper, do a little research if you are so far removed from the middle class that you can't see their plight getting worse as the super-rich just get more tax breaks that are added to our debt.
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Who's fault is it to be far removed from the middle class? Sorry pal, that's not my fault and I'm in the middle class and I came from poverty in my family... and I didn't get to the middle class by whining about the rich and their tax breaks. You need to worry less about what others are doing and more about yourself.

Catawba said:
Poppycock:
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And I'll raise you a "balderdash!". :roll:

Catawba said:
"The ranks of the working poor now exceed 47 million, driven in part by the steep erosion of wage standards throughout our economy. Over the last forty years, the real value of the federal minimum wage has fallen by close to 30%. Even after the 2007-2009 federal increases, the minimum wage remains far too low to sustain working families."

National Employment Law Project

"Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds"

Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds
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Let me raise you some common sense forsooth!

Forty years ago a young, radical journalist helped ignite the War on Poverty with his pioneering book The Other America. In its pages, Michael Harrington warned that the recently proclaimed age of affluence was a mirage, that beneath the surface of U.S. prosperity lay tens of millions of people stuck in hopeless poverty that only massive government intervention could help.

Today, a new generation of journalists is straining to duplicate Harrington's feat—to convince contemporary America that its economic system doesn't work for millions and that only government can lift them out of poverty.

...

What's utterly misleading about Ehrenreich's exposé, though, is how she fixes the parameters of her experiment so that she inevitably gets the outcome that she wants—"proof" that the working poor can't make it. Ehrenreich complains that America's supposedly tight labor market doesn't produce entry-level jobs at $10 an hour. For people with no skills, that's probably true in most parts of the country; but everywhere, the U.S. economy provides ample opportunity to move up quickly. Yet Ehrenreich spends only a few weeks with each of her employers, and so never gives herself the chance for promotion or to find better work (or better places to live).

In fact, few working in low-wage jobs stay in them long. And most workers don't just move on quickly—they also move on to better jobs. The Sphere Institute, a California public-policy think tank founded by Stanford University professors, charted the economic path of workers in the state from 1988 to 2000 and found extraordinary mobility across industries and up the economic ladder.

...
That's a crucial truth that left-wing social thinkers have tried to deny from the earliest days of the welfare-rights movement. And as these books show, even after the conclusive failure of the War on Poverty and the resounding success of welfare reform, they are still at it.
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The Myth of the Working Poor by Steven Malanga, City Journal Autumn 2004

Yep still at it.

Yeah, and the bankruptcy myth?

David Himmelstein and colleagues recently contended that medical problems contribute to 54.5 percent of personal bankruptcies and threaten the solvency of solidly middle-class Americans. They propose comprehensive national health insurance as a solution. A reexamination of their data suggests that medical bills are a contributing factor in just 17 percent of personal bankruptcies and that those affected tend to have incomes closer to poverty level than to middle class. Moreover, for national health insurance to have an impact, it would have to define "medical" expenses in a much broader way than is now typical of either private or government-funded plans.
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Medical Bankruptcy: Myth Versus Fact

You need to learn that there are myths perpetrated on good people who then swallow them hook line and sinker because they are compassionate about others. This is your wake up call that everything you've been fed, isn't ALL wrong, but it's manipulated to perpetrate a specific thing: To get you to support an ideology based on good intentions which in it's intent is a good act, but is being used for manipulative purposes. There are bankruptcies from medical bills. There are some people who are poor and are part of the working poor. But YOU need to do more research and not just with what you believe but with independent information which is not meant to manipulate. Maybe then, you'll open your eyes.
 
ptif219 said:
You mean under Democrat spending since they have had the majority more than the GOP
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I'll call your bluff. Let's see your facts to back up that the Democrats have been the majority more in the last 3 decades?
 
Amazed said:
expense = spending....thanks for playing ;)
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Ok... that doesn't change anything though? You can interchange the words but the equation is still:

income/revenue - expense/spending = profit/loss

It's still linear. Get a graphing calculator. :)
 
Catawba said:
I'll call your bluff. Let's see your facts to back up that the Democrats have been the majority more in the last 3 decades?
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Dude... what do you want to do with facts? You didn't do anything with the one's I gave you earlier except ignore them... are you just out to waste other people's time?
 
Amazed said:
profit/loss

So...the Gov should run a "profit"?

The Gov creates nothing, it only takes :)
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You just want to play around with words?

Ok, we can do this for a while until you figure it out. It's cool:

income/revenue - expense/spending = profit (surplus) / loss (deficit)

It's still linear. You can change the words around all you want. In fact, you can even switch the sides!

income/revenue = profit (suprlus) / loss (deficit) + expense / spending

Wow! It works both ways!

Linear relationships are cool! :)
 
Conservative said:
You do what the govt. does, create debt. Stop the damn spending and stop blaming only Republicans, Democrats controlled the purse strings the last 4 years and added 5 trillion to the debt. you seem to have more of a problem with people keeping more of what they earn and the question is why? You keeping more of what you earn means less need for that liberal help and that drives liberals crazy.
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To clean up the mess from the last decade. Obama has proposed to cut spending by $100 billion a year and raise revenues. That's what is needed to reduce our debt. Who is the last GOP president to do that?

I have no interest in tax increases, all I am saying is we should stop the tax breaks for the most wealthy so they once again pay their fair share, that together with spending cuts will enable us to finally reduce our debt.
 
No need, I fully understand that spending is the problem......you see the Macro issue is NEVER bigger than the micro issue....one simply proves the other....Math maybe the only absolute we can hope for.

Now...you do understand that the Gov cannot create wealth?




whysoserious said:
Ok... that doesn't change anything though? You can interchange the words but the equation is still:

income/revenue - expense/spending = profit/loss

It's still linear. Get a graphing calculator. :)
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whysoserious said:
He talked about tax increasing, which is a far cry from just not decreasing taxes for corporations. I would start there before cutting current compensation for people.
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Are you that naive that you believe corporations aren't people and aren't going to pass any tax increases on to their customers or their employees by not giving pay increases?
 
Catawba said:
To clean up the mess from the last decade. Obama has proposed to cut spending by $100 billion a year and raise revenues. That's what is needed to reduce our debt. Who is the last GOP president to do that?

I have no interest in tax increases, all I am saying is we should stop the tax breaks for the most wealthy so they once again pay their fair share, that together with spending cuts will enable us to finally reduce our debt.
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Keep buying the rhetoric, how is that hope and change working out of you? You believe his 3.7 trillion dollar budget cuts spending 100 billion? The last Bush budget was 2.9 trillion. Looks to me like you need some math help.

What is the fair share for the rich? As was stated here you really need to stop worrying about what someone else makes or pays in taxes and start worrying more about yourself and how your taxdollars are being wasted.

From the IRS, apparently this isn't their fair share. Do you realize those evil rich people also pay state taxes?

The top 1% of wage earners make 20% of all income and pay 38% of all taxes.
The top 5% of wage earners make 34.7% of all income and pay 58.7% of all taxes.
The top 10% of wage earners make 45.8% of all income and pay 69.9% of all taxes.

The bottom 50% make 12.8% of all income and pay 2.7% of all taxes
 
Amazed said:
LOL....how much of my money do you want?

You are free to call anyone out you wish..but you will end up with egg on your face.

Your premise is that ALL money is the Gov's....it isn't.
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You do not read very well do you?

Nobody said that. It is absurd in the extreme and only serves to illustrate the intellectual emptiness of your position.

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that. He knew what he was talking about.
 
Amazed said:
Wow.

Twisted logic.....

Reduce your spending Paisan....it will fix everything.
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Don't do something incredibly stupid and cut your income at a time when you already have trouble making ends meet. What kind of outright economics idiot would even consider doing something as foolish as that?
 
haymarket said:
You do not read very well do you?

Nobody said that. It is absurd in the extreme and only serves to illustrate the intellectual emptiness of your position.

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that. He knew what he was talking about.
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So why don't you lay out for us what you believe is the fair share for all Americans to pay in taxes? Do you believe 47% of the income earners not paying any Federal Income taxes is fair? If you are worried about the deficit how about collecting something from those 47%?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0
 
Conservative said:
Are you that naive that you believe corporations aren't people and aren't going to pass any tax increases on to their customers or their employees by not giving pay increases?
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Well, they are currently going to get a tax break under Walker's plan, so I am not sure what you are talking about.

But the general idea is that businesses pass a part of it on based on how elastic their product is. Basically, inelastic businesses don't need to give breaks to their customers and will pass as much tax on as possible because they know the customer has to pay them either way.

Economics is not black and white. It's not "if we cut taxes business gets better and prices lower!" It would be nice, but it is not a reality.
 
Amazed said:
No need, I fully understand that spending is the problem......you see the Macro issue is NEVER bigger than the micro issue....one simply proves the other....Math maybe the only absolute we can hope for.

Now...you do understand that the Gov cannot create wealth?
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Did you just say the Big issue is never bigger than the Small issue? :)
 
Catawba said:
So when you give unfunded tax breaks to the rich which we have done since Reagan, and that amount is added to the debt, it is suddenly not debt anymore????

On my budget I have to cut spending and increase revenues to pay off my debts. How is it different with the country? If you decrease revenues and increase spending what happens?
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I earned 5 bucks. You tell me to give it to you. I say no.
Do you have 5 bucks less than before? Of course not.

It doesn't matter if you are a thousand in debt, I didn't add to it by keeping my own money.
 
whysoserious said:
Well, they are currently going to get a tax break under Walker's plan, so I am not sure what you are talking about.

But the general idea is that businesses pass a part of it on based on how elastic their product is. Basically, inelastic businesses don't need to give breaks to their customers and will pass as much tax on as possible because they know the customer has to pay them either way.

Economics is not black and white. It's not "if we cut taxes business gets better and prices lower!" It would be nice, but it is not a reality.
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What do you think those evil corporations do with their tax cuts? You do realize that a tax cut for a corporation just takes less of what they earned and isn't a check written by the taxpayers? Do you have anything invested in a 401K? Where do you think the growth comes from?
 
Conservative said:
So why don't you lay out for us what you believe is the fair share for all Americans to pay in taxes? Do you believe 47% of the income earners not paying any Federal Income taxes is fair? If you are worried about the deficit how about collecting something from those 47%?

Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax - Yahoo! Finance
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I am not obsessed with one particular tax over others the way the extreme right wing is. I do not think the income tax is the be all and end all of taxation. In fact, when you add in ALL taxation paid to ALL levels of government for ALL things - what you find out is that the difference between the extreme rich pay and what the rest of us pay is about 1.5% of our income.

Bottom line: we all pay about the same percentage in total taxes. Rich folks may pay more in actual dollars but average folks pay a higher percentage of their income in regressive taxes.. and there are a whole lot more of those than there are progressive ones. But this is nothing new to you is it? This has been explained to you over and over and over again in thread after thread after thread almost every time this silly 47% subject comes up.

But yet again, it will roll off of you like water off a ducks back and you will continue to obsess about the 47% and income tax. It will be like no ugly reality has disturbed your world at all.
 
Conservative said:
What do you think those evil corporations do with their tax cuts? You do realize that a tax cut for a corporation just takes less of what they earned and isn't a check written by the taxpayers? Do you have anything invested in a 401K? Where do you think the growth comes from?
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What? A 401k is an investment that I pay out of my pocket for retirement and the company often matches payments up to a certain points - and it's tax free! That's great, what does that have to do with anything?

You do realize that a tax cut for anyone is the same thing? I still don't see what that has to do with 401ks, but whatever. What do you think corporations do with money they get? Reinvest? Buy back common stock? Pay off long-term debt (or debt in general)? Keep it for liquidity?

They do lots of stuff but not much of it involves money "trickling" down to the plebs.
 
haymarket said:
I am not obsessed with one particular tax over others the way the extreme right wing is. I do not think the income tax is the be all and end all of taxation. In fact, when you add in ALL taxation paid to ALL levels of government for ALL things - what you find out is that the difference between the extreme rich pay and what the rest of us pay is about 1.5% of our income.

Bottom line: we all pay about the same percentage in total taxes. Rich folks may pay more in actual dollars but average folks pay a higher percentage of their income in regressive taxes.. and there are a whole lot more of those than there are progressive ones. But this is nothing new to you is it? This has been explained to you over and over and over again in thread after thread after thread almost every time this silly 47% subject comes up.

But yet again, it will roll off of you like water off a ducks back and you will continue to obsess about the 47% and income tax. It will be like no ugly reality has disturbed your world at all.
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Do you realize that ALL taxes don't fund the Federal Govt, but instead FEDERAL INCOME TAXES fund the Federal Govt. and that is the issue. You have the ability to move from state to state to affect tax rates but it is harder to escape the Federal Income taxes. Apparently you don't seem to know the expense line items in the budget even though I have posted them numerous times.
 
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