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Do The Rich Need Saving?

Do The Rich Need Saving?

  • Total voters
    54
Catawba said:
Nope, I am for immediate spending cuts, lets bring our troops home immediately saving $150 billion a year and cut military spending in half, back to the 90's levels and save another $350 billion a year.
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We can't cut military spending, I mean how else would we maintain our empire?
 
U.S. Socialist. said:
We can't cut military spending, I mean how else would we maintain our empire?
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Wasn't overspending on military a big factor in the Fall of the Soviet Union? But that could never happen to us right? :sun
 
Catawba said:
Wasn't overspending on military a big factor in the Fall of the Soviet Union? But that could never happen to us right? :sun
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Of course it can't. After all we are America, God's chosen country. A shining city on a hill. God would never let OUR empire collapse.

In all seriousness though the parallels to the USSR are kind of disturbing. We have an elite ruling class that controls all the wealth and is increasingly out of touch with the people while the working class is getting poorer and poorer.

Meanwhile we spend trillions on a massive military in order to project our might across the glob and to top it all off were mired in Afghanistan.
 
U.S. Socialist. said:
Of course it can't. After all we are America, God's chosen country. A shining city on a hill. God would never let OUR empire collapse.

In all seriousness though the parallels to the USSR are kind of disturbing. We have an elite ruling class that controls all the wealth and is increasingly out of touch with the people while the working class is getting poorer and poorer.

Meanwhile we spend trillions on a massive military in order to project our might across the glob and to top it all off were mired in Afghanistan.
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Have no fear, our teachers and seniors can take up the slack for 30 years of tax cuts and unnecessary military spending! :sun
 
Catawba said:
Have no fear, our teachers and seniors can take up the slack for 30 years of tax cuts and unnecessary military spending! :sun
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It's about time, those evil slackers!
 
Catawba said:
Have no fear, our teachers and seniors can take up the slack for 30 years of tax cuts and unnecessary military spending!
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How ya gonna do that if you're posting here? Get to work, victim.


Thread does not deliver. We need a "commie" subforum with a "class warfare" section.
 
Boo Radley said:
It's about time, those evil slackers!
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And lording over us with their '98 Toyota Corollas!!!!!!!!

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:sun
 
ecofarm said:
How ya gonna do that if you're posting here? Get to work, victim.
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I forgot that you depend on my revenues to pay for your wars so you rich still get to enjoy your $58,000 average tax cuts! Hell of a deal!!! :sun
 
Catawba said:
Ah, you must be one of those highfalutin teachers! :sun
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Yep that would be me. Don't know how I live with the evil. It's hard being such a parisite. :coffeepap
 
Boo Radley said:
Yep that would be me. Don't know how I live with the evil. It's hard being such a parisite. :coffeepap
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I don't know how I live with the evil either! I am married to a teacher! She drove a Datsun 210 station wagon for nine years! Talk about conspicuous wealth!!!! :sun
 
U.S. Socialist. said:
My question is why can't we ask the rich to sacrifice some of their wealth for the good of the country they claim to love so much? The country needs more revenue and the working class doesn't have the means to provide so why don't the patriotic rich of America agree to have their taxes raised for the good of the country? This is a very emotional based argument I'll admit, I just find it strange that the group that talks the most about patriotism is unwilling to ask the rich to pay more for the good of the country they love. Perhaps Jefferson was right when he said "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
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Nobody has any problem with you asking the rich to "sacrifice some of their wealth for the good of the country" - but that's not really what you want to do, is it? I see nothing Patriotic about the government confiscating money, and nothing Patriotic about someone handing money over because if they don't they'll go to jail.

Besides, if someone truly wanted to "do something for the good of the country they love," what nutball would choose to send the money to Washington rather than having a direct say in how it's spent?
 
Taylor said:
Nobody has any problem with you asking the rich to "sacrifice some of their wealth for the good of the country" - but that's not really what you want to do, is it? I see nothing Patriotic about the government confiscating money, and nothing Patriotic about someone handing money over because if they don't they'll go to jail.

Besides, if someone truly wanted to "do something for the good of the country they love," what nutball would choose to send the money to Washington rather than having a direct say in how it's spent?
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Just as the working class was not asked if they wanted to pick up the slack for the tax breaks given to the rich in the first place. And "what nutball would choose to send the money to Washington rather than having a direct say in how it's spent?"

That's how 5,000 soldiers were sacrificed and a couple trillion in debt was accrued from an unnecessary war in Iraq we didn't vote for! :sun
 
Catawba said:
I forgot that you depend on my revenues to pay for your wars so you rich still get to enjoy your $58,000 average tax cuts! Hell of a deal!!!
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I'm not upper (or union) class. I'm intellectual class. I don't fear commies because I'm rich. I fear them because they're stupid. Class warfare is lost on me, I just don't want morons in charge; they kill all the smart people.
 
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ecofarm said:
I'm not upper (or union) class. I'm intellectual class. I don't fear commies because I'm rich. I fear them because they're stupid. Class warfare is lost on me, I just don't want morons in charge; they kill all the smart people.
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No, you are smarter than that. Only idiots happily pay more so the rich can have their $58,000 tax breaks each year without any requirements to create jobs or even invest it in our own country. Do you even make that much? 90% of the country make less in total earnings than the annual tax breaks for the wealthy! :sun
 
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No, I don't make that much. And I still think rich people should keep their money. The standard of living in the US is not sustainable - deal with it. I don't care. I think buying a bunch of disposable crap from Walmart made in China is unsustainable. I think people eating meat everyday (every meal?!) is unsustainable. I think 50% obese, 80% ignorant and 5% awake is unsustainable. The whole developed world is gonna take a hit, and most of Europe is still using 1960's water-radiators for indoor heating. Hell, Holland has toilets so shallow one must fear, and there's no water in them. I don't think the US will drop to Euro standards for the middle class (go-carts and dorm-rooms), but things are not going to stay like this, any way we cut it.

Money is power. Power to the people!

Let's continue to see what we do with it. Your problem, Cata, is that you don't think people are together unless the government serves as an intermediary. You can't imagine that most people will probably do the right thing with what they have, because you're so sure of exactly what the right thing is for everyone right now. I don't know what's right for you (and us), today. Could be a soda, could be a donation... I'm not an authoritarian, you decide for you (and thus us, I'm ok with that). I seek to empower individuals, not rule them.

If you were rich, Cata, I'd give you a tax break and you'd do the right thing with it (even if that means saving/investing it), wouldn't you?
 
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ecofarm said:
No, I don't make that much. And I still think rich people should keep their money. The standard of living in the US is not sustainable - deal with it. I don't care.
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You are right that it is not sustainable, it is why we can no longer afford the tax breaks for the rich. That is how we will deal with it! Whether you care or not.

I think buying a bunch of disposable crap from Walmart made in China is unsustainable.
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Me too, I agree that 30 years of trickle down theory has been a horrible failure. Where are the jobs and trickle down wealth it was suppose to have created??? As it has been demonstrated, the exact opposite happened, it created more concentration of wealth at the top. There has not been a such a wide disparity between the rich and the working class since the 1920s.


I think people eating meat everyday (every meal?!) is unsustainable. I think 50% obese, 80% ignorant and 5% awake is unsustainable. The whole developed world is gonna take a hit, and most of Europe is still using 1960's water-radiators for indoor heating. Hell, Holland has toilets so shallow one must fear, and there's no water in them. I don't think the US will drop to Euro standards for the middle class (go-carts and dorm-rooms), but things are not going to stay like this, anyway we cut it.

Money is power. Power to the people!

Let's continue to see what we do with it.
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The 10% of people at the top own 90% of the wealth in this country now. So if your philosophy is power to the people, your plan to get there ain't been workin'!!! :sun
 
The 10% of people at the top own 90% of the wealth in this country now. So if your philosophy is power to the people, your plan to get there ain't been workin'!!!
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I'm much more concerned with the reality of living standards than imagining what others may or may not have. We've been fine without Euro-socialism. Today, we live like a millionaire in 1950. We have the highest living standards in the world and the most power.

Stats are just a butthole.
 
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I'm one of the few that voted 'Yes' the rich need saving. Unless of course, they can pass a camel through the eye of a needle. David Copperfield might be the exception.
 
ecofarm said:
I'm much more concerned with the reality of living standards than imagining what others may or may not have. We've been fine without Euro-socialism. Today, we live like a millionaire in 1950. We have the highest living standards in the world and the most power.

Stats are just a butthole.
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I would post the stats that prove your wrong and we don't have the highest standard of living in the world, but you just said you would rather ignore stats that prove you wrong. Seriously what is the point in debating someone who will ignore facts?
 
Catawba said:
I don't know how I live with the evil either! I am married to a teacher! She drove a Datsun 210 station wagon for nine years! Talk about conspicuous wealth!!!! :sun
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The last time I looked at a Dasun 210 I think I was in HS.
 
ecofarm said:
I'm much more concerned with the reality of living standards than imagining what others may or may not have.
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Not really interested in your personal interpretation of reality, but thanks for sharing! :sun
 
=Boo Radley;1059693140]Barbarian, No matter the reason for the credit, it is tax payer dollors going to pay for something that is the companies responsibility. If you believe in the free market ideology, you can't also believe in government supplimenting business. And it makes no difference as to why
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okay, then you must also believe the government should not be spending any money for clean energy, or any of the research for a cleaner fuel as well ... because after all .. we can't have government supplimenting business .... and corporate welfare .. is corporate welfare ... no matter who it goes to.

Oh, and anyone who uses the American non-Thinker can never, ever complain about a source, as any source, no matter how wild, beats the American non-Thinker. :lamo :lamo
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yes and I even told you it was a conservative site ..... didn't I ... I guess being a treacher .. you can neither read nor comprehend ... I can see why our education system is failing. But I noticed that you didn't disprove anything they said ....


Now, I did not single out oil companies, but spoke of corporate welfare on the whole. Your job would be to show that either such is just and a proper expensive of tax payer money, which to me means you're arguing that all we need to spend is a reason you like, or that we really don't have any corporate welfare of any significant sixe, which I think would be contrary to actual evidence.
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It's not my job to show anything, you make a blanket statement ... then ask someone to disprove it ... okay .. all teachers are over paid underworked .. and basically worthless .. and My proof is that we pay more per student then any other country, and we are ranked between 14th and 17th in the world in education

Average taxpayers pick up an expensive tab for corporate welfare expenditures. Government spending for corporate welfare programs far exceeds government spending for social programs.
1.Fact: Spending for corporate welfare programs outweighs spending for low-income programs by more than three to one: $167 billion to $51.7 billion (source: Aid for Dependent Corporations, from the Corporate Welfare Project and How Much Do We Spend on Welfare?, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, FY 95 figures)
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Not sure where you get your figures from .. . but here are some new ones ... showing where we pay nearly 400 billion a year in welfare payments .. Welfare Spending Chart in United States 1996-2016 - Federal State Local


2.Fact: Total federal spending on a safety net for the poor costs the average taxpayer about $400 a year, while spending on corporate welfare programs costs the same taxpayer about $1400 a year. (source: CBO figures)
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see above link

Corporate welfare programs are protected at the expense of the poor and powerless. In the last Congress, spending for the needy absorbed the majority of spending cuts, while corporate welfare spending was barely touched.
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Again .. describe corporate welfare, because all the figures you are giving seem to be for tax breaks ... that is written into the tax codes, and cannot be considered welfare of any kind

1.Fact: Over 90% of the budget cuts passed by the last Congress cut spending for the poor -- programs that ensure food for the needy, housing for the homeless, job training for the unemployed, community health care for the sick. (source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bearing Most of the Burden, 1996).
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you are talking about 1996? Who signed that into law .... it must have been Clinton .... right ?


2.Fact: Only 3.9% of total federal outlays go to programs that solely benefit poor people.
Welfare programs for corporations do not play by the same rules as welfare for people. Welfare benefits for individuals and families are limited by strict eligibility requirements and time limits, while corporations get corporate welfare benefits regardless of wealth or accountability.
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Again I refer you to this site Welfare Spending Chart in United States 1996-2016 - Federal State Local and you just continually repreat your self .. . I've already shown where the supposed 8 or 9 billion paid to oil companies .. . turns out to be less then 1 billion ..... and I even agreed .. that one billion should be cut .. But you just ramble on and on .. using the same old figures ... hardly a good teaching quality when you have been shown those numbers are wrong


2.Fact: Most social spending is in the form of discretionary spending, which is scrutinized in the annual budget negotiating process in Congress; most corporate welfare programs are in the form of tax expenditures, which go on and on since they are not subject to annual review by Congress.
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Which means they are part of the tax "laws" and once again .. is in no way corporate welfare, if you use that reasoning .. then we must add to individual welfare .. any "legal" deduction taken by individuals ... correct?


In the wake of an earlier round of bank bailouts presided over by George H.W. Bush, I published a short piece in Newsweek entitled “Welfare Bankers” (sadly, the magazine’s digital archives do not extend to October 16-17, 1989). Protesting the moral double standard applied to bankers and to welfare mothers, I argued that the bankers whose institutions were bailed out at a cost of about $156 billion (what a deal compared to today’s bailout!) could perhaps be retrained as child care workers.
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has nothing to do with anything ... but for your information, I disagreed with the bail outs .. Then on the other hand .. if I recall correctly, most of that money if not all of it was repaid by the banks was it not ? So again . . you are just filling up spaces with nothing ... but being a teacher .. I fully understand your need to do so

In the decade that followed this financial debacle, we could have gotten banking reform. Instead, we got welfare reform. Stricter work requirements and time limits were imposed. The welfare rolls declined sharply. Participation in the TANF program has fallen by half since 1996
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We did get Banking reform as well .. remember the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act signed by Clinton ??

Welfare reform was heralded as a great success because it got so many of our female “troubled assets” off the rolls. But in addition to some unanticipated side effects (which I’ll describe in a future post), it was premised on the assumption that single mothers would be able to find work if they just tried hard enough.
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Again not sure what this has to do with corporate welfare .. I'm sure you have some reason to coming to it over and over again . . something only a teacher would understand .. I guess ....but again understand ... that it was Clinton that signed that welfare reform into law



However, the Bush budget proposal also increases some of the largest corporate welfare programs, such as federal aid to oil companies through the fossil energy research and development program and research subsidies to aerospace companies as well as increases for the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the Foreign Agriculture Service, and the Conservation Reserve Program.

The Corporate Welfare Budget: Bigger Than Ever

And that has probably emboldened Congress -- which, instead of investigating oil companies, just handed them (by various estimates) anywhere from $1.4 billion to $4 billion in tax breaks in the new energy bill.
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Just a suggestion, have you looked up any of those programs you just listed ..... or were you so impressed by the 1.4 billion dollar number .. .that you just assumed it was bad ... kinda know the anwer ....I suggest you look them up .. and read what you are against ......


As I have said, most of what you are saying is we need to change our tax laws ... and I'm all for that .. not just closing these so called loopholes, but the entire system .... But when talking about corporate welfare, lets not be including "legal" tax deductions being taken by a company. that is not corporate welfare, any more then it's welfare for a person to itemize and take every legal deduction they can take. Both are the same.
 
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