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"Class Warfare"

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Cardinal Fang said:
Yeah, I suspect he was being serious. Did you want to claim that the right-wing is NOT engaged in class warfare or something? Do they NOT on an hourly basis (or is it minute by minute) attack and vilify unions and their members? How about public workers? Those receiving unemployment benefits? The 51% of 1040 filers who end up paying no net income tax because they don't owe any? To name a few.
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net tax payers have certainly more credibility attacking those who pander to net tax consumers than the other way around
 
Catawba said:
I think you may be correct! I've never really understood what allows that disconnect to occur in a small percentage of the population.
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Obama claims to be FOR the middle class, but a very high % of people disapprove of his handling of the economy.
 
mpg said:
Obama claims to be FOR the middle class, but a very high % of people disapprove of his handling of the economy.
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Obama mainly caters to the rich who are rich because of a big government. Romney caters to the rich who are rich despite the government and those in the middle class who want to become richer. Neither caters to the people who are permanently stuck at the bottom though Obama is more likely to support policies that keep such people there
 
mpg said:
It was poorly written, but I understood it. Let me give you another example. The Tea Party says that they're doing what's best for the economy, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing what's best for the economy. If someone opposes the Tea Party, does that mean that they want a bad economy? Of course not, it just means that you disagree about which policies are good for the economy.

Nowadays, some people are saying that the pie needs to be divided more evenly, and almost all of those people are claiming to be advocates for the middle class, but there are many of us who believe that that will hurt the middle class by making the pie smaller. The Cold War taught us that large doses of socialism do tremendous harm, and Western Europe taught us that small doses of socialism do minor harm. Just look at the data; the US has a much higher standard of living than Europe, yet some people still insist that the US needs to be more like Europe.
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Your in luck! No one is proposing socialism, unless you consider the 1950's in the US to be socialism!
 
mpg said:
Obama claims to be FOR the middle class, but a very high % of people disapprove of his handling of the economy.
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That's about 20% less than the number of people that disapprove of the way the GOP in Congress have been handling the economy.
 
Catawba said:
Your in luck! No one is proposing socialism, unless you consider the 1950's in the US to be socialism!
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That is crap but most socialists understand that an incremental approach is far more effective than trying to get everything they crave at once
 
Catawba said:
That's about 20% less than the number of people that disapprove of the way the GOP in Congress have been handling the economy.
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what you fail to understand is that people disprove of congress in general but tend to re-elect their own congressman
 
TurtleDude said:
That is crap but most socialists understand that an incremental approach is far more effective than trying to get everything they crave at once
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First the 1950's and then the 1960's!!!! Low unemployment, less people living in poverty, most everyone in the middle class could afford a home and a car, yes horrible......... it was horrible I tell ya!!!!
 
Catawba said:
First the 1950's and then the 1960's!!!! Low unemployment, less people living in poverty, most everyone in the middle class could afford a home and a car, yes horrible......... it was horrible I tell ya!!!!
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Almost no one payed the highest tax rates, I believe the cap was 5 mill. which was incredibly unsual for that day and age.
 
TurtleDude said:
what you fail to understand is that people disprove of congress in general but tend to re-elect their own congressman
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No, not at all because what you failed to learn is there are more people today (than during the entire time they have been keeping the record ) that think there own Congressman doesn't deserve reelection.
 
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Hare said:
Almost no one payed the highest tax rates, I believe the cap was 5 mill. which was incredibly unsual for that day and age.
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And no one is proposing the highest tax rates now. Actually what's been proposed is far below historic effective tax rates for the wealthy. especially for capital gains tax rate which is now the lowest its been since before any of us were born.
 
Catawba said:
Your in luck! No one is proposing socialism, unless you consider the 1950's in the US to be socialism!
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There are degrees of socialism. We haven't been 100% capitalist for a long time. The terminology is unimportant. This is about wealth redistribution, equalizing wealth, an increase in taxing and spending, an increase in government control of the economy, whatever you want to call it. It's been done, it failed, and it's easy to see why it failed.
 
Catawba said:
And no one is proposing the highest tax rates now. Actually what's been proposed is far below historic effective tax rates for the wealthy. especially for capital gains tax rate which is now the lowest its been since before any of us were born.
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Many middle class people have a 401k, so an increase in the capital gains tax could be interpreted as class warfare against the middle class.
 
mpg said:
There are degrees of socialism. We haven't been 100% capitalist for a long time. The terminology is unimportant. This is about wealth redistribution, equalizing wealth, an increase in taxing and spending, an increase in government control of the economy, whatever you want to call it. It's been done, it failed, and it's easy to see why it failed.
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No one is proposing anything more socialistic than it was in the US in the 50's and 60's in America, so I wouldn't sweat it. If you think that period in America was socialistic that it is your perspective that is skewed.
 
Is anyone here willing to say that a smaller pie and less freedom are small prices to pay for a more evenly divided pie? If so, I'll respect your honesty and respectfully disagree with your opinion.

OTOH, if you think that we can divide the pie more evenly without shrinking it, or without reducing our freedom, you're confused.
 
Catawba said:
No one is proposing anything more socialistic than it was in the US in the 50's and 60's in America, so I wouldn't sweat it. If you think that period in America was socialistic that it is your perspective that is skewed.
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IIRC, there were more deductions back then, so the effective rates weren't as high the nominal rates. Either way the economy improved when JFK lowered the top bracket from 90% to 70% and it improved again when Reagan lowered it to 50%. Yes, I realize that 50% is higher than what we have now, and I'm not completely opposed to any tax increase ever, but I am opposed to demonizing the rich and I worry about how it will affect me and the rest of the middle class.
 
mpg said:
Is anyone here willing to say that a smaller pie and less freedom are small prices to pay for a more evenly divided pie? If so, I'll respect your honesty and respectfully disagree with your opinion.

OTOH, if you think that we can divide the pie more evenly without shrinking it, or without reducing our freedom, you're confused.
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What the hell are you talking about??? No one is proposing any less freedom and what is being proposed is the working class finally getting to share in just a little bit of the pie that was being consumed by largely by the rich through 30 years of supply side economics and deregulation that left half the country in or near poverty while at the same time more wealth was accumulated by those at the top.
 
Catawba said:
No one is proposing anything more socialistic than it was in the US in the 50's and 60's in America, so I wouldn't sweat it. If you think that period in America was socialistic that it is your perspective that is skewed.
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BTW, spending was lower in those days.
 
mpg said:
IIRC, there were more deductions back then, so the effective rates weren't as high the nominal rates. Either way the economy improved when JFK lowered the top bracket from 90% to 70% and it improved again when Reagan lowered it to 50%. Yes, I realize that 50% is higher than what we have now, and I'm not completely opposed to any tax increase ever, but I am opposed to demonizing the rich and I worry about how it will affect me and the rest of the middle class.
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No the effective rates were still higher for the rich then, especially the capital gains tax rate. I don't demonize the rich, I demonize the tax code.

What has happened over the last 30 years is that our once progressive tax system has become more flat, so that the middle class are paying more and assuming more of the debt in order to provide tax breaks to the rich. That is why the rich have been getting richer and the middle class getting poorer, rather than the other way around. Most of the middle class see no point in continuing to vote for tax cuts for the wealthy that do not benefit the middle class.
 
mpg said:
BTW, spending was lower in those days.
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No ****! Much of our debt over the last 30 years is due to excessive military spending, optional wars and tax cuts to the rich.
 
Catawba said:
Come again?
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You said "That's about 20% less than the number of people that disapprove of the way the GOP in Congress have been handling the economy.". If you want me to find a link showing how low Obama's economic approval rating is, I will. I didn't think it was necessary because I thought it was common knowledge.

I admit that I skimmed over it pretty fast, but it looked like your link didn't break down Congress's approval rating into separate topics such as economics.

None of this is particularly important. I was just trying to counter your claim about "a small percentage of the population".
 
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