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Is it unreasonable for the wealthiest to pay a little more?

Is it unreasonable to pay a little more?

  • Yes. I'm a greedy bastard!! I need MORE!!!

    Votes: 21 27.6%
  • No. There's comes a point in wealthiness where it just doesn't even matter anymore.

    Votes: 48 63.2%
  • I'm not sure.

    Votes: 7 9.2%

  • Total voters
    76
The best way to reduce the deficit is with a strong economy. The economy grows best when we have a strong middle class. If the GOP had stuck with their refusal to extend the middle class tax cuts to protect the tax cuts for the wealthy, we risked another recession.

You have it completely backwards. A strong middle class, is the byproduct of economic growth. Sustained full employment and robust economic growth causes wages to rise, which move people who used to be in the "lower class" into the middle class. This isn't the result of government, this is the result of industry. Government plays a role in education, infrastructure, in specific cases capital investment, etc., but these should ideally be tailored to what the economy needs, not what the "middle class needs." You cannot just make rules that say to protect the middle class and expect it to be fine and dandy. The middle class has to be built by the economy, and in some cases rebuilt when certain industries become obsolete and new industries must emerge. The middle class on a global scale is booming, it is expected to double by 2020, and nearly triple by 2030, and that will have enormous dividends for our sectors as wages start to rise in those countries and our workers become more competitive.
 
Find me a single historical example of a government that doesn't end up tyrannical before its collapse. They all end the same way as far as I know. The only inevitable fact when dealing with government is that it always gets bigger and more corrupt. Special interests.

Which has little to do with what you said. I don't pretend there are not problems, but there's always been corruption. With every government, the trick is to stay vigilant, to remember there is a function and purpose, a reason why people form governments.
 
The funny thing is that more progressive taxes are good for all of us. The rich don't miss the money and when it gets spent by the Govt. it increases growth and GDP. A strong growing economy is good for all income levels. Once the balance is corrected we can look forward to a new growth period when wages go up for all and not just the few at the top. Isn't that what everyone should want?

Of course, but instead of trying to level the playing field so that we are all playing by the same rules, you want to give the corrupt politicians who have secured the mega rich's power MORE power. Increasing taxes is an attempt to cover up the symptoms, instead of the root problem.
 
We need jobs lots of them. We have an economy now where the money flow is going to the top and to foreign countries and there is not much of it fueling our economy. People who don't have it to invest are going to find living hard. The cost of all life essential needs continues to rise while wages fall.At this point I don't really see an answer. It takes two people working at minimum wage to earn what one person needs to make just to survive.

This has been coming since Nixon and Kissinger negotiated a trade deal with China, lets be realistic you can not flood the work force with another 3.5 billion plus workers and think it won't have a dramatic effect on wages and living standards. Taxes alone are not the answer we need jobs decent paying jobs.


then vote against the democratic party since it makes the cost of business too high
 
then vote against the democratic party since it makes the cost of business too high

COC guess what that means? Does history back your claim up? What were the taxes under the Clinton Presidency? It does not matter who the President is very few politicians would back up protectionism. That means there will be a long period of time before manufacturers ever freely come back to the USA. The fastest way to promote job growth would be for Americans to realize that the government will not impose strict enough import tariffs on foreign goods, so buying products and using services that are made in the USA will promote job growth which will increase revenues without the need to raise taxes. Go back to the Clinton tax rates across the board the poor will still not have to pay and revenues will increase.
 
COC guess what that means? Does history back your claim up? What were the taxes under the Clinton Presidency? It does not matter who the President is very few politicians would back up protectionism. That means there will be a long period of time before manufacturers ever freely come back to the USA. The fastest way to promote job growth would be for Americans to realize that the government will not impose strict enough import tariffs on foreign goods, so buying products and using services that are made in the USA will promote job growth which will increase revenues without the need to raise taxes. Go back to the Clinton tax rates across the board the poor will still not have to pay and revenues will increase.

that makes no sense.
 
that makes no sense.

What makes no sense is to go back to the same failed policies that have not worked, lowering taxes across the board during the Bush administration just ushered in the economic mess we are in and will be in for years to come.
 
COC guess what that means? Does history back your claim up? What were the taxes under the Clinton Presidency? It does not matter who the President is very few politicians would back up protectionism. That means there will be a long period of time before manufacturers ever freely come back to the USA. The fastest way to promote job growth would be for Americans to realize that the government will not impose strict enough import tariffs on foreign goods, so buying products and using services that are made in the USA will promote job growth which will increase revenues without the need to raise taxes. Go back to the Clinton tax rates across the board the poor will still not have to pay and revenues will increase.
You obviously ain't Abigail Beacher (the history teacher)!!!!

Do you know WHY politicians don't back up protectionism? While the US government learned SOME lessons from the dirty '30s (they did forget all of those that brought us Glass-Steagal) not to repeat Smoot-Hawley is one they DID remember. Remember when Clinton campaigned against the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement, as did our PM Jean Chretien then both got elected and one of the first things they each did was sign the FTA into law? Even the PCLL (Politically Correct Looney Left) knows that trade protectionism is what will fail your economy in a hurry. Anyone with even a lick of economic sense knows that the GATT and subsequent WTO agreements are necessary for EVERYONE's prosperity (you DO realize that there are other people on this planet, don't you?).

Now, the real problem is the US stepped up to the table at least PRETENDING to believe in the principles of the GATT, but in fact has no such good understanding and just assumed in the usual myopic and wildly over-confident US way that they could just shrug off reality. The US can NOT compete because it's regulatory and tax regimes are just not on a level playing field with other major trading partners (China being the obvious example). I dealt with that issue in post #409. Try to cover that bit of ignorance with trade sanctions, and you just repeat 1930 and crash your isolated economy.

Simple solution: stop taxing wealth that is created (NOTE: I did NOT say wealth that is "earned" since it could be simply redistributed from capital gains) by income tax, and base ALL government revenue on consumption tax (VAT to most of the world, GST up here). In that way, every Chinese exporter has to carry the full burden of US overhead accumulated from tens of thousands of pages of regulation that China doesn't have, and they have no way to avoid it because it is imposed in YOUR jurisdiction. Do it with tariffs, and you are instead immediately under attack for being trade protectionist (and rightly so). Yeah, the Chinese cheat all to hell, so tax their goods HERE where YOU have full control and authority, but do it fairly, not discriminating and targeting (because cheaply bought politicians soon end up selling the privilege of exception if you let it be possible).

The key is that you collect your tax on EVERY transaction (not as difficult as you might imagine, and works just fine in all of the VAT/GST countries - just that we have income tax ON TOP - which is stupid) so there is no way to avoid it. (If you do not know how it works, every time value is added, the gross sale is taxed and the input tax paid on the way in is deducted from balance owing).
 
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Only someone wanting to divert the issue suggest finding one single person makes the argument worthy. There has to be enough to make it a valid concern not to be bs.
How about the Obama campaign video with the fictional woman--I forget here name--that highlighted how the state was there for her every step of the way through her entire life. You are either self-reliant or you are dependent upon others. The left wants people dependent upon them so that they can count on their votes. Independent people are the only threat to the omnipresent state.
 
How about the Obama campaign video with the fictional woman--I forget here name--that highlighted how the state was there for her every step of the way through her entire life. You are either self-reliant or you are dependent upon others. The left wants people dependent upon them so that they can count on their votes. Independent people are the only threat to the omnipresent state.
I can sympathize with your emotion, but I can not agree with your logic. Typically the RRR (self-Righteous Religious Right) thinks everyone can just shake off their circumstance and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be just like them. Never going to happen. On the other hand, the PCLL just LOVES to have a large, dependent population because it will employ a lot of their ilk, validate their twisted logic and the whole mess will keep voting them into office.

With unfunded liabilities for entitlements far exceeding ANY potential tax revenue into perpetuity, there is no way the status quo is sustainable, not even by doubling or trebling all tax rates. If the US expects to avoid the fate of their Greek economic model (and that will happen as greenback hegemony fails and the pent-up inflationary forces of decades of Casino Capitalism bring Weimar back to the Republic) you have to stop being distracted by the endless, senseless partisan dogma, pull your collective head out of your axx and deal with the fundamental systemic flaws in the system.
 
I can sympathize with your emotion, but I can not agree with your logic. Typically the RRR (self-Righteous Religious Right) thinks everyone can just shake off their circumstance and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be just like them. Never going to happen. On the other hand, the PCLL just LOVES to have a large, dependent population because it will employ a lot of their ilk, validate their twisted logic and the whole mess will keep voting them into office.

With unfunded liabilities for entitlements far exceeding ANY potential tax revenue into perpetuity, there is no way the status quo is sustainable, not even by doubling or trebling all tax rates. If the US expects to avoid the fate of their Greek economic model (and that will happen as greenback hegemony fails and the pent-up inflationary forces of decades of Casino Capitalism bring Weimar back to the Republic) you have to stop being distracted by the endless, senseless partisan dogma, pull your collective head out of your axx and deal with the fundamental systemic flaws in the system.
What the hell are you talking about? In what way does your post even remotely respond to mine?
 
You obviously ain't Abigail Beacher (the history teacher)!!!!

I don't need a history teacher to see the obvious outcome of the policies that led us to the place we are in right now

Do you know WHY politicians don't back up protectionism? While the US government learned SOME lessons from the dirty '30s (they did forget all of those that brought us Glass-Steagal) not to repeat Smoot-Hawley is one they DID remember. Remember when Clinton campaigned against the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement, as did our PM Jean Chretien then both got elected and one of the first things they each did was sign the FTA into law? Even the PCLL (Politically Correct Looney Left) knows that trade protectionism is what will fail your economy in a hurry. Anyone with even a lick of economic sense knows that the GATT and subsequent WTO agreements are necessary for EVERYONE's prosperity (you DO realize that there are other people on this planet, don't you?).

Let me start out this way if a person,a business, a country can not take care of their self than how can they take care of anyone else, please explain that to me? Apparently those with economic sense did not understand or did not GAC about what global trade would do to our ability to provide GOOD job opportunities to our citizens. If global trade had been brought in with an eye to the future the impact that it would have had would have been less severe. A global economy is coming for the good or the bad but it did not have to come as fast as it did. We could have protected some businesses while allowing some to go to other economies. The transition could have been regulated.

Every one wants to make this a pissing contest about taxes, when what we really need is revenue, revenue produced by jobs that stimulate our economy not the economy of foreign competition.

Now, the real problem is the US stepped up to the table at least PRETENDING to believe in the principles of the GATT, but in fact has no such good understanding and just assumed in the usual myopic and wildly over-confident US way that they could just shrug off reality. The US can NOT compete because it's regulatory and tax regimes are just not on a level playing field with other major trading partners (China being the obvious example). I dealt with that issue in post #409. Try to cover that bit of ignorance with trade sanctions, and you just repeat 1930 and crash your isolated economy.

Simple solution: stop taxing wealth that is created (NOTE: I did NOT say wealth that is "earned" since it could be simply redistributed from capital gains) by income tax, and base ALL government revenue on consumption tax (VAT to most of the world, GST up here). In that way, every Chinese exporter has to carry the full burden of US overhead accumulated from tens of thousands of pages of regulation that China doesn't have, and they have no way to avoid it because it is imposed in YOUR jurisdiction. Do it with tariffs, and you are instead immediately under attack for being trade protectionist (and rightly so). Yeah, the Chinese cheat all to hell, so tax their goods HERE where YOU have full control and authority, but do it fairly, not discriminating and targeting (because cheaply bought politicians soon end up selling the privilege of exception if you let it be possible).

The key is that you collect your tax on EVERY transaction (not as difficult as you might imagine, and works just fine in all of the VAT/GST countries - just that we have income tax ON TOP - which is stupid) so there is no way to avoid it. (If you do not know how it works, every time value is added, the gross sale is taxed and the input tax paid on the way in is deducted from balance owing).

We all need to quit pointing the finger of blame and look at how we are going to survive as a country, you can come up with all of the rhetoric you want to but the truth is our country is not and may never recover economically because of PPM and some short sighted rush to a global economy
 
COC guess what that means? Does history back your claim up? What were the taxes under the Clinton Presidency? It does not matter who the President is very few politicians would back up protectionism. That means there will be a long period of time before manufacturers ever freely come back to the USA. The fastest way to promote job growth would be for Americans to realize that the government will not impose strict enough import tariffs on foreign goods, so buying products and using services that are made in the USA will promote job growth which will increase revenues without the need to raise taxes. Go back to the Clinton tax rates across the board the poor will still not have to pay and revenues will increase.

Clinton rode one of, if not THE largest economic bubble this country has ever seen. He raised the capital gains tax during unprecedented stock market growth. What he did was profitable, beneficial, and stupid. If you do that under normal times, you'd hurt more than you'd help. In essence, he got lucky.

The fastest way to promote job growth in America is for workers to realize the inherent shift in today's American economy and adjust for it. Don't sit back and do nothing while you wait for an obsolete job that's gone forever to get back to you. Go out and gain some marketable skills and stop relying on glorified grunt work to put beans on your table. I mean, I'm sorry if you want to be some uneducated monkey punching a clock for the rest of your life, but those people will have to learn to deal. There are jobs out there that employers cannot fill because nobody is qualified to do them.
 
What the hell are you talking about? In what way does your post even remotely respond to mine?
Without having to be quite so obvious, I expected the message was that the absolutes of self reliance and independence of partisan dogma are not attainable. Reality lies somewhere in between.

Further is that all of that blather is just tilting at windmills. YOU ARE BROKE and have to figure out how to live within your means instead of worrying about the details.
 
Clinton rode one of, if not THE largest economic bubble this country has ever seen. He raised the capital gains tax during unprecedented stock market growth. What he did was profitable, beneficial, and stupid. If you do that under normal times, you'd hurt more than you'd help. In essence, he got lucky.
That's incorrect.
 
I don't need a history teacher to see the obvious outcome of the policies that led us to the place we are in right now
Which brings me to wonder WHY you believe the solution is to implement more of the same policies?????

Let me start out this way if a person,a business, a country can not take care of their self than how can they take care of anyone else, please explain that to me? Apparently those with economic sense did not understand or did not GAC about what global trade would do to our ability to provide GOOD job opportunities to our citizens. If global trade had been brought in with an eye to the future the impact that it would have had would have been less severe. A global economy is coming for the good or the bad but it did not have to come as fast as it did. We could have protected some businesses while allowing some to go to other economies. The transition could have been regulated.
The "Global Economy" has been there for several centuries. The US just didn't understand that very well when THE REST OF THE WORLD opened up and your leadership did not have the vision to look outside of its own borders. Trying to "regulate" things to "protect" yourself from the outside world is exactly what you would NOT want to do. Instead, you needed to "have your crap together" with respect to INTERNAL structure. In other words, you had to do exactly what you proposed to avoid - be competitive.

Every one wants to make this a pissing contest about taxes, when what we really need is revenue, revenue produced by jobs that stimulate our economy not the economy of foreign competition.
Which is precisely why I wrote what I did about HOW to tax to make that happen. BUT: it is about a lot more than revenue. It is about living within your means.



We all need to quit pointing the finger of blame and look at how we are going to survive as a country, you can come up with all of the rhetoric you want to but the truth is our country is not and may never recover economically because of PPM and some short sighted rush to a global economy
The US will NEVER return to its relative status of the post-war decades because it did so when the rest of the world was lagging far behind. That is no longer the case, and hopefully never will be again. However, instead of learning to compete with those growing economies, you are suggesting (and the US is doing) exactly the opposite and trying to figure out how to hide from the challenges that you MUST meet to even maintain the shambles of an economy that you still have. THAT will not happen until everyone wakes up and realizes that you need to employ capital productively instead of following the idiotic idea that everyone can just live off of pure speculation (everyone's favourite "the Market").

In short, people have to get off their fat arse and actually PRODUCE something. You can't regulate and protect what is not even happening.
 
Without having to be quite so obvious, I expected the message was that the absolutes of self reliance and independence of partisan dogma are not attainable. Reality lies somewhere in between.
Is that right? And who made you the gatekeeper of reality?

Further is that all of that blather is just tilting at windmills. YOU ARE BROKE and have to figure out how to live within your means instead of worrying about the details.
And who is arguing that?
 
Clinton rode one of, if not THE largest economic bubble this country has ever seen. He raised the capital gains tax during unprecedented stock market growth. What he did was profitable, beneficial, and stupid. If you do that under normal times, you'd hurt more than you'd help. In essence, he got lucky.

The fastest way to promote job growth in America is for workers to realize the inherent shift in today's American economy and adjust for it. Don't sit back and do nothing while you wait for an obsolete job that's gone forever to get back to you. Go out and gain some marketable skills and stop relying on glorified grunt work to put beans on your table. I mean, I'm sorry if you want to be some uneducated monkey punching a clock for the rest of your life, but those people will have to learn to deal. There are jobs out there that employers cannot fill because nobody is qualified to do them.

There sure are some understanding people out there, take you and your ilk for instance, can you do any of that glorified grunt workyou refer to? Not could you but can you? Uneducated monkey? is that how you refer to other human beings? Does that make it easy for you to not give a crap about other human beings? How about the children brought into this world by glorified grunts and uneducated monkeys what would you do with them. This is what I think if the playing field was leveled and those who through no choice of their own were born to glorified grunts and uneducated monkeys would be working and those who feel so high and mighty might be serving at MacDonald's
 
That's incorrect.
What IS correct is that Michael Rubin played Clinton and his Administration like a well worn fiddle and trashed not only Glass-Steagal, but ANY semblance of having Wall Street behave in an ethical and responsible manner. You can mark you calendar as the day the US economy was ruined - again. A performance, I might add, that has been repeated by EVERY subsequent Administration.
 
There sure are some understanding people out there, take you and your ilk for instance, can you do any of that glorified grunt workyou refer to? Not could you but can you? Uneducated monkey? is that how you refer to other human beings? Does that make it easy for you to not give a crap about other human beings? How about the children brought into this world by glorified grunts and uneducated monkeys what would you do with them. This is what I think if the playing field was leveled and those who through no choice of their own were born to glorified grunts and uneducated monkeys would be working and those who feel so high and mighty might be serving at MacDonald's

Hey, don't be pissed that you essentially were carried around at an inefficient wage and business got smart enough to give your job to someone making 37 cents an hour.

Long ago, you could buy a Betamax VCR for a thousand dollars. You wanna do that too? Get with the times, kid.
 
Is that right? And who made you the gatekeeper of reality?
I don't need to be the "gatekeeper" to be able to observe something, do I?

BTW: I should have been MORE observant and noticed that you list yourself as Libertarian. I mistakenly just assumed you to be part of the Uniparty. My profound apoligies for that.
 
Hey, don't be pissed that you essentially were carried around at an inefficient wage and business got smart enough to give your job to someone making 37 cents an hour.

The difference between your attitude and mine is that I believe we are no stronger then our weakest link and you don't give a siit about anyone but yourself, you live in some fantasy land where you think that nothing can touch you, your not only really short sighted but your disrespectful to others. I was fortunate to be born into a situation that gave me the opportunities to be as good as I could be. HAHA you must be clairvoyant my first real job at the age of 14 paid 37 cents per hour but when you multiply that times 48 part time hours it paid for my extras. I worked doing physical labor, skilled labor and for the 28 years managed a large maintenance department. I did not have the benefit of a silver spoon, daddy didn't give me a pass just food, clothing, shelter and a good work ethic. Not every child had the benefits I had, I was lucky in the birth pool.

Long ago, you could buy a Betamax VCR for a thousand dollars. You wanna do that too? Get with the times, kid.

I don't have to get with the times I can see them, I don't have to worry about mine but I know that their is a chain in the link that connects all of us and when that chain is stressed we will all suffer
 
The difference between your attitude and mine is that I believe we are no stronger then our weakest link and you don't give a siit about anyone but yourself, you live in some fantasy land where you think that nothing can touch you, your not only really short sighted but your disrespectful to others. I was fortunate to be born into a situation that gave me the opportunities to be as good as I could be. HAHA you must be clairvoyant my first real job at the age of 14 paid 37 cents per hour but when you multiply that times 48 part time hours it paid for my extras. I worked doing physical labor, skilled labor and for the 28 years managed a large maintenance department. I did not have the benefit of a silver spoon, daddy didn't give me a pass just food, clothing, shelter and a good work ethic. Not every child had the benefits I had, I was lucky in the birth pool.



I don't have to get with the times I can see them, I don't have to worry about mine but I know that their is a chain in the link that connects all of us and when that chain is stressed we will all suffer

It's quite simple, really. If you do the work of a pack mule, expect a pack mule's pay. This country was ruined by unions protecting people who could eek through high school and settle into a 60K+ job putting peg A into hole B.

Now that you have to be competitive and mentally useful to earn a wage, the cretins can't handle it. They want their cake and eat it too. They long for the days when they could moron around and perform mouth-breather work for an unsustainable wage.

I'm not all that good at violin, but if you want, I can attempt to play it for you and your plight.
 
It's quite simple, really. If you do the work of a pack mule, expect a pack mule's pay. This country was ruined by unions protecting people who could eek through high school and settle into a 60K+ job putting peg A into hole B.

Now that you have to be competitive and mentally useful to earn a wage, the cretins can't handle it. They want their cake and eat it too. They long for the days when they could moron around and perform mouth-breather work for an unsustainable wage.

I'm not all that good at violin, but if you want, I can attempt to play it for you and your plight.

It's apparent you can not or do not read and that you have no idea of what you are talking about. You have no solutions and need to tear down others in order to feel good about yourself. Good luck
 
How about the Obama campaign video with the fictional woman--I forget here name--that highlighted how the state was there for her every step of the way through her entire life. You are either self-reliant or you are dependent upon others. The left wants people dependent upon them so that they can count on their votes. Independent people are the only threat to the omnipresent state.
It is never either or. Most on your side missed the point. The person was self reliant, but also got some help. That's true of all of us. No man is an island. Things we have done collectively benefit all. Here, in this country, we are the state and hold the power to overthrow ten government peacefully any election cycle we choose to. For some the problem for them is that they were unable to get enough people to share their views. It happens to all sides from time to time.
 
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