So I heard on the radio about his explanation to a small business owner, a plumber I think, about how Obama's tax policies don't mean to punish him but when everyone gets a piece of the pie it's more fair or something to that effect. Why should a successful businessman have to be penalized for being successful? And how much of this "spreading the wealth" claim is really going back into the hands of the less fortunate? I thought this country was founded on hard work not handouts...
we are halfway to becoming a socialist country already.
post by porphyria at Oct 15,2008 7:41pm
I don't think sports players for example, making millions buying for playing a game are working harder than my folks (and many other middle class families do). Just because they make more money doesn't mean they work harder, if anything, rich people work less as they get richer.
So the top executives of these big brokerage companies should get tax breaks?
we're paying for their manicures
post by FuckIsMySignature at Oct 15,2008 7:51pm edited Oct 15,2008 7:52pm
hows cutting taxes giving out handouts? and whats wrong with asking the rich to help out by paying more taxes to their country? if they dont like it they can move to another country and watch this one collapse from across the sea. fucking greedy assholes.
No government is foolish enough to put a tax burden on businesses so large that doing business is no longer profitable. Conversely, no business is foolish enough to think that the complete chaos that would result from eliminating taxation and disbanding the government is a great way to boost profits.
It's a multi-trillion dollar circle jerk; business owners try to give as little support to government as possible while politicians try to extract as much money as possible from them. If you're sick of it get active in local politics, vote for third parties in city council elections and work your way up the chain. The best you can do with the necessary evil of taxes is to take control of how they're spent, not whether or not they should exist.
Still...no one answered the questions...it's a free enterprise market where if the market dictates what one earns (i.e. a sports figure or executive) then why should they have to be penalized for that success? Why should it be a level playing ground? Career welfare families sponging off the system deserve NOTHING and people who have more success than others shouldn't be the ones to bail them out. Just because they have money, it was still earned regardless if YOU think it's fair or not...the market dictates it and if they can get it, so what? If you could get it you wouldn't? And you'd be willing to have increased taxes on what you achieved to be given to someone else who may not deserve it? I doubt it...
I have no clue what obama's stance on anything is. I don't give a shit what it is. he's not george bush. that's all I need to know. almost none of the policies he wants to do will come about cause our country has no extra money. during the time that he COULD do this, the government has shit for cash. in 4 years when he could do things, republicans will take the senate back and then we will have 4 years of prosperity at home with none of the policies he wanted passed through congress. anyhow you gain you success on the backs of tax payers everywhere. whether it is driving on the public roads, going to the public library or public schools. I feel that when you make above a certain point you should give a little more as a percentage of what you make unless you already make cheritable donations on your own. im not saying if you make 250,000 a year you pay 150,000 in taxes and if you make 250,000.01 then you pay 150,000.01 linearly, but the wealthier should pay more. I know as I make more the % that I pay in taxes go up. I know that mega corporations shouldn't say "oh.. um.. that pobox in the camen islands is our corporate headquarters" and avoid taxes. im not socialist, but work hrd and live well, don't work and live in shit. but both people are still able to live.
But it's not a free enterprise system, there are shitloads of government subsidies and tax breaks propping up sweetheart businesses. The Welfare Queen is a straw man relic from the '80s and you'd be better off directing your anger at lawmakers and corporate criminals than some imaginary Shiquita.
Your argument assumes that every successful person is entirely responsible for their own success; but what if there were no roads to transport goods, there were no police/fire departments to safeguard those goods, there was no insurance to protect the loss of those goods or there were no taxpayer financed venues where you could practice athletics? Or what if all of those things were privately financed and you needed to pay a fee to access them, would you have the same objection to paying a higher fee if you used those services more than the average person that you have for paying higher taxes?
Our government is deeply flawed, but at least there's the promise that if things get too fucked we can correct it through grass roots action. What makes you think privatization, especially in light of corporate America's ineptitude over the past decade and its willingness to recycle government bureaucrats in its boardrooms, would be any better?
post by MASlayer at Oct 15,2008 9:48pm
I'm for paying what is fair too...honestly i like a flat tax rate...that keeps EVERYONE honest...but where that's not likely to happen with either, I guess the real question is who/what determines what is a fair rate? I know no one consulted you or me or anyone here...all i know is up is the wrong direction I want to see them go and I am confident, as with every other democrat that has been elected in the last 30 years, they will. Why do you think Bush when he first got into office he had all of Clinton's mess repealed? We'll be in a worse state with obama, especially where he owes so many more interest groups at this point he wouldn't even be a president...just a corporate puppet...you watch...
The government just bought up private banks per a bipartisan allowance. Quick, blame Obama.
post by Hungtableed at Oct 16,2008 12:57am
Whining bitches; if you have a shitty job it's your own fault. You are what you make of yourself. There is plenty of opportunity in America to make something decent of your life. I make more than I ever wanted to make at my job and it's because I got off my ass and was pro active towards taking the opportunity that was out there for me.
post by FuckIsMySignature at Oct 16,2008 1:01am edited Oct 16,2008 1:01am
Whining bitches; if you have a shitty job it's your own fault. You are what you make of yourself. There is plenty of opportunity in America to make something decent of your life. I make more than I ever wanted to make at my job and it's because I got off my ass and was pro active towards taking the opportunity that was out there for me.
what about the 700000 people who had but then lost that opportunity due to being laid off through no fault of their own? are those people lazy whining bitches because they cant find a job to help support their families? opportunities come and go but a government shouldnt weigh you down in the process.
post by Hungtableed at Oct 16,2008 1:04am
that is the blame of pig ceo's who find it necessary to pocket completely unnecessary amounts of cash. like the aig guy who i read makes 1 billion a month.
So then there's no reason to bitch about the candidate who has openly stated he wants to close corporate loopholes and stop giving tax breaks to big business that ship jobs overseas.
I'm not for a flat tax if it's linear. I think a curved tax should be in place so that as you increase in % the more you make. also, charitable donations shouldn't be capped at $500.
the joe the plumber thing was a really good exchange.
ALSO, if you think that the country will be worse under obama, you are an idiot and can't remember history.
The next 3 years will be terrible. the government will have no money and won't be able to put in place the things that obama promises due to no money while the country digs itself out of the mess. 2010 will bring the senate and/or house back towards the republicans(but still controlled by dems). the last 8-10 months of Obama's first term will see the economy rebound amazingly and there will be a huge surplus. In those last months, nothing will really get passed. the 2012 race will see the house or the senate switch to republican and obama will barely win a 2nd term. he will serve 4 years without being able to pass much by the congress even though government and the US is flushed with cash. They will pay down the national debt instead (a bit). 2014 will see the remaining democratic congress body flip to republican. At that point, I think 2016 will send out the lame duck obama and bring in a 1 term lame duck president, but at least the jobless rate will be low.
I don't think sports players for example, making millions buying for playing a game are working harder than my folks (and many other middle class families do). Just because they make more money doesn't mean they work harder, if anything, rich people work less as they get richer.
Not all rich people -- please define -- are the same.
1 in 5 American households is pulling in more than $138,500 a year.
Then there's a lot of people who contribute nothing. Some are overpaid. Most are impoverished.
This country is chock-full of opportunity, as is nearly every place, unless you really have a Soviet style gov't in place.
Subsidizing those who can't make it to a middle ground -- not poor, not rich -- is just going to wreck the infrastructure of the country, and won't help those who are poor in a long-term way.
We've been subsidizing and gifting the impoverished for well over a century, with no reduction in the number of people afflicted by poverty -- rather, an increase.
the last 8-10 months of Obama's first term will see the economy rebound amazingly and there will be a huge surplus.
The economic cycle operates independently of what presidents do, for the most part.
What will Obama do in the meantime?
Increase entitlements and the largest sector of government spending, which is ineffective domestic spending, at the expense of people who are rising above the mess.
But it's not a free enterprise system, there are shitloads of government subsidies and tax breaks propping up sweetheart businesses. The Welfare Queen is a straw man relic from the '80s and you'd be better off directing your anger at lawmakers and corporate criminals than some imaginary Shiquita.
the welfare state is far worse that you think it is aparantly.
Percentage of White Americans on Welfare = 38.8%
Percentage of Black Americans on Welfare = 37.2%.
that's alot of fucking people reciving free shit!!
in massachusetts alone, welfare and free medical care are out of control!!!
1000's of hard working state employees (not upper-level overpaid scumbags, just the lower-level 10-18 dollars an hour state hacks) are going to be laid off!!! thanks largely to 2 things
1.the national (and consequently state) budget crisis
2.the insane amount of money the Commonwealth of MA has to pay out to welfare recipients
and i must tell you that many of the welfare recipients (be they black or white) are garbage excuses for human beings, who don't want to work, and believe they are owed a living....
serious drag on the economy
yes, corporate criminals, shitty lawmakers, and fuckups (like any of our last 4 or 5 presidents, and anyone who has worked high up in the federal reserve in the last 3 or 4 decades) should take the bulk of the blame, but the welfare state, and leinience toward illegal immigrants that don't pay taxes sure ain't helpin anything.
all I have to say is that that little obama dialogue makes tons of sense. if you don't want to pay more taxes for a country that has given you so much opportunity then you're an ungrateful person. and the clincher in that argument was that by the plumber paying more taxes and the rest of the country having less taxes that they could actually afford his services, thus giving him more customers.
I was thinking about a write in but now i'm with obama, because honestly fuck mccain a palin. palin is enough for me to hate that ticket, mccain just adds more suckage.
But honestly the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
also, anyone notice how the middleclass has been shrinking over the last few years, I know so many friends, and families who have gone from owning a house to renting a three bedroom apartment.
not to mention i would be in school making a better life for myself but I couldn't get a loan...maybe I'll have too look into trade school...even though i'm horrible with math and mechanical shit
But honestly the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Bet you could get a school loan or scholarship easier if you were, say, a minority. Try claiming a Hispanic grandparent.
The rich who get richer are the super-rich, and they will be unaffected because they rarely directly own assets that are taxed.
The people who will get reamed are the normal upper middle class folks, comprising about 1/5 of America, who are the ones who keep most small businesses, divisions of companies, etc. running.
It seems pointless to me, too, but I understand that each group feels best when it rules itself; multiculturalism just doesn't work.
I think this country has no consensus, and that's a dangerous place to be. It inevitably leads to tyranny.
post by Hungtableed at Oct 17,2008 1:04am
I quit caring. They (Johnny, Barrack Hussein, the Librarian-looking broad everyone here would nail - admit it, and that cum rag Joey Biden) are all FUCKING SKEEEEEEZE bags. They are ALL INSIDERS. They would all rape you and your family (including your aging grandmother) to get the power the seek. They all engorge the unnecessary pork spending then blame the other guy. Fuck 'em, I'm a Ron Paul write-in guy...afterall, that fucking socialist whore Obama who is a FUCKING NO ONE WITH NO EXPERIENCE is gonna win the communist republic of MA anyways.
Still...no one answered the questions...it's a free enterprise market where if the market dictates what one earns (i.e. a sports figure or executive) then why should they have to be penalized for that success? Why should it be a level playing ground? Career welfare families sponging off the system deserve NOTHING and people who have more success than others shouldn't be the ones to bail them out.
Paying their fair share is not penalizing.
That little bailout thingy that just happened, I love how Repubs are still stuck on the myth of the Welfare Queen and have no probem with corporate welfare that costs the taxpayers far more money.
Sure the Welfare Queen does exist, but you people make it seem like every single family on welfare is worthless. Most are familes fallen on ard times due to our peachy job-market, who want to get off welfare asap. It is not a fun life style.
post by orgymf@work at Oct 17,2008 9:02am
josh....i agree with you that there are people who truly need the help, and for them, it is rough.
unfortunately, the majority of assholes i have seen come into this office on welfare have a nasty attitude, a sense of entitlement, too many kids, and make plenty of money (on top of welfare, food stamps, section 8, free medical and free birth certificates) doing under the table jobs, selling drugs/stolen goods etc.
i'd say more than half of the "on-welfare-population" (at least in the state of taxachusetts) fall in to that cattergory
post by orgymf@work at Oct 17,2008 9:06am
perfect example, the first woman to walk in the door today had (what looked like) 3 pounds of gold "bling" around her neck, and an iphone. she also had 6 kids, 6 "baby daddies" and one in the belly.....25 years old.
she came in and got 7 (one for her, one for each kid) free birth certificates (which cost everyone else 18 of their hard earned dollars a piece), she had been on a welfare program since she turned 18, her mother is also on welfare and has 5 kids.....it's people like this who cause problems, and there are more of them than you think man....... anyway, for someone like that, they aren't trying to get back on track, they are just leeching off the system, and producing way too many children who will more than likely follow mommys footsteps
