Obama is cleaning up the mess left behinfd by Bush. He put us in this hole in the first place. You look what Obama inherited...two wars gone terribly wrong, a massive deficit, and economic diaster, a failed banking system, a failed health care system, a failed energy policy, a failing infrastructure, and a joke of an education system. My god, the man has a plan to fix it all (not just chanting the delusional free market cures everything axiom) and this is your reply? You've lost it. Poor TJ, you're going to have to pay more in taxes. Too bad for you.
You and I have a completely different view of helping someone. Paying someone to do nothing is not helping them at all. It is a way of making sure that they never change their lot in life or gain any feeling of self worth. It is a way to keep them down and controlled, dependent. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Oh... and if I have the good fortune and tenacity to be able to afford a Mercedes then who are you to say I don't deserve it and somebody else does? I thank God that I live in a country where it is my RIGHT to better myself and nobody can stop me except me... and the government.
He says he isn't a teenager, Sam. Frankly, I don't know whether to believe him or not. He's posting exactly like one.
Your right, every Republican I know hates children and education and hopes that they all die starving and uneducated. Every Democrat I know is a selfless servant of the people ready to give their life for their fellow man.
Yes, we do have a completely different view of helping someone. Which is fine, that's why we exchange ideas and have meaningful dialogs about these things. I do not believe in giving free handouts with no strings attached for unlimited lengths of time. I don't think anybody really believes that's what we should do, and I don't think that's what the government does. It might happen in some cases, but that is the price you pay for trying to help those who need it and benefit from it. It can also be a symptom of a poorly designed or run system, but the problem is not with the idea in the first place. Let's say we have a flat tax and everybody pays 25%. Let's say the country is at war and we need extra money for defense. We could increase taxes on everybody by 3%, or we could increase taxes on the top 10% of wage earners by 6%. In scenario 1, the teacher making $40,000 and taking home $30,000 pays $1,200 and the software programmer making $100,000 and taking home $75,000 pays $2,000 and the V.P. of Sales at a large chain store making $300,000 and taking home $225,000 pays $9,000. In scenario 2, the V.P. pays $18,000 and only takes home $207,000 while the teacher gets to keep taking home $30,000 and the programmer gets to take home $75,000. The first scenario is obviously more fair just looking at numbers. But is it the best choice? Doesn't the second scenario maximize the quality of life for everyone involved? To me, if you say the first scenario is better because it's fairer, that's a legitimate point of view. But I much prefer the second because I'd prefer to maximize everyone's quality of life. And that's my opinion whether I'm the teacher or the programmer or the V.P. I'm not the one saying that you don't deserve it. I'm one voice out of a hundred million that votes on what I think the best way is to keep this country strong and maximize the quality of life for its residents in as fair a manner as possible. Finally, the government can't stop you from bettering yourself. That last statement is wrong on many different levels, although I assume you didn't mean it seriously. First, the government that we all pay into provides the support for the society that allows you to better yourself. Seriously, try bettering yourself as much as you have in America when you're in a place that has no government. Second, if the government takes away 35% or 39% of the money you've earned, you just have to work harder to make more money to get to the point where you'll be happy. You (or maybe others) claim that you only have to work harder to achieve success and that those who aren't successful just haven't worked hard enough. Logically, that should hold just as true for the person who can't quite afford the Benz because of higher taxes as it does for the person who can't quite afford the payment for their medicine.
Snobama is doing a pretty bad job of being the elitist you claim if he cares about poor people. Conflicted individual our president, elitist one day, communist the next...
We are talking about Republicans who didn't fund the No Child Left Behind initiative or SChip child health care.
Very well written. I have a couple of problems with your ideas, mostly because they are Utopian and unrealistic. The principles you speak of are consistent with a socialistic ideology. The guy making $300k will never be happy paying more and will not pay an unfair share forever. I happen to be the guy in the middle and while I like the idea that MY taxes didn't go up I feel like I should do my part to pay for a war defending my freedom. The problem with your benz vs medicine analogy is that you assume the person wanting the benz cares about the person needing medicine. While I might agree that the one should help the other I don't have the right to make him. You can't legislate morality. This country already utilizes your philosophies anyway and if I trusted our government to manage those extra moneys efficiently I might be more open to giving them more. The fact is they take enough already but their waste is disgusting. I know a mother who is a teacher with 3 kids and a husband with a damaged back to the point he can't work. She works every bit as hard as I do and probably much harder. Does she deserve the same money as me or more, hell yes. It's completely unfair that she struggles so to make ends meet. I would help her any way I could but she would be very offended by any offer of handouts. This country was built on people pulling their own weight in their own circumstance and not on socialism and income redistribution. I firmly believe that every democracy has a lifespan and history proves this out. The end of a democracy comes when the underprivileged majority begins to vote themselves gifts from the government coffers. This is fatal because you remove the motivation for both ends of the spectrum. The poor stop working because they don't have to and the rich stop because it's not worth it anymore. Everyone doesn't "deserve" a home and a car, and some that do can't afford it. The ones that are responsible know it. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, your ideology is in power atm and we will all get to see how great it will make our country. I just hope we can afford the bill.
Here in lies the problem in America, people not planning ahead. We look at the bailouts being handed out and people are saying they were blindsided by the 3/1 and 5/1 ARMs that THEY READ AND SIGNED FOR. When buying a home, it is your responsibility to read all the fine print and understand that after a period of 3 years and a fixed rate your mortgage was going up. If you don't get that then hire an attorney to help you with the paperwork. If you can't afford a couple hundred bucks for an attorney odds are you shouldn't be buying a home and should stick to renting. As for this woman, I do not know her situation personally and I truly do feel sorry for her. The Average cost of raising a child in America until age 17 is $500K, so her scenario leaves her with a $1.5M bill. A teacher earning $40K needs 50 years of salary to make $2M and $1.5M after tax. I don't know her husbands situation but again in life we never know when an accident will leave us paralyzed and unable to work so we should always factor that into our decisions whether it be home purchases or child conception. I think people really need to think over the cost of children before they start having them. If you can't afford kids and live comfortably, try not having kids, its pretty simple. People think of republicans as greedy people, but the truth is all republicans want is free enterprise and small government. It's awful to say this but people have a pricetag on their worth in society and republicans want to keep it low so business can flourish. Democrats want to increase our human value to help the majority of society, its a tug of war that will last until we crumble as a society. There is a median we need to realize we are at where business cannot flourish while the bottom of society raises their standards of living and that's the point I am trying to make. Is America going to be able to survive the increase in wealth for the lower class coming at the hands of the upper class? Or will the upper class outsource lots of jobs and layoff staff making other employees work harder? We shall see. PS: All written by a 17 year old in a kingwood basement
Kind of like expecting that a temporary tax decrease would be permanent despite the law being written to be temporary, and then complaining when it turns out to actually be as it was written. .
In other news, deepblue, your tax-whining campaign can enter a dormant state, if indeed you do make around 250k, your tax bill is likely not going to increase at all due to AMT related issues. You may thank your President for this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/y...&scp=1&sq=alternative minimu tax obama&st=cse
