Brewster, it isn't just social assistance in the area of the Social Security payments, but also welfare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, disability payments, and the list goes on and on. We subsidize the lazy and criminal and penalize the workers and business people. Many of the programs have good intentions but really lousy results. Welfare now becomes a tool to just sit at home and make more babies to draw more welfare. I see people pay for steaks with food stamps and then pull out a wad of cash to pay for their cigarettes and beer. The system sucks the ambition out of people. We stopped yesterday to get a new cell phone for my wife and the owner of the store was voicing the same complaint I hear over and over. "I can't find anyone to work." Amazing that we can have 9% unemployment and many jobs just go begging. Why work, when you can sit at home and do some side jobs for cash? That seems to be where we are today.
Its a World wide thing and blair and Bush are definately cut from same cloth. All politicians in the UK are interested in only one thing, whats in it for them. No leadership, no new ideas. Its been the same since the blight that was Thatcher in UK. I thought Obama wasa breath of fresh air but seems I was wrong.
rdubnpk It was definitely my opinion that Blair was little more than Bush's toadie but the flock of 1%ers that frequent this website will be quick to tell you that my opinions are (almost) always wrong................ Thatcher, I really never formed much of an opinion about. Guess I'll have to see Meryl Streep's movie version of her to finally form one............ I must add, though, that you have probably now run afoul of the 1%ers as well, having blasphemed by mentioning the name of Ronald Reagen in a less than godlike way and failing to properly genuflect prior to that same utterance.
I am really honored to be lumped into the group of 1%'ers... I think you are referring to me among others.... My father was born into a cold water walk up of a store (for those that don't know what that means he was raised in a two bedroom apartment above a store in Worchester, Mass that had no running hot water). He raised me to be a man of my word, work hard, pay my debts, and never give up. And for that someone now calls me one of the top 1%'ers in the great country of the United States is one hell of an honor! I thank you very much. I really don't think I deserve the honor, but if you think I do I guess you have a high opinion of me. Thanks! Jamie
My Father was raised on a small farm In Bonifay, FL. Never had s**t, either. My feelings are that the government is never going to stop spending. It is ingrained in them at this point and way too easy to continue doing so. That means that someone's pocket is going to get picked to try to get the defecit under control. I expect that a good many of the tax deductions (particularly home mortgage) are about to be s-canned and my taxes are going to be raised to compensate for the past and ongoing irresponsibility. If the 1% to don't pay at least the same proportion of their income as I am going to be forced to pay, then that will prove to me that the 1%ers are truly running this country and the party of no is in their hip pocket (along with a good many of the party of "O"). That being said, I know where you are coming from and that you sincerely believe what you speak. Honesty is all one person can expect of another (wrong-headed though they may be).
My view is that Maggie Thatcher and, although I risk being polarised, Ronnie reagan were definately cut from the same cloth and started the ball rolling and certainly the UK is reaping the rewards as bad as they are of her fiscal policies, de-regulation of borrowing etc. Only my opinion though :sofa:
So the thing to look at is what are you REALLY paying in income tax? I mean I know my tax bracket is something like 28% but after deductions and such I think I'm averaging around 11%. At one time, years ago, I thought the 10% flat tax would be a great idea but then figure I was actually paying 8.5% and began really looking at what was being proposed. So take what your total tax bill to the feds was last year, the final amount you owed to the government at the bottom of your 1040 and divide that by your total gross income, I think something like line 36. You might be surprised at the actual percentage. Cause I know you are reading in the paper about those rich bastards that are only paying 15%. Yours might be a lot less. 48% of the country is actually paying zero or making a profit from their tax refunds. So when people start talking about folks paying their fair share we look at them and begin to wonder. Now I know there are individual circumstances that some of these folks fall into that getting the break from income taxes or even receiving income tax refund welfare is a good thing for them, I know and love some of those folks... but 48% of the country? I don't think the deduction for the mortgage on your first home will ever go away. Homeownership is still the major driving force in the economy. I also think that if you look back to when they took away the deduction for credit card interest and small loan interest that the economy started it's downward slide. That cut a lot of spending and robbed a lot of fuel from the coffers. The overall economy is very touchy and big moves in either direction cause unintended consequences all over the place. That's what was wrong with the recent stimulus packages. They spent trillions of dollars to save thousands of jobs. Sounds good till you figure out that each one of those $50,000 a year jobs on avarage cost $500,000 in spending to save. Not a very good return on investment. Would have been cheaper to just pay them straight out. But if the government hires everybody, who's generating the new income to pay taxes? Having people on unemployment for almost 3 years saying it gives them money to spend to fuel the economy is finically stupid. If I give you 10$ and get a dollar in return it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I'm going to go broke in a real hurry. I HAVE to stop spending that $10. Even if I find someone with $50 and take $10 away from them to give it to someone else, I've only delayed the result because sooner or later that person with $50 is going to be in line for that $10 because I've taken all their money away. Then everything comes crashing down and no one, not even the old stinking rich bastards, have any money to spend and then the real depression hits! Sure some might claim we avoided a depression in 2008/2009 but the methods we used only pushed it out and has not removed it from the near horizon. Jamie
I was raised by a family of beavers, 125 miles across frozen tundra from the nearest beaver family, also raising a human child...lol. I think if people were to define exactly who is this 1% it would help clarify the disagreement. Are we talking about someone who started from nothing to build a manufacturing company employing 250 people in Cincinnati, Ohio? Who pays corporate federal, state and municipal taxes and who's existence supports spinoff industry to provide for the needs of the company and it's employees? An individual who, through the company, contributes to community well being with donations to support local sport teams, cultural events, etc? Or are we talking about C.E.O's of publically held companies who receive enormous compensation for reducing production costs by moving jobs overseas and finding ways to avoid domestic taxes with offshore tax havens, loopholes, etc.?
rdubnpk I refer to them as the 1%ers only because they have been so thoroughly duped into defending the Kardashian's, etc piles of money. The rich don't have to defend themselves because half of America does it for them. Even as their own taxes are raised and benefits eroded.
Well I do have to compliment Obama on his one biggest success. He wanted to divide the country and he has been very successful in that endeavor. By the logic of Obama there are two pieces to this country. Those rich bastards, known as the 1% and then all the rest, known as the 99%. I should add, HIS 99%. If you are with him, then you are in the 99%, but if you are against him then you are in the 1%. Not a new tactic, but always a very effective one. If memory serves me correctly a German guy with a funny mustache did the same thing about 80 years ago or so and it worked for him also, at least for awhile. So the rich don't pay their fair share? That's been the mantra for quite a while now. Let's look at the facts. The top 1% of taxpayers paid $337 billion in taxes. They number just under a million people. The bottom 68 million people paid $162 billion in taxes. Now remember that we're talking those that actually paid taxes. If you count all of the US, including those who paid no taxes, we come up with the top 1%, or one million people, paying more than double the taxes paid by the bottom 210 million people. Hmmmm, and those rich bastards, defined as those who make over $250,000 by the Big O, pay most of the taxes but that isn't enough in his book. If we want this thing to survive then we have to do two things. One is to raise taxes and the other is to cut spending. Those rich bastards at the top won't put up such a fuss about a tax increase if some of the giveaways are gone. Obama can't allow those giveaways to stop because if they do then his hope of re-election will be down the dumper. I understand your disgust with Bush, rdubnpk, but what about Obama's war? The war that he wants to create right here in the US. The war between what he terms the 1% and what he wants to be the other 99% and what he wants for his supporters. If you want to know who makes up that 1%. The vast majority of them are doctors and lawyers and even college presidents who now average over a $1 million per year in compensation. There are more than a few sports figures and a whole big bunch of politicians, but most of them are people you know or whose services you utilize. Some are execs, but not most of them. So rdubnpk, the next time you have to go to a medical specialist make sure you tell them how disgusted you are with them that they don't pay their "fair share" of taxes and they should pay much more in taxes so that the drug dealer on the corner can continue to drive his Escalade. Oh yeah, and tell him or her that they should quit paying their malpractice insurance so that the lawyer who sues them all the time won't get rich either. The 1% that you vehemently despise isn't who you think it is and just maybe, just maybe, you should learn who pays what and how you just may be duped by a media and a politician into thinking something is true that is just flat out a lie.
