Okay, so we have the Romney quote about the 47% who don't pay federal income taxes and now we have a beauty from Obama. Obama states that he believes in redistribution. Let me see if I understand our President. He believes in taking from those that work and giving it to those that don't. How's that for perking up the old incentive to work idea? Makes all the overtime really worthwhile doesn't it? Wait, didn't we used to call that thievery? Isn't that what it's called when you take something that doesn't belong to you and give it to someone who didn't earn it? Of course maybe Obama has got it right. If you have enough people out of work and on food stamps then they will all have to go along with his redistribution ideas.
Amazing that Obama makes a comment that will hurt those who work and not a peep out of the press. Yet when Romney tells the truth they are all over him.
The bs flying around in this election is deeper than ever. First, implying that 47% of the American population are a bunch of worthless moochers is just meant to incite resentment. Subtract retired pensioners, sick and infirmed, people that lost their jobs in a terrible depression and in a culture that outsources jobs, etc. etc.. Are there moochers? Sure? 47%? BS! Next. A 1998 quote from Obama on redistribution? Really? LOL. And the quote ommitted further clarification after the statement. Both sides are guilty of outright lies. It's seems ridiculous to me that we have come to accept this from our politicians. How are you supposed to make an informed choice?
Brewster, welcome back. I thought you had moved up to the Yukon in some log cabin and retired from political discussions. Romney never said that 47% of the population are moochers. He said there was 47% that were dependent on the government in some fashion which includes not paying federal income tax. As a CPA, I can tell you that he's right. There is a large part of our population that is on some form of assistance and they will continue to vote for the person whom they feel is responsible for their continued receipt of free stuff. Obama's quote was from 1998 and he has done NOTHING to change that mantra that he stated 14 years ago. Everything he has done so far has been to take from those that work and give to those that don't. If you want to object that the Obama quote is invalid because of the lapse of time, I would agree if he had done anything that would dispute it. So far, I haven't seen anything other than more of let's take from those that have to give to those that don't have. To make an informed choice, just look at the records of both men. Romney was a successful businessman and has been a leader in other areas. Obama had a zero track record before becoming President. He was most famous for missing more legislative roll calls than he made. Now he's President and we can look at his accomplishments like increasing those of food stamps by 50% from where it was when he got elected, the longest protracted time of 8%+ unemployment since the Great Depression, and a deficit that threatens to bury this country. Ignore the media? Yep, I agree, but then base decisions on the records of both men. One has been a consistent success and the other has been a consistent failure. Pretty clear choice here based on their respective records.
Yeah... I understand that the 47% number is pretty accurate. My point is that his presentation of that stat implies that they are all bums using the system. If you account for the percentage of people ligitimately receiving assistance that number drops considerably. So Romney isn't going to get it down to zero or even close to that. It's not realistic to blame Obama for the increase in food stamps. The economy was and is in a total mess. It took years to mess it up. I know todays culture is all about instant fixes but that just can't happen. Would you have let the financial sector collapse? Or the American automotive industry and it's supporting industries? Would you have let people live in Hooverville again? Or try to get to California to pick fruit for pennies a day? Greed and a decline in productivity impacted the manufacturing sector. Outsourcing is killing it. Corruption and outright theft was(is) rampant in the financial sector. The whole country was living beyond their means, many personally and certainly all in terms of government spending. The quality of education has declined. In my mind perhaps to meet a passing quota they just funneled the kids through the system. A growing Nanny state requiring ever increasing funds. Two wars and a military presence all over the world. A sense of entitlement infecting a huge number of people, whether it's government programs, young people thinking they should be earning 40 yr olds wages and too good for menial labour, etc. Add in the growing infiltration of evangalists into government decisions and you have everyone talking about gay marriage rights and abortions and god being taken out of the Democratic platform instead of dealing all these threats. So... who the heck is brilliant enough to fix all that in 3 1/2 or 4 years? And do it with a citizenry that really isn't prepared yet to make the required sacrifices. It wasn't the Democrats or the Republicans. It's both of them and the people to blame. Thank you for my turn on the soapbox...lol
Obama had four years and trillions and trillions of dollars to fix the mess and all he has done is to make it worse. How many taxpayer dollars went to his campaign contributors like Solyndra and others who eventually folded? After blowing through all the money this guy has gone through you would think there should be some improvement and there hasn't been any improvement. All he has done if bury the US deeper in debt. The bailouts of the auto industry actually started under Bush as did some of the financial sector bailout. This President has not been effective and his policies have been a mess. When I try to think of one thing that he has done right, I'm at a loss. He likes to point to the killing of Bin Laden, but that intelligence has been on going for years. If you notice when there was a military victory under Bush, he would deflect the credit to the military, but not this guy. Oh no, you'd swear he pulled the trigger on Bin Laden himself. I agree that both parties are to blame for the mess, but I only see things getting much worse if we have to have another four years of the amateur. We really can't afford four more years of the bungling that Obama has done. Will it be better under Romney? No one knows that answer, but I think we have to give someone else a try and see if things can be improved.
If you have a government, and it imposes taxes, you have redistribution of wealth via government programs, of whatever type. The benefit to others will be either direct, or indirect, while the taxpayer will receive a benefit, though he may not appreciate it, as it may be in the form of preserving social order, or public health: food stamps are an example. Our country is full of people, like military families, who are working, yet poor, many of them receiving food stamps: ask them, they will tell you it's harder than ever to make ends meet, and the statistics bear them out, with wages stagnant in the country for the last 30 years, on average. This brings me to another point, wages are meant to be the principle vehicle by which wealth gets redistributed, but the rich and powerful have managed to prevent this from happening in the last three decades, in spite of rising productivity. Americans workers are working harder- they both are encouraged to do this, and believe in it themselves- yet receiving fewer rewards for their efforts than at any time in my working career. The most successful societies I can think of, Singapore, for example, rated the most business friendly place in the world by many indexes, also maintains a system of government support for all its citizens, including free medical care, housing, college education and more. That's a place that understands it cannot leave half its citizens behind, for decades, and expect to remain a successful country. There must be continuous investment in that one most important resource, the people.
V, you and I see the function of government in a much different way. You see government as the Robin Hood who will take from those that work and give to those that don't while I see government as an entity that is meant to provide essential services. When government in a capitalistic society sees its function of taking from one class to give to another then incentive for those that work declines rapidly while the incentive for those who do not work goes up. We encourage one group to be dependent on government for all of life's needs and even wants while we penalize those that pay for those needs and wants. You note that wages haven't gone up in 30 years. I'm not sure where you get that particular stat, but my employees have gone from $10,000 a year to $75,000 a year in that time frame. I see the wages for my clients rise and that does include the blue collar worker. People make much more than they did 30 years ago. It is ironic that you would note that military families must often time use food stamps. The first thing that the Democrat controlled Congress wanted to cut was the military budget which includes the wages for those same military families. What you don't mention is the woman who uses her food stamps and then goes out and gets into a Mercedes to drive away. Or how about the guy paying for his food with food stamps and then buying cigarettes and beer with cash. Bascially the taxpayers paid for his smokes and brew with the redistribution of the wages from those that work. The redistribution of income is what has gotten us into this mess of rampant spending and the purchase of votes by corrupt politicians. Perhaps the fact that your income is mostly, if not totally exempt, from federal tax that you don't see what is happening here in the US. We are getting destroyed by a government that only cares about perpetuating the existence of those in power. Taking from those that work to give to those that don't purely for the purpose of keeping people in office is going to be the destruction of the US and that path is one we are well on right now.
I don't think any reader will think I said that My point was that taxation produces redistribution of wealth no matter how the monies get spent- taking from the one to give to the other- no matter whether that other is General Dynamics or a military serviceman or an unemployed person or the President of the USA
Is the function of government to redistribute wealth or is it to provide essential services? Is the provision of a military an essential service or is it the redistribution of wealth? At what point does the provision of essential services become the redistribution of wealth? Is not the Occupy Wall Street Group pushing for a redistribution of wealth from those that work to those that don't? V, I have clients that consistently ask why they should work so hard just to fund those who refuse to work. What would you propose that I should respond to their question? This redistribution of wealth as it is currently configured has not worked. It has only resulted in corruption and vote slavery. It has done nothing but replaced accountability with entitlement at a cost we can no longer afford. Maybe it's time we tried something and someone else other than the current system and the current President.
