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wPuri sermonis amator |
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Politics and Pop Culture.
And occasionally informative, amusing, or bizzare non sequiturs.
Matt's in charge here, others can post.
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wFriday, March 28, 2003 |
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Guess who's wrong?
I'm not going to respond to your tired crap on the war in your post, as I've dealt with it before. Look into the archives for that. And check out this article I posted on Tuesday about our Coalition.
But since nobody on here understands and loves tax policy more than me, I shall respond to your questions in detail. But first, a cheap shot - I paid more in taxes this year than you made in income. And I want my taxes raised.
You get bolded, I'm in italics.
Also about the tax cut stuff being bounced around in the House and Senate. CBS and others have been polling Americans with leading questions such as, "Is Bush's tax plan fair to all Americans?" or, "Does the Bush plan favor the rich?" So much for impartiality. Here are a few questions I'd like for you to think about.
How exactly is that biased? And by the way - the vast majority of Bush's tax cuts go to people who make over $300,000 a year, so the correct answers would be "no" and "yes".
Do you think it's fair that the people who use Government services the least pay the highest taxes?
That's actually not true. Who benefits more in our system from police protection? People who do or don't have things to steal? Who benefits from roads? People who do or don't have cars? I could continue down the list, but pretty much everything that protects society as a whole benefits the rich more because they have more to lose. Now, while certain entitlement programs are targeted at the least fortunate among us, they in actuality represent a pretty small percentage of the overall federal budget - and the two biggest, Social Security and Medicare are funded completely separately. Take a look at a recent pay check - notice how those two are separated out. I'm getting taxed by the Federal Government, The State of Missouri, The City of Saint Louis, Social Security, and Medicare. Medicare and Social Security are funded differently, and have caps on the amount they take from people. In other words, the rich already pay less of a percentage of their income on those two. (Note this is known as the "payroll tax" instead of the income tax because it taxes only wages instead of general income, and it funds the two best government programs we have).
Do you think it's fair that able-bodied people, even those who aren't even looking for jobs, are given unemployment for up to nine months?
That's just a flat out lie. You have to prove you're looking for work in order to qualify for unemployment. Ask Mank about it.
Do you think it's fair that politicians have their own tax plans that aren't affected by the same restrictions they impose on others?
Could you rephrase this question, please? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Do you think it's fair that those who work harder achieve more then those who don't?
Except that they don't. I challenge you to find a harder worker than a factory worker, a miner, a police officer, a fireman, a ditch digger, a construction worker, etc. For the most part, they get paid dick. Meanwhile I get paid pretty well for typing on a box all day. And Dick Cheney got paid millions for lobbying the federal government for contracts just because he knew the right people. Capitalism doesn't reward hard work, it rewards skill sets and luck. I'm not saying I have a better economic system, but I am saying call a duck a duck. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn't mean they are a hard worker.
And it's pretty hard to justify the massive extremes of wealth we have in this society. Could one man possibly work a million times harder than the average person? It's fucking insane to suggest so. No, wealth is created, consolidated, retained, and lost in this country by a variety of means. It is proper to analyze them and to construct governmental policy that aims to increase the common good.
It is intellectual laziness to retreat to simplistic mantras and fail to address real claims and grievances. For example, the Bush Administration is proposing eliminating the tax on dividends using the logic that they have already been taxed as corporate profits. That's ridiculous, as pointed out by this cartoon far better than my boring prose could illustrate.
In this particular case, the Administration wants to cut taxes for people doing no work whatsoever. And so your simplistic fallacy is revealed for the idle canard it really is.
Do you think it's fair that married couples pay more in taxes simply because they're betrothed?
Eh, first off, you need to learn what betrothed really means. Second, the so called "Marriage Penalty" only affected a few people at the top of the income scale and was blown way out of proportion by the Republicans. Third, ummm, it's already been fixed, pal. You're arguing a dead issue, this was laid to rest in Bush's first tax cut.
Do you think it's fair that people who pay more in taxes should be left out when tax cuts are proposed?
I didn't propose tax cuts. Do you think it's fair that we cut school funding so that we can have tax cuts for the rich? Do you think it's fair to cut medicaid so we can have tax cuts for the rich? Do you think it's fair that the Federal Government is going to have a crippling debt for the rest of your lifetime so that we can have tax cuts for the rich?What I want to know . . . is why are Democratic leaders supporting tax cuts? The question is not how big the tax cut should be -- the question should be: Can we afford a tax cut at all with the largest deficit in the history of the country?
- Howard Dean
posted by
Matthew Carroll-Schmidt at 11:19 AM
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