Now we know their names

willregistersoon wrote: [quote=brooklynpotter]crunch some numbers for me please. forget deductions and all that crap. can someone fill in the XX below so i (we) can see some actual numbers?

if i make $225k, my tax burden will be XX. meaning XX dollars

if i make $275K, my tax burden will be XX, meaning XX dollars

brooklynpotter wrote: am i incorrect is saying/seeing that the mount of $$ at that level is practically inconsequential?

willregistersoon wrote: I think that is the problem. What is and is not considered a lot of money or inconsequential or not is a subjective thing. To some people, a income of $50k is filthy rich. To others, and income of $250k is dirt. There is no right or wrong answer here. It is perspective. Someone who makes $250k may buy tons of crap - but I don't think it's the government's job to decided which of their crap is acceptable and what isn't.

transplant wrote: I have absolutely no problem with my money going to help people who are down, or who need some help. However, I do have a very very big problem with the government stealing my money from me and redistributing it to other people as it sees fit. It's not a question of helping other people, there are endless charity groups that do this, and Americans give millions and millions of dollars voluntarily every year to these groups. It's that the government is in the absolute worst possible position to determine who actually needs this money, and I can think of no other institution that could do a more inefficient and wasteful job of distributing it.

Liberals love to paint conservatives as a group of heartless money-grubbers who stumbled into wealth purely through luck, sitting on mountains of cash somewhere while poor, unlucky schlubs starve to death because we don't want to share. You seem incapable of understanding that somewhere along the line, someone worked to create that wealth, that it just didn't magically spring into being because the government willed it so.

If Obama enacts his taxes on the "rich," all that will happen is that money that was formally used to start new companies, to create new jobs, to pay the salaries of working class people, that money will now be stolen by the government, filtered away to various Congressional pet projects and earmarks, and then maybe a trickle of it will reach poor people, who will use it to feed themselves briefly, before turning to the government for more handouts. How does this help the poor, in the long run? All this does is teach people to be dependent on the government for help, instead of being self-reliant. Wouldn't it be better, in the long run, to grow the economy through job creation and investment?

McCain has “called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class,” Obama said. “I don’t know what’s next. By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

Only, in this passage Obama revealed precisely why he is vulnerable to such charges: he can't seem to tell the difference between a gift and a theft. There is nothing remotely socialistic or communistic about sharing. If you have a toy that someone else wants, you have three choices in a free society. You can offer to trade it for something you value that is owned by the other. You can give the toy freely, as a sign of friendship or compassion. Or you can choose to do neither.

Collectivism in all its forms is about taking away your choice. Whether you wish to or not, the government compels you to surrender the toy, which it then redistributes to someone that government officials deem to be a more worthy owner. It won't even be someone you could ever know, in most cases. That's what makes the political philosophy unjust (by stripping you of control over yourself and the fruits of your labor) as well as counterproductive (by failing to give the recipient sufficient incentive to learn and work hard so he can earn his own toys in the future).

Government is not charity. It is not persuasion, or cooperation, or sharing. Government is a fist, a shove, a gun. Obama either doesn't understand this, or doesn't want voters to understand it.

transplant wrote: Where, in my post, do you find anything that would lead you to believe that I "have no problem with taxes"? The part where I state that I think the government is the absolute worst vehicle for the distribution of wealth? Does that somehow lead you to believe that I support taxes? I have plenty of problems with taxes, and with how the government spends money.

transplant wrote: I think government spending should be cut to the bare bones, and let the free market take care of itself. Cut government spending, and you reduce the need for taxes. But I think the latter needs to happen before the former ever will. As long as the government is collecting taxes, Congress will find a way to waste them.

transplant wrote: And before you come back with how the Republicans in Congress have increased spending, I'm well aware, I'm not defending them over the Democrats in that regard, I think, with very few exceptions, that they all need to be thrown out.

transplant wrote: But I do think that the Republicans will do a much better job of cutting spending than the Democrats will.

transplant wrote: [quote=daver]Further, as an aside, as far as Obama enacting taxes on the "rich," that isn't quite accurate. His proposal allows the reduced rates put in by Bush earlier this decade to expire for the two highest brackets, reverting back to the rates of the 90s. This may or may not be a good idea, but I hardly think that it means the cessation of new companies and new jobs that you purport it to. I seem to remember _fucktons_ of new jobs and new companies being created in the 90s. FWIW.

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Whatchuwant wrote: From the Wealth of Nations (1776):

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

eggcream wrote: What's that Obama said about being his brothers keeper. First the brother living in a Kenyan hut now his aunt and uncle living in a Boston slum. And you want to trust him with your money? Maybe he should have put them on his informercial last night.

Found in a rundown Boston estate: Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango
'Auntie Zeituni', who, with Uncle Omar, dropped out of sight after moving to the US, is backing the presidential candidate from her modest flat

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5042571.ece

jf22561 wrote: I think the point that eggcream was trying to make is that Barack Obama, who makes big bucks, did not redistribute any of it to his poor relatives. Some might think that's hypocritical being that that's a very big part of Obama's platform.

jf22561 wrote: I think the point that eggcream was trying to make is that Barack Obama, who makes big bucks, did not redistribute any of it to his poor relatives. Some might think that's hypocritical being that that's a very big part of Obama's platform.

brooklynpotter wrote: [quote=jf22561]I think the point that eggcream was trying to make is that Barack Obama, who makes big bucks, did not redistribute any of it to his poor relatives. Some might think that's hypocritical being that that's a very big part of Obama's platform.