the political center is an arbitrary point between positions that is given way too much credit for being reasonable. obviously the correct position is far socially left of moderate and fiscally incredibly far right of moderate. moderates are mostly wrong about everything.
No, it is not. You are wrong once again. Inheritance is NOT a gift. Read the friggin' dictionary some time. in·her·i·tance noun 1: hereditary succession to a title or an office or property [syn: heritage] 2: that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner [syn: heritage] 3: (genetics) attributes acquired via biological heredity from the parents [syn: hereditary pattern] 4: any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors; "my only inheritance was my mother's blessing";
I almost agree with that. Moderates are somewhat wrong much of the time. Extremists are completely wrong about half the time.
except for me, i am extreme in all the right ways. i dont take a random group of values that relate to social issues and a fiscal philosophy and pretend there is any correlation like republicans and democrats do. there is no reason the party of small government should also be the party of the religious right, it just is. well, not for me. i am extreme (relative to the moderate majority) and correct about everything.
you could use the dictionary too: gift: "Something that is bestowed voluntarily and without compensation." if you want to be an idiot and play word games and pretend inheritance is not a gift handed down through familes you can, but that would be stupid.
there it is right there. What are they going to dominate? They must dominate something in your opinion. I'm just asking. if you don't want them or are afraid they will dominate something, then it stands to reason you will be denied something, right? What is it that the Rich people are doing wrong? What are they doing besides embracing capitalism????? that is agaisnt the law? They simply "have" too much so some should be taken. right? am I getting you right here? they simply didn't work hard enough to get their wealth? Well some of the wealthy do work exremely hard to get where they are and of course some get it handed to them via inheiratance or the lottery. Is this wrong? is it fair? Is this whole world and life EVER going to be fair? I think socialism has tried to address this issue RED and quite frankly it failed. While I agree with you, the wealthy can afford to pay a higher rate of taxs, ( they already do! ) I do not see where they should pay everyone else's tax burden. What would be the purpose of wanting to be wealthy? That would be socialism. if you REALLY want to address taxes, quite blaming the haves and take a hard look at.......entitlements and the people who are on it. That doesn't neccesarily mean the "poor" it can be politicians who are retired yet still on the pay roll. Or the family that is on Welfare simply to "work" the system. Boyfriend, psuedo husband, lives with MOM yet isn't leagaly married, so that kids and her can get food stamps and welfare. She goes to job interviews with no intention of getting hired, it's just to show the welfare worker she "tried". Same way a retired political offical "works" the system after serving a couple of years, for no other reason than to receive free benifits the rest of his/her life. It's not the INCOME ( Gov. taxes ) that needs to go up RED, it's the ( OUT GO ) entitlements. We have tons of money going overseas to retiree's living in third world countries. They spend american dollars there. of course they have a right to live anywhere, but if they are recieving federal funds, their PO Box shouldn't be a carribean island. those are the economic criminals RED, not the business man who employs 40 people at a contruction/ roofing/ lawn cutting/ resturant chain/ owner that happens to be a millionaire. These folks are pumping money INTO the economy, the others are STEALING from it. thanks and have a great day.
You guys are missing my point. I'm not against rich people. They take nothing from me, personally. It's the American way to try to get rich. It's also the American way to pay taxes to cover the costs of government and throughout history most of the taxes are paid by the people who are making the most money. This is right and proper. I'm not advocating slapping new taxes on the rich, I'm advocating stop letting them escape paying the taxes they have always paid. Obviously income and outflow should match, I agree with JS. When you cut taxes you should cut spending in equal measure. When you increase spending (as the current administration has done) you must increase income to pay for it. But people like martin think no taxes should be paid and the government should just borrow billions from the Bank of China (among others) and go deeper into the current unprecedented national debt that is being incurred right now. The National Debt is 7.6 Trillion dollars and going up $2.3 billion a day. Bush's 2004 budget ALONE had a deficit of over a trillion dollars! In 2004 the interest on the debt was $322 billion, mostly going out of the country. This is wasted money. This is irresponsibility on a vast scale. The failure to raise enough taxes to pay for government excesses is saddling America with a record National Debt that must inevitably lead to inflation and reduced Social Security benefits for young Americans, according to Alan Greenspan, who ought to know. Cut taxes & cut spending, or raise spending & raise taxes to cover it -- this is the proper course. But to cut taxes & raise spending is the foolish course -- the Bush/martin plan.
Red did you know that even with all the talk about the budget surplus with Clinton the national debt still grew during those years? US national debt Also, according to the US Treasury in 2001 the top 5% of the wealthiest Americans paid 53.3% of all taxes. The top 25% paid 64.9%, while the lowest 50% of Americans only paid 4% of all taxes. The projection for 2004 with the tax cuts (the ones that only the rich benefited from) the top 5% will pay 52.8% of all taxes, and without the tax cuts it was estimated they would only pay 50.2% of taxes. Likewise the bottom 50% of Americans will now only pay 3.6% of all taxes and without the tax cuts they were estimated to have to pay 4.1%. The bottom 50% of Americans also pay a lower percentage of their Adjusted Gross Income only 13.6% while the top 1% pay 32.3% of all taxes with an Adjusted Gross Income of 15.3%. All infomation gleaned from the US Treasury Website
I want to play devil's advocate here. The way I see it your stats only tell part of the story. How much of the nations income did the top 5% take in? I would wager a guess that it would be proportionate. The fact that the rich pay a larger percentage of AGI is also kind of hollow. I bet some digging would show that a smaller percentage of their income goes into their AGI.
