That's using stats to suit your argument. My income and everyone who works with or for me and most if not all of my family and friends have seen their income go up. Of course we have all gotten educations and worked hard to get to this point. I'd rather not be lumped in with the losers who drive the statistic King Barry cites.
Who said my business shrank in those years? SF said people have a lot of uncertainty about Obama, and you responded with: I imagine from this response that you are afraid it would be more of the same if the GOP gets back in charge. My point was that the business owners I deal with don't share your fears, and IMO, that feeling is probably more universal than you might care to admit. BTW, I don't know a single billionaire, and I'm not dealing with corporarations in the sense of multi-billion dollar enterprises that took part in the bailouts. I deal with store owners, car dealers, supermarkets, etc. In other words, the very essence of the middle class that you believe gets screwed in the tax code, to the advantage of the top 1%. But none of these people (and I know many of my clients as friends and not just business associates) don't care how much or little the idle rich are taxed. But, as I said, they do fear the guy who claims to be looking out for them.
Today it's millionare's money they want. When that's not enough it's those who make Half a million next it's those dirty quarter millionare's money they will come after then it's those 100000 dollar a year people that make too much. Getting close to you yet? They're coming for you eventually. The thing about socialism is everything is good until you run out of other peoples money. That's where we have been heading since Woodrow Wilson and fdr.
Did it not? Most businesses did. Is that not logical? They are not expressing any desire to change anything. The Republicans favor businesses over individuals. They do the things businesses like to get their support. That doesn't mean it's good for anyone that doesn't own a business. Businesses are not the very essence of the middle class. Individuals are. Most middle class individuals work for a salary. Tax codes that favor businesses and rich people are Republican plans and this buys them the support of businesses and the rich. Tax codes that favor people who work for a salary (most people) are Democratic plans and this buys them the support of people who work for a salary. What is surprising is the number of salaried people who support tax plans that benefit someone else.
You couldn't prove this to save your life. There is no socialism in this country. We have a capitalist economy and a democratic government. There is zero collective ownership.
Then why have't they done so instead of sitting on huge cash reserves? It's simply not true that there is a direct connection between tax cuts for businesses and the rich and job creation. Unless you count the jobs they create in China and Mexico.
Are you calling me a liar? Once again, the view from academia vs the real world. In academia, operating budgets are based on how much money the state says you can have and salaries are based on tenure. In the real world its about performance. Businesses that do a good job prosper. Those businesses turn around and give their employees raises for doing their jobs well, and hopefully even create more jobs. What's good for business is good for people. Paid to them by the business they work for, duh. Then why did my taxes for 2010 go up? My taxable income is in the five-figure range, and my total income increased by a mere few hundred dollars from 2009. I am nowhere in the vicinity of rich. But a higher percentage of my income went to income taxes under the current administration, who is supposed to be my friend. Maybe because so long as they are not being hurt themselves, most people don't give a rat's Democrat if someone else gets a benefit. The name for the behavior you seem to foster is class envy. You're sure you're not a liberal?
I asked you a question . . . which you have evaded twice, now. There is nothing unreal about academia, except your tired stereotypes. You don't know much about it, do you? :grin: Academics is part of the real world and you would know it if you bothered to investigate it. Performance is everything in the real world including academia. The performance it takes to get a tenured professorship amounts to 8 or 9 years of exceptional academic work and then 7 years of exceptional teaching work while at the same time expected to maintain a world-class research agenda, bring in grants, and publish in the top journals. Research faculty receive no tenure and have no civil service protection. We're hired on merit, paid on merit, promoted on merit, and let go if we don't measure up. We're expected to bring in research grants and contracts totaling over 400% of our salaries in competitive bidding and deliver products to clients on time and budget. The science has to withstand rigorous review from paying clients and must also be published in refereed journals at even higher levels than that expected of teaching faculty. So? Do you think the individuals are better off if more of the tax burden is shifted from their employer to them? I'm not your CPA. Maybe you changed brackets. They tweak the codes every year, you know. The standard deduction changes, other credits change. It could be a lot of things. Maybe its a mistake. Was it a little or a lot? I'm taking up for the middle class. I'm not the one kissing the asses of the ultra-rich. That's what I call envy. Absolutely. There are people to the left of me here in FSA. There are lots of people to the left of me here at LSU where I'm not considered particularly liberal. The perspective is poor out there on the right wing. Moderates and liberals are both to the left of you but you can't tell them apart. Me, I vote for candidates in both parties and belong to neither of them. I hold positions on the left, right, and middle. I tend to support the most pragmatic candidate, which tends to rule out both extremes. Right now the dems are closer to the middle than the GOP which is going further to the right. I think they are missing the boat. There are a lot of moderates out there.
