Quote:
Originally Posted by ORD_Buckeye
This isn't about spreading any wealth whatsoever. It's about how we, as a a modern democracy and civil society, assign the relative tax burden to our citizens. In other words, who pays what to maintain all those roads, defense contracts, farm subsidies, public universities, medical research and the like.
It isn't about taking money out of my pocket and giving it to Joe the Plumber. It's about making me shoulder a proportion of this country's obligations that I can comfortably handle while maybe removing a little of that burden from people who are really struggling to make ends meat right now.
I do, however, find Joe the Plumber's responses fascinating for one reason: how the American psyche leads so many people to vote against their own economic interests. I am sure that Joe absolutely believes that he's just around the corner from that 250K income, so why would he want to ruin things for when he inevitably gets there. Yet any statistical socio-economic analysis of Joe based upon his current age, profession, social class and education levels would reveal that he has virtually no chance in his lifetime of threading that needle.
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Sorry Ord - gotta jump in here.
1) You are correct about not redistributing the wealth. It is about redistrubuting the income, which when done progressively (as we do) does an outstanding job of preserving the class system. Funny thing is, many who endorse the progressive income tax do so because they claim they want to level the class structure. Puzzling.....
2) We do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic. Just a nit, but pols love to use the "democracy" term with almost the same verve and falsehood as they do the "tax the rich" sound byte.....
3) Shouldering this countries "obligations." Hmmm. Interesting word. Just what are our nations "obligations?" Yes, there is the "general welfare" clause that has been raped by so many tax and spenders, but by any metric this clause was included to provide for little more than a national defense, an enterprise that is now less than 1/5 the entire budget. Truly, there are really few national "obligations," just as there really very few personal "rights." Just two very abused words in our language.
4) I dont think voting again Joe Plumber is "against ones interests," even if it isnt him. Small business are the #1 driver for job creation in this country, and this is where the Obama +250k hike will hit the hardest. Take more from the small business, and they will scale back hiring. Interestingly enough, again, he talks of raising these taxes while at the same time talking about "job creation." Puzzling, once again.......