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Spread the wealth around, Joe and, not to be biblical or anything, but it will come back to you three fold.. if not more.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

Taking money that doesn't belong to you in order to "spread the wealth around" isn't charity. And believe it or not, the people who generate the wealth that Obama wants to hand out know better than the government how to use that wealth to generate even more wealth and stimulate the economy.

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ORIGINAL: BitaTruble

Okay, well, I explained Obama's plan as I understood it. Can you explain McCain's plan in simple Joe the Plumber terms? I'm not getting how taxing my health care benefits and giving billions of dollars in the form of tax breaks to big corps are going to fix things. 100% of new jobs created last year came out of small business, the people that Obama wants to help out, while big corps cut jobs in the neighborhood of 180,000 jobs. How does pouring billions into a war, and billions more into banks and such 'fixing' things? How is that helping out Joe the Plumber? How is the progressive tax system we've always had which taxes the same money in the same way suddenly bad instead of good? Why is a 24 percent top tier tax rate socialism when a 21 percent tax rate isn't?

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And believe it or not, the people who generate the wealth that Obama wants to hand out know better than the government how to use that wealth to generate even more wealth and stimulate the economy.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

You know, lately I've noticed that when people veer away from the thread topic so drastically in the way you're asking me to here the Moderator has often been choosing to intervene in an effort to steer the thread back on topic.

And I don't want to push my luck with her this morning... [sm=angel.gif]

And beside that I'd be giving you a hand in sabotaging my own thread, wouldn't I. Tell you what - start a thread on McCain's tax plan (or any of the other diversions you're trying to introduce) and I may well join in.

But then again, I may not... the day is a beautiful one here in SW Idaho, and I've a full day's worth of fun and work ahead of me here. But whatever you choose to do from this point, please be sure and enjoy it, Celeste.

Have fun.

Tom

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ORIGINAL: BitaTruble

Okay, well, I explained Obama's plan as I understood it. Can you explain McCain's plan in simple Joe the Plumber terms? I'm not getting how taxing my health care benefits and giving billions of dollars in the form of tax breaks to big corps are going to fix things. 100% of new jobs created last year came out of small business, the people that Obama wants to help out, while big corps cut jobs in the neighborhood of 180,000 jobs. How does pouring billions into a war, and billions more into banks and such 'fixing' things? How is that helping out Joe the Plumber? How is the progressive tax system we've always had which taxes the same money in the same way suddenly bad instead of good? Why is a 24 percent top tier tax rate socialism when a 21 percent tax rate isn't?

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

And believe it or not, the people who generate the wealth that Obama wants to hand out know better than the government how to use that wealth to generate even more wealth and stimulate the economy.

Obama's plan diverts real economic stimulus (the hard work of the American people) into unneeded welfare handouts (read "campaign promises to give away cash") in a time of economic crisis.


Well Sanity...  Actually the people who generate wealth clearly do NOT know better than the government how to use that wealth to generate even more wealth and stimulate the economy.  Rather, they use the government to advance thier personal agendas to line their own pockets:

Classic examples:
Big Pharma - Medicare Part D --- No new jobs. Huge DRAIN on the economy. Biggest entitlement program in the history of the US.  Basically allows Pharma to bypass the free-market and charge anything they want for drugs and send the bill to the US Taxpayers.  The bill was AUTHORED by drug lobbyists.  (Yes they actually authored it)

Big Oil - No new jobs.  Huge DRAIN on the economy.  Manipulating US foreign policy to obtain foreign drilling and exploration rights.  Invasion of Iraq.  Draining our tresaury of $10 billion/month.  10's of thousands of permanantly and seriously injured U.S. servicemen.  Thousands of killed servicemen.  Selling U.S. oil on the world market (particularly to China), artificially raising prices here in the U.S.

Oil Infrustructure (Services) and Defense - See above

Banking - Need I say more

NO NEW JOBS.  No advancement of the economy.


Obama used a VERY unfortunate choice of words ("spread the wealth").  It is NOT the American way to artifically take peoples hard earned money and givue it away to someone with less.  That being said, we ALWAYS have had a progressive tax plan with higher brackets being assigned to the higher income levels.  The brackets have just been skewed to the highest income earners.  It would be better if we maintained the surplus of the Clinton years and were able to offer EVERYONE a massive tax cut, but unfortunately the current administration have badly mismanaged the country's finances.   Lower taxes for ALL are always the best policy, but we simply cannot afford them now.  I'll take my middle-class 6-digit income and Obama's tax cut (roughly 3 times McCain's) any day.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Naga somehow in a thread where Sanity has innumerable post's making innumerable ridiculous claims,you manage to post two of the most incredible ,ludicrous post's I have ever seen.One which seems to credit Reagan with being allied(you didn't mention,but I will,in addition to ARMING)Bin Laden and than in the next breath lays the blame for 9/11 solely at the feet of Clinton.And the next where you seem to credit your opinions to a book called "Economics in One lesson".Let me tell you something ,it has been my experience anything learned in one lesson....ain't worth quoting.
Let me tell you something else,if you want to blame Clinton for 9/11,it is self -defeating to bring up the relationship Reagan's administration played in creating Bin Laden.....you do see that ,don't you?

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ORIGINAL: Naga
Translated: I don't have a clue what I am talking about and as such can't address your points.

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May I suggest Henry Hazlitt's classic book Economics in One Lesson? It is an easy read and is directly applicable to the conversation at hand.

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They really didn't. Let me explain. Understanding why and how Clinton ran up the national debt requires understanding two concepts of what it consists of. The national debt is made up of public debt and intergovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intergovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.

Now, the public debt went down, but the intergovernmental holdings went up by a far greater amount - and, in turn, the total national debt (which is public debt + intergovernmental holdings) went up. There is where he screwed us.

When Clinton (and others) said that he had paid down the national debt, that was patently false - the national debt went up every single year. What Clinton did do was pay down the public debt. But he paid down the public debt by borrowing far more money in the form of intergovernmental holdings.

In short he transferred the debt from one cup to another and said that he had a surplus. But that "surplus" was all  borrowed money. He didn't actually pay anything off, just engaged in the smoke and mirrors that liberals are known for.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

It's class warfare, pitting one group of Americans against another for political gain...

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: Sanity

It's class warfare, pitting one group of Americans against another for political gain...

It's been class warfare for many years.  It's only people like you who haven't realized they are being waged war on.

This is a couple years old but even more relevant now.

And before you comment that it was published in the "liberal" Rolling Stone, Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics whose opinions are respected worldwide across ideologic lines, in case you are not familiar with him.


Paul Krugman on the Great Wealth Transfer : Rolling Stone
When there are huge disparities in wealth, the rich have both the motive and ...
leads to ever-growing disparity in political power as well as in income? ...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer/print  
"The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor. Wages have failed to keep up with rising prices. Even in 2005, a year in which the economy grew quite fast, the income of most non-elderly families lagged behind inflation. The number of Americans in poverty has risen even in the face of an official economic recovery, as has the number of Americans without health insurance. Most Americans are little, if any, better off than they were last year and definitely worse off than they were in 2000.
But how is this possible? The economic pie is getting bigger -- how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. Although wages have stagnated since Bush took office, corporate profits have doubled. The gap between the nation's CEOs and average workers is now ten times greater than it was a generation ago. And while Bush's tax cuts shaved only a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average. In fact, once all of Bush's tax cuts take effect, it is estimated that those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year -- the richest five percent of the population -- will pocket almost half of the money. Those who make less than $75,000 a year -- eighty percent of America -- will receive barely a quarter of the cuts. In the Bush era, economic inequality is on the rise."

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Given all that has come before,you expect a reasoned well thought out response to this?