The 2% Illusion

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: BigDH01
Not really. Once again, he claims that without a low income tax that the incentive to generate wealth will be destroyed. He apparently neglects to tell people that the rich in the US paid a much higher marginal rate in the past than they do now. And guess what, people still created businesses and jobs. The government is not taking all of your money, if you earn a million next year, for every dollar beyond that you earn, you still get to keep most of it. There is still an incentive for you to earn more.

Yes, income taxes were higher in the past. So what? The incentive for me to earn the next dollar is directly proportional to my net benefit from that dollar. If the government only taxes my next x dollars at 25%, then I have a pretty good incentive which we will call 0.75x. If the government taxes those same dollars at 50%, then my incentive is only 0.5x. Why is this difficult to understand? Sure, there is still incentive, but not as much. I now have to work six hours to make as much money as I would have made in four at a 25% rate. Or, to look at it a different way, I have to work 50% harder to achieve the same benefit.

The author clearly indicates that he has no idea what Marxism really is. In that way, he is no different from many people on this board that keep throwing around the term "Socialism" but always back down and ignore my request to 1) describe it and 2) detail how the United States is transforming into a Socialist nation by increasing progressive tax rates (a concept embraced by even Adam Smith). And if the author wants to maintain a veil of impartiality, he probably shouldn't write articles like this.

The America of now is one where Orwellian logic rules. Forced redistribution of wealth is fairness. Taxes are patriotic. The free market should be a regulated market. Big government is good for you. Politicians know what kind of healthcare is best for you. Choice should be limited, except when it comes to abortion. Power comes from being powerless. Progressive education is designed to promote progress toward socialism. Race doesn?t count unless a person of color tells you it counts. Higher education gets lower each year. Those who create our problems should be asked to solve them. Religion should be a private matter that does not inform public morality. Liberal is radical. Free speech is selective speech. Courage is impetuousness.

Yeah, sounds like a reasonable guy. Let's break it down...

1) Orwellian logic - Yes, surely the Bush administration was model of truth and transparency and never used propaganda and misinformation to further their goals. Every politician and political party does this, but the fact that he says this about an Obama election raises some huge red flags and lets me know of the bat that this guy is a partisan hack, nothing more.

2) Forced redistribution of wealth is fairness.... Even Adam Smith said this was fair.

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. 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. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. 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.

The US has used progressive taxation in the past and in a much more punishing and progressive manner. To say that Obama is now the harbinger of redistribution is a lie and ignores the last century of US tax policy.

3) Paying your taxes is patriotic... so he believes the antithesis is true? If I quit paying my taxes would you call me a patriot? There is nothing patriotic or non-patriotic about it, it is fulfilling my civic and lawful duty.

4) The free market should have some regulations in place. You see the CDS catastrophe approaching? CDSs were used because they didn't fall under insurance regulations. You see banks leveraging themselves 40, 50, 60:1? Yep, result of deregulation. Oh yeah, and regulation prevents the formation of cartels and monopolies, which inevitably result in a purely unregulated market. Yes, the government can actually encourage competition.

5) Big government is good for you... in some ways, absolutely. Many people here seem to think that government is the worst evil imaginable. Simply untrue. Bad government is intolerable, this is true, but the idea of government is invaluable. Look at some of the most prosperous nations on the planet (eg. Singapore, Ireland). They often involve active government involvement in things like setting wages in a neo-Corporate environment. In fact, many of these nations destroy the US in terms of per capita GDP (nominal and PPP). Of course, these governments are usually very transparent in their operation and not nearly as corrupt. As I said, government isn't the problem, bad government is.

6) Politicians know what health care is good for you. In one very important way, this is true. They know that having healthcare is better than not having healthcare, which is really superfluous since we all have emergent healthcare. If we can reduce the amount of GDP spent on healthcare, why not at least try preventative care?

7) What choice is limited? And does he believe the antithesis? Should everyone have free choice in everything (whatever that means) but not abortion?

8) Power comes from being powerless. What does this mean exactly? Are the poor somehow in a position of power over the rich elite that currently pull the strings in Congress?

9) Education to Socialism. Anti-intellectualism is certainly nothing new, but coming from a Prof it's certainly arrogant. Reading some of his articles, I might make the alternate claim that taking his classes leads to Fascism. He's certainly quick to attack the progressive system from which he collects a paycheck. Or perhaps other professors shouldn't be allowed to express their views.

10) Race doesn't count.... how does this involve the government? If you know someone that is offended by racial slurs, I would recommend you not make one to them. How is this Obama's problem?

11) Higher education gets lower each year... I have no idea what this means. Lower what? Elevation, frequency, cost, height? Doesn't make any sense.

12) I certainly don't agree with helping bankers and then relying on them to fix a problem they created. But this is a result of politicians of both administrations. And why do we think that an unregulated market that went out of control with greed (and those CEOs that will inevitably just be hired by boards whom are populated by their friends) will solve this problem in the future.

13) Religion should be private. What's the issue here? Is he suggesting that we let religion govern public discourse and resolution? If so, which one?

14) How is liberal radical? Someone from that side of the aisle just got elected.

15) Free speech is selective speech. How so? I haven't noticed anyone telling me I can no longer say something that I could say before Obama got elected.

16) What courage is he referring to?

Face it, the guy that wrote the article you posted is nothing original. He's simply another partisan hack, and we have plenty of those to go around. He parrots others, but for being a professor, I'm disheartened by his inability to do any sort of quantitative examination of the problem (for instance, ignores 100 years of progressive and often repressive tax rates). But I suppose hiding your worn ideology in verbose articles is standard fare these days for people too busy to question their own ideas and the world around them. He certainly spent more time writing that article than actually determining if our country is on a path to "Marxist utopia."

Wow, where do I begin? I'll start by noting the irony that your response to such a "verbose" article was longer than the article itself. I'll follow up with the observation that this guy is professor emeritus of political science at NYU. As such, I can only assume he knows a little more about Marxism than, say, some random guy on the internet. The article itself was very brief and to the point. You can disagree with what he says, but you can't call for both more detail and a shorter article.

 

[Rustler]

Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.


Notice even dropping the RICH cut off to 75K ...............YES WE CAN TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY...........

 

[GroundedSailor]

Originally posted by: SirStev0

Originally posted by: BigDH01

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
As Lincoln said, "You cannot make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak and you cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor." I thought this piece might be enlightening for a lot of people here.

Not really. Once again, he claims that without a low income tax that the incentive to generate wealth will be destroyed. He apparently neglects to tell people that the rich in the US paid a much higher marginal rate in the past than they do now. And guess what, people still created businesses and jobs. The government is not taking all of your money, if you earn a million next year, for every dollar beyond that you earn, you still get to keep most of it. There is still an incentive for you to earn more.


The author clearly indicates that he has no idea what Marxism really is. In that way, he is no different from many people on this board that keep throwing around the term "Socialism" but always back down and ignore my request to 1) describe it and 2) detail how the United States is transforming into a Socialist nation by increasing progressive tax rates (a concept embraced by even Adam Smith). And if the author wants to maintain a veil of impartiality, he probably shouldn't write articles like this.

The America of now is one where Orwellian logic rules. Forced redistribution of wealth is fairness. Taxes are patriotic. The free market should be a regulated market. Big government is good for you. Politicians know what kind of healthcare is best for you. Choice should be limited, except when it comes to abortion. Power comes from being powerless. Progressive education is designed to promote progress toward socialism. Race doesn?t count unless a person of color tells you it counts. Higher education gets lower each year. Those who create our problems should be asked to solve them. Religion should be a private matter that does not inform public morality. Liberal is radical. Free speech is selective speech. Courage is impetuousness.

Yeah, sounds like a reasonable guy. Let's break it down...

1) Orwellian logic - Yes, surely the Bush administration was model of truth and transparency and never used propaganda and misinformation to further their goals. Every politician and political party does this, but the fact that he says this about an Obama election raises some huge red flags and lets me know of the bat that this guy is a partisan hack, nothing more.

2) Forced redistribution of wealth is fairness.... Even Adam Smith said this was fair.

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. 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. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. 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.

The US has used progressive taxation in the past and in a much more punishing and progressive manner. To say that Obama is now the harbinger of redistribution is a lie and ignores the last century of US tax policy.

3) Paying your taxes is patriotic... so he believes the antithesis is true? If I quit paying my taxes would you call me a patriot? There is nothing patriotic or non-patriotic about it, it is fulfilling my civic and lawful duty.

4) The free market should have some regulations in place. You see the CDS catastrophe approaching? CDSs were used because they didn't fall under insurance regulations. You see banks leveraging themselves 40, 50, 60:1? Yep, result of deregulation. Oh yeah, and regulation prevents the formation of cartels and monopolies, which inevitably result in a purely unregulated market. Yes, the government can actually encourage competition.

5) Big government is good for you... in some ways, absolutely. Many people here seem to think that government is the worst evil imaginable. Simply untrue. Bad government is intolerable, this is true, but the idea of government is invaluable. Look at some of the most prosperous nations on the planet (eg. Singapore, Ireland). They often involve active government involvement in things like setting wages in a neo-Corporate environment. In fact, many of these nations destroy the US in terms of per capita GDP (nominal and PPP). Of course, these governments are usually very transparent in their operation and not nearly as corrupt. As I said, government isn't the problem, bad government is.

6) Politicians know what health care is good for you. In one very important way, this is true. They know that having healthcare is better than not having healthcare, which is really superfluous since we all have emergent healthcare. If we can reduce the amount of GDP spent on healthcare, why not at least try preventative care?

7) What choice is limited? And does he believe the antithesis? Should everyone have free choice in everything (whatever that means) but not abortion?

8) Power comes from being powerless. What does this mean exactly? Are the poor somehow in a position of power over the rich elite that currently pull the strings in Congress?

9) Education to Socialism. Anti-intellectualism is certainly nothing new, but coming from a Prof it's certainly arrogant. Reading some of his articles, I might make the alternate claim that taking his classes leads to Fascism. He's certainly quick to attack the progressive system from which he collects a paycheck. Or perhaps other professors shouldn't be allowed to express their views.

10) Race doesn't count.... how does this involve the government? If you know someone that is offended by racial slurs, I would recommend you not make one to them. How is this Obama's problem?

11) Higher education gets lower each year... I have no idea what this means. Lower what? Elevation, frequency, cost, height? Doesn't make any sense.

12) I certainly don't agree with helping bankers and then relying on them to fix a problem they created. But this is a result of politicians of both administrations. And why do we think that an unregulated market that went out of control with greed (and those CEOs that will inevitably just be hired by boards whom are populated by their friends) will solve this problem in the future.

13) Religion should be private. What's the issue here? Is he suggesting that we let religion govern public discourse and resolution? If so, which one?

14) How is liberal radical? Someone from that side of the aisle just got elected.

15) Free speech is selective speech. How so? I haven't noticed anyone telling me I can no longer say something that I could say before Obama got elected.

16) What courage is he referring to?

Face it, the guy that wrote the article you posted is nothing original. He's simply another partisan hack, and we have plenty of those to go around. He parrots others, but for being a professor, I'm disheartened by his inability to do any sort of quantitative examination of the problem (for instance, ignores 100 years of progressive and often repressive tax rates). But I suppose hiding your worn ideology in verbose articles is standard fare these days for people too busy to question their own ideas and the world around them. He certainly spent more time writing that article than actually determining if our country is on a path to "Marxist utopia."

Great Post and I am only commenting on it because no one in here is actually going to read it or take the time to address any of the points you just made.

I imagine someone will probably take a line or one point and comment on it, somehow thinking that it therefore invalidates your entire post. I just wanted to jump in here before they did.

Those who are not reading (ignoring) this post are doing so because they don't want to. It doesn't jive with the point of view they are espousing.

 

[Rustler]

Outlook grim for budget's costly initiatives

new report reveals how difficult it will be for President Obama to increase spending on health care, energy and education while cutting the deficit in half.

Based on budget scenarios outlined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, federal budget deficits will average $870 billion for the next 10 years, according to a new analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The latest CBO deficit estimates do not include the costly policy initiatives in health care, energy and education that the president mentioned in his Tuesday speech before a joint session of Congress. Mr. Obama will detail some of those plans Thursday when he introduces his first 10-year budget blueprint.

The CBO's estimates also do not include any extension of the temporary tax cuts that were contained in the $787 billion stimulus package that the president recently signed into law. Based on his campaign promises, Mr. Obama intends to extend several costly stimulus provisions well beyond 2011, when many of them are set to expire.

One of those provisions is the president's "Making Work Pay" tax credit, which will cost $66 billion in fiscal 2010.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...ts-costly-initiatives/

THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER

 

[senseamp]

Every little bit helps. Plus a lot of the people who got rich in last 5 years did so indirectly off the taxpayer buck, since the companies they ran into the ground ended up on taxpayer's back.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Originally posted by: alchemize
Only one word of hope around this insanity - filibuster.

Don't worry they have Snow/Specter/Collins to make sure it doesn't happen

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Originally posted by: CPA
It also looks like Obama is bringing back the marriage penalty. New rates for married couples making $250K and new rates for singles making $200K. Might was well stay unmarried and get a nice tax break.

You're lack of patriotism is showing.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
As Lincoln said, "You cannot make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak and you cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor." I thought this piece might be enlightening for a lot of people here.

Lincoln was right. The two things you righties don't get are that liberals already know this - you think it's your little secret because you are so ideologically blind and ignorant about liberals, rushing to form your nutty positions simply to be different than the straw man policies you make up for liberals; and that the appropriate taxation of the rich is not what he's talking about. You *could* misuse his quote to demand taxes on the rich go all the way to zero - he doesn't give numbers.

Now, let's look at another quote from Lincoln the righties would do well to get a clue about - this is a man who was 'scared' just after the *civil war*, when not much could scare him:

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.

 

[Xavier434]

You cannot make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak and you cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor."

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.

If the combination of these two quotes coming from a man who is typically respected by both parties doesn't show that our true answers lie somewhere in the middle then I don't know what does. Individually, these quotes could easily be criticized as leaning too far to one side especially if they were spoken by two different people from two different parties. However, if they are spoken together by one leader they represent an ideology which I believe is best for this country.

 

[BigDH01]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Yes, income taxes were higher in the past. So what? The incentive for me to earn the next dollar is directly proportional to my net benefit from that dollar. If the government only taxes my next x dollars at 25%, then I have a pretty good incentive which we will call 0.75x. If the government taxes those same dollars at 50%, then my incentive is only 0.5x. Why is this difficult to understand? Sure, there is still incentive, but not as much. I now have to work six hours to make as much money as I would have made in four at a 25% rate. Or, to look at it a different way, I have to work 50% harder to achieve the same benefit.

It's not difficult to understand. Your claim isn't that there wouldn't be less incentive, it's that the less incentive would kill growth. I can verify this is false by looking at the history at US taxation. At a time when the top income tax bracket was 90+, there was still growth and jobs were still created.

By the way, you keep comparing before and after incentive for tax rates. This is an incorrect way of looking at it. I work in an environment where my tax rate is largely set day to day. My incentive is not to work as if my tax rate changed yesterday or is going to change tomorrow, it is on the income I can earn today. If I can leave my present job, even if it means rising to a larger tax bracket, would I refuse it based on the idea that I'd pay more in taxes? It is always to my benefit to separate myself from my peers in order to increase the amount of wage I earn to the maximum possible within the confines of the amount of labor I'm willing to sacrifice. If my taxes are raised, yes, I will have less take home pay and will have to adjust. However, I will not quit trying to earn more money. You need to re-examine how you are investigating incentive.

Wow, where do I begin? I'll start by noting the irony that your response to such a "verbose" article was longer than the article itself. I'll follow up with the observation that this guy is professor emeritus of political science at NYU. As such, I can only assume he knows a little more about Marxism than, say, some random guy on the internet. The article itself was very brief and to the point. You can disagree with what he says, but you can't call for both more detail and a shorter article.

My response was longer, ironically enough, because I was questioning so many of the holes he left.

I am quite aware he is a professor as is quite obvious from my original post. This is why I am so disgusted he doesn't know more about Marxism and writes an article so heavy on language and so little on content. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to go read Marx yourself, I'm not being disingenuous.

Although qualitative political science appears to be obsessed with nomenclature and inflated ideologies, I assure you that informative articles of a quantitative nature can be quite short and succinct. I guess I'm not used to seeing a "brief and to the point" article that contains no real analysis or justifications. Let's take a look...

As a candidate, President Obama promised change, formidable change; alas a break with the past. Little did anyone appreciate how committed the president is to transformative change.

With the $787 billion bill now the law of the land, more money will be transferred from one group to another than any point in American history. The government will emerge as the central architect in the economy and the notion of limited government as the premise for this "new nation" has been tossed on the ash heap of history.

Newsweek editors claim "we are all socialists now." Perhaps that is true for the majority in the Congress, but I doubt it is a view shared by the majority of Americans. Intuitively, most people realize that the expansion of government spending reduces the influence and size of the private sector. In fact, there is a tipping point at about 30% of government spending that drives private initiative downward. We are now at that point.

Ok, he doesn't mention the G$700 bill under Bush that transferred wealth from the middle-class to the rich, but he's a partisan so I expect it.

Which Newsweek editors and in what article? And the majority of Congress are Socialists? Where did we get that info and how are we defining Socialism here? He doesn't do it for us except to mention Marxism at the end of the article (there are many different recognized versions of Socialism, but most people think of Marx because they know no other name). If you are calling half of Congress Marxists, then you better be able to show why this bill is Marxist, because I'm highly unconvinced. He also conveniently ignores that the transfer of wealth going on isn't from the rich to the poor, it's from the future to the present as most of this is deficit spending. I guess he can't be bothered to address temporal Socialism.

I'm assuming by "30% of government spending" he means that government spending accounts for 30% of GDP. This kind of conflicts with the previous paragraph which states that the government is emerging as the central architect. If we are to believe him, the private sector is still twice as large. Of course, he wants us to take him at his word, but I guess it's intuitive that government is killing the private sector, right? And of course, if 30% of our GDP consists of public spending, then we are driving private initiative downward. It's just a shame that he has no data for either the downward drive claim or the 30% government spending claim (whatever that was actually supposed to mean).

Moreover, without any analysis both houses of the Congress embraced the 1,400 page legislative agenda with alacrity in order "to avoid a catastrophe." Yet, the much overused word "stimulus" turns out to be a euphemism for special interest allocations and pork barrel appropriations. The greed once attributed to Wall Street can now be found on K Street.



Most disturbing is that the final tab is not $787 billion as advertised. That is merely the first year's tally. As the Congressional Budget Office noted the real expense based on years two, three, and four ? as newly created programs are sustained ? is on the order of $3.2 trillion. Keep in mind that the nation's annual GDP is $14.5 trillion.

How much of the stimulus is pork barrel spending again? Surely, these numbers are easy to find.

Then he compares total stimulus cost to annual GDP. If we assume GDP remains stagnant, then we find that adding 4 years of GDP compared to the 4 years of the bill, we have T$3.2 in stimulus compared to T$58 in total GDP. A whopping 5.5%. He's not exactly lying here, but certainly using numbers to obfuscate the truth.

The consequence of this act is to place on the next generation the greatest financial burden the country has ever encountered; a burden so great that no one can be sure of how we will emerge from the indebtedness.

No one was sure how we were going to emerge from the indebtedness after the Bush admin. How have things changed? We've been running large deficits since supply-side economics.

Yes, we are changing from a nation that relied on the ingenuity of its citizens and incentives that drive innovation, to a nation that relies on government to determine "winners" in the economy.

Yes, wealth is being spread around, as candidate Obama promised. But what he and his media courtiers don't seem to appreciate is that this legislative action will destroy the incentives for wealth creation. Socialism may distribute wealth according to its philosophical commitment to egalitarianism, but it doesn't know how to build the institutions that inspire wealth in the first place.

The government has determined the "winners?" What is a winner? The government is deciding wealth? I don't think so. Your parents wealth has more to do with your own wealth than any other factor. The US is rather stratified according to current research. Factually speaking, it would appear that the genetic lottery has more to do with deciding the "winners" than the government.

There it is again, destroy economic incentive. There goes your math that you used to try and convince me of something. According to your author, it's either 1x or 0. There he goes with Socialism again, without explaining what brand of Socialism he's using or what that has to do with the US.

Abraham Lincoln wisely noted that "you cannot make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak and you cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor." This obvious lesson ? once regarded as axiomatic ? has been lost on the Obama team. They see a stagnant and faltering economy and assume spending will solve the problem. It hasn't occurred to this president and his congressional acolytes that the solution may be worse than the problem.

I've yet to see how the Obama tax raise is going to make rich men poor or poor men rich. It's a simple increase in progressive taxes that still fall far below previous levels in the US. Was that Lincoln quote regarded axiomatic in the 50s when the top bracket was paying 90+%? I'm sure failure has been a thought for the Obama administration. I'm sure it's been a thought for all of us. But we are in new waters and he's trying something drastic to prevent outright collapse.

Instead of corporate leaders making decisions for their companies, Rep. Barney Frank will determine how assets should be deployed in the economy. Instead of risk takers operating out of a local garage, entrepreneurial activity will be monitored by Sen. Charles Schumer. This isn't merely a disgrace; it represents a dramatic fall in the fortunes of the nation.

Which assets might those be? Will Barney Frank be telling me how much bread I can buy next week or how many computers I'm allowed to have?

I might go as far to say it was those corporate leaders that got us into this mess. First, by lobbying Congress for less regulation and second, by taking stupidly risky moves. Basically, these are nothing more than ad hominem attacks and really don't put this author in a good light (although a light I was expecting given his other articles).

Recognizing the tyranny that could result from big and intrusive government, President Gerald Ford once noted that "a government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have." It may seem exaggerated but the new president is dangerously close to taking everything away as government devours the private sector and America is transformed into a Marxist utopia.

Another slipperly slope fallacy (is this guy really a Prof)? At least he admits he's exaggerating here, so I'll give him credit for that. However, he doesn't give us the benefit of describing how close we are to having the government devour everything (except the uncited 30% of GDP number above). Actually, reading back, he said we were already past the point that the government "drives private initiative downward." So is he exaggerating here or is he not? Given his last "Marxist utopia" phrase, I would say he's simply fear mongering. The partisanship is strong with this one.

 

[BladeVenom]

Good article.

 

[quikah]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
As Lincoln said, "You cannot make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak and you cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor." I thought this piece might be enlightening for a lot of people here.

Lincoln never said this. That quote is a variation of one of William Boetcker's "Ten Cannots". A conservative PAC later published the Ten Cannots along with some real Lincoln quotes and messed up the attributions.

I would guess that the majority of supposed quotes people post on the internet are bogus.

The real danger of raising taxes on the "rich" is the impact on small business, that is the only real problem I have with it.

 

[Generator]

All I see in here is Americans refusing the obligation to pay that debt. Hell Obama could propose no government spending at all. It doesn't matter, that tax rate still has to go up. Alot of people gotten high and fat on that debt. You didn't think was legitimate business did you? That your investments, trade, and market wasn't a large portion of America being put on credit card?

Go ahead and work 30% less productive. But there are going to be some hard times, you have to wonder what happened to patriotism in country. What would the WW2 generation think of this selfishness.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Generator
All I see in here is Americans refusing the obligation to pay that debt. Hell Obama could propose no government spending at all. It doesn't matter, that tax rate still has to go up. Alot of people gotten high and fat on that debt. You didn't think was legitimate business did you? That your investments, trade, and market wasn't a large portion of America being put on credit card?

Go ahead and work 30% less productive. But there are going to be some hard times, you have to wonder what happened to patriotism in country. What would the WW2 generation think of this selfishness.

you're aware that tax receipts can go up faster than the economy without the tax rate going up, right?

 

[First]

Good, well on the way to recovery.