The fraud of "limited government"

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shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
9,500
6
81
Originally posted by: Genx87
Originally posted by: shira
Historically, our system has been progressive (those who make more pay at a higher tax rate than those who make less). The Bush tax cuts - especially when combined with the effects of the (un-amended by Bush) Alternative Minimum Tax - made our system a lot less progressive. Over the last few decades, the disparity between the rich and middle class has grown enormously and (if my memory serves) the "real" earnings of the middle class have remained stagnant for at least the past 20 years. Add these trends up and extrapolate several more decades and we could end up with a system like those in many Central and South American countries, where large majorities of the population lives in poverty, the middle class is very small, and a tiny percentage have 99% of the total wealth.

No one has to SAY the rich are favored. Simply look at realty to see how advantaged the rich are and how well they're doing.

"Limited government" advocates would just accelerate this trend. So would the flat tax you mentioned.

My question to you is: Why would you want to advocate a system where a tiny percentage of the population does well and the rest do badly? Why would you want to live in a place where, in all likelihood, most of your relatives and friends and acquaintances would have to struggle for a decent life?

What are you talking about? The % of people who effectively pay no fed income tax increased under Bush.

This is an absurd argument, utterly irrelevant to what I've written.

Your point, apparently, is that you think if 1000 more poor people paid no taxes after the Bush cuts, that somehow means something. But if those 1000 poor people in aggregate save (say) $200,000 but one rich person has his taxes reduced from (say) $10,000,000 to $9,700,000, I fail to see how that result as anything but unfair.

Furthermore (and this was the essential point of my original post), if those same lucky 1000 poor people who saved $200 in taxes are at the same time burdened with MORE than $200 in additional living costs because "limited government" has shifted some costs formerly paid by the government onto them, then they are net losers, whereas the wealthy are net big winners. And this isn't even considering that even if the poor and middle classes as a whole come out somewhat ahead, the overall trend is that the poor and middle classes are shouldering a greater share of the overall cost (public + private) than they did before. The system has become more regressive.
 

LunarRay

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2003
9,993
1
76
Shira,
I don't disagree at all. I want to make that point up front.

I wonder which statement is right: The Middle and Lower class owe the Rich for their ability to exist as well as they do OR the Rich owe the Middle and Lower class for their ability to exist as well as they do?

I'm not sure it is a break even or even close actually. The Rich are rich because they were born rich or earned it on the back of the rest. Somewhere down the line someone earned it except for a few whose Nobility found ways to steal it. They use the OPM concept of getting richer while the rest can't.

Smaller government always ends up being a transfer of cost to the lower income folks. Not sometimes but always.
I had to laugh the other day when the neighbor's kid was being so in favor of government spending cuts but became really upset when he found out that the bus he rides to school was being cut!... and his parents now have to drive him or car pool...

Edit: his parents are not well off.. there is no other bus that even comes near their school... Now instead of one bus amount of petrol being consumed we have hundreds of cars every day... so there are lots of considerations that seem left to the wind.
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
I dont think I have gained anything from O'Bamma being in office. You are wrong.

Bus routes are often cut just because of the economy being bad. It has nothing to do with being a Democrat or Republican. Buses are local and not federally funded.
 

Ihey8neocons

Banned
Sep 27, 2009
31
0
0
I'm for limited governmment in so far as there are limitations on the limits.

That is to say, if you earn more than me, your ill gotten gains should be confiscated and redistributed.