xtcian

Our progressive tax system taxes income- not wealth. There is a profound difference.

I think you will find that almost everyone is willing to pay their share. However, it is the upper middle class, the entreprenuers and small business owners, that carry the burden for almost the entire country. The super-rich elite don't work and only pay taxes on dividends and capital gains (notwithstanding local real estate taxes, etc).

I am all for spreading it around and I'll be the first in line to support this if we start looking at balance sheets instead of W2's and 1099's.

When reading the following today, the sentence near the end made me think of you and some liberals' penchant for citing racism, sexism, or some other -ism.

"But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why? Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms ("racism, sexism, homophobia") when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it's positively pickled."

Although tempted to allow the liberals on this blog to opine that the preceding was written by Beck/Coulter/Malkin, I will share the truth. It was actually written by Camille Paglia.

"new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning" I don't think the new professional class paid that much attention in college.

The glossy products that I'm worried about are the glossy, wrinkle free brains, that strap on their drool cup for a daily dose of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

"believe everything party leaders tell them", I'm still registered as a Republican, though I officially left the party during Bush's "Axis of Evil" address. I voted for Obama, but I didn't know the democratic party had leaders. Who is it I was supposed to be getting my beliefs from? Dammit, I've been thinking about this stuff when I could have just signed up for RSS feed?

Let me be the first to tell you that Paglia has not had anything interesting to say in a decade, and I find her online output embarrassing. She's just a contrarian at this point. "complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them"? Democrats? Good god.

I am all for spreading the wealth around - a good fifteen to twenty percent of my household income goes out to various charities before I spend a dime - but believe strongly that the spreading should happen on a strictly voluntary basis. The federal government has no business determining what people should do with the money they work for, nor do they (or you) have any business determining how much income is too much. I am solidly in the middle-class, as were my parents before me, and their parents before them, but know full well that if the government shackles those with greater means than me with onerous taxes, that limits everyone's ability to prosper. Think about it; if you tax the snot out of "the wealthy" and give that money to others who weren't "teed up to win", where is the incentive for those on the receiving end to do any better, and what happens to the incentive for those being forced to share to continue to excel? Sorry if you feel guilty for being born & brought up white and priviledged, but don't make others pay to assuage your guilt.

And why are you so hung up on spreading the wealth around in the US? Even our so-called poor are far better off than some who are considered wealthy in other countries. How many people in the US that are poor are also overweight? How many have a cell phone, a television, cable piped in, live in a heated & air conditioned apartment or house, etc... If you're serious about "sharing the wealth" (I believe the term is "spreading the wealth") it needs to be done in areas where there is more need than there is here. By pushing it here you come across as a socialist or communist; those are two -ists I haven't heard from you. And if you have a problem spreading YOUR wealth around in places other than the US, you need to question who really is the "racist, classist, or just really, really mean." And your foul mouth (fingers?) doesn't help you get your message across, and your message needs all the help it can get. It makes you seem stupid and lazy. You're not convincing anybody of anything other than you're a hateful little nobody with a big mouth.

Wow. An enemy of reason named "John Galt". There really are new things to be seen every day.

let's get one thing straight - i'm not "wealthy", as much as i wish i were! i have never had a trust fund and work my ass off for what $ i do have. that being said, i don't care if you're black, yellow, purple or green - if you're sitting on your ass by choice all day (no matter how "disenfranchised" you may have been) i don't think you have a right to one penny that i made while at work.

I was one of those kids that drank my way through college and did as little as possible to graduate with a 3.0 (OK, OK, fine - it was a 2.94, but let's not split hairs), but can someone help me out with this: If the top 1% of of taxpayers paid more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95%, aren't we, in fact, already "spreading the wealth" right now?

Look, I voted for Obama, because (in no certain order): (a) I thought he was the better candidate; (b) Palin scared me to death; (c) I felt that our country needed a global brand image upgrade after the Cheney Administration; and (d) I was willing to live with my effective tax rate going from 36% to 39.6%, per Obama's campaign platform.

So Ian, if we really are only talking about 2-3 points, I can live with that. But if these wing nuts like Pelosi think they're pushing through some public health option by knocking my tax bracket up to 50-55% to pay the bill, she's out of her mind. I just hope Obama is smart enough to understand the value of pushing through a bipartisan effort on this. I think he is.

I love the idea that we're cool as long as our poor are fat.

Have you ever been to a grocery store?
Have you ever seen the prices in poor community grocery stores, where people don't have transportation to competitive stores? (easily 50% higher than our suburban mega stores.)

$5.00 will buy you enough fresh vegetables to eat and be still be hungry, for two days.

$5.00 will buy you enough cool aid and hot pockets to kill your hunger for a week.

Combine that math with a failed schools, and the sedentary lifestyle of riding buses to jobs they don't get, and you have FAT poor people. That scenario is far from a testimonial for the status quo.

Craighill- I agree with your sentiment, though I believe the number of people who would chose to sit on their ass all day (in abject poverty), if they had a choice, would be very small.

Just as I do not want the government to go overboard on regulations because of a small number of men like Bernie Madoff, I also do not want to disenfranchise a huge segment of our country, because of similarly amoral po' folks.

We will always be faced with cheaters at every socio-economic level.

"You're not convincing anybody of anything other than you're a hateful little nobody with a big mouth."

Hilarious.

"I am all for spreading the wealth around - a good fifteen to twenty percent of my household income goes out to various charities before I spend a dime..."

I'm sure. *wink*

@ Salem: I'd like to know where you shop. The point is that many of "the poor" in the US live like kings compared to the poor elsewhere in the world. For the 10 months, I hosted a friend from a small country in West Africa who was studying here; he was shocked at how well some people live who are eligible for financial assistance. Face it; you, Ian, Kate and many others want someone else to pay the cost of easing your guilt. But my guess is your motivation has more to do with changing an economic system that you consider to be unfair because it allows some people to earn more than others. Then you use the poor as an excuse for "leveling the playing field" according to your rules. The trouble is that your rules are far more unfair and defy all logic. Guess you all threw that out along with reason... Or perhaps you just redefined it, like you do with history and everything else.

Go ahead & judge, Kate, dear. I won't waste my time trying to prove anything to you. I know what I need to live on and share what I can; can you say the same? Somehow I seriously doubt it. Tossing coin into a panhandler's hat doesn't cut it, nor does trying to rewrite the rules to make someone else cough up enough to make you feel good about yourself.

/troll

craighill - "sitting on your ass by choice all day" as a description of all disenfranchised minorities and poor people? I hate to lump you in with John Galt here, but that's as inaccurate as his mental picture of the Lazy Poor sitting around with a "cell phone, a television, cable piped in, [living] in a heated & air conditioned apartment".

JG claims I want to assuage my white guilt by making other people pay for it, but I think folks like JG simply want to rationalize their selfishness by dehumanizing those less fortunate.

I really hope you stick it to good ole Joe Wilson in your blog tomorrow..

Hey Ian,
This is all getting a bit vitriolic here, so I just want to say, as hard as this is, and as much crap as you take every time you write one of these, you consistently give me hope that things might eventually get better. Thank you for saving my occasionally foundering belief in my fellow man. You are fighting the good fight.

Oh lovely, lovely, lovely. Well said and thank you. You do white boys proud!

I enjoy that your response to an objection at being called racist is to give craighill a multiple choice. I think "racist, classist, or just really, really mean" covers oh so much.

I've already written a note for our passionate and misguided misrepresentative Wilson. I was going to send it tonight, but - oh shocker - his site is "down for maintenance." It may well have crashed between all the "You go Joe!" and "Shame on you" messages, or his people just closed it down before the crash?

FYI, his site URL is - http://www.joewilson.house.gov/

Thank you Ian.

Wrong yet again, Ian. Can't stand to admit the truth, can you? And you continue to attribute your issues to your political opposition; it's you who are dehumanizing the less fortunate by wanting to have the government make the problem just go away. The poor are just too icky for you to want to get too close, so you're more than willing for the government to use someone else's money to transmogrify the distastefully disenfranchised into something not so distasteful. Like the stereotypical statist, and in spite of the repeated failure of the federal government to do anything right, you think that every societal ailment can be best handled by a nanny state that will provide for every need and protect us from all unpleasantness. It just takes the right people in charge to make it work, and you think Obama is the guy.

I'm guessing -- just guessing -- that part of your problem is that in the sanitized world where you & your kind live, charity and compassion don't usually involve any personal interaction with those who are truly in need. What you need for a better perspective is to get in there for real. Where you can look the truly poor and the truly destitute and the truly needy in the eye, and give of yourself to help them out. Seeing the depth of gratitude from someone who has really felt need will change you, and from what I've read of your rantings, that's missing. The typical liberal wants to take care of everybody, and in the process misses the individual. But in helping out the poor and disenfranchised, just giving them a handout only goes so far; it's better to go the extra step & give them the dignity to be able to provide for themselves, not forever relying on handouts.

John Galt, I take umbrage at your characterization of the "sanitized world where you & your kind live". I just finished 5 years working as a doctor in two large public hospitals in LA caring for sick and desperately poor people. I resent your implication that political progressives have no "personal interaction with those who are truly in need". Quite the opposite is true, in my experience.

It's true that the poor here are better off than the poor in Sudan. That doesn't make their suffering less important or more acceptable.

JG, you're a good writer, it's really a shame about your notions.

The issue is not how charitable we should be to the poor, or whether we should take your money and give it to lazy people who don't deserve to be healthy.

The issue is the insurance-industry monopoly as suppliers of health care. Plenty of people work their asses off and still can't afford health-care for themselves or their families.

@ John Galt: Can you define what you mean by "distastefully disenfranchised?" I'm not sure I understand your term here. Also, I would like to know what you consider to be appropriate ways of assisting disadvantaged/poor people? It seems that you are in favor of some form of assistance (excluding financial support from the government), and I would like to know what your vision of moving beyond the handout/going the extra step would be. I'm asking these questions seriously. Thanks.

i am neither racist, classist or mean despite the stupid "multiple choice" comment. i am a capitalist and believe in the principles that this country was founded upon and it makes me sick to my stomach to watch this charlatan in the oval office who's never had a real job in his life spend our money with such reckless abandon. hopefully we'll come to our senses before we're bankrupt and vote him out of the office we so blindly handed him. his 41% job approval at least shows this once proud country is no longer buying his bullshit. ian - he's my cheney.

"it makes me sick to my stomach to watch this charlatan in the oval office who's never had a real job in his life spend our money with such reckless abandon"

I take it you're still taking about Dubya?

no, i'm talking about that "community organizer" in DC who uses poor grammar and can't put two words together without a teleprompter. the one that 59% of america thinks is doing a shitty job. the same one who recently proposed a 3.6 TRILLION dollar budget that most third graders know we can't afford.

Me, I'm in favor of raising the top marginal tax rate back up to 90% where it was during the post-war economic boom. I mean, c'mon, if the richies are going to boo-hoo about class warfare, let's really let 'em have it.

In all seriousness, any honest student of free market economics understands that they inevitably concentrate wealth. It is the proper role of government both to ensure the markets are in fact free, which means breaking up monopolies and correct other distortions, and to redistribute the wealth so that the market can continue to function. Even Milton fucking Friedman admits this. Anyone who argues against this either doesn't understand economics, or is a greedy fucker who's already got theirs and could care less about anyone else.

@ Caitlin: My apologies for generalizing. Just expressing my frustration at those who push for the US to adopt a socialized economy under the pretense of caring for the poor, but won't lift a finger or spend a dime of their own money to do it. Thank you for your work, and may you be blessed many times over for it.

@Ian: You seem a decent fellow. It's a shame you can't be more accepting and tolerant of people with opposing views. I was almost as liberal as you years ago, and today some of my best friends are your ideological twins. How many conservatives do you count as friends? Judging by the level of rancor in your posts, either not many, or a few that you think very highly of.

@Tammy O. "Distastefully disenfranchised" would include the truly needy that aren't, well, aesthetically pleasing... The mentally unbalanced homeless lady; the family you'd consider redneck trailer trash; the inmate in prison for doing the things that make your skin crawl... Generally the people that most 'decent people' would look down on and feel superior to, or be afraid of. The least of these.

I don't know if you're jerking my chain on that second question, but in case you're not... Staying as close to the metal as possible is important so I don't lose sight of why I do what I do. Working for soup kitchens & the such, helping out at the VA hospitals and free clinics, and when giving, I donate directly to non-profits that have good financial accountability. I look for organizations that have low bureaucratic overhead, good reputations, and emphasize self sufficiency for their beneficiaries rather than dependence. Since the need is far greater overseas than in the US, that's where the bulk of the money I donate goes.

@dob: The only boo-hooing I hear about class warfare is from the leftist elites that use the concept to whip up discontent and help people misunderstand free market economics. Wealth may indeed be concentrated with "the richies", but in a free market economy that's where it does the most good. Having the government step in to rectify what some would see as 'distortions' only creates greater distortions, making things far worse. The current financial crisis is a perfect example; can you say 'sub-prime mortgages'? Your comments make me wonder where you schooled.

Let's see... am I going to go with the consensus view of market economics ranging from Keynes to Milton fucking Friedman, or the ranting of a pseudonymous commenter from a terrifically awful novel? I think I'm going to go with the economists. More to the point, I'm going to go with evidence from the real world, which indicates that progressive taxation and a strong safety net are necessary to raise the median and aggregate standards of living.

Furthermore, Mr. Galt, the financial crisis was merely rooted in sub-prime mortgages. The real problem was the derivatives market built on top of that shaky foundation which ended up being many times larger, and much much riskier, than the original mortgages. What we experienced was a classic market failure due to do lack of regulatory oversight, a policy proscription cheered on by glibertarians and the wealthy. That you would continue to assign the bulk of the blame the sub-prime mortgage borrowers speaks volumes of both your ignorance of the situation and your predilection for taking the side of the powerful against the powerless.

"progressive taxation"? "terrifically awful novel"?

john galt - he's fking with you. no one owns a tv or reads the wsj doesn't put 100% of the blame of the housing mess on the shitty borrowers that clinton forced the banks to lend to. derivatives only compounded what wouldn't have been a problem in the first place had we not listened to slick willy.

"no, i'm talking about that "community organizer" in DC who uses poor grammar and can't put two words together without a teleprompter."

Well, that's funny. Obama wrote two books without a ghostwriter, and from what I've heard they are rather good.

If we compare Obama's command of the English language with that of his predecessor it's fair to say we're talking about an A student (Obama) and a bumbling D student who was born to a fortune and as a consequence never really tried (Dubya).

I really think you're mixing these two up.

bill ayers was obama's ghostwriter. google it.

Sure. And if I google obama is an alien from mars I'm bound to get some hits, too.

what's interesting (though not much) about your rants is you're one of those robots who march to the new right wing drumbeat. Whatever was said about Bush (such as his grammar was far from sublime), you're told to say it about Obama.

This is fine as long as it's about Obama's grammar, which is well-nigh impeccable. However, what guys like you are really trying to do is deligitimize Obama's presidency, call him a socialist and a terrorist &c, and ultimately some nut is going to pull the trigger.

@JG, I'm returning to this late. Thank you for your apology. But you are still trying to use this "limousine liberal" thing to tar progressives with. I think for many of us, our engagement and dare I say it, empathy, with people living in poverty is precisely what informs our politics.

It's easy to castigate poor people's choices. Until you see how constrained those choices are. Living in poverty is a constant struggle, where you are always forced to choose: bus fare for the week or shoes? food or medicine? Get that bad toothache looked at or just keep taking Tylenol? Spend 2 hours and 3 bus transfers to get to the clinic, or skip the appointment because you can't find someone to watch your kids?

Not to get too high-falutin', but I believe that structural inequality is directly harmful to people's health. Charity is not going to fix these harsh inequities. It takes government action. And, yes, income redistribution from those with the most good fortune to those with the least.

"herman" munster - obama is doing a fine job "deligitmizing" himself in case you haven't noticed. (read any recent poll - most blooms deserted that trendy rose months ago).
i also find it quite interesting that you deem my conservative post a "rant", yet the majority of your and most others' xtcian liberal posts go unmolested since the majority of these readers are in your camp. unfortunately, your cheap plaigerization of ian's ideas expose your lack of originality. even the most hard core liberals know better than to hint that we, the devil caitalists, are putting the "president"s life in danger with our rhetoric. (we know better -biden's WAY worse).
against my better judgement but solely due to the combination of your annoying "robot" comment and half-ass accusation that i march to anyone else's drumbeat, here goes: i'll bet a nickel that you played or was cut from the school band, can collectively count your good looking girlfriends and varsity letters on two hands and still have yet to experience what we "robots" call being successful by almost any definition of that word. if i'm wrong, please accept my apology although i won't hold my breath.

craig, if the president only did things that made the polls go up, the long term effect would be a disaster. I'd at least give him credit for trying to help the country and as many of its citizens as he can despite the fact that it may not be popular to everyone.

Why does someones band career, girlfriends, or varsity letters make any difference to this discussion?

I love message board bullies. All typing and no testicles.

Has anyone noticed that 80% of the Republicans that voted for GWB now consider themselves to be "Libertarians"? Poor pubbies, they are lost and they now cling to the Libertarian party like a life preserver. Sadly, if the Libertarians ever won a majority of the seats in anything, you could probably kiss goodbye those socialized things like fire departments, police, utilities, etc.