Obama intensifies push for ‘Buffett Rule’

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stinkcat_14 said:
Are you against social security recipients who are too lazy to work not getting taxed?
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Since we are so close to my first tax payment since becoming a Social Security recipient, I will answer this. I paid Social Security taxes for almost 40 years and am now getting a very small return. The return is less than a quarter of what the same amount of money put into my IRA’s provides for less than 30 years of contributions, and I had to pay taxes on the Social Security payments I got last year. Even more important to me, I have ownership on my IRA’s but not SS. I have the possibility of passing on some of my savings to nieces and nephews when they need it. I can live OK without SS payments, but I would be a millionaire without all the taxes I paid into a system that was known to be unsustainable when I was still in high school. It just happens that the after tax return on working hard to manage my own investments is higher than working for someone else.

The meager return on our SS taxes is the cost of letting government do for us what we should do for ourselves. High FICA taxes work against the possibility of low income workers saving for their own retirements.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Do you really think wealthy people don’t care whether, e.g., the bridge they are driving on collapses? Does anybody really think a “wealthy” farmer (and any farmer with any land to speak of could be said to be “wealthy”) doesn’t care about droughts. Ponder for a moment that it takes about $300/acre to plant corn. And if a farmer with 1000 acres sees his crop fail so he brings in no money to pay that $300,000? He doesn’t care about that?

Farmers are the major preventers and fighters of wildfires in most parts of the country. I have seen photos on the news of the wealthy homes burned down in the semi-deserts of Califronia, and some lives are also lost. Does anybody really think the owners of those homes don’t care whether everything they have is lost, and perhaps even their lives?

And it is a morally justifiable thing to fail to defend “them” (the bogeyman “them”… the kulaks, “the rich”) when someone thinks to despoil them out of sheer malicious envy? And where does one stop with that? Does one million qualify one as one of “THEM”? $500,000? A 1000 acre farm? A 250 acre farm? What? Where does the malice stop.

Perhaps a leftist on here can tell us where the bright line is that separates “us” from the odious “them”. Obama has been all over the place in defining the hated “them”. Perhaps some leftist on here can do better.
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I think they only care about their money. They would like the problems I mentioned payed for by the less fortunate. Through lower wages, higher taxes, and generally making do with out. This is the only explanation for their possition. Like I said before, you should not worry about the wealthy.

ATB
 
Suudy said:
For the sake of conversation, let’s assume this is true. How do these even come close to the evil of abortion?
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Suudy, just because someones life wasn’t terminated through abortion. Does not mean, we are no longer their keeper.

ATB
 
SamH said:
Are you?
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I am against giving them the dole in the first place, I am also against giving them free health insurance and giving them an extra exemption. Those things are more offensive than them skipping out on paying tax.
 
stevegravy said:
I have proposed this little thought experiment several times in the past and have yet to get a decent response, other than they are not the same taxes are demanded by governments like that makes them moral. Or they are moral because our government votes for them.

What is the difference???

Scenario 1
My grandma needs food, medicine, heat in the winter and a roof over her head. She doesn’t have enough money. I am a good and dutiful grandson so I buy a gun some ammo and start holding up everyone I can demand their money or their life.

Scenario 2
My grandma needs food, medicine, heat in the winter and a roof over her head. She doesn’t have enough money. I am a good and dutiful grandson so I get a lobbyist start haranguing legislatures about my grandmother plight asking for state money to alleviate her suffering. I do fund raisers and press conferences, denouncing those who oppose are heartless haters et cetera. I also fashion the law so many people can get in on the racket. I get a law passed and public money for granny.

The only difference I see is the second scenario uses the coercion of the state to accomplish what I was willing to do for free. Well, maybe almost free, keeping 20% of the take for my ammunition expenses, time, and travel.

Perhaps I am missing something so can someone help me out?
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No, I’m afraid I can’t help you.:rolleyes:
 
Ridgerunner said:
The third possibility, of course, is that you reduce your own consumption and help Grandma out from your own resources. A fourth would be that you first seek help from family, then the Church, then the county, then the state, and so on. Subsidiarity.

But that’s not your point, I just couldn’t help saying it.

The difference is that we consider laws duly passed to be legitimate exercises of the right of governments to govern. Granted, some laws are unconscionable, because governments can go immoral. Some methods of affecting laws are also immoral.

But we do have to be careful about seizing the assets of others in the name of charity, precisely because many times there is no charity involved, in reality, but vote-buying.
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Well the third option is NOT practical it requires self-sacrifice that is something that is moral and uplifting and a good that is anathema to liberals. Your fourth option is idyllic and would apply if we were all believers in helping our fellow man.

I didn’t ask about legitimate or licit just the power an armed thug has over the victim. That power is neither legitimate or licit unless the armed thug has announced he is now the leader of the country. If you don’t have the means to resist what difference is it to you if he is legit or not. He is the boss until a bigger better-armed thug comes by. Lots of dictatorships and emperors change that way. Such is the world we live in.

I asked what the moral difference is not legal. I am just stating both are acting the same.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
But in this case, neither republicans nor democrats advocate this, they are both in favor of redistributionist medicare and social security. Part D of medicare is pure redistribution and a pure violation of subsidiarity and republicans are for the most part to blame for it.
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That is not true in two ways. One, there have been attempts to reform SS and Medicare, make it a private and self directed account, to make Medicare a premium support program, to means test, to increase the age, to offer other ways of funding. Every one of these proposals have been shot down by Democrats. So to say neither Republicans or Democrats are for reform, you have it half right…

In politics, wishing doesn’t make it so, particularly when you have one party blocking every attempt at creating some kind of personal accountability.

I disagree that Part D is PURELY redistribution because the patient pays out of pocket for both the premium and the drug itself. There are methods to give more support to low income patients and less to high income patients. Now I’m not defending Part D as it was created because there were clearly some shenanigans going on with the Republican who was instrumental in pushing it through. Had Part D been structured like Parts A & B, the price the government paid would be substantially less as it is with A & B. THis should have been fixed immediately because it was clearly a conflict of interest at work.

I do agree that Republicans are skeptical of many of the redistributionist programs in in that term I mean you get paid although you made no contribution. While SS and Medicare often return far more than was paid in, they are not purely redistributionist and had the government actually done as promised and segregated the funds, had them invested wisely, it would have remained solvent longer. But this just demonstrates that you don’t give politicians a chance to get their hands in the cooky jar because they simply can’t resist OPM.

Lisa
 
Mickey_Finn said:
I think they only care about their money. They would like the problems I mentioned payed for by the less fortunate. Through lower wages, higher taxes, and generally making do with out. This is the only explanation for their possition. Like I said before, you should not worry about the wealthy.

ATB
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I don’t worry about the wealthy. But you honestly think wealthy people would rather fall off a rotten bridge and drown in a river than to pay taxes? Nobody should be so hated, not even the wealthy.

And again, where do you draw the “wealthy” line? A million in assets? $100,000? $50? What? One might fear home invaders. One might fear muggers. But one does not fear bogeymen. Are “the wealthy” vague bogeymen to you; men in top hats and striped trousers about which you know nothing? Or do you really have an idea who it is you hate?
 
stevegravy said:
Well the third option is NOT practical it requires self-sacrifice that is something that is moral and uplifting and a good that is anathema to liberals. Your fourth option is idyllic and would apply if we were all believers in helping our fellow man

Well, this might be a hasty statement. This is exactly what the Popes have encouraged us to do in the Social Encyclicals before resorting to the next level of potential provender.
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But we do have to be careful about seizing the assets of others in the name of charity, precisely because many times there is no charity involved, in reality, but vote-buying
Ridgerunner, you have once again hit the nail on the head. It gets so tiresome to hear that if you don’t want to hand over ever increasing amounts of the money you have earned or saved you “hate poor people” or want bridges to collapse or babies to go to bed hungry.
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There is nothing charitable about taxation or government programs, not even intent in many cases. It is simply a down payment for future votes.
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BTW has anyone seen the latest Obama campaign “Julia” where a composite woman is taken from cradle to grave by her dear old Uncle Sam. Somehow THIS is what we are supposed to aspire to?
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Lisa
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LisaA said:
But we do have to be careful about seizing the assets of others in the name of charity, precisely because many times there is no charity involved, in reality, but vote-buying
Ridgerunner, you have once again hit the nail on the head. It gets so tiresome to hear that if you don’t want to hand over ever increasing amounts of the money you have earned or saved you “hate poor people” or want bridges to collapse or babies to go to bed hungry.
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Ridgerunner said:
LisaA;9258677 said:
But we do have to be careful about seizing the assets of others in the name of charity, precisely because many times there is no charity involved, in reality, but vote-buying
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Thank you for your kind words.

No, I have not seen the Obama film “Julia”, and with any luck at all, I never will.

Apparently just posted on the Obama campaign website. Of course as someone noted that Obama is President when Julia enters Head Start and is STILL President when she gets Medicare. HMMMMMM maybe a Freudian slip so to speak? The other notable thing is that Julia seems to have no man in her life other than the one who impregnates her and then leaves her and the child to be supported by the taxpayers. As more than one pundit has commented, the EWWWWWWW factor is at an all time high.

Really in so many ways they show their true colors in such campaign productions. Is there any question Obama and his supporters are hoping for a socialist country where families are weak and the government is strong. It’s all about control…always has been

Lisa
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LisaA said:
Ridgerunner;9258711:
Apparently just posted on the Obama campaign website. Of course as someone noted that Obama is President when Julia enters Head Start and is STILL President when she gets Medicare. HMMMMMM maybe a Freudian slip so to speak? The other notable thing is that Julia seems to have no man in her life other than the one who impregnates her and then leaves her and the child to be supported by the taxpayers. As more than one pundit has commented, the EWWWWWWW factor is at an all time high.

Really in so many ways they show their true colors in such campaign productions. Is there any question Obama and his supporters are hoping for a socialist country where families are weak and the government is strong. It’s all about control…always has been

Lisa
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I agree entirely. I suppose I ought to watch the film, but I already know the Obama people oppose everything else our Catholic Church teaches. Why would they not also discourage belief in family formation? That film truly sounds like an encouragement to an almost diabolical kind of despair. Despair of one’s own abilities to survive in a world God “made for mankind”. Despair of remaining chaste. Despair of family. Despair of the decency of the opposite sex. Despair, despair, despair. My goodness, one would think Obama is advertizing hell. Maybe he is.
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LisaA said:
I disagree that Part D is PURELY redistribution because the patient pays out of pocket for both the premium and the drug itself.
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I say purely redistribution because the recipients never paid into any system to get benefits. The program’s government component is paid for out of general tax revenues, which many recipients don’t pay.
 
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