Obama's State of the Union remarks

[LCMS_No_More]

Easy to forget that we had full employment for the first 6 years of Bush’s presidency.

Full employment or low unemployment? And what about wage slippage? Real wages have been slipping for decades.

Also easy to forget when you attack corporations that the majority of Americans work for small business’s of which many of those exist because large corporations exist.

I have nothing against business, per se, but I believe that they must be regulated…for many reasons:

First, if all business has to follow the same rules, then you have a level playing field where the company that makes the best product will get the most business. Second, because of unscrupulous men, motivated by greed, who will cut corners on how they treat their employees, the materials they make their products out of and the like. Again, making sure that every employer fulfills their responsibilities to their employees (to pay them regularly, on time and in real money, not to put them into undue danger, etc.), to their clients (products should work as expected and not kill the user – except cigarettes and alcohol, of course ) and the place where the products are made. In other words, to protect society from the predators among us…which seems in line with what HH John XXIII said in Mater et Magistra:

20. As for the State, its whole raison d’etre is the realization of the common good in the temporal order. It cannot, therefore, hold aloof from economic matters. On the contrary, it must do all in its power to promote the production of a sufficient supply of material goods, “the use of which is necessary for the practice of virtue.” (7) It has also the duty to protect the rights of all its people, and particularly of its weaker members, the workers, women and children. It can never be right for the State to shirk its obligation of working actively for the betterment of the condition of the workingman.

1. It is furthermore the duty of the State to ensure that terms of employment are regulated in accordance with justice and equity, and to safeguard the human dignity of workers by making sure that they are not required to work in an environment which may prove harmful to their material and spiritual interests. It was for this reason that the Leonine encyclical enunciated those general principles of rightness and equity which have been assimilated into the social legislation of many a modern State, and which, as Pope Pius XI declared in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, (8) have made no small contribution to the rise and development of that new branch of jurisprudence called labor law.

Hmmm…the state has the charge of protecting workers, women and children…but that’s not what the one, holy, apostolic and true political party, the Republican Party says. How can this be!?

(Hint, there is no one, holy, apostolic and true political party.)

Depending on who you ask, or how you look at it a majority of the population works for small business’s.

Actually, I’ll give you that one. Yes, small business is the majority of employers.

Funny that you don’t believe in trickle down, because it certainly will not trickle up. Poor people do not provide jobs. Billionaires/Millionaires employ thousands.

Ah, the old “a poor man never gave me a job” line. Except…not quite. As Abraham Lincoln said, labor precedes capital. Someone HAS to put in some sort of work in order to create capital. The problem is we have things backwards so that people actually think “capital precedes labor.” That’s the false premise that trickle down is based on. It’s backwards.

Government does not provide a product to offset the cost of the “work” they dream up so that’s a losing battle.

Government is not business and business is not government. They exist for different reasons; therefore, must operate differently. Government exists to do those things that the Pope indicated above.

I work for a family run business, my father is the boss and he saw my tax return and his jaw hit the floor. If he didn’t have to pay so much in taxes I could make more, but when he knows what my tax return looks like he has no incentive to directly pay me more.

The system’s a joke and it’s scamming those who do pay taxes to pay those who do not. Our tax system is another form of welfare that’s destroying society.

Woe is me. I have to pay taxes. How terrible. Taxes are so bad. It’s MY money and I can do whatever I want with it because it’s MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!

Except you live as part of a larger society and part of the price of civilization is having to pay taxes. Do you want to know what it’s like in a country with no governent and it’s a free-for-all? Try Somalia. Want to cut government way back and pay civil servants next to nothing? That’s Mexico…right now! Do you want to live in either of those countries?

Granted, we can all agree that there is always room for improvement, but let’s not stick our heads in the sand and pretend that a lot of the economic activity that our country has enjoyed for the past 50+ years has been because of government activity. Let’s see…there’s the interstate highway system, all the different technologies that we developed as a result of the Space Program, the internet…shall I go on? Let’s not pretend that government is all evil because it’s obviously not.

Not only that, but whatever happened to the idea that WE THE PEOPLE are the government? When did the government become this something…out there…instead of the collective action of the citizenry?

Eyes open.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Just from reading many of these forums, there is no shortage of disdain for liberals expressed by conservatives (not by all, but many). One doesn’t need to be a liberal to notice this.

Well, hard not to show disdain to those who support killing the unborn.

If you think this started with some conservatives showing disdain for liberals you are sadly mistaken.

 

[LCMS_No_More]

Well, hard not to show disdain to those who support killing the unborn.

Except not every liberal supports killing the unborn. I, for one, am an economic liberal and I do NOT support abortion.

If you think this started with some conservatives showing disdain for liberals you are sadly mistaken.

They started it? Really? Really?

Wow.

In the end, does it really matter WHO started it? Actually, WHY even bring up who started what? It’s irrelevant and we, as Christians, should be above that.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Easy to forget that we had full employment for the first 6 years of Bush’s presidency.

We didn’t have full employment for the first 6 years of the Bush presidency and it’s too bad that the microscopic number of jobs created under his administration were mostly temp work and government jobs.

Funny that you don’t believe in trickle down, because it certainly will not trickle up. Poor people do not provide jobs…

Rich people have had tax cuts and credits for over a decade now so where are the jobs? And by the way, it is the poor and middle class people who provide jobs. It’s the poor and middle class people who actually spend their money instead of hoarding it like the rich. The rich can’t create squat without the demand of the poor and middle class. Give the tax cuts and credits to the people who actually spend money; not to those who hoard it in swiss bank accounts.

 

[Raskolnikov]

bbarrick8383:

Funny that you don’t believe in trickle down, because it certainly will not trickle up. Poor people do not provide jobs. Billionaires/Millionaires employ thousands.

But poor people *do *provide jobs. Firstly though, I’m going to agree with you, or rather, supportively disagree with you on one thing. “Trickle down” economics is actually a pejorative invented by opponents of supply side economics to criticize it. In reality, no supporter of of supply side economics ever claimed money would “trickle down,” so the very phrase is a straw man. In reality, the argument goes, by reducing capital gains tax (which is admittedly a tax break for the wealthier, since few poor people can afford to do much investing), wealthier people can afford to invest more, increases production, lowers prices, and also leads to lower interest rates. This is the argument for supply side in a nutshell.

On the other hand, there is “demand side” economics, which is how poor people create jobs. It is an established economic fact (which follows from common sense) that if you give a poor person and a rich person each a $1000, that the poor person is going to spend a greater proportion of that money on goods and services, because he has such little money to pay for necessities and luxuries, than the rich person, who will save a portion of it, because he already has most of what he needs. A person who is starving and homeless will spend all of the money on food and shelter (or if you’re a cynic, on booze and cigarettes). Thus, if the government wants to boost aggregate demand and consumption, the best fiscal policy is to give tax breaks or tax credits or other financial benefits to the poorest strata of society to maximize the increase in consumption; when you have greater consumption, you have greater production, and therefore more jobs.

So taxing poor people less or givning them other benefits isn’t really socialism, as some claim. Fair or not, it is a valid way to encourage economic growth.

Government does not provide a product to offset the cost of the “work” they dream up so that’s a losing battle.

The government does in fact provide services, ranging from law enforcement to education to infrastructure development and everywhere in between. How efficiently they do so is a matter for debate, but the claim that the government “doesn’t do anything” is nonsense. It does many things. There are many things it does that are superfluous, and sometimes it interferes in ways that are economically inefficient (such as tariffs), but we still need it for some things, it it is still (believe it or not) preferable to private business in some sectors of the economy.

Well, hard not to show disdain to those who support killing the unborn.

As LCMS_No_More wrote, not all liberals support abortion, and the equation of the two is unfair. Why can’t someone support, say, reducing military expenditure, support Keynesian economic policies, support gun control, all belliefs which would make one a liberal, and at the same time be pro-life? What do any of these issues have to do with one another? Personally, I don’t consider myself a liberal; but I honestly don’t see why one couldn’t be even a democratic socialist and still be pro-life and a good catholic.

If you think this started with some conservatives showing disdain for liberals you are sadly mistaken.

When have liberals and conservatives not had disdain for each other? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

[bbarrick8383]

Full employment or low unemployment? And what about wage slippage? Real wages have been slipping for decades.

If I’m not mistaken full employment is roughly 5%. Which ironically is where our local extremely conservative economy is at. Granted we have the oil field, but we also have factories and distribution centers as well.

As far as wages, I can only tell you from my experience what the local wages have been. I’m sure I could pull up all sorts of statistics, but they wouldn’t tell the whole story now would they? There is plenty of employment competition around here and it’s rather slow, but it does keep companies on their toes as far as wages go. If you want the best, you better have the best Now Hiring sign up.

First, if all business has to follow the same rules, then you have a level playing field where the company that makes the best product will get the most business. Second, because of unscrupulous men, motivated by greed, who will cut corners on how they treat their employees, the materials they make their products out of and the like. Again, making sure that every employer fulfills their responsibilities to their employees (to pay them regularly, on time and in real money, not to put them into undue danger, etc.), to their clients (products should work as expected and not kill the user – except cigarettes and alcohol, of course ) and the place where the products are made.

Interesting how the products kill someone and then they do something about it though. Why, I thought government was supposed to protect us? States should do the best they can and the feds should stay out of it, they only get in the way. Ultimately it is our responsibility to protect ourselves, but no matter what we do, no matter what federal government does. Babies are going to die in crib accidents, people are going to get sick from tainted food, s**t happens and our government won’t do anything about it till after it does.

Hmmm…the state has the charge of protecting workers, women and children…but that’s not what the one, holy, apostolic and true political party, the Republican Party says. How can this be!?

I think you’re wrong. I know my local business’s and people and politicians. I want my state to do what it can to help me in some cases. I don’t want the feds involved.

Ah, the old “a poor man never gave me a job” line. Except…not quite. As Abraham Lincoln said, labor precedes capital. Someone HAS to put in some sort of work in order to create capital. The problem is we have things backwards so that people actually think “capital precedes labor.” That’s the false premise that trickle down is based on. It’s backwards.

Interesting, because in most cases you have to establish some sort of capital, create a product, sell the product and if the demand requires it, acquire the labor with capital. I don’t see the logic in acquiring labor before capital if you haven’t produced the product to create the capital first.

Government is not business and business is not government. They exist for different reasons; therefore, must operate differently. Government exists to do those things that the Pope indicated above.

I believe the Pope talked about subsidiarity as well, if I’m not mistaken? I’m not Catholic so I don’t know…I guess I could be mistaken, he might have been teaching redundant bureaucracies, wasteful spending, unfair taxation, abortion and all the rest of the things you libs love so much. Maybe that’s why there are so many liberal Catholics.

Woe is me. I have to pay taxes. MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!

I’m not sure where you got that from my post. I believe I said I pay NO taxes. I’d be more than happy to, but as it stands in my tax bracket the more children I have the more you pay me. Let me put it this way, the family of 5 who makes just under 40k a year can get nearly triple the amount he paid in to everything that he paid out for the year, including state income taxes. So, what do you think the uneducated do? I know, I see it every single day.

Granted, we can all agree that there is always room for improvement, but let’s not stick our heads in the sand and pretend that a lot of the economic activity that our country has enjoyed for the past 50+ years has been because of government activity.

Let’s not pretend we could not have done these things if it weren’t for government almighty either. I still live on a dirt road, I don’t need the feds to pave it for me.

Not only that, but whatever happened to the idea that WE THE PEOPLE are the government?

We just passed a law last year to try and restrict the number of abortions in our state and we get slapped with a law suite by you libs. And you wonder where the disdain comes from? I don’t feel like this is a We The People country, it’s a We the People who want to regulate the rest of the people country.

Its failed in California and you want me to accept it at the federal level? Are you crazy? Have you gotten an IOU yet from your state? That inmate moved back in next door yet?

Can you really, seriously consider yourself an economic liberal and look at the foolish, ignorant mess the “economic liberal” cities and states have gotten themselves in to?

Hey, I live in a conservative state, we have 5% unemployment, I have a job and bought a house while everyone else has been foreclosed on.

Good luck with your economic liberalism, it is what destroys the middle class. It will destroy your state unless those who are responsible are forced to bail you out, in which case you will continue with this ignorance, and the circle of life will continue on with the conservatives are being forced to pay for the liberals mistakes and our children are forced to bear the weight of what their parents have left them.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Except not every liberal supports killing the unborn. I, for one, am an economic liberal and I do NOT support abortion.

They started it? Really? Really?

Wow.

In the end, does it really matter WHO started it? Actually, WHY even bring up who started what? It’s irrelevant and we, as Christians, should be above that.

If you vote liberal, you support abortion.

If you don’t vote at all you support abortion.

If you waste your vote on a third party individual you know can not win, you support abortion.

Yes, it matters who started it. I’ll tell you why, up until two years ago I didn’t really care much about politics. Not many conservatives did, and then I(many others like me I believe) realized that by ignoring the liberal problem and hoping that it would go away we were not only complicit in the financial problems of this country but even more importantly the moral problems as well.

 

[bbarrick8383]

We didn’t have full employment for the first 6 years of the Bush presidency and it’s too bad that the microscopic number of jobs created under his administration were mostly temp work and government jobs.

In 2007 it was around 4% unemployment. It can’t get much better than that, and at that rate the job creation only needs to keep up with the supply of new workers.

Rich people have had tax cuts and credits for over a decade now so where are the jobs? And by the way, it is the poor and middle class people who provide jobs. It’s the poor and middle class people who actually spend their money instead of hoarding it like the rich. The rich can’t create squat without the demand of the poor and middle class. Give the tax cuts and credits to the people who actually spend money; not to those who hoard it in swiss bank accounts.

Really, the poor provide jobs? The poor spend their money to create a product and hire middle class people to produce that product? Do you realize how ignorant you sound?

Yes, there are some in the middle class who produce products and create jobs. But many of those rely on the rich as well.

My company creates products for the oil field, my father is middle class, our buyers are middle class who work for the rich. Without the rich to spend millions in drilling new wells, the middle class have no jobs to take care of those wells and my father and I have no job selling a product to help them take care of those wells. Your lack of logic is astounding.

 

[Raskolnikov]

If you vote liberal, you support abortion.

If you don’t vote at all you support abortion.

If you waste your vote on a third party individual you know can not win, you support abortion.

So, Chrisrians have a positive moral obligation to vote Republican in every single election?

 

[Raskolnikov]

Really, the poor provide jobs? The poor spend their money to create a product and hire middle class people to produce that product? Do you realize how ignorant you sound?

Why exactly do you think that business owners are the only ones who contriibute to the economy? I’ll say it once again, if you give rich people all these tax breaks, they’re only going to save most of it. Saving is good for investment, but there is such a thing as too much of it. People need to buy things in order for the economy to function, and the poorer a person is, the more likely they are to spend the money they keep from lower taxes. Proportionately lower taxes for the lower tax brackets helps keep consumption high ans supports the economy.

 

[ConcernedApathy]

If you vote liberal, you support abortion.

If you don’t vote at all you support abortion.

If you waste your vote on a third party individual you know can not win, you support abortion.

Yes, it matters who started it. I’ll tell you why, up until two years ago I didn’t really care much about politics. Not many conservatives did, and then I(many others like me I believe) realized that by ignoring the liberal problem and hoping that it would go away we were not only complicit in the financial problems of this country but even more importantly the moral problems as well.

I love these arguments, every other concern facing our country be damned to the one issue voter. So the only good American is a Republican American? Of course…

 

[bbarrick8383]

But poor people *do *provide jobs. Firstly though, I’m going to agree with you, or rather, supportively disagree with you on one thing. “Trickle down” economics is actually a pejorative invented by opponents of supply side economics to criticize it. In reality, no supporter of of supply side economics ever claimed money would “trickle down,” so the very phrase is a straw man. In reality, the argument goes, by reducing capital gains tax (which is admittedly a tax break for the wealthier, since few poor people can afford to do much investing), wealthier people can afford to invest more, increases production, lowers prices, and also leads to lower interest rates. This is the argument for supply side in a nutshell.

I see first hand what my father pays in all of his taxes. It’s pretty sad because if he were able to keep more of it, he would be able to afford to make me a taxpayer as well.

On the other hand, there is “demand side” economics, which is how poor people create jobs. It is an established economic fact (which follows from common sense) that if you give a poor person and a rich person each a $1000, that the poor person is going to spend a greater proportion of that money on goods and services, because he has such little money to pay for necessities and luxuries, than the rich person, who will save a portion of it, because he already has most of what he needs. A person who is starving and homeless will spend all of the money on food and shelter (or if you’re a cynic, on booze and cigarettes). Thus, if the government wants to boost aggregate demand and consumption, the best fiscal policy is to give tax breaks or tax credits or other financial benefits to the poorest strata of society to maximize the increase in consumption; when you have greater consumption, you have greater production, and therefore more jobs.

Which is an illogical argument in my opinion. A poor man with $1000 dollars, first off must have a product to purchase. Second off, once the poor mans money is gone, it’s gone. Unless, the poor man was an entrepreneur, who would then use that money to become middle class and hopefully rich and provide much more impact economically with that money than he would buying products. George Soros recently donated a bunch of money to go to NY and be added to the welfare debit cards I believe. I think they gave out something like 500 dollars per person to help pay for school supplies and clothing. If I remember correctly the electronics stores were reporting an increase in sales the following couple of weeks. And then it was gone. Barely a blip on the map for the supplier whose trying to sell his product to a consumer.

So taxing poor people less or givning them other benefits isn’t really socialism, as some claim. Fair or not, it is a valid way to encourage economic growth.

Not really. Want to encourage economic growth, encourage wage increases without forcing wage limits.

Lower taxes for those who increase wages by a certain percentage every year.

Ever notice the least regulated industries tend to be the most profitable?

The government does in fact provide services, ranging from law enforcement to education to infrastructure development and everywhere in between. How efficiently they do so is a matter for debate, but the claim that the government “doesn’t do anything” is nonsense. It does many things. There are many things it does that are superfluous, and sometimes it interferes in ways that are economically inefficient (such as tariffs), but we still need it for some things, it it is still (believe it or not) preferable to private business in some sectors of the economy.

I’m not arguing for anarchy. I know what government does, does well and does horribly. I’ve been in the military and I have friends and family in the police force. I was forced by the military to go to Georgia for 2 weeks and told to pay for it out of my own pocket. I was a young father, in college working 2 jobs.

Lucky for me, one of my NCO’s paid my way until I could get back and 2 months later get my reimbursement to pay him back.

Government can barely do the things it’s supposed to do in an efficient manner. Liberals love to complain about the defense department in one breath and beg for more bureaucracy the next, they are absolutely mental in my opinion.

As LCMS_No_More wrote, not all liberals support abortion, and the equation of the two is unfair. Why can’t someone support, say, reducing military expenditure, support Keynesian economic policies, support gun control, all belliefs which would make one a liberal, and at the same time be pro-life? What do any of these issues have to do with one another? Personally, I don’t consider myself a liberal; but I honestly don’t see why one couldn’t be even a democratic socialist and still be pro-life and a good catholic.

It’s all about the vote. Vote liberal, support abortion. Like it or not, the blood is on your hands even if you do not support the unintended consequences of your actions in the voting booth.

When have liberals and conservatives not had disdain for each other? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

We just saw one of the greatest elections in decades, over 700 democrat seats have been lost nationwide. If you don’t think that for one second conservatives aren’t a bit po’d for a number of reasons and had a hand in this you are kidding yourself. Independents didn’t do it all by themselves.

A conservative was put in the spotlight as the VP candidate and they carelessly and shamelessly used the most vile words to try and bring her down. I don’t think they realized it but they ticked a lot of people off.

 

[Suudy]

Part 1 of 2.

Hmmm…the state has the charge of protecting workers, women and children…but that’s not what the one, holy, apostolic and true political party, the Republican Party says. How can this be!?

Here we go again. The left arguing that the state should take care of people. You quote John XXIII, but this was before the real effects of the welfare state came to be known. As quoted from JPII in Centesimus Annus:In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called “Welfare State”. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State”. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need…
What JPII in now way contradicts John XXIII. In fact, it clarifies the point. The proper role of the state is not a provider of services. JPII clarifies this earlier:These general observations also apply to the *role of the State in the economic sector. *Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principle task of the State is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labours and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. The absence of stability, together with the corruption of public officials and the spread of improper sources of growing rich and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities, constitutes one of the chief obstacles to development and to the economic order.

Another task of the State is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. The State could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals. This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis.
These are the same quotes used in the Catechism. The state’s primary responsibility is not a provider of services, but one of protection. The primary responsibility “belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society.” So those that think the government should be providing services, such as health care, welfare, food stamps, etc have it exactly backwards. JPII does point out that the state can have a role, but it must be temporary. To wit:The State has the further right to intervene when particular monopolies create delays or obstacles to development. In addition to the tasks of harmonizing and guiding development, in exceptional circumstances the State can also exercise *a substitute function, *when social sectors or business systems are too weak or are just getting under way, and are not equal to the task at hand. **Such supplementary interventions, which are justified by urgent reasons touching the common good, must be as brief as possible, so as to avoid removing permanently from society and business systems the functions which are properly theirs, and so as to avoid enlarging excessively the sphere of State intervention to the detriment of both economic and civil freedom.**Nothing in our federal (or many state) social programs is temporary. These are executed directly contradictory to Church teaching.

(Hint, there is no one, holy, apostolic and true political party.)

What’s your point here? Nobody on the right suggests that there is such a thing as a “one, holy, apostolic and true political party.” In reality or figuratively. However, one part is closer to Church teaching than another. And it ain’t the Democratic party.

 

[Suudy]

Part 2 of 2.

Actually, I’ll give you that one. Yes, small business is the majority of employers.

This is debatable. What is a “small business”? One, two, ten employees? 50? 1000? Does this include only full time employees? What about seasonal workers? What about revenues? Does that affect things? Does it depend upon the industry?

sba.gov/content/table-small-business-size-standards

Take my industry, engineering design services. According to the SBA, I don’t work for a small business, since our company has to have annual receipts of less than $4.5M. Our company did just shy of $10M in 2010 (and it was a bad year). Yet we only have 14 employees. Most people would consider us a small business.

Now, take my buddy’s company. He owns his own value added software resale business for engineering software. His company did just over $5M in receipts in 2010 with 5 employees. According to the SBA, he has to exceed 150 employees before he’s considered a big business.

Or look at wired communications. One has to have more than 1500 employees to be considered a big business. How many people think a company with 1400 employees is a “small” business?

This whole area is so fuzzy it is almost meaningless. People use different standards and then speak as if there is agreement. Here’s a good article on why small business isn’t necessarily all it is cracked up to be:

townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2009/07/15/smaller_not_better_when_it_comes_to_business

Ah, the old “a poor man never gave me a job” line. Except…not quite. As Abraham Lincoln said, labor precedes capital. Someone HAS to put in some sort of work in order to create capital. The problem is we have things backwards so that people actually think “capital precedes labor.” That’s the false premise that trickle down is based on. It’s backwards.

Depends on what you define as capital and labor. If talking about the guy starting his own business that doesn’t take a paycheck for 2 years while the business gets off the ground, the capital invested was his time. In fact, he’s investing his time and energy (as capital) in the hopes that he gets a monetary return. Of course labor precedes capital, but only when the individual does so. In all other cases, it requires an infusion of monetary capital to get the labor rolling. Nobody works for free, unless there is a promise of a greater return later.

Edit: I’ll also note that this is only true in the service industry. In manufacturing, there must be capital to buy, at a minimum, raw materials. Labor is meaningless in manufacturing if there is no material to work with.

Government is not business and business is not government. They exist for different reasons; therefore, must operate differently. Government exists to do those things that the Pope indicated above.

For what reason? To provide services? Or to protect people and guarantee security?

Woe is me. I have to pay taxes. How terrible. Taxes are so bad. It’s MY money and I can do whatever I want with it because it’s MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!

Need I quote you the Catechism and the just fruits of one’s labor?

Except you live as part of a larger society and part of the price of civilization is having to pay taxes.

Nobody is arguing that one shouldn’t pay taxes. Nice strawman. The point is that taxes should be equitable. The system we have now, where nearly 50% of Americans pay no federal income tax, and the top 5% pay most of the income tax, is hardly equitable. It isn’t about the end. Nobody disagrees that paying taxes is necessary. The argument is about the means.

 

[bbarrick8383]

So, Chrisrians have a positive moral obligation to vote Republican in every single election?

Until we stop killing children, yes.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Why exactly do you think that business owners are the only ones who contriibute to the economy? I’ll say it once again, if you give rich people all these tax breaks, they’re only going to save most of it. Saving is good for investment, but there is such a thing as too much of it. People need to buy things in order for the economy to function, and the poorer a person is, the more likely they are to spend the money they keep from lower taxes. Proportionately lower taxes for the lower tax brackets helps keep consumption high ans supports the economy.

Rich people are going to save regardless of tax breaks. That’s how they got rich.

Look at the investments of some of the richest millionaires and billionaires. They look for drowning companies and the save them. If they didn’t save that money, they might not be able to afford that company, and the needs that company requires to become competitive again.

One of the liberals, Warren Buffetts, own tactics is to use the death tax to buy out companies where those who were about to inherit what the previous owner left them but couldn’t afford the taxes.

You are right about proportionately lower taxes, but come on…I can max my Roth IRA contributions this year and have enough left over to splurge if I want to just on my income tax refund.

Which, I must say, if you are a taxpayer, thank you for the free money. I did nothing to deserve it, but I will put it to good use. I will save it.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’d love to be a taxpayer.

 

[bbarrick8383]

I love these arguments, every other concern facing our country be damned to the one issue voter. So the only good American is a Republican American? Of course…

Yes, you and I are damned if we do not stop what we are doing to our own children.

The only good American is the pro-life American who holds strong to his morals when he walks into the voting booth.

We can worry about the other petty stuff when we take care of priority number one, abortion.

 

[ConcernedApathy]

Yes, you and I are damned if we do not stop what we are doing to our own children.

The only good American is the pro-life American who holds strong to his morals when he walks into the voting booth.

We can worry about the other petty stuff when we take care of priority number one, abortion.

Millions of unemployed.
Scores of homeless.
Miserable healthcare
Pathetic gun control legislation.
Roadblocks stifling any real energy reform.
The financial black holes that are Iraq and Afghanistan.

Petty? Do you hear yourself?

Thankfully neither your definitions of what makes a good American or what constitutes strong morals hold water.

 

[Suudy]

Millions of unemployed.

Millions of innocent children murdered.

Scores of homeless.

Millions of innocent children murdered.

Miserable healthcare

Millions of innocent children murdered.

Pathetic gun control legislation.

Millions of innocent children murdered.

Roadblocks stifling any real energy reform.

Millions of innocent children murdered.

The financial black holes that are Iraq and Afghanistan.

Millions of innocent children murdered.

Petty? Do you hear yourself?

Seems petty in comparison.

Thankfully neither your definitions of what makes a good American or what constitutes strong morals hold water.

Unfortunately, the “better dead than underfed” argument is holding too much water.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Millions of unemployed.
Scores of homeless.
Miserable healthcare
Pathetic gun control legislation.
Roadblocks stifling any real energy reform.
The financial black holes that are Iraq and Afghanistan.

Petty? Do you hear yourself?

Thankfully neither your definitions of what makes a good American or what constitutes strong morals hold water.

Murdered Children > homeless, health insurance(nothing wrong with the care), gun control…really…guns are just fine around here, we don’t need any controlling, energy reform(whatever that means, drill here drill now, build nuclear, mine coal…do what it takes to become independent, not that hard),

You have no argument. Abortion is the issue, until it’s dealt with properly there is nothing else above or beyond that. Nothing else matters. You don’t matter, I don’t matter, nothing.

It’s amazes me at how callous we have become to those who need us most by trying to change the name of the spade. You have just created an argument that you’re own needs are above those who are the most helpless and closest to God than we could ever hope to be. Congratulations.