From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability

[Care4all]

When you take into the tax disucussion Social security, FICA, medicade, state local and sales taxes?

The poor pay the highest percentage of their incomes in taxes of any class of Americans, and that is true even though they pay no FICA taxes...

The wealthier one is, generally speaking, the smaller the percentage of your net revenues (not just salaries, but all sources of money that people can make) one pays in TAXES.

Simply parcing out FICA and whining about those is ignoring the reality we ALL face.

Here's a though...collect social security and medicade taxes on every cent made, regardless of how it is made.

You want a flat tax? THAT is an honest FLAT tax.

You think Steve Forbes is going to sign onto THAT flat tax?

Not bloody likely.

editec, FICA taxes ARE Social Security taxes/payroll taxes...are you saying that the poor DO NOT PAY Social security taxes?

Or did you MEAN that the poor do not pay INCOME taxes?

care

 

[sealybobo]

"But.. but... but. I want it!!!.... I'm OWED it!!!! It's not FAIR!!!..."

You know exactly the kind of reaction we will get from the libs, Marxists, and Socialists

Why is it ok the rich took from the middle class so they could get richer but we can't take back from them what they took from us so we can have a decent standard of living?

Why aren't you a fascist? You are, you know?

 

[dilloduck]

Bern,

Can you tell me what the PURPOSE is for this change in tax system?

Who is it that will benefit from this change?

care

Supposedly to make it "fair" and still produce revenues. Who will benefit depends on what changes are made.

 

[editec]

editec, FICA taxes ARE Social Security taxes/payroll taxes...are you saying that the poor DO NOT PAY Social security taxes?

Or did you MEAN that the poor do not pay INCOME taxes?

care

Income taxes, of course.

That's exactly why I proposed that instead of a FLAT tax on FICA, we truly FLATTEN social security and Meicade taxes and levy the same FLAT rate on EVERY CENT made by EVERY American.

You know how quickly those two programs would be solvent if we did that?

MOST of the money made in America is not levied for social security and medicade.

What is the cut off? 100,000 or so?

And no taxes for those are taken from interest, investments and so forth either.

Think Steve forbes wants to pay 15% on every cent his investments make?

Hell no!

He wants to play the low income game and take all his money in ways where taxes are levied at lower rates or not at all.

His FLAT tax isn't going to help America, it's just going to make him and his ilk a hell of a lot welathier than they are right now.

 

[Care4all]

Supposedly to make it "fair" and still produce revenues. Who will benefit depends on what changes are made.

Well, that's key to whether the reforms should be done or not....no?

 

[Bern80]

Bern,

Can you tell me what the PURPOSE is for this change in tax system?

Who is it that will benefit from this change?

care

I think it is fairer way to disribute taxes because it is based on what you consume rather than what you earn.

 

[Bern80]

Why is it ok the rich took from the middle class so they could get richer but we can't take back from them what they took from us so we can have a decent standard of living?

Why aren't you a fascist? You are, you know?

What exacltey did the rich take from the middle class?

 

[dilloduck]

Well, that's key to whether the reforms should be done or not....no?

depends---are we trying to come up with something moral or something effective. and then comes the question of how it is all spent.

 

[Bern80]

Income taxes, of course.

That's exactly why I proposed that instead of a FLAT tax on FICA, we truly FLATTEN social security and Meicade taxes and levy the same FLAT rate on EVERY CENT made by EVERY American.

You know how quickly those two programs would be solvent if we did that?

MOST of the money made in America is not levied for social security and medicade.

What is the cut off? 100,000 or so?

And no taxes for those are taken from interest, investments and so forth either.

Think Steve forbes wants to pay 15% on every cent his investments make?

Hell no!

He wants to play the low income game and take all his money in ways where taxes are levied at lower rates or not at all.

His FLAT tax isn't going to help America, it's just going to make him and his ilk a hell of a lot welathier than they are right now.

There is another point to reevaluating our tax code. The idea behind this is not to give government even more money. As I said before we need a system that requires them to prioritize, that requires them to work within a budget.

 

[dilloduck]

There is another point to reevaluating our tax code. The idea behind this is not to give government even more money. As I said before we need a system that requires them to prioritize, that requires them to work within a budget.

Amen--how about getting a genuine number of what the government actually needs before figuring out a way to give it to them. Lots of priorities to figure out here.

 

[Care4all]

45% of American total HOUSEHOLD incomes are below $37,000.....that's Household income....

I would say that the majority of those people would be considered poor and the most of these households do not pay income taxes...but do pay Social Security taxes and medicare taxes and part of corporate taxes since the burden of a corporations taxes are passed on to the consumer and excise taxes like cigaretts and liquor and gasoline taxes, and then state income taxes and state sales taxes and Property taxes and of course they buy more lottery tickets which is also taxes the states collect to pay for their budgets....

 

[Bern80]

45% of American total HOUSEHOLD incomes are below $37,000.....that's Household income....

I would say that the majority of those people would be considered poor and the most of these households do not pay income taxes...but do pay Social Security taxes and medicare taxes and part of corporate taxes since the burden of a corporations taxes are passed on to the consumer and excise taxes like cigaretts and liquor and gasoline taxes, and then state income taxes and state sales taxes and Property taxes and of course they buy more lottery tickets which is also taxes the states collect to pay for their budgets....

And what I'm saying is the plan I'm talking about would probably require government to reign itself in big time. Reevaluation of the tax code is probably not the right way to say it. More like flushing down the toilet and start from scratch.

 

[morpheus]

It's not that the middle and lower classes feel they are "owed" anything, it's that they are seeing the rich get incredibly richer as the lower and middle classes are under increasing financial stress. Statistics can be skewed and truncated to prove almost anything; for example the opening post in this thread "proves" that real household income for middle and lower class Americans has grown since the 1970s. But has the increase in cost of living been taken into consideration? Has anyone ever tried living on minimum wage? Sometimes, no matter how hard you look for a job, there is nothing available with a liveable wage, if there even is a job available in your city/town/neighborhood within reach of public transportation. The opening post of this thread neglects to address many of these things, but I would hope that the book does. I was struck by the book's implication that hundreds of billions dollars earmarked for social programs are all going towards people who don't deserve the help. Do you guys actually believe that all of this money is budgeted towards crackheads who refuse to work? Have any of you ever worked for non-profit? Have you never heard of domestic abuse agencies, foster-care agencies, organizations that teach people new job skills, and government loans for people looking to start their own business or buy a modest home? And do social welfare programs create more dependency than the private sector does? When you've worked in an automobile manufacturing plant for 20 years, and then the factory closes and moves to Mexico where the labour is cheaper, and then you find out your skills aren't tranferable, and there are no other manufacturing jobs because they've all left the country, what are you to do? You've been paying taxes all your life, aren't you owed the opportunity to learn something new and get back on your own two feet again? Could it be that, maybe, the misappropriation of public money (like the war on Iraq) is what creates dependency, and not the social programs?

How viable is the social darwinism reward culture that the right wing fringe is endorsing? Like the communist system that right-wingers consistently make references to, capitalism in its purest form too looks great on paper but works terribly in practice. Not everyone that is poor is there out of choice or laziness; most people who say this are lucky to have never been in that situation. Not that creating government dependency is better, but let's please approach society's problems with moderation, and not with ideology and theory. This goes for capitalists just as much as it goes for communists. The fact that a handful of people will abuse the system has been exploited by the socioeconomic elilte for whom social programs are not in their interests. Don't be fooled.

 

[Care4all]

And what I'm saying is the plan I'm talking about would probably require government to reign itself in big time. Reevaluation of the tax code is probably not the right way to say it. More like flushing down the toilet and start from scratch.

And you are right Bern80, the government does need to reign its spending BIGTIME....no argument from me on that!

care

 

[Bern80]

It's not that the middle and lower classes feel they are "owed" anything, it's that they are seeing the rich get incredibly richer as the lower and middle classes are under increasing financial stress. Statistics can be skewed and truncated to prove almost anything; for example the opening post in this thread "proves" that real household income for middle and lower class Americans has grown since the 1970s. But has the increase in cost of living been taken into consideration? Has anyone ever tried living on minimum wage? Sometimes, no matter how hard you look for a job, there is nothing available with a liveable wage, if there even is a job available in your city/town/neighborhood within reach of public transportation. The opening post of this thread neglects to address many of these things, but I would hope that the book does. I was struck by the book's implication that hundreds of billions dollars earmarked for social programs are all going towards people who don't deserve the help. Do you guys actually believe that all of this money is budgeted towards crackheads who refuse to work? Have any of you ever worked for non-profit? Have you never heard of domestic abuse agencies, foster-care agencies, organizations that teach people new job skills, and government loans for people looking to start their own business or buy a modest home? And do social welfare programs create more dependency than the private sector does? When you've worked in an automobile manufacturing plant for 20 years, and then the factory closes and moves to Mexico where the labour is cheaper, and then you find out your skills aren't tranferable, and there are no other manufacturing jobs because they've all left the country, what are you to do? You've been paying taxes all your life, aren't you owed the opportunity to learn something new and get back on your own two feet again? Could it be that, maybe, the misappropriation of public money (like the war on Iraq) is what creates dependency, and not the social programs?

How viable is the social darwinism reward culture that the right wing fringe is endorsing? Like the communist system that right-wingers consistently make references to, capitalism in its purest form too looks great on paper but works terribly in practice. Not everyone that is poor is there out of choice or laziness; most people who say this are lucky to have never been in that situation. Not that creating government dependency is better, but let's please approach society's problems with moderation, and not with ideology and theory. This goes for capitalists just as much as it goes for communists. The fact that a handful of people will abuse the system has been exploited by the socioeconomic elilte for whom social programs are not in their interests. Don't be fooled.

Darwinsim is a rather appropriate word. While not quite has harsh in a nutshell it is adapt or die. If you as an individual do not adapt to the hard ship or evolve of being on minumum wage you are going to be stuck there a while. You list excuse after excuse which only serves to keep people from discovering what they are really capable of.

 

[chopcrazy]

45% of American total HOUSEHOLD incomes are below $37,000.....that's Household income....

I would say that the majority of those people would be considered poor and the most of these households do not pay income taxes...but do pay Social Security taxes and medicare taxes and part of corporate taxes since the burden of a corporations taxes are passed on to the consumer and excise taxes like cigaretts and liquor and gasoline taxes, and then state income taxes and state sales taxes and Property taxes and of course they buy more lottery tickets which is also taxes the states collect to pay for their budgets....

Take a look and you will notice that the $37K is at high school graduate education level. Do families realize the importance of completing high school and pursuing advanced education? Whose responsibility should it be for getting kids to study?

 

[Care4all]

Take a look and you will notice that the $37K is at high school graduate education level. Do families realize the importance of completing high school and pursuing advanced education? Whose responsibility should it be for getting kids to study?

ONLY 32% of Americans can afford college and graduate from college Chop?

College has gone up each and every year during the Bush administration, DOUBLE DIGITS....it is unaffordable by many, even with gvt pell grants and the such.

25% of all minimum wage earners are women with children, and yes even married women with children...mainly because they regard rearing their children as important.

What would the wealthy do without their maids, their lawn man, their waitresses to serve them when they go out to dinner, or their handyman, or their pool cleaners, or the clerks in stores where they buy their clothes or their food, or the dry cleaning clerk where they clean their clothes etc?

And SO WHAT if some are teens? When i was a teen and worked, minimum wage was worth 30% more than minimum wage now....I could buy 30% more with my minimum wage than children working today...why is that okay?

you may not have realized that so few americans are college grads?

you may also realize that good jobs, that pay well, are limited...many have been shipped overseas and many companies are just not paying what they used to or they are, but the one person kept in the higher paying job is doing the work that 2 people used to do, to get that money.

All may seem rosey to you, but if it is delved in to, you will see that it is much more complicated than one would think....beginning with the poor not getting offered the same level of good education as in the suberbs in elementary and high school because schools are primarily paid for by property taxes, which are minimal in lower pay scale areas...

these are not excuses, these things are facts that need to be considered and addressed, when looking at the WHOLE picture imo.

Care

 

[Bern80]

25% of all minimum wage earners are women with children, and yes even married women with children...mainly because they regard rearing their children as important.

No they are on minimum wage because they weren't financially prepared to be parents

What would the wealthy do without their maids, their lawn man, their waitresses to serve them when they go out to dinner, or their handyman, or their pool cleaners, or the clerks in stores where they buy their clothes or their food, or the dry cleaning clerk where they clean their clothes etc?.

That's rather disingenuous. The rich who have maids, pool cleaners, etc. Is an exceptionally small segement of the overall group one would term 'rich'.

you may also realize that good jobs, that pay well, are limited...many have been shipped overseas and many companies are just not paying what they used to or they are, but the one person kept in the higher paying job is doing the work that 2 people used to do, to get that money.

Whose job is it to make you valuable or attractive to these limited good jobs?

these are not excuses, these things are facts that need to be considered and addressed, when looking at the WHOLE picture imo.

Care

They are most definately excuses. When you blame anything other than yourself for the position you are in, that is called an excuse. Some of them may be valid, most are not. At the end of the day you have choice. The truly determined, whether they were born in a gutter or with a silver spin, will achieve. Cirumstances do not define a person, they reveal the person.

 

[Care4all]

No they are on minimum wage because they weren't financially prepared to be parents



That's rather disingenuous. The rich who have maids, pool cleaners, etc. Is an exceptionally small segement of the overall group one would term 'rich'.



Whose job is it to make you valuable or attractive to these limited good jobs?



They are most definately excuses. When you blame anything other than yourself for the position you are in, that is called an excuse. Some of them may be valid, most are not. At the end of the day you have choice. The truly determined, whether they were born in a gutter or with a silver spin, will achieve. Cirumstances do not define a person, they reveal the person.

sigh....expected more from you than the typical right wing, WAXED COLD, responses....

facts are facts....only 32% of americans are college grads and even all of those people do not have high paying jobs, though most do....

What about the other 68%? Something is amiss, deny such all you want.

And I am doing just fine, thank you very much...I am not speaking about you or about me...but about groups of other people that have not been as fortunate as me due to many of the reasons i mentioned above....and many other reasons to....and to just spout the JARGON that you spouted is NOT going to help a sole or the United States of America one iota imho.

Care

 

[Bern80]

sigh....expected more from you than the typical right wing, WAXED COLD, responses....

facts are facts....only 32% of americans are college grads and even all of those people do not have high paying jobs, though most do....

What about the other 68%? Something is amiss, deny such all you want.

And I am doing just fine, thank you very much...I am not speaking about you or about me...but about groups of other people that have not been as fortunate as me due to many of the reasons i mentioned above....and many other reasons to....and to just spout the JARGON that you spouted is NOT going to help a sole or the United States of America one iota imho.

Care

Trying to find innumerable excuses outside of themselves and waiting for someone to help them out is not a very practical solution either.

There's nothing rigt wing about my responses at all. I mean if somone is going to choose to have a child shouldn't they be financially capable of doing so. Even if you choose to have sex, shouldn't you be responsible for the consequnces?

You gave a horribly non-representative picture of what constitutes the rich and their maids and pool boys as if it were in fact somehow representative and I called you on it. It's simply a skewed notion that I hear over and over about people who are rich and isn't very accurate at all.

You mentioned few quality job opportunities. Okay. What's a good solution to that? Put forth the effort it would take to become valuabel to such a company or blame some external source and hope an opportunity falls in your lap?

I'm not debating your statistics, I'm sure they're right. the question is why are they that way? Is it some evil force holding everybody down, or are is it combination of environment and human behavior? The later of which is completely in people's control.