The top 1% pay about 40% of the federal taxes. The lower 47% don't pay any. I don't see what is unfair to the poor here. Republicans aren't destroying the middle class, the piss poor economy is. How have Republicans been running the economy lately? Something needs to be done, what's your proposal?
Yeah but it was the rich that in fact created the higher percentage of poor that no longer pay taxes by sending our high paying jobs to china. So the rich is gonna have to pony up a lot more doe to cover both the welfare to keep American workers in the pink, and the bullshit war machine running in the green.
Socialism is a recipe for disaster. The better solution is to (re)create a business friendly government since that's where the wealth comes from. More business = more jobs, more taxes more prosperity. It was Reagan's policy and proven, but the socialists hijacked the Democrat party and America went the wrong direction.
Socialism made necessary by big business & government selling out the working man. Like it or lump it my friend. There's no going back.
I don't have to like it or lump it but will point out that socialism is a piss poor solution, especially when crony capitalism is the problem. More freedom of the marketplace is the answer, not even more government.
Has a "Free Market" ever existed? It's a theoretical idea that's never been put to a real world test. We all have seen the damage done when capitalists act only constrained by their conscience or morals. If they were to operate under complete freedom most of us believe the outcome would be disastrous. And most Corporations don't want "free markets". They always have lobbied for laws that shield them from market judgments. For example since it's inception the U.S. has employed tariffs and subsidies to protect American businesses from free competition. I'll give you a few quotes to back up this statement;
From encyclopedia.com
"The politics of tariffs soon became intertwined with disputes between legislators from the North and South. For example, a Northern manufacturer of cloth would benefit from a tariff on cloth imported from England, which would make English cloth less competitive. However, a Southern planter who sold cotton to an English cloth manufacturer would benefit if there were no tariff on imports of English cloth, which would keep English cloth (made from U.S. cotton) cheaper and more competitive on the U.S. market. Thus Northern manufacturers favored high tariffs, whereas Southern planters, dependent on exports, favored free trade. However, the North wanted tariffs without public expenditures for a costly upgraded transportation system that would be paid for by tariff revenues, and the South was opposed to any tariff supporting the price of manufactured goods because the tariffs would make it harder for the South to export its agricultural products to nations affected by the tariffs. A high tariff did pass Congress as the Tariff Act of 1828. Legislators from Southern states called this the "Tariff of Abominations," and it nearly brought about a constitutional crisis.
After the Civil War, domestic policies continued to favor high tariffs, strengthened perhaps by the fact that industry was spreading through more of the nation. By the 1890s Congress had added an important innovation to the legislation: a delegation of power to the executive branch to adjust tariffs in specific circumstances. An early example was what are now called "countervailing duties." These were tariffs the executive branch would order to counteract foreign subsidies on products exported to the United States. The executive branch, without further action by Congress, could measure the foreign subsidy and determine the duty to countervail, or compensate for, that duty. This became one of a large number of such adjustment devices."
More modern evidence from Barron's Online;
"Since March, the Bush administration has initiated a series of protectionist moves that have provoked retaliatory action from trading nations around the world. By all accounts, the atmosphere is such that you'd now have to place long odds on the latest negotiations -- called the Doha Round because they're being held in Doha, Qatar, in the Persian Gulf -- making significant progress toward trade liberalization by the time they conclude in January 2005.
In March, Bush slapped tariffs of 30% on imported steel. In May, he signed a $170 billion farm bill that includes huge subsidies to export crops like corn, wheat, rice and soybeans. The subsidies act like tariffs by putting downward pressure on world prices, making it more difficult for poor farmers to compete. And on May 22, the administration began collecting newly-imposed duties of 27.2% on imports of Canadian softwood lumber."
"I had to abandon free market principles in order to save the free market system." George W. Bush
If you could point out a free market operating somewhere or at some time that was beneficial to the society hosting it we could talk. You know that some people were opposed to laws against child labor because they violated "free market" principles. Ditto to other regulations and laws that protected peoples right to associate in Unions so they had some power to counter the massive power of huge, rich corporations. Many examples could be given of laws favored by business to limit the freedom of people, the latest being laws to make voting more difficult, some of these laws written by industry advocates such as ALEC. Why do they want to limit the number of people voting? One reason - it makes buying legislators cheaper and so makes enacting regulations favorable to business easier. There are many organizations, supposedly "grass roots," to get rid of the EPA. Of course the same people who lied about the safety of lead in gasoline, lied about the addictiveness of nicotine and the dangers of tobacco, who have been convicted of dumping poisons into waterways, who want the public, the taxpayer, to pay to clean up the messes they like to leave behind, of course they want to get rid of the EPA. And the trouble is they are, through the corporate media, convincing much of the population that it is all in the name of "small government". Propaganda machinery is highly effective and it's in their hands.
One condition I would insist on to even contemplate giving markets total freedom is that they wouldn't be allowed to influence government in any way. Sure, individuals within Corporations would have all the rights of freedom of speech and so on but the idea of Corporations being and having all the rights of persons is such a perversion of American ideals it's like a beast right out of a horrifying nightmare and in no way justifiable by any Constitutional reading.
