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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ecommerceman who wrote (125521)	2/5/2001 11:46:44 PM
From: SecularBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

And, final point, Russia is hardly an example that I, or any self-respecting progressive, would use as an example of socialism. Try Sweden, if you'd like, but not Russia.... Yes, not Russia. We do not pay for their defense like we do for Sweden. Sweden is a much better example of convenient socialism. LoF

To: ecommerceman who wrote (125521)	2/6/2001 5:26:53 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Dear ecommerceman: Well, in my 25+ years in public accounting I noted that the extremely rich probably pay about a 15% effective income tax rate, while the moderately well to do pay at the extremes. Possibly you and I differ on the term "Rich". I know Dems like to think anyone making over $60k or so a year are rich, thats a lot of BS in my mind. One cannot even live decently in many parts of the country for less than 70K. One reason is because taxes eat up a larger %age of income than housing, food and clothing combined. I mean all levels of tax. Today to be RICH I think you need either a huge asset base (several millions) or a huge income (over 500k a year). To me anything under about 250k a year is merely middle class. Maybe upper middle class but middle class nevertheless. You have heard the old saying, it takes money to make money? Well, it takes money to legally avoid income taxes. If you dont have sufficient assets or income it isnt possible to instigate the procedures necessary to exempt a large portion of your income from taxes. Everytime I see these Dems talk about the RICH getting a break at the expense of the middle class and often classifying the middle class at 30k a year or so, I think to myself, I would like to see THOSE PEOPLE living on 30k a year and then whether or not they feel that is middle class. Its all a bunch of Class Warfare BS designed to fill the Govt coffers at the expense of keeping the middle class from moving on up. Then to top it all off the govt is an extremely inefficient user of money. I served on the mini grace commission for 3 years or so and the waste and inefficiency was MINDBOGGLING. I can safely say I could go into any govt entity from the county level on up and save at least 25% PLUS increase the services utilizing sound business practices. JDN