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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (90291)	10/16/2008 11:05:22 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541791

As usual you've shifted the terms of the debate so we are talking about different things. I'm drinking coffee; you're drinking tea. And we're comparing tastes. My point is that the money that is collected in taxes is used for the kinds of purposes I enumerated. It amounts to a kind of redistribution--from Joe to other Joes and Janes, the result of which keeps Joe's business afloat. My guess is Obama wasn't talking about welfare but about getting jobs for people, building infrastructure (jobs), improving education (jobs), etc. So his use of the term "spreading it around" is in that context.

To: Lane3 who wrote (90291)	10/16/2008 11:09:27 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541791

find the government taking money from Joe's pocket and putting it directly into what it decides are more deserving pockets, aka redistribution of the wealth, both (a) wrong and (b) not sustainable. OK, I finally think I see where you're coming from. You're against benefit payments, such as (in the UK) income support, disability support or unemployment benefit - sorry, I don't know the US equivalents - which are direct payments to (typically) the poorest or those deemed the most neediest? I don't say those are always (nor even often) the most deserving pockets myself. I do begrudge some of the individuals who get such aid. But I wouldn't say all these people deserve to starve, either. And I'd prefer that they got some money and their choice on spending it, than rely on food stamps, vouchers and soup kitchens. Maybe I'm just more left-wing than you on this. Are you against the same payments if they're called state pensions?

To: Lane3 who wrote (90291)	10/16/2008 12:56:46 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541791

Lane, re: "I find the government taking money from Joe's pocket and putting it directly into what it decides are more deserving pockets, aka redistribution of the wealth, both (a) wrong and (b) not sustainable..." But isn't that exactly what the government does whenever it sets a tax schedule and collects taxes? We can call it class warfare or redistribution of wealth or whatever we want, but the decisions regarding how much tax to collect, from who, and how to distribute it results in redistribution of wealth...in every instance. Those who claim it's "not fair" to tax the very top of the income scale in order to partially fund a tax break for those in the middle class seem to be pretending that we're starting from an even playing field. The fact is that the very wealthy have, for decades, worked the Congress and the executives to make sure that progressive taxation was, at the very top income levels, a myth rather than a reality. That relative redistribution of wealth....UP from the middle class to the ultra rich instead of down....has been going on for years. Those who made enough money to generate rates at or near the top tax rates, but not enough to justify the machinations to find loopholes, understand who has born the heaviest burden of paying for our government. And that doesn't even consider the huge amount of corporate welfare that went to the huge financial interests that financed the campaigns of our career politicians. So tax and spending policies result, as a the practical effect, in a "redistribution of wealth." The important questions are whether the redistributions make sense from efficiency points of view and fairness points of view. The Republican argument against taxing the "captains of industry" rely on the theory that those decision makers are anxious to get more capital to invest and create more jobs. The Democratic argument for taxing the wealthy is that it's fairer to take a larger percentage of the income of one who has far more than he needs in order to live well, and less from one who is not so fortunate. The Republican argument is one that can be objectively examined and the fact is that in some economic environments it's accurate and in some it's not. Lately the economy has been in a condition where the trickle down theory is ludicrous. I believe the "fairness" argument was, before Reagan, pretty well accepted as an American value. Since Reagan, however, it's been challenged but it's a subjective one that doesn't lend itself to objective assessments. We can argue fairness and efficiency but we should not shrink from the fact that the choices we make are, among other factors, redistribution of wealth choices. Ed

To: Lane3 who wrote (90291)	10/16/2008 1:54:19 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541791

>>I'm all for money moving in and out of Joe's pocket and the pockets of others be it via commerce or government. Except one. I find the government taking money from Joe's pocket and putting it directly into what it decides are more deserving pockets, aka redistribution of the wealth, both (a) wrong and (b) not sustainable.<< Karen - I'm interested in knowing why you keep going back to this idea. I don't know of any Obama plan to take money from one group's pockets and put it directly into the hands of another group. It seems that you are reacting just to his use of the phrase, "spread the wealth." Looking at his actual tax proposals, which are spelled out with a fair amount of specificity on his web site, especially in the downloadable PDFs, I just don't see the problem. - Allen