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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (296982)	3/18/2009 6:11:49 PM
From: KLP	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794309

Problems, Choices and Solutions... Thomas Sowell as usual, has so many good things for us to hear. When I read this sentence, it struck me exactly what part of the problem really is...... *When you have to live on half your income because the other half goes for housing, that's a real downer.* That type of statement usually refers to people with low incomes. Many of the people in this bracket, pay little to no Federal Income Tax. Some of the people in this group receive Food Stamps and low cost to free Medical assistance. But many of us pay Fed Income Tax...from 30-40% or more...plus some pay State Income Tax, and we all are paying the SS and Medicare taxes, plus all of the myriad taxes we find along our way.... Which really means that the 50% of people who do pay Federal Income Tax, pay the other taxes as well, so more than 50% of their income goes to taxes. Plus then this group has to pay for their housing, food, clothing, insurances, transportation costs, utilities, etc etc etc, We ALL have choices, at least so far, in how we live our lives. We chose to go get out of HS, go to college, who to marry, chose drugs or not, whether or not to have children, where to live, own transportation or use public, whether or not to help our children with college costs, and all the etc's of life. Some of the anger we are experiencing today about the AIG thing, is ultimately "fairness".....Why should people/taxpayers pay for bonuses/salaries to bail out people who have tried to game the system, or made the bad choices that have hurt all of us to say nothing of them. We are angry with Congress, because for years, THEY write the rules, and then THEY don't pay attention to their own rules, don't do their oversight job, but pander for votes and money to gain more votes, THEN howl to the moon when something goes wrong, that SOMEONE else did the mischief. "Don't blame us" syndrome.... Wonder if we should take their salaries and FULL BENEFITS away, because they have been complicit in causing this financial mess....