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

To: Paul Smith who wrote (140848)	7/15/2010 3:18:49 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542853

Paul, your right wing, anti union, carping must be music to the ears of those on the wealth end of the class war. Or maybe it's a comedy sketch to them...stifling snickers at the silliness of those of you who are so easily convinced that your problems can be laid at the feet of the wages of school teachers, policemen, firemen, court clerks, garbage men, snow plow drivers, etc. while they themselves pull in literally billions of dollars of bonuses, cry about paying a very minimal percentage of taxes on the income they can't turn into capital gains, defer, or shield, and try to game the system for billions of dollars of public money that comes their way for unneeded and unnecessarily expensive projects. That's just silly. I'd like to see entire private sectors unionize and gain more economic leverage versus management and ownership. I'd like to see that leverage create a rise in the wages and benefits for working men and women across the board relative to the wages and benefits of management and at a cost to the profits of owners, yes, including stockholders like most of us. Of course if you have some better suggestion for strengthening economic leverage for the working class I'd like to hear it because that's where we need to be. Balancing income would stimulate the economy and, additionally, an America with its income distribution spread more evenly would be a healthier, more vibrant and happier America, don't you think? Ed PS, and yes, I know it's not going to happen unless things get much, much worse and the Chamber of Commerce PR machine goes tone deaf.

To: Paul Smith who wrote (140848)	7/15/2010 1:52:56 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542853

What proportion of all taxes are paid by the undefined rich? Wrong question. What is the rate at which they pay taxes? Relative to the end of the Clinton administration? Just to take one arbitrary comparison point. You're simply ignoring, for ideological reasons, the often reported Warren Buffet comment, that his secretary pays a higher federal income tax rate than he does. Let alone the difference if you added in ss taxes. How does the federal government go about closing obvious corporate tax loopholes? Another good question. What percentage of the population currently pay zero Federal income tax? Boy does that reveal the ideological bit you are on. We started this conversation with my argument that states in fiscal crises should look to comprehensive solutions, which included putting more taxes for the wealthy and for business on the table. You are still trying to frame it to take that portion of shared sacrifice off the table. As for the last sentences, the unions have gotten too much, the bulk of that argument is built out of cherry picking the most egregious examples. I don't know a single public sector work, and I know quite a few, who will get a pension that fair minded person would consider a problem. In fact, to the contrary. Unions are not the problem here. They will work with politicians so long as politicians are playing fair. It's the absence of that last element that leads to the current standoffs.