Okie, you are right. Irresponsibility is a terrible social problem, but, as I see it, it the fault primarily of the large corporations with their irresponsible obsession with avoiding their tax responsibilities. And, of course, we have the piratism of the Ken Lays. Actually, the most destructive drive in America is GREED.
By the way, you say that the wealthy pay the largest SHARE of the country's tax income. But do you claim that they pay a larger (per capita) proportion of that income? And do you think that they actually PAY their obligation? If they did, they would have to fire the army of lawyers they hire to show them how to avoid that obligation.
Published on Friday, April 8, 2005 by OneWorld.net
Some of America's Richest Say 'No, Thanks' to Bush Tax Cuts
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON -- Some of America's wealthiest individuals have declined billions of dollars in tax cuts bestowed upon them by President George W. Bush's administration and have urged others among the country's richest and most famous to donate their federal tax cuts to campaigns against the Bush package, often described as ''tax breaks for the rich.''
''It's obscene that Washington is handing out tax breaks to millionaires with one hand and shredding the safety net with the other,'' said Marta Drury, a member of Responsible Wealth, a national network of affluent Americans advocating what they term ''widespread prosperity'' and concerned that a deepening wealth divide in America is undermining the country's social and democratic fabric.
''So I'm calculating my 2004 tax cut and donating it to organizations fighting for responsible, fair, and adequate taxes. I don't believe that people like me with incomes over $200,000 need $69 billion in tax cuts,'' Drury added, referring to the total estimated value of 2004 tax cuts granted Americans in her income bracket.
Responsible Wealth, founded in 1997 and claiming 1,000-plus members, has stood at the forefront of what Time magazine termed the ''billionaire backlash'' against elite tax cuts and Bush's proposal to repeal the estate tax. On Wednesday, members urged others in the ranks of America's rich and famous to join the ''Responsible Tax Pledge'' initiative.
The tax pledge asked members to calculate their 2004 tax breaks and donate these to fair-tax campaigns. For wealthy individuals like Drury, the average estimated tax break in 2004 was $20,000. For several other pledge signatories, it amounted to more than $100,000.
''It's irresponsible to put America deeper into debt to give tax cuts to millionaires,'' the tax pledge stated.
It said it was ''wrong to give tax cuts to the wealthy instead of investing in education, research, job training, affordable housing, a healthy environment, vaccines, and emergency services.''
The pledge called on Congress ''to reject more tax cuts for wealthy Americans, roll back the existing tax cuts for the very wealthy instead of making them permanent, and support responsible, fair, and adequate taxes.''
Taxpayers who made more than $1 million received an average federal income tax break of $123,592 in 2004, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution think tanks. This compared to $383, the average tax break in 2004 for the two-thirds of taxpayers who made less than $50,000 per year.
''The next time a politician says we can't afford to fund something you care about, ask yourself if $69 billion per year would help,'' said Scott Klinger, Responsible Wealth's co-director. ''When you hear that the only choices we have are to cut budgets, increase the deficit or increase your taxes, remember that $69 billion in tax breaks went to people who made more than $200,000 last year.''
Bill Gates Sr., co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation--the largest foundation on Earth--and father of the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, has spearheaded Responsible Wealth's campaign to oppose regressive changes to the tax code and to reform and preserve the estate tax.
The tax is levied against estates of more than $1.5 million where assets are not transferred to a surviving spouse and thus applies to about 2 percent of all inheritance cases, Responsible Wealth said.
Even so, permanently repealing the tax as Bush has proposed would cut federal revenue by $1 trillion over two decades and have the effect of depressing charitable giving by $12-24 billion per year, Responsible Wealth said, citing Congressional Budget Office figures.
The elder Gates for years has argued that individual wealth is a product not only of hard work and smart choices but also of a society that provides economic development, education, health care, and property rights protection. Such an economy's top dogs benefit the most from tax-funded institutions and programs and therefore should not resent or seek relief from having to pay taxes, he has said.
He still has some convincing to do.
Facing off against Gates and Responsible Wealth are families including the widow and heirs of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton and influential lobby groups including the National Federation of Independent Business.
Led by Sam Walton's only daughter, Alice, the family spent $3.2 million on lobbying, conservative causes, and candidates for last year's federal elections. ''That's more than double what it spent in the previous two elections combined,'' USA Today reported Wednesday, citing public documents.
The Waltons have sought income tax changes and other legislation that could preserve their shareholding in America's biggest business and the family's $84 billion fortune, the newspaper said.
Wow, nice article Au!
Nice to see that there are some responsible rich folk out there; and not surprising to see the Waltons protecting the family hoard...
Cycloptichorn
woiyo wrote:D'artagnan wrote:McGentrix wrote:cyphercat wrote:D'artagnan wrote:You guys are splitting hairs. That's like saying everyone has access to the bank.
Try seeing how well you do with no health insurance when you have a chronic health problem.
Exactly. I have the access to health care you guys are talking about, but I am in chronic pain due to a health problem that would require surgery to fix. There is
no way I can afford surgery, despite this access to health care I am so blessed to have.
So those of you who claim we all have access to adequate health care, what is your response to people who live with chronic health problems and have no insurance? I see McGentrix's response to D'art's proposal, which I quoted above, was "Why would I want to do that?" Do you have a serious response, McG? I'd be interested to hear it.
I do not know your circumstances so I can't say. How old are you? What physical condition are you in? Why don't you have insurance?
You don't belive cyphercat, McG? You want personal info and a diagnosis before you can accept such an unbelievable story? Your response here is typical: You agree to someone else's absurd claim that EVERYONE has access to health care, then when evidence is presented contradicting that, you ask for more proof.
MEDICAID!!
More glib ignorance. Many doctors won't accept Medicaid patients because of the crummy reimbursement. You really think Medicaid = adequate health insurance?
woiyo
Medicaid you say. According to okie that is socialism and is not acceptable. And our friendly conservative in the White house pushed to have the funds cut inorder to support his fiasco in Iraq. And or tax cuts for the rich.
"More glib ignorance. Many doctors won't accept Medicaid patients because of the crummy reimbursement. You really think Medicaid = adequate health insurance? "
Many do take Medicaid and it is better than nothing.
"Medicaid you say. According to okie that is socialism and is not acceptable. And our friendly conservative in the White house pushed to have the funds cut inorder to support his fiasco in Iraq. And or tax cuts for the rich. "
I support Medicaid for the unable...not the unwilling.
JLNobody wrote:Okie, you are right. Irresponsibility is a terrible social problem, but, as I see it, it the fault primarily of the large corporations with their irresponsible obsession with avoiding their tax responsibilities. And, of course, we have the piratism of the Ken Lays. Actually, the most destructive drive in America is GREED.
By the way, you say that the wealthy pay the largest SHARE of the country's tax income. But do you claim that they pay a larger (per capita) proportion of that income? And do you think that they actually PAY their obligation? If they did, they would have to fire the army of lawyers they hire to show them how to avoid that obligation.
I wonder if John Kerry fired those he listened to when he sent hundreds of thousands of dollars offshore to avoid paying his taxes?
If that is so, Kerry is to be condemned. I'm talking about the greedy wealthy, not just Republicans. There are the Gates and people like Marta Drury who, by their actions, highlight the ethical failings of most of the wealthy. What I am saying will be condemned by some as "class warfare." That would be false. I've no objection to economic inequality; only socio-economic irresponsibility. As far as I'm concerned the actions of the Bush administration reflect a sustained and malicious class warfare.
Since we support universal education (through high school) in this country, why not universal health care?
Why is one acceptable policy and the other "radical leftism"?
Because ignorant people are a bane on civilization. If we educate people, they can get jobs. Jobs provided by people that can hire them because of tax breaks and because they are educated. Jobs provide insurance whereby a person can have access to better medical care than if they were stupid and unemployed.
A government big enough to take care of all of the needs of everybody is big enough to take every one of our rights away. He who holds the purse strings makes the decisions, thats all I am trying to remind everybody of. Must we repeat the lessons of history over and over?
The leftists should reach into their own pockets to fulfill their emotion-based feel-good policies. Not their neighbors.
They bombard those opposed to their agenda with phrases meant to bring an arguement to an emotional level because thats the only place they can advance their agenda:
"Shame on You!"
"How would you feel if it were you!"
"Ohhh, the greed!"
The Constitution grants no Federal role in civilian healthcare. The notion that ones problems, of whatever nature, should be solved by some always available central provider is an absurdity.
It's not absurdity, it's a desire for efficiency.
The fact is that an efficient central system has the potential to save everyone money; the problem is in setting up, administrating, and regulating such a system.
I don't think we are at the point yet where we are ready, socially or legally, to institute such a system; but there's nothing wrong with a goal to strive for.
Cycloptichorn
Instigate wrote:The leftists should reach into their own pockets to fulfill their emotion-based feel-good policies. Not their neighbors.
They bombard those opposed to their agenda with phrases meant to bring an arguement to an emotional level because thats the only place they can advance their agenda:
"Shame on You!"
"How would you feel if it were you!"
"Ohhh, the greed!"
The Constitution grants no Federal role in civilian healthcare. The notion that ones problems, of whatever nature, should be solved by some always available central provider is an absurdity.
Does the Constitution give the feds a role in local education? How about "No Child Left Behind"? Right wingers go to the Constitution only when it suits them.
Quick, D'art...who wrote the "No Child Left Behind" bill?
D'artagnan wrote:Since we support universal education (through high school) in this country, why not universal health care?
Why is one acceptable policy and the other "radical leftism"?
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
-James Madison
How about secreting spying on US citizens with no court or judge giving the OK? Which founding father put his imprimatur on that one?
Cycloptichorn wrote:It's not absurdity, it's a desire for efficiency.
The fact is that an efficient central system has the potential to save everyone money; the problem is in setting up, administrating, and regulating such a system.
I don't think we are at the point yet where we are ready, socially or legally, to institute such a system; but there's nothing wrong with a goal to strive for.
Cycloptichorn
I believe this is the argument the Soviet Central Economic planners used to deceive themselves (and for a while the credulous world) about the "miracle" of Soviet economic growth. What could be more efficient than central planning and control of resources? The answer turned out to be almost everything else.
America does not need a health care system based on the efficiency and customer service for which government is so famous.
D'artagnan wrote:McGentrix wrote:cyphercat wrote:D'artagnan wrote:You guys are splitting hairs. That's like saying everyone has access to the bank.
Try seeing how well you do with no health insurance when you have a chronic health problem.
Exactly. I have the access to health care you guys are talking about, but I am in chronic pain due to a health problem that would require surgery to fix. There is
no way I can afford surgery, despite this access to health care I am so blessed to have.
So those of you who claim we all have access to adequate health care, what is your response to people who live with chronic health problems and have no insurance? I see McGentrix's response to D'art's proposal, which I quoted above, was "Why would I want to do that?" Do you have a serious response, McG? I'd be interested to hear it.
I do not know your circumstances so I can't say. How old are you? What physical condition are you in? Why don't you have insurance?
You don't belive cyphercat, McG? You want personal info and a diagnosis before you can accept such an unbelievable story? Your response here is typical: You agree to someone else's absurd claim that EVERYONE has access to health care, then when evidence is presented contradicting that, you ask for more proof.
McGentrix wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I ask because there are federal programs designed to help those unfortunate enough to not have insurance...you know, so they can have access to medical care. If cyphercat is just too lazy to work and has been eating mcdonalds for the past 10 years and now has health problems, well, little sympathy to be had from me. That's why I asked. Because I don't know.
Okay, I'll play case study for the discussion. :wink:
I'm 25, I was working more than full-time at two jobs until I went back to college, now I work full-time when school's not in session and part-time when it is. I take very good care of my health, I work out three to five days a week (most of the time-- I
am human
) and I eat better than almost anybody I know; I'm vegetarian so I never set foot in McDonalds's...and, yes, I get enough protein.
However, full-time work at minimum wage jobs doesn't give enough spendin' green to cover insurance. But, in the infinite irony of the government, if you work full time and don't have a kid, although you still can't afford insurance because our minimum wage is so low, in the eyes of the guvmint you are too well-off to qualify for any coverage like Medical or Medicaid, etc.
So that is how you can be a person who does work, does take care of their health (although can't help the hand you're dealt, which in my case includes kidney problems), and yet doesn't have health coverage. There is this nifty little hole you can fall in where you make too much money to get help from the government but not enough to pay for your own coverage.
