Bush supporters' aftermath thread II

A complete distortion of the reality, Advocate. The liberals try so hard to harm the rich, except their own of course and they seem to have a lot more rich than the Republicans do. But the fact is you cannot soak the rich without hurting the poor. Conservatives understand that. Liberals don't seem to have that capacity.

Foxfyre wrote:

A complete distortion of the reality, Advocate. The liberals try so hard to harm the rich, except their own of course and they seem to have a lot more rich than the Republicans do. But the fact is you cannot soak the rich without hurting the poor. Conservatives understand that. Liberals don't seem to have that capacity.

Fox, that is downright silly. Who is harming or soaking the rich. They have been thriving like no one else. We have a hulking and growing plutocracy that is threatening the country. The top 29,000 in income make more than the bottom 96 million. At some point there will be some adverse action because of this, and I hope it is short of bloody revolution.

Advocate wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

A complete distortion of the reality, Advocate. The liberals try so hard to harm the rich, except their own of course and they seem to have a lot more rich than the Republicans do. But the fact is you cannot soak the rich without hurting the poor. Conservatives understand that. Liberals don't seem to have that capacity.

Fox, that is downright silly. Who is harming or soaking the rich. They have been thriving like no one else. We have a hulking and growing plutocracy that is threatening the country. The top 29,000 in income make more than the bottom 96 million. At some point there will be some adverse action because of this, and I hope it is short of bloody revolution.

The liberal way is to despise success and try to tear it down so that all share equal misery.

The laissez-faire capitalism you talk about simply does not work. Even Adam Smith promoted social welfare, funded by the rich for the health of the nation. The current warmed-over Reaganomics does not allow wealth to trickle down. The de-regulations make a few rich at the expense of everyone else's quality of life. 40 million plus cannot afford health insurance or prescription drugs, and all time high corporate corruption scandals continue. The rich are getting richer and the rest are getting poorer. 90% of the population in the U.S. lives on an average of $25,000 a year (Nightly Business Report, August, 2006)

The conservative way is to clear the way for all to be successful.

No, that's not true, because the very term 'conserve' implies keeping rather than sharing. Thus, competition from amassing wealth is, by definition, exclusive to those who hold the wealth.

No poor man ever contributed a new engineering department for a university or a new cancer or pediatric wing for a hospital or funded a museum exhibit or created philanthropic endowments providing grants and scholarship for all manner of worthy causes and students.

No poor man ever had the time or wherewithall to donate time and energy in public service.

No poor man ever offered me a job.

Fortunately the philanthrophy you mentioned occurs with the Carnegie's or Bill Gates' of the world, but these are minorities and hardly put a dent in the distribution of wealth.

But in a conservative free market system, the emphasis is on encouraging all to do what they have to do to be rich if that is their goal. And the best way to do that is to get out of the way and allow it to happen.

The free market system does not work, except in your imagination. The government is at the disposal of the wealth-based plutocracy. Example: railroads are a much more efficient means of moving people and freight. However, railroad companies must maintain their own rail lines. How competitive do you think the trucking industry would be in moving freight if the government did not fund and maintain its roadways? What you're advocating is going back to a time when there were no labour laws, no minimum wage or work week, basic wage-slavery, child labour, ecological destruction of vast areas, poor houses, & no unemployment insurance. No safety regulations in the work place.

Around 1990 or 1991, the first Bush adminisration went along with a massive tax increase targeted at the rich. Part of it was to impose huge taxes on the private planes and luxury yachts on the theory that really would target the rich. Result: the rich simply sheltered more of their income and went elsewhere to buy their planes and boats which devasted both domestic industries and cost tens of thousands of workers their jobs.

The few jobs lost to companies building yachts and private jets pales in the face of wholesale outsourcing jobs in textiles, steel, and now electronics.

You can't soak the rich without hurting the poor.

Same thing is happening now Bernard. Yes the Rich seemed to get a much nicer tax break than us poor folk in the Bush tax cuts, but those same rich are paying a lot more in taxes now than they were formerly. Why? Because when you lower the tax rates of the wealthy, you change their behavior. They are able to earn more and thus they pay more in taxes.

(from: The Economist -July 2006) Currently the economy is floundering. Detroit is on its knees, the balance of trade is out of control. Much of the price you are paying for your gas is tax going towards bailing out Mr. Bush's failed philosophy. Look carefully, and Mr. Bush's own forecasts do not expect the revenue boom to last. Tax receipts are expected to grow by only 2.4% in 2007, partly because Congress recently passed a law that would stem the rise in the number of people who pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a tax originally designed to stop the rich taking too many deductions. The budget forecast, implausibly, assumes the number of AMT payers will soar again in 2008. Add together the cost of fixing the AMT and likely expenses for the war on terror and the budget deficit may well stay around 2% of GDP for the rest of the decade.

Those who wish to rein them in do so out of either ignorance or envy and I think the latter is more often the case; i.e. if I can't be rich he shouldn't be so rich either.

As long as there are starving people on the planet while 5% (USA) greedily use 1/3 of the resources of the planet it is not a matter of envy, but a matter of survival.

Recessions, however, do not increase the national treasury. Tax cuts and a resulting booming economy do. That has certainly been the result of the Bush tax cuts. Too bad all those rich guys made out like bandits, but in the overall grand scheme of things, that is a very good thing for us all.

Read the above again. Most serious economists have long laughed at the idea that Mr. Bush's tax cuts raise revenues. (The Economist, July 2006)

There of course will be a point of diminishing returns. Tax cuts have to be carefully designed and planned and the govenrment does need money to operate. But again, trying to soak the rich only hurts the poor, every single time.

Pachelbul is a Canadian who knows nothing about our Medical System. He obviously does not know that no one goes without topflight medical care in the USA, MUCH BETTER THAN THAT IN CANADA.

Who says so? Canada's OWN PM SAYS SO_




Canadian Single-Payer Health Care System a 'Disaster,' Editorial States
[Sep 23, 2004]
Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) have introduced legislation that would call for a single-payer health care system in the United States, although "evidence keeps rolling in that shows it's a disaster" in Canada, an Investor's Business Daily editorial states. Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made a "tacit admission" that the Canadian health care system "isn't working" when the government increased funds for health care by $60 billion through 2015, the editorial continues. Martin said that the increased funds would "improve access to health care professionals, so Canadians can see a doctor when they need to and where they need to," the editorial states. "In those few words, Martin unknowingly summarized one of the primary problems with the Canadian system: Services must be rationed because health care resources -- like doctors, equipment and the dollars to pay for them -- are scarce," the editorial states. According to the editorial, critics of the U.S. health care system maintain that the "free market has failed," but "it's not the market that's failed, it's the state." The federal government currently accounts for 45% of health care spending in the United States, an "intrusion that's been expanding since the 1960s and which tracks with an increase in health care complaints," the editorial states. The editorial concludes that health care "is simply too important to be left in the hands of government, either here or in Canada" (Investor's Business Daily, 9/22).

Pachelbul is a Canadian who knows nothing about our Medical System. He obviously does not know that no one goes without topflight medical care in the USA, MUCH BETTER THAN THAT IN CANADA.

Who says so? Canada's OWN PM SAYS SO_




Canadian Single-Payer Health Care System a 'Disaster,' Editorial States
[Sep 23, 2004]
Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) have introduced legislation that would call for a single-payer health care system in the United States, although "evidence keeps rolling in that shows it's a disaster" in Canada, an Investor's Business Daily editorial states. Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made a "tacit admission" that the Canadian health care system "isn't working" when the government increased funds for health care by $60 billion through 2015, the editorial continues. Martin said that the increased funds would "improve access to health care professionals, so Canadians can see a doctor when they need to and where they need to," the editorial states. "In those few words, Martin unknowingly summarized one of the primary problems with the Canadian system: Services must be rationed because health care resources -- like doctors, equipment and the dollars to pay for them -- are scarce," the editorial states. According to the editorial, critics of the U.S. health care system maintain that the "free market has failed," but "it's not the market that's failed, it's the state." The federal government currently accounts for 45% of health care spending in the United States, an "intrusion that's been expanding since the 1960s and which tracks with an increase in health care complaints," the editorial states. The editorial concludes that health care "is simply too important to be left in the hands of government, either here or in Canada" (Investor's Business Daily, 9/22).