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Maybe we need to start a Utopia thread for some here?
51 - 60% does not a happy country make; it sure makes it easy for a two party system to stay a two party system, though.
Maybe we need to start a Utopia thread for some here?
Absolutely; taboo subject; see my above reply to RG;
Frankly, taxes are pretty high on the rich. Tax them to death; you still have problems. What we need are more rich (and more comfortable and near rich). And again, not espousing trickle down, the evidence that it "raises all ships" is not good.
I think a plank in the platform could be: Income = Income; no matter how it is derived - I think the unnatural pull that investment/banking jobs have because of the capital gains vs. income tax rates is pulling bright, industrious minds from industries that actually provide solid middle class jobs.
I thought I already did?
By my estimation; the best economy of my lifetime (I'm 44) occurred from ~ '95 - '99. Early eighties kind of roared; but to a large degree that was with the assistance of a credit card. The '90's boom actually produced a surplus.
Full admission: I never voted for Clinton. Hated him while he was president. All the while my income went up 5-fold.
No, not on this board - I get that; but the BIG issue; taxing and spending can get overwhelmed by the social issues; My wife for example; very conservative economically; CANNOT vote for a Democrat for that reason, but CANNOT vote for a Republican because she has a strong environmental bent. She has no home. I tend to have some skeptical views when dealing with extreme environmentalism; but also get furious at "Drill here, drill there, drill everywhere"; there is a responsible position between those two.
Is AGW happening, I don't know. I still think mandating higher gas mileage, and investing in green energy is a good idea - might even be open to a "carbon tax" (as long as I was pretty sure it wasn't simply a way for Al Gore to get rich)
Maddow brought up an interesting study about economic crises in other countries and the US.
Eventually after a recession, the economy recovers, and the party in power, be it conservative or liberal, is generally credited in the mind of the public for that, and dominates in power for a decade.
Indications are that the economy will muddle along and grow slowly with the recovery of the next four years credited to Obama.
Given that and the demographic trends.
Keep trying to find it, but haven't found it yet.
See, there is a problem.
Democrats are now the fiscally responsible party. The fiscal conservative, social moderates, have been driven out of the GOP by the continuous litmus tests and tea party defeats in primaries.
The GOP has become the "borrow and spend" party, because they are scared to death of touching en lements, despite their self-professed fiscal conservatism. They want power more than they want to adhere to their principles. If they really were concerned, they would bite the bullet and make the proposals, framing them as deficit and debt cutting. You get the occasional firebrand who does that, but they get muscled aside by people more interested in getting re-elected.
If your choice is tax and spend or borrow and spend, it becomes a lot clearer.
There is too much nonsensical class warfare rhetoric coming from the Democrat party; turns off too many people, and not just the rich. "Making the rich pay their fair share" is not an economic policy; it is a battle cry, IMO. If the Democrats were the "fiscally responsible party" - and believe rasing taxes is the way to be that way - they would propose eliminating All of the Bush tax cuts - not just 1/5 of them. Not wanting to debate that, however. If you are happy being a Democrat, and don't want to participate in forming a new party from the ground up - great.
Good luck. It seems like a great idea but responsibility is often shirked or passed.
Well I'm a conservative and I want the Bush tax cuts to expire in their entirety. I don't have a problem paying 3% more IF the middle class starts paying their fair share. As long as someone like Drachen is making $70k and not paying anything I'm not willing to pay more. In fact this year for the first time we have started sheltering money to pay less. It's not a conservative/liberal problem, the only difference between you and a middle class conservative is that you think people other than you should pay more and the middle class conservative doesn't think anyone should pay more.
Unfortunately, 101, I dont think the electorate (ie your fellow citizens) are going to bend to things like logic, reason or the term de jour, compromise. Like the Green party or the Whig party or any other party that isnt the Big Two, traction is incredibly hard to gain. I am not a political expert, nor am I a demographer with a firm grasp of the wants and needs of each racial demographics and/or social demographic.
Moreover, money to the scale needed to get said traction is of an amount I dont even want to think about. The most successful independent candidate in my lifetime was Ross Perot and for some strange reason he dropped out of the race while leading in some (questionable) polls. Why he did so, then only to re-enter at the 11th hour is something that has never been full explained. I will not waste time on personal conjecture, but the fact that it happened under bizarre cir stances I think is a fair characterization.
Simply put, others have tried, are currently trying and all have failed to unseat the two party system engrained in the Cons ution. It is my opinion that this is not a mistake of the forefathers. What we see in present day politics is not a perversion of their life's work, but merely an inevitable path of a two party system. It would seem the First Men of America had the forethought to determine that the People do in fact matter to the State. That their active participation was undeniably important to viable governance. But at every step, they wisely put restrictions on how deeply that participation cut.
If the everyday citizen were of competent stock and knowledge in worldly and state affairs, wouldnt it make sense to put to vote every matter of government? Be it war, taxes, borders, expansion, etc?
Surely, the electorate is competent enough and most importantly interested enough to handle such responsibility, no?
We all know the answer. No, the citizenry isnt well enough equipped to balance a personal checkbook much less a bureaucratic government system with thousands of moving parts, nearly half of them acting in direct contradiction to the whole. It could be argued and won that no system is capable of reining the needs of the many versus the needs of the few against all the outside forces acting upon the inertial system. It just so happens that America's system was the best equipped to handle its 20th century rise to power unlike its compe ors of the age.
If you think about it, the US was a backwater, 2nd world nowhere right up until the first World War. Thats less than 100 years ago. There are (very few) people alive who might possibly remember a very different America than the one we wax so poetically today.
I just wrote three paragraphs after these and realized, once again, that I just dont care anymore to articulate my position beyond what I have to say.
While a noble idea and a fun thought experiment that might bear fruit in an academic setting, any thought or aspiration to gain political prominence in an outside party is a fruitless endeavor reserved for what could only be considered ideologues of such conviction that tangible relevance isnt important, only self-gratification at choosing and maintaining a determinate path.
No, sadly, I still look at this country as ed and un able to quote a very quotable fellow. Without some revolutionary discovery/technology on par with the railroad system/oil refinement/telephone/television/Internet, the current path is entirely too hard for current leadership to politically navigate with any real mind toward a solution. I am 32 years old and I will not see the fall, nor do I think my son will, but fall we shall. A shame really, that government systems are not designed to be inordinately flexible to correct the passage of time and cir stances. Even in a system as flexible as ours, it still isnt enough to actually change anything of substance. Obamacare will be a disaster, we will leave Afghanistan only to go to Iran/Syria. Our population will still refuse to elect on any matter of importance that doesnt involve the here and now for them and the end will be approximated with great accuracy in the very near future.
Best one can hope for is dissolution or secession to start over, IMO. Entice all the talent to leave, just like corporate raiding, and watch it rot from the outside looking in. My position has absolutely nothing to do with Obama, Romney, Democrats, Republicans, Norquist or any other current political actor. Its simply an observation of current fiscal trajectory, the lack of importance attached and the public's general disregard for the inherent danger associated. The United States is not Greece, when the fall happens it will be loud and disgusting.
I don't so much disagree with the rest of your post, but why would fiscal conservatives be driven out by the Tea Party? It is a lack of fiscal responsibility that produced the Tea Party in the first place.
I'll bring up another question: How exactly do we define "middle class"? Because I'm pretty sure making $100-150K a year should put you out of the "middle class" identifier (unless you live someplace like Manhattan.)
Look at this chart. If you make more than $85K a year, you're in the top 25% of American households. How can you still be middle class when you're making more than 75% of other Americans? It's asinine that politicians describe the middle class at up to $200/$250K a year. That would mean that the lower class (25K or less) makes up 30% of the electorate, the middle class (25K to 200K) makes up 68%, and the "upper class" (200K or more) makes up 4% of the electorate.
And people wonder why there's class warfare.
Just because the neocons also push handouts and have zero principles doesn't mean "Democrats" and "fiscally responsible" belong in the same sentence
Well that's an entirely different topic. I'm referring to the middle class as most of you seem think of it, which personally I would call working class. Equating median income with "middle class" seems flawed to me. The middle class to me has all but disappeared and is the now top 25% (excluding the wealthy) you referred to. This is the argument I had with Drachen. He considers himself near the upper end of middle class at $70k even though he's just getting by and unable to save enough for his future. That's not middle class in my view.
My point was that if an effective rate of zero is fair for his $70k then my 28% on $200k is more than fair and I'm not willing to pay more. In fact from now on I'm going to make damn sure I pay less, screw the "middle class".
1st. Drachen + Wife
2nd. I think that you would have to kill (at least) the mortage tax cut for us to pay something.
3rd. I am ok with letting them all expire. We need the cash, but don't pretend that taking a dollar out of the pocket of someone making (say) 500k will do as much damage to the economy as taking a dollar out of the pocket of someone making (say) $50k.
Well I was referring to household income in your case and mine. My wife has been and always will be the primary breadwinner. My greatest financial success was getting her to marry me.
Btw, I wasn't trying to single you out in a negative personal way. The tax code is what it is. You're just one of the few willing to share your personal financials.
The economy did just fine under higher Clinton rates or higher Reagan rates for that matter. I don't buy the "economy will suffer" argument. In fact the economy has done nothing but suffer under historic low taxes.
You don't need to apologize, I understand why you used my case, its what you had available. I told you before in that other thread, I am not offended or mad or anything. Also, my wife is (this year) the primary breadwinner in our household (though the reason is that ), and I have nothing against that either.
As I said, I am willing to return to Clinton-Era rates, but I just wanted to make clear for anyone who wanted to use the "economy suffers" tact that insomuch as the economy suffers from higher taxes (whatever value you assign to that), a dollar out of the pocket of someone making 500k affects it less than one out of someone making 50k since that dollar will be spent on goods.
Hm... a quick question for you then. I'm not sure how these two statements go together:
upper end of middle class at $70k even though he's just getting by and unable to save enough for his future
Now, I'm not sure how you meant that, but if you think that $70K is barely enough to get by, and not enough to save, then shouldn't a rate of zero be fair? (I'd like to note that I think you're still able to save at $70K, certainly. I manage to put some away for savings, and I'm the only breadwinner at the household making roughly 42K per year.)if an effective rate of zero is fair for his $70k
For those that didn't read the thread that we are talking about who are currently thinking I am a moron. I do save for my future, but I admitted that I don't think that it is enough for retirement. I also stated that I would be able to save more if I hadn't decided to put my daughter in private school.
Understood. I'm trying to save, but I don't think it's really enough for my retirement. Once I retire from the military, I plan on using that retirement paycheck to pay for my mortgage. Of course, after I get out I'm going to try to get into the MIC and make fat stacks until retirement. Buahahah.
you should hire me then, tbh
I finally read every word to this thread (I have been doing hit and runs on it), The ideas going back and forth are great. This is an idea that I have kicked around that hopefully will help.
welfare/unemployment: First off, everyone is en led to 6 months, hands down, no questions asked (other than the required paperwork of course). After this 6 month period, you have two options if you want to continue receiving your check job training/college/vocational school, or you work for the county for 15-20 hours a week. Picking up trash, painting park equipment, grunt work. People may say: if you have people doing that, it will steal jobs from those already doing this. To that I say: there is a ton of trash all over, whoever is doing it now, isn't doing it and there are definitely some run down looking parks.
This way, it de-incentivizes welfare and unemployment, provides a great service for your local community and educates the general populace.
While we are at it, and I am sure that DarkReign would agree, where the is that 4k grant toward college loans for community service?
Last edited by Drachen; 11-08-2012 at 11:01 PM.
My position in the other thread was that I define middle class as enough income to live a middle class lifestyle (Drachen does) and save enough to continue that lifestyle thru retirement. $70k isn't enough to do that.
Zero is never fair imo. I'll just refer to yet another previous thread...
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