Still Hating America.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Agricultural subsidies. Defense spending. Everything the Commerce Department does. Privatization of government services. All sorts of natural resource deals. Grazing subsidies. Earmarks. Etc.

Cynical Sebby knows this shit happens because rich people know how to retain lobbyists. Dopey Sebby thinks all the lobbyists in Washington D.C. work to increase the size of welfare.

Ah, yes... Larry Ellison's well known soybean farm empire from Kansas through South Dakota. Farming. The bastion of the Rich.

I spotted you defense spending. You can't cite it again just to fluff your response, guy. I may be drunk, but I used to try cases and even win a few.

Privatization of Govt Services? How's that taking from a poor person and giving it to a rich person? Are you suggesting the govt is taking business from its poorer service vendors and giving it to those with higher net worth?*

Explain how "Everything the Commerce Dept does" takes a dollar from a poor person's bank account and puts it in a rich person's. Again, I'm not entirely sober, but when someone who's as sharp on detail as you hold yourself up to be starts chucking blanket statements like that at me, I smell deflection.

All sorts of natural resource deals? Again, are you suggesting the poor who had natural resource deals have had them taken away and given to the rich?

Earmarks? Awfully specific of you.

You aren't citing a single instance of removal of dollars from the poor.

* I have govt contracts. Crap. More trouble than they're worth.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
There is no class warfare. I want to help the poor. We all want to help the poor.

But I don't want my taxes raised to do it.

The Dems want to have class warfare. They're advocating more of my money be redistributed to others because I'm "rich" in their eyes. How's that not a war on me?

Actually, they don't want more of your money at all, unless you earn more from dividends and capital gains than you do from wages or business profits.

This is what consistently amazes me - the number of people who are duped into thinking that they are victims of the "tax and spend" Democrats. Yet their righteous indignation at the free-spending ways of the Republicans never seems to meet up with the logical conclusion that the Rs constant stream of tax breaks for people who don't work for a living is what is actually putting their future at risk.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If the average taxpayer who claims a mortgage deduction is wealthier than the average taxpayer, would you agree that's an example of redistribution?

No. The poorer person didn't lose shit to the wealthier person. The wealthier person merely lost less to the govt.

You're mixing the govt's tax revenues up with the poor person's bank account. I don't know how you're doing that... Unless you view the govt as the poor person's Robin Hood.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by ironweed
I dreamed I saw Not Bob last night
Alive as you or me
Said I, "But Bob, you've left the boards!"
"I never left," said he
"I never left," said he

"I saw the socks attack you Bob,
All Penske's hellish host!"
Said Bob "what they could never kill
went on to write this post,
went on to write this post."

All across the interweb
Where no-good lawyers chat
When Sebby makes a lazy post
It's then Not Bob attacks
It's then Not Bob attacks.

Feckin' Commie.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Actually, they don't want more of your money at all, unless you earn more from dividends and capital gains than you do from wages or business profits.

This is what consistently amazes me - the number of people who are duped into thinking that they are victims of the "tax and spend" Democrats. Yet their righteous indignation at the free-spending ways of the Republicans never seems to meet up with the logical conclusion that the Rs constant stream of tax breaks for people who don't work for a living is what is actually putting their future at risk.

Those people work or worked for a living. They deserve to keep that money.

The Dems will roll back deductions and jack the capital gains rate.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I may be drunk,

Thank you for your efforts to level the playing field, which I take to be consistent with the spirit of this exercise.

Privatization of Govt Services? How's that taking from a poor person and giving it to a rich person?

Privatization is patronage. The people who make money of the contracts tend to be weathier than average.

Explain how "Everything the Commerce Dept does" takes a dollar from a poor person's bank account and puts it in a rich person's.

I know this is tough, conceptually, but poor people pay taxes, too.

All sorts of natural resource deals? Again, are you suggesting the poor who had natural resource deals have had them taken away and given to the rich?

The poor own their share of our natural resources, which are sold for the benefit of the rich. Or are you under the impression that lots of people are moving off welfare after winning federal oil leases?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
No, that's not. I couldn't agree with you more that the govt should never intervene to bailout businesses. That is appalling. And I've been consistent in stating my dislike of subsidies of all kind from day one.

No you haven't. You've consistently argued against a tax on capital gains and the estate tax. Both are a subsidy for the wealthy, pure and simple.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
No. The poorer person didn't lose shit to the wealthier person. The wealthier person merely lost less to the govt.

So welfare isn't redistribution either. The wealthier person doesn't lose shit to the poorer person. The wealthier person merely loses more to the government.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Please cite me a govt policy that redistributes money from the pockets of the poor to the pockets of the rich. Actual dollars. No Rube Goldberg analysis.

Dividends taxed at 15%

Capital gains taxed at 15%

No estate tax.

There's three. Actual Dollars.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by taxwonk
No you haven't. You've consistently argued against a tax on capital gains and the estate tax. Both are a subsidy for the wealthy, pure and simple.

That is not a subsidy at all. You're conflating the govt's tax revenues with the non-wealthy's bank accounts.

Decreasing those taxes merely lessens what Uncle Sam gets from the people who realize a lot of income from investments. It does not give anything to anybody. It takes FROM the govt. Taking FROM the govt is not taking from the poor, unless you think the poor and the govt have a symbiotic relationship in which one works on behalf of the other to take money from the non-poor.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Thank you for your efforts to level the playing field, which I take to be consistent with the spirit of this exercise.

I would take this as an olive branch except I know you only spend $10-15 on the bottle you drank this evening. Sebby and I contributed more $$$$ to this evening.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Dividends taxed at 15%

Capital gains taxed at 15%

No estate tax.

There's three. Actual Dollars.

sometimes I think you're really Penske just trying to make the Dems look bad.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Dividends taxed at 15%

Capital gains taxed at 15%

No estate tax.

There's three. Actual Dollars.

When did the poor have those dollars?

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Please cite me a govt policy that redistributes money from the pockets of the poor to the pockets of the rich. Actual dollars. No Rube Goldberg analysis.

Social Security.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
No. Thank you. You can't cite me a single policy that takes a dollar from a poor person's pile and adds it to a rich person's.

The best you can cite are indirect policies like, say, the capital gains tax rate, which you'd say took money from the poor and gave it to the rich, but actually does no such thing. Maybe you'd cite all the deductions the rich can take that the poor generally don't enjoy. Ah, but if you did that, you'd get smacked with the fact that they're a product of your own blessed progressive system, and that - again - they aren't taking anything from the poor.

Why don't you rephrase your point, because I think what you ought to be saying is "There are a lot of govt policies which allow the rich to avoid giving as much money to the poor in the form of govt administered services and benefits as is intended under progressive taxation." That's a lot different than saying the govt is taking dollars from the poor and giving them to the rich.

Steve Forbes makes $100 in dividends; he pays $15 in tax.

You earn $100 in salary; you pay $36 in tax.

Your tax is $36 because the G can't afford to tax everybody at a 15% rate. Do you really not get it?