It's Not Republicans and Democrats Anymore

[Brown Warrior]

The 400 richest people in America control more wealth than the bottom 40%.

They paid an average of 16% in taxes.

Your government wants to cut spending that benefits that lower 40%.

Rather than tax those 400 people... and the other 3% making over 250,000/year... at what they were paying in the 1990s, our most prosperous time.

You're government isn't in charge. They work for those 400 people. And to a lesser extent, those 3%.

"Trickle down," or "supply side economics," is the worst joke you ever laughed at. You don't believe in it anymore. Deregulation and its wake ruined it for you.

It's over. There are no Democrats. There are no Republicans. It's a Wall Street Government... and finally everybody seems to be getting it.

That actually makes me happy.

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by Brown Warrior

The 400 richest people in America control more wealth than the bottom 40%. They paid an average of 16% in taxes.

Are you on drugs or just lazy?

The richest contributors to the US treasury make up more than US citizens, but excuse me for calling BS on your beliefs.

WTF? Are you kidding me? Poor people in the US fill the tax coffers? The majority of poor people pay a higher % of taxes? Did Ted Rall tell you this in your Sunday comics?

Jesus BW you have such shitty guidance. Whatever you're reading is keeping you in the dark.

[hiwaygal]

of particular interest:

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

"We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

The vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, and excise taxes on gasoline, aviation, alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property.

[hiwaygal]

And something more recent (since I realized after I posted that the article was from 2010):

There are so many breaks that 45 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax for 2010, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

and

More than half of the nation's tax revenue came from the top 10 percent of earners in 2007. More than 44 percent came from the top 5 percent. Still, the wealthy have access to much more lucrative tax breaks than people with lower incomes.

Obama wants the wealthy to pay so "the amount of taxes you pay isn't determined by what kind of accountant you can afford."

[Brown Warrior]

It's amazing, really. When defending continuation of the Bush Tax Cuts instead of returning to 1990s tax levels for the wealthy (they did fine, we all did better as a nation), politicians will say that the economy would suffer... although it didn't in the 1990s. And they'll say it's unfair for them to pay 50% taxes... when they only pay 16% on the average.

Instead, they propose cutting deep into programs like Medicare and Social Security... without so much as a compromise in the upper bracket tax. The tax code has been evolving to favor the rich for 25 years now, creating a dissonance between haves and have nots that's wider than at any point since the 1920s, wider than any other First World Nation.

Veg, you need to watch Inside Job. It earned that Academy Award and has me reading and digging. When 1% of your population controls more wealth than the bottom 50% and you're cutting educational budgets and programs aimed at preventing a developing Feudal System? When our government can't even regulate the derivatives that blew up the world economy and cost 30 million American jobs?

It's a Wall Street Government. Period. The very, very rich are in charge and Obama's as impotent as all his predecessors. It's absolutely galling.

And don't forget: Teachers are rich. People who make 250,000 are not. Holy shit, people Revolt already.

[Legacy Fan]

I love how you blindly equate "our most prosperous time" with slightly higher taxes for the rich. As if there is a direct causation.

Stick with QB evals.

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by Brown Warrior

When 1% of your population controls more wealth than the bottom 50% and you're cutting educational budgets and programs aimed at preventing a developing Feudal System?

You know what prevents that system? Jobs, not government. We're borrwing to pay for discretionary spending. We're borrowing to pay for government projects and programs. We are not investing in anything. The government should be getting less of my money not more.

How in the world did you ever get into your head that tax cuts are bad, and more spending is better, especially in the wake of all this economic BS? How?

Not everything you say is wrong - I don't mind taxing individuals more at the top - but you seem to regard riches as something to fear.

There are people at the bottom. I was at the bottom. We all don't start at the bottom. Giving money to the government isn't going to change that, and it better never get to that point here. Oh wait, it already has happened here.

You're upset that rich folks make too much money and people are begging on the street. Welcome to big boy rules.

I notice you do NOT mention the burden that illegals have on the system, or mothers with 6 kids on welfare. You blame the rich people.

Matter of perspective. Your don't jive with mine. At least I don't pass mine off as somehow being highly evolved ideas that you haven't caught up with yet. My ideas come from the men who wrote the constitution of the United States. This document and its contents are not a work of fiction so I am sure you haven't read it.

People have hard times, some worse than others. The government is not the answer.

[Vegasdogg]

Interesting view from a sampling of cities - here is a brief excerpt of a far longer article.

If true, then recovery will be problematic and long term at best.

Economic Collapse writes: The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading for the next Great Depression. The talking heads in the mainstream media love to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn't take a genius to see what is happening to the U.S. economic system. All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the "rust belt" and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27761.html


Somebody here - I think it was BW - said all indicators point to a heathly economy?

You need to read more.

[Vegasdogg]

The article talks about Camden, NJ and Detroit, MI. Here is the take on California:

Vallejo, California (And Virtually The Rest Of The State Of California)
Almost the entire state of California is an economic disaster zone. Austerity measures are being implemented in city after city as tax revenues have nosedived.
The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article that describes the brutal austerity that has been implemented in Vallejo, California....

Vallejo is still in bankruptcy. The police force has shrunk from 153 officers to 92. Calls for any but the most serious crimes go unanswered. Residents who complain about prostitutes or vandals are told to fill out a form. Three of the city’s firehouses were closed. Last summer, a fire ravaged a house in one of the city’s better neighborhoods; one of the firetrucks came from another town, 15 miles away. Is this America’s future?
Sadly, that is what the future of America is going to look like. Public services are being slashed all over the nation due to budget crunches.

Unless there is a major jobs recovery, the situation in California is going to continue to degenerate. The truth is that the state of California needs millions and millions of new jobs just to get back to "normal". For example, near the end of last year it was reported that 24.3 percent of the residents of El Centro, California were unemployed. Not only that, as of the end of last year the number of people unemployed in the state of California was approximately equivalent to the entire populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

Businesses are closing in California at an astounding pace. At one point last year it was reported that in the area around Sacramento, California there was one closed business for every six that were still open.

As a result of all of this, home prices in many areas of California have completely fallen off a cliff. For example, the average home in Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.

California also had more foreclosure filings that any other U.S. state in 2010. The 546,669 total foreclosure filings during the year means that over 4 percent of all the housing units in the state of California received a foreclosure filing at some point during 2010.

Sadly, things don't look like they are going to turn around in California any time soon. Forbes recently compiled a list entitled "Cities Where The Economy May Get Worse".
Six of the top seven spots were held by cities in California.

California is becoming a very frightening place. When you combine high unemployment with unchecked illegal immigration what you get is rampant poverty.
20 percent of the residents of Los Angeles County are now receiving public aid of one form or another.

In particular, the number of children that are considered to be in need of public assistance is truly scary.

Incredibly, 60 percent of all the students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.

Poverty and illegal immigration have also caused a tremendous health care crisis in the state. The hordes of illegal aliens taking advantage of "free" medical care at hospital emergency rooms have caused dozens of hospitals across the state of California to completely shut down. As a result, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

The bozos in Sacramento keep passing hundreds of new laws in an attempt to "fix" the state, but the truth is that for the poorest residents of the state all of those new laws don't make a shred of difference.

The following is how Victor Davis Hansen describes what he saw during his recent tour of the "forgotten areas of central California"....

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World . There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business - rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections - but apparently none of that applies out here.

Hansen also says that he observed that people in these areas are doing whatever they can to get by....
At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.

In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when "food stamps" were embarrassing bulky coupons).

Are you frightened yet?

You know what they say - "as goes California, so goes the nation".

What is happening in California now is eventually going to come to your area.
Right now California is also having a huge problem with gangs. Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country, and those gangs are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year.
But instead of ramping up to fight crime and fight illegal immigration, police forces all over California are being cut back.

For example, because of extreme budget cuts and police layoffs, Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that there are a number of crimes that his department simply will no longer respond to due to a lack of resources. The following is a partial list of the crimes that police officers in Oakland will no longer be responding to....

•burglary
•theft
•embezzlement
•grand theft
•grand theft: dog
•identity theft
•false information to peace officer
•required to register as sex or arson offender
•dump waste or offensive matter
•loud music
•possess forged notes
•pass fictitious check
•obtain money by false voucher
•fraudulent use of access cards
•stolen license plate
•embezzlement by an employee
•extortion
•attempted extortion
•false personification of other
•injure telephone/power line
•interfere with power line
•unauthorized cable tv connection
•vandalism

Not that Oakland wasn't already a mess before all this, but now how long do you think it will be before total chaos and anarchy reigns on the streets of Oakland?
Today, Oakland is considered the 5th most violent city in the United States.
Will it soon become the most violent?

But Oakland is not the only major California city that is facing these kinds of issues.
Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: "Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops."

Already the police force in Stockton has been stripped down to almost nothing.
A while back, the Stockton Police Department dropped this bombshell....
"We absolutely do not have any narcotics officers, narcotics sergeants working any kind of investigative narcotics type cases at this point in time."

Do you think drug dealers will be flocking to Stockton after they hear that?
California was once the envy of the world.

Now it is becoming one gigantic hellhole.

During one recent 23 year period, the state of California built 23 prisons but just one university.

So is there any hope for California?

No, unfortunately there is not.

In another article, I wrote about some of the reasons why millions of people have been leaving California for good....

Meanwhile, the standard of living in California is going right into the toilet. Housing values are plummeting. Unemployment has risen above 20 percent in many areas of the state. Crime and gang activity is on the rise even as police budgets are being hacked to the bone. The health care system is an absolute disaster. At this point California has the fewest emergency rooms per million people out of all 50 states. While all of this has been going on, the state legislature in Sacramento has been very busy passing hundreds of new laws that are mostly about promoting one radical agenda or another. The state government has become so radically anti-business that it is a wonder that any businesses have remained in the state. It seems like the moving vans never stop as an endless parade of businesses and families leave California as quickly as they can.

But this is not just a "California thing". The truth is that what is happening in California, in Detroit, in Camden and in hundreds of other communities is also going to happen where you live.

The U.S. economy is slowly dying.

Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.

People are getting desperate. There are ten percent fewer middle class jobs than there were a decade ago and the competition for good jobs has become insane. More than 44 million Americans are now on food stamps and that number grows every single month.

Millions more American families fall into poverty every single year.

It is time to face the truth about what is happening to America. Our economy is not growing and becoming stronger. Rather, the cold, hard reality of the matter is that our economy is very sick and it is dying. The seemingly boundless prosperity that we have enjoyed for decade after decade is coming to an end. Our communities are being transformed into absolute hellholes.

Those that are telling you that the U.S. economy will soon be better than ever are lying to you. The U.S. economy is going to go down and it is going to go down hard.

[Vegasdogg]

Yes.

Lets spend more.
Lets tax more.
Lets expand the government.
Lets borrow more to feed the government.

[hiwaygal]

The Federal Government should have ONE mission (IMO) - homeland security and defense. IMO, the states are quite capable of handling damn near everything else as they see fit.

I'd like to know what you all think should or should not be the responsibility of the Federal Government.

[SoCalBrownsFan]

Originally Posted by hiwaygal

The Federal Government should have ONE mission (IMO) - homeland security and defense. IMO, the states are quite capable of handling damn near everything else as they see fit.

Growing up, I always heard this about government from my Dad, and I agree. Government needs to stay out of people's business. Less government is better.