So I had an interesting discussion this morning with a conservative, a nice fellow overall but he had some rather poor notions about certain things our government is doing. Now I can go on about the poor things our government is doing right now but that's a different article for a different day.
Our discussion grazed the topic of spending, debt and welfare programs, specifically Pell Grants. As a college student and someone who doesn't have a full time job yet I depend on Pell grants to help offset the costs of college when I graduate. While talking about these programs that help the poor we eventually made our way into taxes. I mentioned to him that Mitt Romney paid only 13% in taxes in the returns that he has released, and under the Romney/Ryan plan he proposed people like Mitt would only pay a whopping 0.82% in taxes. This is only for people making over 1 million dollars a year and by dropping capital gains taxes to zero. Ultimately benefiting the richest among us at the expense of everyone else.
He preceded to tell me that I was mad at Romney for his success, and that taxing rich people is a "punishment" for their success.
I'm always astounded how a larger tax rate on millions of dollars is a punishment, I'd love to be in the position to be punished the way the wealthy supposedly are. Give me 20 Million and then tax me at 50%, who cares I'd still have 10 MILLION dollars.
If you can't live comfortably off $10 Million then there is something wrong with you, and it's not the tax code.
And after he uttered that little right wing talking point gem, he said something along the lines of; "and that's why we need a flat tax, so everyone pays the same."
Everyone pays the same?
I've heard this argument before, and it always bugs me, simply because it's a distorted version of fairness that is so simple, so easy to believe but in reality makes no sense and doesn't account for the massive inequality it would create. Just like other right wing policies I know of.
A flat tax is not a fair tax, and it's not something that works in reality, at least not if you want a strong middle class. It makes the poor pay more, and the rich pay less. The rates may seem fair, but the impact is disproportionate. The rich will simply get richer and the poor, poorer.
Not only that but the loss of revenue from the rich paying less will not be made up by the broadening of the tax base. This will lead to massive cuts in social programs that also impact the poor as they are the ones who rely on those programs.
Talk about kicking people when they're down, all so Mitt Moneybags Romney can get a tax cut?
Fuck that.
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Showing posts with label Libertarians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libertarians. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Libertarians: GOP drones minus the culture war
It was only a matter of time until I came after the Ron Paul revolution. It's kind of sad because in quite a few ways libertarians are an ugly breed of both Liberals and Conservatives, shunned by Liberals and existing as the red headed stepchild of the conservative movement and yet, people my age seem to find them so endearing.
Libertarianism marries the best of the free thinking Liberal ideas of gay rights, anti-war, pro drug legalization, and get rid of big brother watching you and stay out my business sentiment. Because what Liberal enjoys being watched by the Government and harassed for no reason right? It also combines the worst of conservative top-down economics that have killed our economy, stalled wages, and polluted our air and water (see fracking) for 30 years.
The Libertarian premise is simple, cut taxes, cut government, let everyone do what they want, and somehow magically everyone becomes responsible, altruistic, wealthy and super happy.
Really?
Libertarianism is actually quite a selfish doctrine. The main tenet is about advancing the self and nothing else, no collective roads or bridges, everyone is out for themselves. If you Fuck up then its your fault, your responsibility, and if you need help that's just too bad because why should I give up what's mine to help you? Taxes are considered a punishment on everyone, and therefore should be as low as possible, for everyone.
Yeah, just what Exxon Mobil needs; another tax cut.
Libertarians believe that you alone have the power to make your own destiny as long as you work hard. If you succeed you did so because you were awesome, you work harder then others, you were smarter, and you had no one to thank for your success but you.
Let me a blow a hole in that load of BS
You do have the power to succeed, but you only learned what you needed to know to succeed by going to a school, maybe a public, maybe a private school. But you had a teacher that also went to school, spent his or her money on college to learn the things they ended up teaching you. Sometimes those teachers used their own money to provide supplies, sometimes they spent time with you after school to help you with those pesky geometry problems you had a hard time with. Sometimes they even inspired you.
Now we also cannot forget the school itself, built with the pure evil that is socialism. Its socialist buses picked you up from your house for free. The school had free water fountains, and heating in the winter. If you were poor you had free lunches. Remember those monkey bars you played on all the time? Socialism.
Odds are you lived on a street with a paved road that allowed you to get to your first job. You had electricity from power lines laid by the government, you had clean running water from public aquifers that you could drink and bathe in. You had inspectors making sure your food was not toxic or infected with E. Coli. If you own a business that uses the Internet, you should thank the Federal government for laying the foundation for it.
All of that stuff helped you survive, and thrive, so you could focus on learning and working hard to get where you are today. It's a collective effort, everyone gets the same basic foundation in which to succeed, of course people are more successful due to the effort they put in but we all have to pay for these simple things like roads, bridges, schools, firefighters, cops, teachers, food inspectors, power lines and all the other infrastructure we use.
The argument from Libertarians is "Why punish people for being successful." I ask, how is paying more taxes on having more money a punishment? If you have more money you're already better off than someone with less, so if we take a fair amount from someone with a larger income, and use it to help someone who has less live a better life, or become successful himself then what's the harm. It's not as if we ask millionaires to give up all their wealth in taxes, they're entitled to a large share of the wealth they earned.
But, and here's the but, the wealthy have more, and have used more resources to get wealthy. So why shouldn't they pay more? If you ask someone who makes 20 million a year to pay 5 million, they still have 15 million, that's an incredible amount of money. More than enough to survive extremely comfortably. Even if you ask them to pay 15 million out of 20 million in taxes, they still have 5 million. Compare that to the guy who makes $60,000 a year. That is over $4.4 Million a year more that the rich guy still has compared to the middle income guy. That is roughly 73 times more money a year that the wealthy person makes in the same amount of time. And that is even after taxing the shit of the rich guys initial 20 million.
Let that one sink in
After seeing those numbers I don't understand how anyone can see that a progressive tax system on the wealthy is punishment. Hell I wish I was rich, I'd gladly take that punishment if it meant I made 73 times more than a middle class wage earner!
Libertarianism is nothing but a right wing tool to bring in those people who uncomfortable with the GOPs culture war but want to continue the economic policies of more tax cuts for the wealthy and more deregulation. So why are so many kids my age enthralled at this? It's all about messaging, you tell these young college kids that they're awesome because they worked hard and tell them that they'd be rich if only the government would get out of their way. Throw in some stuff about Pot, and why they shouldn't have to help the lazy (poor) or the people who didn't save for retirement (seniors) and you get all these 20 somethings who can't wait to willingly fuck themselves over in the future because they think they know it all.
Well played Ayn Rand, well played.
Libertarianism marries the best of the free thinking Liberal ideas of gay rights, anti-war, pro drug legalization, and get rid of big brother watching you and stay out my business sentiment. Because what Liberal enjoys being watched by the Government and harassed for no reason right? It also combines the worst of conservative top-down economics that have killed our economy, stalled wages, and polluted our air and water (see fracking) for 30 years.
The Libertarian premise is simple, cut taxes, cut government, let everyone do what they want, and somehow magically everyone becomes responsible, altruistic, wealthy and super happy.
Really?
Libertarianism is actually quite a selfish doctrine. The main tenet is about advancing the self and nothing else, no collective roads or bridges, everyone is out for themselves. If you Fuck up then its your fault, your responsibility, and if you need help that's just too bad because why should I give up what's mine to help you? Taxes are considered a punishment on everyone, and therefore should be as low as possible, for everyone.
Yeah, just what Exxon Mobil needs; another tax cut.
Libertarians believe that you alone have the power to make your own destiny as long as you work hard. If you succeed you did so because you were awesome, you work harder then others, you were smarter, and you had no one to thank for your success but you.
Let me a blow a hole in that load of BS
You do have the power to succeed, but you only learned what you needed to know to succeed by going to a school, maybe a public, maybe a private school. But you had a teacher that also went to school, spent his or her money on college to learn the things they ended up teaching you. Sometimes those teachers used their own money to provide supplies, sometimes they spent time with you after school to help you with those pesky geometry problems you had a hard time with. Sometimes they even inspired you.
Now we also cannot forget the school itself, built with the pure evil that is socialism. Its socialist buses picked you up from your house for free. The school had free water fountains, and heating in the winter. If you were poor you had free lunches. Remember those monkey bars you played on all the time? Socialism.
Odds are you lived on a street with a paved road that allowed you to get to your first job. You had electricity from power lines laid by the government, you had clean running water from public aquifers that you could drink and bathe in. You had inspectors making sure your food was not toxic or infected with E. Coli. If you own a business that uses the Internet, you should thank the Federal government for laying the foundation for it.
All of that stuff helped you survive, and thrive, so you could focus on learning and working hard to get where you are today. It's a collective effort, everyone gets the same basic foundation in which to succeed, of course people are more successful due to the effort they put in but we all have to pay for these simple things like roads, bridges, schools, firefighters, cops, teachers, food inspectors, power lines and all the other infrastructure we use.
The argument from Libertarians is "Why punish people for being successful." I ask, how is paying more taxes on having more money a punishment? If you have more money you're already better off than someone with less, so if we take a fair amount from someone with a larger income, and use it to help someone who has less live a better life, or become successful himself then what's the harm. It's not as if we ask millionaires to give up all their wealth in taxes, they're entitled to a large share of the wealth they earned.
But, and here's the but, the wealthy have more, and have used more resources to get wealthy. So why shouldn't they pay more? If you ask someone who makes 20 million a year to pay 5 million, they still have 15 million, that's an incredible amount of money. More than enough to survive extremely comfortably. Even if you ask them to pay 15 million out of 20 million in taxes, they still have 5 million. Compare that to the guy who makes $60,000 a year. That is over $4.4 Million a year more that the rich guy still has compared to the middle income guy. That is roughly 73 times more money a year that the wealthy person makes in the same amount of time. And that is even after taxing the shit of the rich guys initial 20 million.
Let that one sink in
After seeing those numbers I don't understand how anyone can see that a progressive tax system on the wealthy is punishment. Hell I wish I was rich, I'd gladly take that punishment if it meant I made 73 times more than a middle class wage earner!
Libertarianism is nothing but a right wing tool to bring in those people who uncomfortable with the GOPs culture war but want to continue the economic policies of more tax cuts for the wealthy and more deregulation. So why are so many kids my age enthralled at this? It's all about messaging, you tell these young college kids that they're awesome because they worked hard and tell them that they'd be rich if only the government would get out of their way. Throw in some stuff about Pot, and why they shouldn't have to help the lazy (poor) or the people who didn't save for retirement (seniors) and you get all these 20 somethings who can't wait to willingly fuck themselves over in the future because they think they know it all.
Well played Ayn Rand, well played.
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