-your msg paragraph 1-
I figure that if a politician makes a general statement, like saying he wants to lower taxes, as long as that statement applies to the majority of the people he is addressing, he is being truthful. if he then goes on to further clarify his statement, which obama has, then there is nothing wrong with that. if 95% of the public will receive a net tax decrease, then that sounds like one heck of a tax cut to me. as you noted, 30% or so of people pay no net federal income tax after they file, receiving back what they already paid and some receive a credit beyond that, but that still doesn’t mean they paid no taxes. the credit is often to compensate for the other types of federal taxes, sales taxes, etc. the principles apply the same for some people and corporations who are immensely wealthy and use tax laws to not pay any net federal tax or receive credits. i personally find both a little disturbing.

who’s money are many people getting? well if your not in that high upper tier like the majority of us are not, we are getting their money, and then a bit of china’s money via bond debt and some corporate tax receipts. not many of us actually pay more in tax than we get back in benefits, and some of us do much better than others. you could say these tax cuts try to equalize the tax credits amongst some populations. i don’t get a gov’t back pension – or many of the benefits of gov’t – so this break could help fund one for me, although i’m not likely to see much back from the policy documents i’ve read ;( boo-hoo for me.

both mccain and obama, along with all politicians use the term tax cut, even when it results in a credit back to the filer, so the term is valid. mccain has policies like his 5,000/2,500 health tax cut regardless of income or his doubling of the child exemption to $7,000 – a credit for a person who pays no taxes. sadly in mccain’s case, he hasn’t quite made the case for fiscally sound cuts as he doesn’t have any accompanying increases to balance them, unlike obama who is honest about the need to raise tax receipts.

-paragraph two-
sadly, joe the plumber is just another example of the republican fear mongering machine… vote for us or terrorists win or taxes go through the roof or gov’t goes crazy. mr joe the plumber has said he has never made anywhere near the amount needed to see a tax increase under obama’s plan, and that includes if he bought the business he worked for. joe would see a nice tax decrease. joe was confused by mccains rhetoric believing that a business worth $250,000 was the same as a business that generates $250,000 a year profit. i find it dishonest that mccain keeps using joe as an example when joe doesn’t meet the examples qualifications. and on a tangent, joe would currently benefit from mccain’s health plan as obama would exempt small businesses and not offer assistance to his income level, but if he did buy the business, he would then be under obama’s graces again.

as far as helping the economy, i’m not sure that is what obama has ever said about his tax cuts for people. he has said that the working middle and lower class have been hurt by the poor economy and that in order to help the people, he is going to cut their taxes. now whether that helps out the economy or not, i’d say it is a toss up. does the economy care whether one person making above $250,000 spends that extra tax or if several people making below that amount spend it considering the economy gets the money regardless. i think one could argue that it benefits the economy when those having trouble receive help, but it is certainly not a cure.

-paragraph three-
as noted in another reply, pure capitalism is not to be found here. as i noted in a reply, you experience the rewards of socialism daily as part of a monopolisitc closed union shop. what is wrong with obama wanting to spread that wealth around to others who can’t be apart of that shop? i understand people wanting the wealth to stay spread the way it is, but i don’t agree that it is right.

-and now your reply-
having read many a bargaining agreement, i understand completely how your retirement plan is setup and how the public funds the majority of it and backs it as well.

i don’t mean it to be ugly personal i guess one would call it, but expressing personal opinions or beliefs is personal for the most part. at not point was it meant to be abusive.

and i’ve read all the resources linked in this msg and other msgs. i find the blarg interesting as it often brings up articles far adrift from mainstream media, and it is good to keep abreast of the propaganda from all sides.

-and my aside-

i’d be real interested in reading your unions suggested voting come this november if you’ve received your pamphlet/material yet in the mail. i found my step father’s booklet from his local a fun read.

As for the personal nature I was referring to…you don’t know me, so don’t assume that you can discuss my life choices. And your understanding of my retirement is dubious at best. Every month there are hundreds of dollars missing from my paycheck that go towards the retirement system. Don’t be upset that it’s a better system than social security. Like Andrew said, if the pay wasn’t good enough, I’d leave my “unfair union job” for something in the private sector. And I’ve never “censored” a post in the 4+ years of this site, so again, don’t make it personal.

But despite all you’ve said, I think you’ve missed the entire point of this post. You’ve gone on and on in two long comments about a bunch of random topics, but have said little about the original post. The original post was about how Obama wants to “spread the wealth around.” If you’re fine with that, just say so and move on. Convoluted paragraphs about unions and Iraq add nothing to the discussion. If you’d like to argue why you think socialist positions have worked in the past feel free, but otherwise it’s just painful to read your scatterbrain arguments. Andrew cited some excellent sources that you could have read, but instead you just gloss over them and move on.

Even at the upper levels of management compensation might be considered extravagant, but you have to be able to recruit talent from the private sector. The same can be said about teachers. If you reduce the overall compensation of teachers then you risk losing your most qualified employees to better paying private sector jobs.

I don’t think any of us approve of the way Bush has dealt with spending during his terms and the Congress is equally at fault. Lower-taxes-and-spend politicians are just as bad as raise-taxes-and-spend politicians. I want a lower-taxes-and-lower-spending system of government, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, especially with the Republican party’s move to the left of its conservative ideals.

and there was nothing personal or attacking about my statement but i understand the truth can hurt and lead to censorship. i was merely stating facts. being ‘your’ blarg, relating comments to yourself seems appropriate. i would never myself participate in a profession in which i find the labor practices and tax extortion policies despicable. i’ve found myself employed in which the employers engaged in practices i found unethical even though i benefited, and i left after trying to change those policies without success. part of the problem we all face in any of these discussion is people who actually walk the walk of their talk.

and from your previous statements, i have a few more economics classes than yourself, although it makes neither of us a genius as far a policy goes. it is fun to just demand tax decreases or that they remain the same, but as you have noted, your big gov’t prez has charged us into a crater that has to be paid for. how exactly can it be paid for without raising taxes? if 1/3 of the population pays no net federal taxes already and earn so little that any tax increase would generate almost nothing or require other benefits to sustain thme, how can they then pay for it? i don’t like they they don’t have the money either and that i have to foot the bill as well, but i understand that sound economics doesn’t consist of spending half a trillion over budget or adding 4 trillion over 8 years without some consequences. clearly those numbers indicate that current policies are ineffective.

again, obama has said little to nothing about raising any corporate taxes which negates any claims of the such, and with local gov’t often kicking back any taxes to attract corporations, he has little power to enact any real net effect. companies that have fled this country have done so not because of taxes, but because of the cost of labor amongst other reasons; they then flee those countries for even cheaper labor and so on. taxes are only a small part of that labor cost and nearly all of it is born by the employee. this only applies to certain types of businesses though. most businesses and individuals can not move and remain in business due to the nature of their business, ie welcome to kaiser permanente san francisco of taipan.

as far as the estate tax goes, there has been no indication that before it was temporarily repelled, that people were keeping tons of money overseas to avoid it and have since moved it back. heck just arguing that the repel works means that they were not keeping their money overseas as the repel wouldn’t affect their already overseas money. the only hard numbers we have seen come from the repel is the budget deficits dramatic increase afterwards, a strong indication that those tax receipts were needed.

increasing taxes is also not a sign of increasing gov’t. redistribution already occurs, changing the numbers applied to the distribution doesn’t grow gov’t any if it just applied to tax relief. i’m a fan of less gov’t, i even voted for W the first time accepting his promises which turned out to be lies, just like his father and ‘no new taxes’. i know, i should have learned ;(

progressively high personal income taxes does not do much to stymie growth as the individual still gains. there of course is a point at which some people see no return and will strive no further, 99% would seem well past that point. lower taxes are great in my opinion as long as they go along with a balanced budget, minimal debt, and then an equal lessening in expenses. so if the next gov’t wants to keep the bush tax cuts in effect, they should do so in an economically sound way, and include in the policy the accompanying cuts in spending that match those tax decreases, plus additional cuts to bring the budget back from deficit.

so to clarify, a politician can only be demonstrating christian principles if he directs all his gov’t laws and policies through a church? so to help the poor is not christian unless you let the church dole it out or let the individual decide who to give it too? since church and state is seperate as far as our constitution goes, can any politician demonstrate christian principles in action then? i guess they can make speeches, but actions would seem limited. i don’t understand this so i’m asking here.

and did you see bush finally negotiated a losing strategy in iraq with a withdrawl timetable? sad how it is evil when one side attempts to work toward the obvious but perfectly fine when the other side does the same thing.

and my apologies if you feel like i ignore your responses, it is not intentional. i just forget to come back. not really a format to carry a proper dialog. after a couple replies it seems like i shouldn’t keep clogging your msgs with my thoughts, like i have any more right or knowledge to than anyone else.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/aug/28/ireland.banking

Large companies have been lobbying the UK government to revise the whole corporation tax system and threatening to relocate if this is not done.

“private socialist style gov’t retirement”, how can something be private and run by the government? Maybe he was referring to CalSTRS. Guess he wouldn’t like the fact that I don’t pay into Social Security, but the County’s “private socialist style gov’t retirement” LACERA plan. I would love the ability to opt out of each completely and just save the money myself. I don’t want a government safety net, but I guess the government thinks they know what is best for me.

I’ve said before that I think giving to the poor (redistributing wealth) is fine, but there is nothing Christian about the government doing it. That takes out the personal and spiritual aspects of giving, and that’s not how the bible shows it should be done.

Have you been hiding somewhere? What do you mean they can’t go anywhere else? Labor and other costs have already sent a lot of stuff overseas, or did you not notice that everything is made in china? Not to mention people moving their money overseas when someone like Obama would probably be OK with having the death tax reinstated.

If people are going to do the same thing no matter what, we might as well raise taxes to 99%! Really though, you should take an economics class. If peoples taxes are higher, thus they have less money, that means less money will get put back into the economy. Instead of the “wealthy” redistributing wealth through private means (which is effective), now Obama thinks he should redistribute it through the government (which is ineffective). Not to mention simply giving away money like Obama wants to do does nothing to make people work harder, where as when the wealthy invest and spend money and create jobs, people have to work hard and do something to earn it.

What the heck is a private socialist style gov’t retirement? I don’t know why I bother asking questions though, because you make your ludicrous statements and then never come back to answer anyone…