Over at Right Wing News today:
And:
An excerpt:
Do bees know they’re helping make flowers? No, they’re just trying to store up some food. Self interest.
The owner of a snack food manufacturing company decides to open a second location. Is he thinking about that decision’s effect on the broader economy? The new jobs, increased demand for labor and for raw materials, new business for his suppliers, and more work for the trucking companies?
Or is he just trying to line his own pockets?
I’ll bet on the latter. Still, by his actions, selfishly motivated as they may be, he has a positive effect on the economy and on other people.
And, in answer to a couple comments over there: yes, I do find it distasteful when CEOs get multi-million dollar payouts as their companies lay off thousands. But it’s not my money, so it’s not my business. The liberal “progressive” thought process says: we should stop that from happening! The liberal “progressive” thought process says: it’s not my money, but I’ll tell you what to do with it anyway!
Private property doesn’t exist in this worldview. You’re only allowed to have property to the extent that you do what your betters want you to do.
Trackbacks
- Tweets that mention Over at Right Wing News today: « The TrogloPundit -- Topsy.com
- What is Paying Your Fair Share? | The Lonely Conservative
Comments are closed.
Point of order: It is indeed your money, since you are paying more in taxes so that the Big Business and its CEO can have their lavish tax breaks, allowing them to make those huge profits.
In that case, Chris, I’ll be completely within my rights to demand drug testing for all who receive public assistance.
Including CEO’s, bank presidents, oil tycoons, etc.
I’d love to see the Koch brothers be subjected to those standards!
You know you’re proving my point, here. You’re equating not taking more in taxes with giving money away. Which means that your property isn’t your property. We’re just letting you hang onto it as long as you’re doing what we want.
Not at all, old boy. I simply know that there are no such things as Pixies who come out to plow our roads; police the mean streets; guard our convicts; fight our fires; take care of our elderly, disabled and abandoned and/or abused children; ensure that justice is upheld; defend our nation from enemies; protecting our rights from those that find them inconvenient to their pocketbook; oh, but the list does go on, doesn’t it?
Since there are no Pixies, that means that they have to be paid for. So why shouldn’t the rich and the companies that equally benefit from these services pay their fair share? Just because they’re rich? Hardly.
That’s exactly right. There are no pixies. We want to pay for those things, we need money. We need people to make money. Lots of money, so we can have tax revenues. So we should encourage the kinds of activities that make that happen!
Exactly, and concentrating the wealth in the hands of the few is not the way to do that! In case you hadn’t noticed, trickle down didn’t even trickle and it was under Bush/Cheney’s tax cuts that we had the Great Recession. Perhaps putting the money in the hands of the working class who would actually spend the money would get the economy moving better, don’t you think?
Exactly. You decide who gets what. You decide whether somebody has too much, or whether they’re doing the right things with what they have. And if you decide they aren’t, then you take it away and give it to somebody else.
“…putting the money in the hands of…”
You didn’t “put” anything anywhere. We didn’t. If we start, we remove the whole idea of achievement. The only achievement that matters when we do things your way is achieving the goodwill of the people who make the decisions.
By not having them pay their fair share of taxes, either through tax breaks or other “gifts” it surely does put the money in their hands. And now the working class has to make up for their share, even as they are being attacked by those benefiting from the workers pulling double duty on taxes, paying their own as well as the rich’s.
If the rich paid their fair share, there would be no fiscal crisis. It’s really rather simple.
No, it doesn’t “put” money in their hands. It doesn’t take more money out of their hands.
I’d love to see the math on that last statement. At the very least, you’d have to finally own up to what you think the “fair share” is. I’ll let you tell the poor and middle class that your idea of “fair share” means higher prices for them.
No? If they aren’t paying what they are supposed to, that is putting it in their hands, whether it is through tax cuts, TIFs, grants, or any number of gifties.
A group of wealthy land developers who want to build a retail strip mall in Wauwatosa are receiving a $5M grant from the feds, a $12M TIF from the city and a two year interest free loan from the county. And that’s just one small example.
And who do you think is paying for these gifts from the gubmint? Here’s a clue, it ain’t them or any other rich fat cat.
As for the “higher prices,” that is misleading. I have to pay taxes. What I don’t have to do is go to the manufacturer who tries to pass his taxes on to the consumer. I can either buy that product from someone who is more interested in my business than his profits, or I can just go without. That’s how the free market is supposed to work, right?
Ah, so now we’re talking about grants. We were talking about taxes before. You’ll find quite a bit of agreement in conservative circles about grants. That’s a transfer of wealth.
But grants and taxes are different things. A grant transfers money from one person to another. Tax cuts merely leave the money where it was to begin with.
If you don’t see the difference, then that is more evidence for my point: you believe that all income is community-owned, which means all wealth must be community-owned, which means that all property is community-owned. It means there is no such thing as private property.
Please clarify why you feel that the rich and the companies do not need to pay their fair share of taxes, leaving it to the middle and lower classes to carry the relative bulk? What gives them the right to perpetuate the oligarchy?
When did I ever say they don’t need to pay their fair share? Nobody’s arguing about that. The question is: what is “their fair share?” And why is what they’re paying now not fair?
Please clarify exactly what “share” will satisfy you. How much should “the rich and the companies” be paying? How much more should they pay in order for you to pronounce it fair?
That answer is already in the law, buried under all the exceptions, tax breaks, and what not. Hence the tax cuts that some on the right were trying to argue was the actual rate, as opposed to the modified.
For example, if the social security tax wasn’t capped, there would be no concern or conversation regarding its longevity. And why should I be taxed on 100% of my income for that, but the CEO only gets taxed a very small percentage of his/hers?
My pingback is right up there, check out the chart. I also wrote this:
“In reality, it’s the lower classes that aren’t paying their fair share. And many of them don’t pay federal or state income taxes at all, while receiving benefits above and the beyond the protections offered to all of us by police and fire departments, road crews, sanitation workers, and the military. The rich and middle class are paying for their health care, their homes, their food, their heat, their children’s education, and in some cases even things like broadband internet connections. Yet you’ll still hear people saying the rich don’t pay their fair share.”
And no, troll, I’m not going to stick around to debate you. You’re annoying.
The rich also make exponentially more money than the poor. If the system was balanced, many of the things the right whines about wouldn’t be necessary.
Also, your condescending elitist attitude might explain your loneliness. Therapy could help you overcome both of those difficulties.
That answer is already in the law…
You mean the 35% top marginal rate? You’d be satisfied with that? We may be closer than I thought.
Lonely’s right, though: if you’re worried about a “balanced” system, the top 50% of taxpayers pay about 95% of the income taxes, and the top 5% pay nearly 60%. Even considering your disdain for “the rich,” how can you say that’s unbalanced in favor of the rich?
And look at the percentage of the wealth the rich hold, the way it is still disproportionate and then get back to me.