WTF...OMFG...Suddenly it all Changes when Your Own Ox is the one being Gored!

https://www.vox.com/2019/1/10/18171912/tucker-carlson-fox-news-populism-conservatism-trump-gop

For decades minorities have struggled to deal with endemic poverty largely as a result of stagnant wages and the lack of opportunities to improve their situation. Whites have blamed minorities for making the "poor choice" of being born into poverty.

Now we discover that the exact same reason that minorities have fallen into poverty and cannot get out is NOW causing whites to fall into poverty that they cannot escape.


Did whites "make the poor choices" that resulted in their becoming impoverished?


To be brutally blunt, yes, they did make very poor choices IMO!


They CHOSE to support the GOP and give tax cuts to the wealthy that came out of their own wages, bonuses and increases.

They CHOSE to believe the bovine excrement about "free markets" and "tax cuts create jobs",

They CHOSE to believe the the GOP's nefarious canards about illegal immigrants being responsible for their growing plight.

They CHOSE to elect a SHYSTER who spouted all of those lies about illegal immigrants and then went right ahead and gave HIMSELF a massive tax cut at their expense.


And now, when they are at the bottom of this deep hole that they have dug for themselves they have another CHOICE.


They can either keep on digging it deeper and deeper as they have been doing for the last couple of decades.

OR they can STOP making those poor choices and do as Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter are recommending and REVERSE what caused their problem in the first place.


The Progressives have already taken the path that Carlson and Coulter are now advocating. If white Americans want a better future for themselves, their children and grandchildren they need to RAISE TAXES on the wealthy, spend those taxes on rebuilding our infrastructure and expand Medicare to cover ALL Americans.

When it is your own ox that is being gored the situation looks very different to when it is someone else's. These problems are no longer just the problems of minorities. They are the problems of ALL Americans and We the People need to UNITE in order to take back our nation.

This is NOT a partisan issue.

This is a HUMANITARIAN issue and We are stronger UNITED than divided.

Let's put aside our petty differences and work together to rebuild the strength of all Americans.

Your thoughts?

 

Free markets do create jobs, high taxes only spread wealth if the spending in question 2/3 military, 15 to 20% infrastructure, and 5% social and the rest of the world economies are in a shambles.Other wise they concentrate wealth and move it overseas. Your total tax burden cannot be higher than the world average and should be lower if you want your economy to grow. In short if your goal is to concentrate money in the hands of corporate and federal bureaucracies raise taxes.

 

Just wanted to send out a heads up to the following members who might find this interesting since it goes towards the motivations we all have for reaching compromises.

@JakeStarkey @Seth Bullock @Kode @Adfundum @Pollycy @perdidochas @Aleksander Ulyanov

 

I have said many times on this board that I am a conservative, but a conservative by my own definition of the word. It doesn't conform with what I'll call "Washington Beltway" conservatism in a number of ways. Most particularly, my "conservatism" doesn't conform on economics and taxation. So Tucker's monologue is encouraging to me because he is a well known conservative talk show host showing independence in thought, rather than simply spewing the Beltway Conservatives talking points.

On economics and taxation, a few bullet points on things I believe ...

• I believe in a balanced federal budget. If we spend it, we pay for it. And paying for it must be done by those who can afford to pay for it.
• There should be no personal income tax liability on the first $70,000 of income. For each dependent, add $10,000 to that. So, for example, if a you have a family of four with a stay-at-home mom, income tax liability would start after $100,000 worth of income.
• If your company produces its product in the U.S., there should be no taxes on the company/corporate income. If your company produces its product in a foreign country, tax that corporate income.
• I do not believe that a high rate of taxation on upper incomes is bad for the economy. The 1950s were boom times for the U.S. and the taxation rate for the high incomes was very high.
• I do believe that our borders should be secure, and our internal immigration policies and enforcement should be robust. Working people are not helped by a glut of workers. When workers are in short supply, businesses compete for them, and that is good for workers.
• I believe the income cap for Social Security taxes should be lifted, and the age for retirement on the "full formula" should be rolled back to 65.
• I believe that if you work, your employer should provide medical insurance for you and your dependents.
• If you want national health care insurance, we should implement that slowly and incrementally, and it must be fully paid for. A good place to start would be with our present Medicare recipients, making Medicare the sole provider (eliminating the commercial supplemental insurance providers), making their health care basically free and unlimited, and fully paying for it by raising the Medicare taxes on incomes of $70k and above. If we as a nation cannot agree to take that one small step, then advocating for a national system that covers everyone is not even worth talking about.

Miscellaneous

• Members of Congress must be term limited. I don't think people have any conception of the corrosive effect that a career-minded, permanent Congress has upon the U.S. It is THE reason for gridlock; it is THE reason Congress doesn't want to do anything, and it is THE reason Congress is so easily corrupted. You put those three things together, and the lack of term limits is THE reason Congress doesn't listen to you and doesn't work for you.
  
• Congress should never allow the President to deploy troops into hostilities or attack another country without first taking a vote and specifically authorizing it (excepting immediate self-defense).
• Rich, middle, or poor, black, brown, or white, we are ALL Americans. We are only as strong as our weakest link. And we should always be willing to give a "hand up" to our fellow Americans. This is, actually, an act of patriotism.

Seth

 

Two problems with that. First, free markets don't tend to actually exist. Second, we wouldn't want them to exist if they could (see the extensive economic analysis into market failure).

It isn't about high taxes though, is it? For example, more progressive taxation can reduce taxation further on the lower income deciles. Also high taxes are a must. Without it, you're giving a free-for-all when it comes to economic rents (and that is why neoliberalism has engineered such highly inefficient income inequalities that subsequently harm economic growth)

Losing rent seekers isn't a bad thing!

You're adopting 'race to the bottom' rhetoric. That merely guarantees corporate welfare.

 

If we've never had them how can they be said to fail? Every body is a rent seeker in one fashion or the other. That's one of those stupid terms that come out of marxist leninist idelogy that have a meaning that pretends to ignore human nature and pretends that those striving to succeed economically are all rat bastards who need to be hung. real income inequality happens only when government tries to fix things total economy equality is what happens when the government succeeds beyond it's wildest dreams and everyone becomes poor except the ******* running the government who almost always makes sure his nest is properly lined what ever happens to everyone else's.

 

You have to ask? Even the market lovers have to acknowledge reality!

Absolute garbage! Rent seeking refers to inefficient profit. It requires very particular factors to be relevant.

This is knuckle dragging grunt. Rent seeking is part of orthodox economics. Why are you so unaware of the economics 'used' by the right wing?

 

Your 4th bullet point is irrational and illogical and does not reflect the real conditions from 1948 to 1960. Please see my more detailed response to the op.

 

The term rent seeking is used by main stream economists when necessary to debunk the supercilious notion. Inefficient profits only exist when government screws up and creates unintended consequences. Tax shelters are a classic example of this sort of government mandated screwiness.
So free markets always fail so there are no free markets to fail so they can't fail. Yet there was almost no government control of US markets from 1819 to 1900 and economic growth averaged nearly six percent per annum going up against the British trade empire while in your halcyon time of the 1950's we average 3% economic growth when we were in essence the only game in town

 

You sound clueless again! Its used to refer to aspects such as asymmetric information and market concentration.

You do love to make bobbins up! Its capitalism that delivers rent, but let's blame the government...

Right wingers don't even comprehend right wing economics. Weird.

 

Tje point sir as you define it seem to be that all profits are inefficient which is an absolutely ludicrous statement. Why are taxes not the same as rent? In the grand scheme of things what are taxes other than the rent paid to operate legally in the country? And no I don't operate by other people's ridiculous shibboleths created in the main to justify the use of government power to financially penalize it's foes and use the money gained there by to enslave others to the government teat.

 

A big government-loving conservative who wants to shove his morals down the throats of everyone else? That sounds like all conservatives, and leftists, to me. The only quibble is over which morals everyone should be forced to conform to and how much of other people's money ought to be spent accomplishing that.

 

You continue to show your ignorance of basic economics. That makes a distinction between efficient and inefficient profit. Why are you ignorant of economics? Does that account for your politics?

More ignorance of Economics 101! Taxes are often efficiency enhancing (e.g. reaction to externalities such as pollution).

You end in blubber. Isn't that the reality of right wing economic rant? Its based on ignoring economic sense.

 

All one has to do is look at the state of California. No "rant" needed. Horrific debt, highest poverty in America, out of control welfare abuses, illegal aliens running amok and driving up further debt. Left wing socialism is scourge.

 

Well, I looked at your responses to the OP. Gary, we have got to stop deficit spending. There is only one way to do that, and that is to tax the highest incomes at a high rate. Then, I propose that we tie those rates to presence of or absence of the annual budget deficit. So you see, if the government runs a surplus, those highest earners get a tax reduction. If it runs a deficit, their taxes rise.

Now ... Think! How would that affect Congress and their wealthy donors?

Wouldn't they then have a motive to cut out waste and control spending? Hm?

Maybe all of a sudden that next useless war of choice in the middle east wouldn't seem like such a good ******n idea, now would it?

 

There is no way to stop deficit spending as long as congress cannot exercise self control. As long as they can borrow money at whim they will continue to spend more than they take in no matter what you do and they are the ones that would have to restrict their own willingness to use tax dollars to buy votes. And I can tell you exactly when that will happen, the 12th of never or right after the people themselves are no longer susceptible to such bribes which is roughly the same time frame. The feds right now have spent more on the war on poverty and feeding their corporate donors than they have on every war this country has ever fought combined.
One other thing you might want to take note of, as of this minute you could reduce the military budget to zero and we'd still be running a deficit.

Oh and one other thing, at current levels of US federal spending Bill Gates entire worth would last the federal government less than a day, his yearly earnings and hour, You cannot tax your way out of this the rich ain't that rich.

 

Externalties? Then explain why the most polluted places in the world exist where the government ran everything? If self interest won't keep people from poisoning themselves and others all the taxes in the world won't either.

What my last post ended with was reality that you either cannot or will not address it simply reveals the holes in your logic.

 

Gary, I share your low opinion of Congress, and I totally agree with you that there is no discipline to their spending.

But I would assert to you that Congress actually does answer to somebody. Unfortunately, it is not ordinary citizens. You know and I know that they answer to the very wealthy. Some of them are, in fact, the very wealthy, like Nancy Pelosi, for example, whose net worth is about $100,000,000.

Now if the very wealthy were carrying the weight of Congress' deficit spending, what do you think would happen? Would they spend even more? I don't think so. The very wealthy would be telling Congress to stop spending so much, and Congress would have no choice but to obey. And those very wealthy people would be warning Congress that if they didn't obey, they would throw their support behind people who would. What would happen is that mysteriously and miraculously, Congress, on both sides of the aisle, would become a bunch of budget hawks. I can virtually guarantee it because I understand what makes them tick. With all due respect, Gary, the logic is solid.

As things are right now, Congress artificially keeps taxes low, especially on the very wealthy, because they can. They can because they can deficit spend. Nobody is accountable for actually paying for this spending. As soon as you make someone accountable (and the only people who can afford it are the very wealthy), there will be strong pressure brought to bear upon Congress to reduce spending. Gary, I can promise you that you and I can write Congress urging them to balance the budget until we are blue in the face, and they will not listen. But they will listen when very wealthy donors tell them. Oh yeah, then they'll listen.

Seth

 

Some nut thinks whites have never been in poverty. Go figure.

 

Well not exactly, since FDR the government has been involved in building a more or less fascist super state. There is a reason the only to big business entities have been Broken up were standard oil in the 20's and MA Bell in the '80's both under Republican presidents. In the mean time we've gone from 80 odd car companies to 2, three if you count Musk's hobby. Defense industries have been similarly reduced during the same time period. These big companies aren't running the government they are paying, protection money to it, and in many cases exist only because of it.

You want to know whose really in charge look at the death of Washington Mutual, and the ridiculous anti trust lawsuit against Microsoft, and consider that the over riding reason for each occurrence was the fact that at the time neither one of them was spending a dime on lobbying DC. They are not the only of this corrupt system.

And read up about HP Getty's war with FDR.

 

Didn't read whole thread. LW Brookings finds that poor Americans who do just three things have a 75% chance of elevating themselves into the middle class (>~55k annual income), and a greater than 90% chance of elevating themselves out of poverty:

1. Don't drop out of HS (that's don't drop out of the FREE HS with FREE transportation to it and FREE meals at it).
2. Don't have children before one can afford them (use the FREE sex ed class in the FREE school to learn how to wear FREE condoms and take FREE birth control pills from the local health clinic).
3. Get a fulltime job, ANY fulltime job, and keep working fulltime (maybe one of the jobs Americans supposedly aren't willing to do... and then moving up over time).

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/...teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

So do tell us all about the "shrinking middle class" and the "stagnant wages" and the "lack of opportunities" along with whatever other self-enriching gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyers-MSM Complex high tax, high regulation, high redistribution LIE narratives are on the talking points memo -this- week. Tell us all about how the only solution is the solution that just coincidentally makes the greedy, involuntary Complex richer, larger and more of a freedom suck, more government, more grants, more govcontracts, more regulations, more taxes... Tell us ALL about it for the 1000th time this week.

Are they fooling you?

I'd like to add a few items to Brookings that not only insure the trip from poverty to middle class, but to outright comfortable prosperity.

4. Don't use drugs and alcohol including nicotine.
5. Don't go into debt to get an education other than in a STEM field in a quality school's program. And even then, live at home, go part time, shop financial aid, employer assistance, military assistance, at night, work during school to keep the debt at or below $50,000 total in today's dollars. Finally, if you can't earn -some- kind of very significant scholarship, consider trade school, there is no shame in it and hard-working tradesmen with their own companies end up doing better than most doctors and lawyers.
6. Take every advantage of cheap learning opportunities to learn marketable skills from trade schools, employers including places like the military, junior colleges, employers and a whole host of other sources of free training.

Remaining poor and generationally dependent in the U.S. is overwhelmingly NOT a systemic problem but a CHOICE problem. Make relatively easy, common sense good choices and the American Dream is yours for the taking. Make poor choices and live a poor life. It really is that simple in the most prosperous era of the most prosperous country in human history.

 

Given what you have just posted I think that I fit your definition of a conservative too.

 

That is one of the best solutions to deficit and debt reduction IMO.

There should be a Surtax on all incomes over $1 million that is tied directly to the National Debt. As long as there is a National Debt that amount is divided by N years and then that N amount becomes the Surtax to be paid on all income earners over $1 million. When the National Debt is paid off the Surtax does not apply. If the National Debt rises again the Surtax kicks in automatically.

Together these two taxes will act as a strong incentive to restrain Congress from spending beyond our budgeted income.

 

Bulls eye!

That is exactly what is happening all around the nation and sales taxes are REGRESSIVE. Those on the lower end of the income scale who live paycheck to paycheck are paying the highest taxes while those on the upper end are paying the least.

In essence Sales Tax is even WORSE than a Flat Tax.