| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"hannicullen" |
| Date: |
14 Apr 2006 05:45:30 PM |
| Object: |
What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
With tax day three days away, President Bush has stepped up his calls
to make permanent his tax cuts and right-wing advocacy groups have
aggressively promoted a repeal of the estate tax. But so far,
conservatives' efforts have been limited to rhetoric and infighting. In
2005, Bush promised to "to give this nation a tax code that is
pro-growth, easy to understand, and fair to all." Yet he has ignored
the Sept. 2005 recommendations of his bipartisan task force on tax
policy, and last week Congress "abandoned its efforts" at tax reform
and left for a two-week vacation. Conservative congressional leaders
have promised to pick up the issue when they return, but their
proposals would largely benefit only the wealthiest Americans.
Many conservatives try to portray the estate tax as a "death tax" on
small, family-owned businesses. "It's just about penalizing success,
and that's why it's unfair and wrong," notes the Free Enterprise Fund
(FEF). But in reality, the estate tax is a progressive inheritance tax,
affecting only the heirs to the wealthiest Americans. Americans are
about four times as likely to be hit by lightning than to have to pay
estate taxes on small businesses or farms. As columnist E.J. Dionne
notes, "Fewer than 1 percent of the people who died in 2004 paid an
estate tax, and half the revenue from the tax came from estates valued
at $10 million or more." By 2009, only families worth more than $7
million -- fewer than three in every one thousand estates -- will pay
even a penny in estate taxes, and for those who will pay anything, the
first $7 million will be tax free. Conservatives in the House and
Senate are proposing to permanently repeal the estate tax -- or seek a
"compromise" that is nearly as bad -- even though such a move would
cost over three quarters of a trillion dollars in the next decade. The
right wing is also ignoring the priorities of the American public. A
new poll finds that 57 percent favor reforming or leaving alone the
estate tax; only 23 percent back repealing it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060411-115928-5884r.htm
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 08:29:44 AM |
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In article <1145054730.663211.264260@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
With tax day three days away, President Bush has stepped up his calls
to make permanent his tax cuts and right-wing advocacy groups have
aggressively promoted a repeal of the estate tax. But so far,
conservatives' efforts have been limited to rhetoric and infighting. In
2005, Bush promised to "to give this nation a tax code that is
pro-growth, easy to understand, and fair to all." Yet he has ignored
the Sept. 2005 recommendations of his bipartisan task force on tax
policy, and last week Congress "abandoned its efforts" at tax reform
and left for a two-week vacation. Conservative congressional leaders
have promised to pick up the issue when they return, but their
proposals would largely benefit only the wealthiest Americans.
Many conservatives try to portray the estate tax as a "death tax" on
small, family-owned businesses. "It's just about penalizing success,
and that's why it's unfair and wrong," notes the Free Enterprise Fund
(FEF). But in reality, the estate tax is a progressive inheritance tax,
affecting only the heirs to the wealthiest Americans. Americans are
about four times as likely to be hit by lightning than to have to pay
estate taxes on small businesses or farms. As columnist E.J. Dionne
notes, "Fewer than 1 percent of the people who died in 2004 paid an
estate tax, and half the revenue from the tax came from estates valued
at $10 million or more." By 2009, only families worth more than $7
million -- fewer than three in every one thousand estates -- will pay
even a penny in estate taxes, and for those who will pay anything, the
first $7 million will be tax free. Conservatives in the House and
Senate are proposing to permanently repeal the estate tax -- or seek a
"compromise" that is nearly as bad -- even though such a move would
cost over three quarters of a trillion dollars in the next decade. The
right wing is also ignoring the priorities of the American public. A
new poll finds that 57 percent favor reforming or leaving alone the
estate tax; only 23 percent back repealing it.
And this poll is proof of just how selfish we Americans have become.
Take the money from somebody else--just don't touch mine. In this
country, you can't give your son, daughter, mother (or anybody else for
that matter) over $10,000 without the Government getting involved.
After that amount, the IRS gets in and wants a cut. Did the founders of
our Country and Constitution have this in mind; to invite Government to
our dinner table?
The act of passing down wealth to others because of death is a personal
thing; it should not be a "Government" thing. This wealth was taxed
plenty along the way of it's growth, but now that it is in the hands of
another, the Government should take another cut from this very same
money. Where is the logic in this?
People love to see our wealthy citizens get screwed by the Government,
but God forbid if the same happened to them. I would love to see the
reaction of people if the Government took 20% of every inheritance
regardless what amount it was. Then you would see people ***** about
Government getting involved in personal family business. Because it's
fine when it happens to somebody else, just don't let it happen to me.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 11:34:02 AM |
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In article <xxxrayted-F7F2A7.09294415042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
And this poll is proof of just how selfish we Americans have become.
Take the money from somebody else--just don't touch mine.
But that person is dead, and has no further use for his money.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 01:19:35 PM |
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In article <party-8913A4.11340215042006@news-fe-01.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-F7F2A7.09294415042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
And this poll is proof of just how selfish we Americans have become.
Take the money from somebody else--just don't touch mine.
But that person is dead, and has no further use for his money.
But his/her heirs do. Perhaps next, they will tax our children on
advice we gave them while they were growing up.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 02:43:53 PM |
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In article <xxxrayted-83F1C7.14193515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-8913A4.11340215042006@news-fe-01.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-F7F2A7.09294415042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
And this poll is proof of just how selfish we Americans have become.
Take the money from somebody else--just don't touch mine.
But that person is dead, and has no further use for his money.
But his/her heirs do.
But to the heirs it's INCOME.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 06:10:33 PM |
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In article <party-E0D11D.14435215042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-83F1C7.14193515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-8913A4.11340215042006@news-fe-01.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-F7F2A7.09294415042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
And this poll is proof of just how selfish we Americans have become.
Take the money from somebody else--just don't touch mine.
But that person is dead, and has no further use for his money.
But his/her heirs do.
But to the heirs it's INCOME.
No, income is money earned through work or investments. But if you
really feel that way, write to your Representative and say so. This way
when somebody leaves you their automobile, trailer or boat, the
Government can come and take some of that away from you. This is the
hypocrisy here. Because so far, I have never heard (or read) anybody
behind this tax suggest that we extend it to the upper, middle or even
lower class of people--only the rich.
Well, this only presents problems to those who have it and not me.
Really? I'll give you an example here. Our football team left the city
when the owner became older and ill. It is believed by many that he
took the handsome money offer to cover the Death Tax that would be
applied to his family should he pass away. Many believe that the family
would have had to sell the team in order to pay this tax. Now, I don't
know how true this is since I don't follow football very much, but I
have heard similar stories like it.
It took a couple of years for us to put another football team together,
but in the meantime, businesses lost millions, the city sure as hell
took a hit, and they had to tax the citizens here in order to erect a
new football stadium to get anybody interested in placing a team here.
If this move was really the work of the Death Tax, it sure didn't affect
the owner only.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 07:31:27 PM |
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In article <xxxrayted-138478.19103315042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-E0D11D.14435215042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-83F1C7.14193515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
But his/her heirs do.
But to the heirs it's INCOME.
No, income is money earned through work or investments. But if you
really feel that way, write to your Representative and say so. This way
when somebody leaves you their automobile, trailer or boat, the
Government can come and take some of that away from you. This is the
hypocrisy here. Because so far, I have never heard (or read) anybody
behind this tax suggest that we extend it to
Yes you have. I just said it.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 11:04:30 PM |
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In article <party-A43E96.19312615042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-138478.19103315042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-E0D11D.14435215042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-83F1C7.14193515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
But his/her heirs do.
But to the heirs it's INCOME.
No, income is money earned through work or investments. But if you
really feel that way, write to your Representative and say so. This way
when somebody leaves you their automobile, trailer or boat, the
Government can come and take some of that away from you. This is the
hypocrisy here. Because so far, I have never heard (or read) anybody
behind this tax suggest that we extend it to
Yes you have. I just said it.
I certainly must have missed something in your response here. So you
believe that if a person wills you a Big Screen Television worth $2,000
you should be held responsible to pay 20% of that items worth in taxes?
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 07:27:02 AM |
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So you
believe that if a person wills you a Big Screen Television worth $2,000
you should be held responsible to pay 20% of that items worth in taxes?
YES! Taxes are the price that we grownups pay for the privilege of
living in a organized society with shared risks and common benefits.
If you fantasize about living in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself
world where everyone walks around with a gun on their hip and have to
hunt hunt for their own food and must struggle daily for survival like
someone in some third world nation, then go. There are all kinds of
right-wing, anti-government, Ted Kaczynski style nuts living out in the
woods.
The government is not your enemy. The rich, greedy, corporate elite
are. They are the ones that keep 50% of Americans living from paycheck
to payckeck with little or no opportunity for advancement.
-
"The government is us; we are the government, you and I."
- Theodore Roosevelt
-
"Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by
the individual."
- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 10:14:52 AM |
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In article <1145190422.456048.198990@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
So you
believe that if a person wills you a Big Screen Television worth $2,000
you should be held responsible to pay 20% of that items worth in taxes?
YES! Taxes are the price that we grownups pay for the privilege of
living in a organized society with shared risks and common benefits.
If you fantasize about living in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself
world where everyone walks around with a gun on their hip and have to
hunt hunt for their own food and must struggle daily for survival like
someone in some third world nation, then go. There are all kinds of
right-wing, anti-government, Ted Kaczynski style nuts living out in the
woods.
The government is not your enemy. The rich, greedy, corporate elite
are. They are the ones that keep 50% of Americans living from paycheck
to payckeck with little or no opportunity for advancement.
Your comment here is at the very least, alarming. It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
But at least you are honest about it and I do respect that. But I want
to inform you of something here, and that is NOBODY keeps citizens
living from paycheck to paycheck. That decision is made by the
individual with no corporation involved. Most every single American
chooses how they will live and what lifestyle they will follow.
If the tax rate was 0% in this country, the amount of money collected by
the Federal Government would be 0 dollars. If the Federal tax rate were
100%, the amount collected by the Government would still be 0 dollars
because who would be stupid enough to work?
Communist countries were (and still are) a failed society. The
Government chooses how much you will earn or how much they will let you
keep. The only wealthy people in such Governments are those who work
for it. People really aren't inclined to work hard because there is no
reward. Kind of what happened here with the overpowering Unions years
ago.
"The government is us; we are the government, you and I."
- Theodore Roosevelt
-
"Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by
the individual."
- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 11:20:02 AM |
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Your comment here is at the very least, alarming. It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
But at least you are honest about it and I do respect that.
Thank you, but from my point of view, it is just as alarming that you
think corporations are benevolent organizations that only have our best
interests at heart.
There is nothing democratic about corporations. Their leaders are not
elected. When the economy has been totally privatized and placed in
the hands of what Noam Chomsky calls "unaccountable private tyrannies",
then we will be truly living in a fascist state and the Constitution
will be nothing more than a historical relic.
Here is a quote cribbed from the web:
"for most people, these democratic rights and freedoms end the moment
they enter the workplace. Linguist Noam Chomsky has famous-ly dubbed
corporations and private companies "unaccountable private
tyrannies" due to their rigidly top-down command structures. Indeed,
capitalism and democracy - rather than going hand-in-hand, as any
business leader and most politicians would have us believe - are
diametrically opposed forces. The power of concentrated capital will
always seek to subvert and co-opt the dreams and desires of the
majority. "
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 08:07:06 PM |
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In article <1145204402.063433.155770@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Your comment here is at the very least, alarming. It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
But at least you are honest about it and I do respect that.
Thank you, but from my point of view, it is just as alarming that you
think corporations are benevolent organizations that only have our best
interests at heart.
No, I never said that. What I said is that your life is not driven or
controlled by corporations. It's not the responsibility of corporations
or industry to make you happy, pay for your benefits, provide for your
family. These are responsibilities of the individual. Corporations and
Industry are organizations who produce goods and services; they are not
here to provide jobs or control the people. They hire people to help
them achieve their goals and become successful. They are under no
obligation to equally share profit (unless you have profit sharing) or
force people to work for them (unless under contract) if such employees
find the organization undesirable to work for.
There is nothing democratic about corporations. Their leaders are not
elected. When the economy has been totally privatized and placed in
the hands of what Noam Chomsky calls "unaccountable private tyrannies",
then we will be truly living in a fascist state and the Constitution
will be nothing more than a historical relic.
Fascism is described as a Government which rules and controls industry.
And you are wrong about elected leaders in corporations. Stockholders
frequently vote as to who runs the organization. They are obligated to
produce and are monitored by their investors.
Here is a quote cribbed from the web:
"for most people, these democratic rights and freedoms end the moment
they enter the workplace. Linguist Noam Chomsky has famous-ly dubbed
corporations and private companies "unaccountable private
tyrannies" due to their rigidly top-down command structures. Indeed,
capitalism and democracy - rather than going hand-in-hand, as any
business leader and most politicians would have us believe - are
diametrically opposed forces. The power of concentrated capital will
always seek to subvert and co-opt the dreams and desires of the
majority. "
Business never was a Democracy and never will. School is not a
Democracy, prison is not a Democracy and even your DMV is not a
Democracy. To be totally honest, our Government is not really a
Democracy.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 01:27:17 PM |
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It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
People such as myself? Dude, I'm you. I'm you in the future. I'm you
after you face a crisis in the future and lose your ability to maintain
the standard of living that you were accustomed to. I'm you after you
find yourself locked out of corporate America because you have "a gap"
in your employment record. Never mind how well educated you are, or
how skilled you are, or how hard you work. Once they decide you don't
"fit in", you're discarded like yesterdays news.
I have not said much about myself in these postings, but I have read
enough of your postings to know that you and I have alot in common. We
are the same age, we are both white males(?), up until three years ago
we were both conservatives, and I wouldn't be suprised if we were both
in a similar line of work.
My life reads like the stereo-typical, middle-class, white male story.
The difference between myself and others is that I lost everything and
plunged into bankruptcy and poverty THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN. I did
everything that an American white male is supposed to do - I went to
college, worked hard, payed my taxes, prayed, remained dedicated to my
family, voted Republican, and I even started my own business after I
was downsized by a major American corporation in the 90's. During the
six years that I was self-employed I listened to Rush Limbaugh EVERY
DAY. I didn't just drink the right-wing Kool Aid - I guzzled it. Then
something happened that I prefer not to go into details about. I'll
just say that it is something that could happen to any of us.
I don't have time to go into the details of my transformation from
Conservative Republican to Left Libertarian, but I will say that after
I picked myself up and dusted myself off, I was angry that there was no
social safety net there to catch me and my family when we fell (partly
because I helped destroy it during my life as a conservative). I am
now determined to spend the next twenty years undoing all the damage
that I did during the twenty years that I was a conservative. Once
blind, but now I see.
-
Two quick notes:
I'm probably going to be busy this week and won't have much time for
the rough and tumble of Newsgroup politcal debates, so I'll let you
have the last word on this one Ray.
And a note to Hugh Gibbons. I'm sorry that you were ignored during
this exchange. I have read some of your past postings and I like the
cut of your jib.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 08:53:03 PM |
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In article <1145212037.649727.107560@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
People such as myself? Dude, I'm you. I'm you in the future. I'm you
after you face a crisis in the future and lose your ability to maintain
the standard of living that you were accustomed to. I'm you after you
find yourself locked out of corporate America because you have "a gap"
in your employment record. Never mind how well educated you are, or
how skilled you are, or how hard you work. Once they decide you don't
"fit in", you're discarded like yesterdays news.
I have not said much about myself in these postings, but I have read
enough of your postings to know that you and I have alot in common. We
are the same age, we are both white males(?), up until three years ago
we were both conservatives, and I wouldn't be suprised if we were both
in a similar line of work.
My life reads like the stereo-typical, middle-class, white male story.
The difference between myself and others is that I lost everything and
plunged into bankruptcy and poverty THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN. I did
everything that an American white male is supposed to do - I went to
college, worked hard, payed my taxes, prayed, remained dedicated to my
family, voted Republican, and I even started my own business after I
was downsized by a major American corporation in the 90's. During the
six years that I was self-employed I listened to Rush Limbaugh EVERY
DAY. I didn't just drink the right-wing Kool Aid - I guzzled it. Then
something happened that I prefer not to go into details about. I'll
just say that it is something that could happen to any of us.
I don't have time to go into the details of my transformation from
Conservative Republican to Left Libertarian, but I will say that after
I picked myself up and dusted myself off, I was angry that there was no
social safety net there to catch me and my family when we fell (partly
because I helped destroy it during my life as a conservative). I am
now determined to spend the next twenty years undoing all the damage
that I did during the twenty years that I was a conservative. Once
blind, but now I see.
I'm sorry to hear of your misfortunes, but you did exactly what a
Conservative should do--brush yourself off and make a success of
yourself once again.
Conservatives are not against safety nets, we are against abuse and
excuse of such structures. I don't know what you got from Limbaugh, but
I have yet to hear him state that he was against all safety nets. And I
hear where you are coming from.
Last year, a friend of mine moved back home. She was in South Carolina
the last few decades and fell to a medical illness that prohibited her
from ever working again. She had to hire a lawyer, she went through
several years of fighting to get on Social Security, she lost her home
and today is on rent. At the age of 45, she could have retired from
work in less than ten years with a full pension. She lost everything.
In a effort to help her out, I gave her some phone numbers for aid with
her utilities and even the food stamp people who constantly run radio
commercials trying to coax working people to apply for them.
I was amazed that none of these organizations would or could help. She
called HEAP which is a energy assistance program designed to help people
pay their utility bills, and up North, this is costly. What they told
her is that she couldn't apply for help because SS pays her $16,200 per
year, and they have a cut-off at $16,000. She then tried the Food Stamp
people who told her pretty much the same thing. Even State agencies
wouldn't help her with medical coverage because she had this crummy 16
Grand a year. So with that money, she has to pay rent, pay for all
utilities, pay for groceries and somehow pay for Medical coverage which
is impossible to get at any price once you have a preexisting condition.
Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed with our Government
services when it comes to taking care of people like this. And I (like
most Conservatives) don't believe in ending services to those in need of
help. I believe in ending services to those capable of taking care of
themselves. Now I don't know what this has to do with Death Tax, but I
thought I would respond to your reply here. BTW, good luck with your
future.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Rep Doolittle's (R-Calif) Wife Skims Fundraising Money |
16 Apr 2006 09:25:58 PM |
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More Republicon corruption:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041
500885.html?nav=rss_print/asection
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N234528FC
Anyone surprised?
++ Corrupt -- Republican -- Two words; one concept. ++
-- HG
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 11:59:47 AM |
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In article <xxxrayted-C99A61.11145216042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <1145190422.456048.198990@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
So you
believe that if a person wills you a Big Screen Television worth $2,000
you should be held responsible to pay 20% of that items worth in taxes?
YES! Taxes are the price that we grownups pay for the privilege of
living in a organized society with shared risks and common benefits.
If you fantasize about living in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself
world where everyone walks around with a gun on their hip and have to
hunt hunt for their own food and must struggle daily for survival like
someone in some third world nation, then go. There are all kinds of
right-wing, anti-government, Ted Kaczynski style nuts living out in the
woods.
The government is not your enemy. The rich, greedy, corporate elite
are. They are the ones that keep 50% of Americans living from paycheck
to payckeck with little or no opportunity for advancement.
Your comment here is at the very least, alarming. It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
I find it amusing that you think it's more alarming to tax income
received because of the accident of birth to a wealthy family than
to tax work. How on Earth do you justify such a bias?
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 08:19:04 PM |
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In article <party-E7AFEC.11594416042006@news-fe-01.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-C99A61.11145216042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <1145190422.456048.198990@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
So you
believe that if a person wills you a Big Screen Television worth $2,000
you should be held responsible to pay 20% of that items worth in taxes?
YES! Taxes are the price that we grownups pay for the privilege of
living in a organized society with shared risks and common benefits.
If you fantasize about living in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself
world where everyone walks around with a gun on their hip and have to
hunt hunt for their own food and must struggle daily for survival like
someone in some third world nation, then go. There are all kinds of
right-wing, anti-government, Ted Kaczynski style nuts living out in the
woods.
The government is not your enemy. The rich, greedy, corporate elite
are. They are the ones that keep 50% of Americans living from paycheck
to payckeck with little or no opportunity for advancement.
Your comment here is at the very least, alarming. It's hard to believe
that people such as yourself view a free country as one where the
Government participates in every transaction.
I find it amusing that you think it's more alarming to tax income
received because of the accident of birth to a wealthy family than
to tax work. How on Earth do you justify such a bias?
I think it's alarming anytime people think Government should be part of
family matters. There is a difference between Earning and Giving. When
you earn money, you are creating income for yourself which is subject to
taxation. When you are given money, this is money was created by
somebody else and was previously taxed as well. What they do with that
money is not the business of Government. It is a possession that is
owned by that individual. This is how I justify it.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 11:49:43 AM |
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In article <xxxrayted-5E5BB1.00043016042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-A43E96.19312615042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-138478.19103315042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-E0D11D.14435215042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-83F1C7.14193515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
But his/her heirs do.
But to the heirs it's INCOME.
No, income is money earned through work or investments. But if you
really feel that way, write to your Representative and say so. This way
when somebody leaves you their automobile, trailer or boat, the
Government can come and take some of that away from you. This is the
hypocrisy here. Because so far, I have never heard (or read) anybody
behind this tax suggest that we extend it to
Yes you have. I just said it.
I certainly must have missed something in your response here. So you
believe that if a person wills you a Big Screen Television worth $2,000
you should be held responsible to pay 20% of that items worth in taxes?
How is that different than other income?
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| User: "Q" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 09:12:16 AM |
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On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 16:34:02 GMT, Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com>
wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-F7F2A7.09294415042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
And this poll is proof of just how selfish we Americans have become.
Take the money from somebody else--just don't touch mine.
But that person is dead, and has no further use for his money.
Instead of "Death Tax" it should be "Patriotic American Gift Tax".
Just this week, the retiring Exon chief got 600 million
gift from the gas buying public. His heirs will be very happy
with their unearned gift.
--
Q
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 12:29:06 PM |
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ray wrote:
In article <1145054730.663211.264260@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
Did the founders of
our Country and Constitution have this in mind; to invite Government to
our dinner table?
The act of passing down wealth to others because of death is a personal
thing; it should not be a "Government" thing. This wealth was taxed
plenty along the way of it's growth, but now that it is in the hands of
another, the Government should take another cut from this very same
money. Where is the logic in this?
Have you ever read anything written by the Founding Fathers? Your head
is so full of right-wing propaganda that you don't even know what they
believed in.
Please read this - and please read it thoroughly. I know it's hard
with a young skull full of mush, but try anyway.
-
How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy?
by Thom Hartmann
At what point does great wealth held in a few hands actually harm
democracy, threatening to turn a democratic republic into an oligarchy?
It's a debate we haven't had freely and openly in this nation for
nearly a century, and last week, by voting to end the Estate Tax, House
Republicans tried to ensure that it wouldn't be had again in this
generation.
But it's a debate that's vital to the survival of democracy in America.
In a letter to Joseph Milligan on April 6, 1816, Thomas Jefferson
explicitly suggested that if individuals became so rich that their
wealth could influence or challenge government, then their wealth
should be decreased upon their death. He wrote, "If the overgrown
wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best
corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree..."
In this, he was making the same argument that the Framers of
Pennsylvania tried to make when writing their constitution in 1776. As
Kevin Phillips notes in his masterpiece book "Wealth and Democracy: A
Political History of the American Rich," a Sixteenth Article to the
Pennsylvania Bill of Rights (that was only "narrowly defeated")
declared: "an enormous proportion of property vested in a few
individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common
happiness of mankind, and, therefore, every free state hath a right by
its laws to discourage the possession of such property."
Unfortunately, many Americans believe our nation was founded
exclusively of, by, and for "rich white men," and that the Constitution
had, as its primary purpose, the protection of the super-rich. They
would have us believe that the Constitution's signers didn't really
mean all that flowery talk about liberal democracy in a republican form
of government.
But the signers didn't send other people's kids to war, as have two
generations of the oligarchic Bush family. Many of the Founders
themselves gave up everything, even risking (and losing) their lives,
their life's savings, or losing their own homes and families to birth
this nation.
The myth/theory of the "greedy white Founders" was first widely
advanced by Columbia University professor of history and self-described
socialist Charles Beard, who published in 1913 a book titled "An
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States."
Numerous historians - on both the right and the left - have since cited
his work as evidence that America was founded solely for the purpose of
protecting wealthy interests. His myth unfortunately helps
conservatives support ending the "death tax" as "the way the Founders
would have wanted things" so that the very richest few can rule
America.
Every generation sees the past though the lens of its own time. Beard,
writing as the great financial Robber Baron empires of Rockefeller,
Gould, Mellon, and Carnegie were being solidified, looked back at the
Framers of the Constitution and imagined he was seeing an earlier,
albeit smaller, version of his own day's history.
But Beard was wrong.
The majority of the signers of the Constitution were actually acting
against their own best economic interests when they put their
signatures on that document, just as had the majority of the signers of
the Declaration of Independence.
Beard thought he saw his own era's Robber Barons among the Colonial
economic elite. And, had the Revolution not happened, he might have
been right. But, during and after the Revolutionary War, the great
fortunes loyal to the Crown were dispersed or fled, and while some of
the wealthy British families of 1776 still hold hereditary seats in the
British House of Lords, nobody can point to a Rockefeller dynasty
equivalent that survived colonial times in the United States.
While there were some in America among the Founders and Framers who
owned a lot of land, Pulitzer Prize winning author Bernard Bailyn
suggests in his brilliant 2003 book "To Begin the World Anew: The
Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders" that they couldn't
hold a candle to the true aristocrats of England. With page after page
of photographs and old paintings of the homes of the Founders and
Framers, Bailyn shows that none of those who created this nation were
rich by European standards.
After an artful and thoughtful comparison of American and British
estates, Bailyn concludes bluntly: "There is no possible
correspondence, no remote connection, between these provincial
dwellings and the magnificent showplaces of the English nobility..."
After showing and describing to his reader the mansions of the families
of power in 18th century Europe, Bailyn writes: "There is nothing in
the American World to compare with this."
In "Wealth and Democracy," Kevin Phillips notes that: "George
Washington, one of the richest Americans, was no more than a wealthy
squire in British terms." Phillips says that it wasn't until the 1790'
s - a generation after the War of Independence - that the first
American accumulated a fortune that would be worth one million of
today's dollars. The Founders and Framers were, at best, what today
would be called the upper-middle-class in terms of lifestyle, assets,
and disposable income.
Even Charles and Mary Beard granted that wealth and land-ownership were
different things. Land, after all, didn't have the scarcity it does
today, and thus didn't have the same value. Just about any free man
could find land to settle, either where Native Americans had been
decimated by disease or displaced by war.
In fact, with his Louisiana Purchase adding hundreds of millions of
acres to America, Jefferson even guaranteed that the value of his own
main asset - his land - and that of most of his peers, would drop for
the next several generations.
When George Washington wrote his will and freed his slaves on his
deathbed, he didn't have enough assets to buy the slaves his wife had
inherited and free them as well. Like Jefferson, who died in
bankruptcy, Washington was "rich" in land but poor in cash.
In 1958, one of America's great professors of history, Forrest
McDonald, published an extraordinary book debunking Charles Beard's
1913 hypothesis that the Constitution was created of, by, and for rich
white men. McDonald's book, titled "We the People: The Economic Origins
of the Constitution," bluntly states that Beard's, "Economic
interpretation of the Constitution does not work."
Over the course of more than 400 meticulously researched pages,
McDonald goes back to original historical records and reveals who was
promoting and who was opposing the new Constitution, and why. He is the
first and only historian to do this type of original-source research,
and his conclusions are startling.
McDonald notes that a quarter of all the delegates to the
Constitutional Convention had voted in their own state legislatures for
laws that would have helped debtors and the poor and thus harmed the
interests of the rich. "These [debt relief/bankruptcy laws] were the
very kinds of laws which, according to Beard's hypothesis, the
delegates had convened to prevent," says McDonald. He adds: "Another
fourth of the delegates had important economic interests that were
adversely affected, directly and immediately, by the Constitution they
helped write."
While Beard theorized that the Framers of the Constitution were largely
drawn from the class of wealthy bankers and businessmen, McDonald
showed that, "The most common and by far the most important property
holdings of the delegates were not, as Beard has asserted, mercantile,
manufacturing, and public security investments, but agricultural
property." Most were farmers or plantation owners, and owning a lot of
land did not make one rich in those days.
"Finally," McDonald concludes, "it is abundantly evident that the
delegates, once inside the convention, behaved as anything but a
consolidated economic group."
McDonald then goes into an exhaustive and detailed state-by-state ana
lysis of the state constitutional ratifying conventions that finally
brought the U.S. Constitution into law. For example, in the State of
Delaware, which voted for ratification, "almost 77 percent of the
delegates were farmers, more than two-thirds of them small farmers with
incomes ranging from 75 cents to $5.00 a week. Only slightly more than
23 percent of the delegates were professional men - doctors, judges,
and lawyers. None of the delegates was a merchant, manufacturer,
banker, or speculator in western lands."
In other states, similar numbers showed up. Of the New Jersey delegates
supporting ratification, 64.1 percent were small farmers.
In Maryland, "the opponents of ratification included from three to six
times as large a proportion of merchants, lawyers, and investors in
shipping, confiscated estates, and manufacturing as did the delegates
who favored ratification."
In South Carolina it was those in economic distress who carried the
day: "No fewer than 82 percent of the debtors and borrowers of paper
money in the convention voted for ratification." In New Hampshire, "of
the known farmers in the convention 68.7 percent favored ratification."
But did farmers support the Constitution because they were slave owners
or the wealthiest of the landowners, as Beard had guessed back in 1913?
McDonald shows that this certainly wasn't the case in northern states
like New Hampshire or New Jersey, which were not slave states. But what
about Virginia and North Carolina, the two largest slaveholding states,
asks McDonald rhetorically. Were their plantation owners favoring the
Constitution because it protected their economic and slaveholding
interests?
"The opposite is true," writes McDonald. "In both states the wealthy
planters - those with personality interests [slaves] as well as those
without personality interests - were divided approximately equally on
the issue of ratification. In North Carolina small farmers and debtors
were likewise equally divided, and in Virginia the great mass of the
small farmers and a large majority of the debtors favored
ratification."
After dissecting the results of the ratification votes state by state
McDonald sums up: "Beard's thesis... is entirely incompatible with the
facts."
So what did motivate the Framers of the Constitution?
Along with the answer to this question, we may also find the answer to
another question historians have asked for two centuries: Why was the
Constitutional Convention held in secret behind locked doors, and why
did James Madison not publish his own notes of the Convention until
1840, just after the last of the other participants had died?
The reason, simply put, was that most of the wealthy men among the
delegates were betraying the interests of their own economic class.
They were voting for democracy instead of oligarchy.
As with any political body, a few of the delegates, "a dozen at the
outside" according to McDonald, "clearly acted according to the
dictates of their personal economic interests."
But there were larger issues at stake. The people who hammered out the
Constitution had such a strong feeling of history and destiny that it
at times overwhelmed them.
They realized that in the seven-thousand-year history of what they
called civilization, only once before, in Athens - and then only for
the brief flicker of a few centuries - had anything like a democracy
ever been brought into existence and survived more than a generation.
Their writings show that they truly believed they were doing sacred
work, something greater than themselves, their personal interests, or
even the narrow interests of their wealthy constituents back in their
home states.
They believed they were altering the course of world history, and that
if they got it right we could truly create a better world.
Thus the secrecy, the locked doors, the intensity of the Constitutional
Convention. And thus the willingness to set aside economic interest to
produce a document - admittedly imperfect - that would establish an
enduring beacon of liberty for the world.
As George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention,
wrote to the nation on September 17, 1787 when "transmitting the
Constitution" to the people of the new nation: "In all our
deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which
appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the
consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity,
felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence."
He concluded with his "most ardent wish" was that the Constitution "may
promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and
secure her freedom and happiness..."
Since the so-called "Reagan revolution" more than cut in half the
income taxes the multimillionaires and billionaires among us pay,
wealth has concentrated in America in ways not seen since the era of
the Robber Barons, or, before that, pre-revolutionary colonial times.
At the same time, poverty has exploded and the middle class is under
economic siege.
And now come the oligarchs - the most wealthy and powerful families of
America - lobbying Congress that they should retain their stupefying
levels of wealth and the power it brings, generation after generation.
They say that democracy doesn't require a strong middle class, and that
Jefferson was wrong when he said that "overgrown wealth" could be
"dangerous to the State." They say that a permanent, hereditary,
aristocratically rich ruling class is actually a good thing for the
stability of society.
While a $1.5 million trigger for the estate tax is arguably too low -
particularly given the recent bubble in real estate prices - that
doesn't invalidate the concept of a democracy defending itself against
oligarchy. Set the trigger at 10 million, or fifty million. Make sure
that family farms and small businesses are protected. And make sure
that people who have worked hard and earned a lot of money can have
children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will live very
comfortably.
But let's also make sure that we don't end up like so many Latin
American countries, where a handful of super-rich families rule their
nations, and democracy is more show than substance.
The Founders of our republic fought a war against an aristocratic,
oligarchic nation, and were very clear that they didn't want America to
ever degenerate into aristocracy, oligarchy, or feudalism/fascism. We
must hold to their vision of an egalitarian, democratic republic.
Now the Estate Tax is before the Senate. Encourage your US Senator to
fight against mega-millionaire and US Senate leader Bill Frist, and to
keep the estate tax intact.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 02:38:15 PM |
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In article <1145122146.188999.310610@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
ray wrote:
In article <1145054730.663211.264260@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
Did the founders of
our Country and Constitution have this in mind; to invite Government to
our dinner table?
The act of passing down wealth to others because of death is a personal
thing; it should not be a "Government" thing. This wealth was taxed
plenty along the way of it's growth, but now that it is in the hands of
another, the Government should take another cut from this very same
money. Where is the logic in this?
Have you ever read anything written by the Founding Fathers? Your head
is so full of right-wing propaganda that you don't even know what they
believed in.
Please read this - and please read it thoroughly. I know it's hard
with a young skull full of mush, but try anyway.
Well I appreciate being called "young" at the age of 45, but your
presentation here has nothing to do with the current situation of the
wealthy or death tax.
Read your very own post. In the quotes of Thomas Jefferson, he clearly
believed that wealth in the hands "OF A FEW" could bring harm to our
society if such wealth presented mutiny or "challenged" our Republic.
Nowhere did he suggest Socialism, or that Government should equalize
wealth by taking such assets from them or their heirs. As your article
points out, very few if any were wealthy at the time, and Jefferson's
fear was that a fraction of one percent could own everything amid a
nation of poor--giving those few power over Government and the rest of
the people.
In America today, a millionaire is not a rare breed. In fact, we create
at least one new millionaire every single day in our Nation, and to
suggest that this is the path to oligarchy is pure hysteria if not
paranoia. It's evident today that our Government is not under the siege
by individual wealth, but by conglomerates who dictate policy for power
and profit. A Death Tax has no barring on this power today if that
really is your concern. The truth is, "skulls full of mush" just buy
into this notion instead of realizing the true meaning of taking from
the wealthy; and that is because it is Democrat policy to take from the
minorities of people who cannot protect themselves through vote.
Yesterday it was the wealthy, today it's the users of tobacco products
and who knows who it will be tomorrow.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 09:10:07 AM |
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Nowhere did he suggest Socialism, or that Government should equalize
wealth by taking such assets from them or their heirs.
That is EXACTLY what they were talking about. The only difference was
that they didn't call it Socialism because I don't think that term
existed in the late 1700's, they called it a "levelling influence".
Again, have you ever read anything written by the Founding Fathers?
Try visiting a socially funded, public library and do some reading.
The Founding Fathers were NOT right-wing, free market capitalists.
There were a few like Madison and Hamilton, but I would describe most
of them as radical agrarian populists.
Right-wingers have made a concerted effort to cherry pick quotes from
people like Madison and portray the Founding Fathers as conservatives,
but you only have to spend some time reading the actual writings of
those wise men and a very different picture starts to emerge. Again, a
visit to a library would help.
.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 07:39:44 PM |
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In article <1145196607.345600.250480@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Nowhere did he suggest Socialism, or that Government should equalize
wealth by taking such assets from them or their heirs.
That is EXACTLY what they were talking about. The only difference was
that they didn't call it Socialism because I don't think that term
existed in the late 1700's, they called it a "levelling influence".
Again, have you ever read anything written by the Founding Fathers?
Try visiting a socially funded, public library and do some reading.
The Founding Fathers were NOT right-wing, free market capitalists.
There were a few like Madison and Hamilton, but I would describe most
of them as radical agrarian populists.
Nobody ever stated that the Constitution (nor the writers of) were pure
Capitalists. What they do point out is that the Constitution is a
document that was created to prevent the intrusion of Government--not
the other way around. The Constitution is not a socialist document and
the authors of it were not socialists themselves. I don't care if you
call it socialism or some other term.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention a progressive tax or any tax
for that matter against successful people. Nor does it mention
confiscation of assets after death be it wholly or partially. It does
provide for property rights and "fair compensation" from the Government
in the event such property is taken. It also provides for due process
of law in order for the Government to take your property by force.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 05:11:54 PM |
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Here is the reality in the United States:
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
The top 1% have 32% of the wealth - The bottom 50% have only 2.8% of
the wealth.
But I see that you are still buying into that "Ragged *****" fairy tale
about how the rich are saving a seat at the table of success for you
and all you have to do is work hard and you too will someday be rich
(everything from here on is plagiarized).
It's the Horatio Alger myth. Alger was one of the most popular
American writers of the late 1800s (one of his first books, for
boys, was called Ragged *****). Alger's stories featured characters
from impoverished backgrounds who, through pluck and determination
and hard work, were able to make huge successes of themselves
in this land of boundless opportunity. The message was that
anyone can make it in America, and make it big.
We're addicted to this happy rags-to-riches myth in this country.
People elsewhere in other industrialized democracies are content
to make a good enough living to pay their bills and raise their
families.
Few have a cutthroat desire to strike it rich. If they have a job
that lets them go home after seven or eight hours of work and then
gives them the standard four to eight weeks of paid vacation every
year, they're relatively happy. And with their governments providing
health care, good free schools, and a guaranteed pension to live
well in old age, they're even happier.
Sure, some of them may fantasize about making a ton more
money, but most people outside the U.S. don't live their lives based
on fairy tales. They live in reality, where there are only going to be
a few rich people, and you are not going to be one of them. So get
used to it.
Of course, rich people in those countries are very careful not to
upset the balance. Even though there are greedy bastards among
them, they've got some limits placed on them. In the manufacturing
sector, for example, British CEOs make twenty-four times as
much as their average workers-the widest gap in Europe. German
CEOs only make fifteen times more than their employees,
while Swedish CEOs get thirteen times as much. But here in the
U.S., the average CEO makes 411 times the salaries of their blue-
collar workers. Wealthy Europeans pay up to 65 percent in taxes
and they know better than to ***** too loud about it or the people
will make them fork over even more.
In the United States, we are afraid to sock it to them. We hate to
put our CEOs in prison when they break the law. We are more than
happy to cut their taxes even as ours go up!
Why is this? Because we drank the Kool-Aid. We bought into
the drug, the lie that we, too, could some day be rich. So we
don't want to do anything that could harm us on that day we
end up millionaires. The American carrot is dangled in front of
us all our lives and we believe that we are almost within reach of
making it.
It's so believable because we have seen it come true. A person
who comes from nothing goes on to strike it rich. There are
more millionaires now than ever before. This increase in the
number of millionaires has served a very useful function for the
rich because it means in every community there's at least one
person prancing around as the rags-to-riches poster child, conveying
the not-so-subtle message: "SEE! I MADE IT! YOU CAN, TOO!"
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 06:19:45 PM |
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In article <1145139114.030128.242600@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is the reality in the United States:
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
The top 1% have 32% of the wealth - The bottom 50% have only 2.8% of
the wealth.
And the top 5% of wager earners pay over 50% of the collected income tax
that the lower percentage enjoy.
But I see that you are still buying into that "Ragged *****" fairy tale
about how the rich are saving a seat at the table of success for you
and all you have to do is work hard and you too will someday be rich
(everything from here on is plagiarized).
It's the Horatio Alger myth. Alger was one of the most popular
American writers of the late 1800s (one of his first books, for
boys, was called Ragged *****). Alger's stories featured characters
from impoverished backgrounds who, through pluck and determination
and hard work, were able to make huge successes of themselves
in this land of boundless opportunity. The message was that
anyone can make it in America, and make it big.
We're addicted to this happy rags-to-riches myth in this country.
People elsewhere in other industrialized democracies are content
to make a good enough living to pay their bills and raise their
families.
Few have a cutthroat desire to strike it rich. If they have a job
that lets them go home after seven or eight hours of work and then
gives them the standard four to eight weeks of paid vacation every
year, they're relatively happy. And with their governments providing
health care, good free schools, and a guaranteed pension to live
well in old age, they're even happier.
Then why are so many trying to cross our borders to live and not theirs?
Sure, some of them may fantasize about making a ton more
money, but most people outside the U.S. don't live their lives based
on fairy tales. They live in reality, where there are only going to be
a few rich people, and you are not going to be one of them. So get
used to it.
And who says that? You? Because YOU didn't participate in this success
nor have tried, this is the path others must follow? Who are you
employed by, a failure?
Of course, rich people in those countries are very careful not to
upset the balance. Even though there are greedy bastards among
them, they've got some limits placed on them. In the manufacturing
sector, for example, British CEOs make twenty-four times as
much as their average workers-the widest gap in Europe. German
CEOs only make fifteen times more than their employees,
while Swedish CEOs get thirteen times as much. But here in the
U.S., the average CEO makes 411 times the salaries of their blue-
collar workers. Wealthy Europeans pay up to 65 percent in taxes
and they know better than to ***** too loud about it or the people
will make them fork over even more.
In the United States, we are afraid to sock it to them. We hate to
put our CEOs in prison when they break the law. We are more than
happy to cut their taxes even as ours go up!
Why is this? Because we drank the Kool-Aid. We bought into
the drug, the lie that we, too, could some day be rich. So we
don't want to do anything that could harm us on that day we
end up millionaires. The American carrot is dangled in front of
us all our lives and we believe that we are almost within reach of
making it.
No, because many believe that it's unfair to take from somebody
something that is not theirs.
It's so believable because we have seen it come true. A person
who comes from nothing goes on to strike it rich. There are
more millionaires now than ever before. This increase in the
number of millionaires has served a very useful function for the
rich because it means in every community there's at least one
person prancing around as the rags-to-riches poster child, conveying
the not-so-subtle message: "SEE! I MADE IT! YOU CAN, TOO!"
Only a liberal can see people doing better in life and call that a
tragedy.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
.
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 07:29:48 PM |
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In article <xxxrayted-02D1D2.19194515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <1145139114.030128.242600@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is the reality in the United States:
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
The top 1% have 32% of the wealth - The bottom 50% have only 2.8% of
the wealth.
And the top 5% of wager earners pay over 50% of the collected income tax
that the lower percentage enjoy.
As they should, since it is they who have the wealth. Obviously the
2.8% that the poorest half have cannot be more than a drop in any
bucket.
.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 11:01:45 PM |
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In article <party-C0D929.19294715042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-02D1D2.19194515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <1145139114.030128.242600@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is the reality in the United States:
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
The top 1% have 32% of the wealth - The bottom 50% have only 2.8% of
the wealth.
And the top 5% of wager earners pay over 50% of the collected income tax
that the lower percentage enjoy.
As they should, since it is they who have the wealth. Obviously the
2.8% that the poorest half have cannot be more than a drop in any
bucket.
So in your opinion, the "wealthy" should be taxed simply because they
have it? Let me ask you, if you came home one night and found your
abode in shambles because a person of lower income robbed you because
you have more than they, this person is justified in doing so? It is
not a crime? What's the difference?
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
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| User: "hannicullen" |
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| Title: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 07:41:23 AM |
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So in your opinion, the "wealthy" should be taxed simply because they
have it?
YES!, YES!, YES! Thomas Jefferson didn't have a problem with this
principal, why do you?
-
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our
moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our
government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of
our country." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is
to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the
higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they
rise." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785.
"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the
whole taxes of the General Government are levied... Our revenues
liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus
applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see
his government supported, his children educated, and the face of
his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich
alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his
earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.
"Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to
take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation
has convinced me that this would be very mischievous." --Thomas
Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1788.
"Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by
the individual." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784.
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 12:03:42 PM |
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In article <xxxrayted-877BC4.00014516042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-C0D929.19294715042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-02D1D2.19194515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <1145139114.030128.242600@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is the reality in the United States:
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
The top 1% have 32% of the wealth - The bottom 50% have only 2.8% of
the wealth.
And the top 5% of wager earners pay over 50% of the collected income tax
that the lower percentage enjoy.
As they should, since it is they who have the wealth. Obviously the
2.8% that the poorest half have cannot be more than a drop in any
bucket.
So in your opinion, the "wealthy" should be taxed simply because they
have it?
NO! They MUST be taxed because society NEEDS it to be so. If
half the people have practically no wealth, and we want government
instead of anarchy, then those who have MUST pay MUCH MORE than an
equal share.
Let me ask you, if you came home one night and found your
abode in shambles because a person of lower income robbed you because
you have more than they, this person is justified in doing so? It is
not a crime? What's the difference?
The rule of law is the difference.
.
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| User: "ray" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
16 Apr 2006 08:26:54 PM |
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In article <party-12D363.12034216042006@news-fe-01.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-877BC4.00014516042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <party-C0D929.19294715042006@news-fe-03.texas.rr.com>,
Hugh Gibbons <party@myhouse.com> wrote:
In article <xxxrayted-02D1D2.19194515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In article <1145139114.030128.242600@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"hannicullen" <hannicullen@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is the reality in the United States:
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
The top 1% have 32% of the wealth - The bottom 50% have only 2.8% of
the wealth.
And the top 5% of wager earners pay over 50% of the collected income
tax
that the lower percentage enjoy.
As they should, since it is they who have the wealth. Obviously the
2.8% that the poorest half have cannot be more than a drop in any
bucket.
So in your opinion, the "wealthy" should be taxed simply because they
have it?
NO! They MUST be taxed because society NEEDS it to be so. If
half the people have practically no wealth, and we want government
instead of anarchy, then those who have MUST pay MUCH MORE than an
equal share.
Well if I earn $40,000 this year and taxed at 10%, then I am paying the
Government $4,000. If another person in the same year makes $400,000
and is taxed at 10%, then he pays $40,000 to the Government. Even
though we pay the same percentage, the person making more money than me
already pays much more than I.
Let me ask you, if you came home one night and found your
abode in shambles because a person of lower income robbed you because
you have more than they, this person is justified in doing so? It is
not a crime? What's the difference?
The rule of law is the difference.
I see, so the difference is that there is a law against such an action,
but the theory that it's justified for those with less to take from
those with more is thrown right out of the window in this case because
you are the one who is having things taken from him.
--
--Conservatives deal with facts, liberals deal with emotion--
.
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| User: "Hugh Gibbons" |
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| Title: Re: What did Paris Hilton do to earn her vast fortune? |
15 Apr 2006 05:24:59 PM |
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In article <xxxrayted-D7DF62.15381515042006@news.newsguy.com>,
ray <xxxrayted@aol.com> wrote:
In America today, a millionaire is not a rare breed. In fact, we create
at least one new millionaire every single day in our Nation, and to
suggest that this is the path to oligarchy is pure hysteria if not
paranoia. It's evident today that our Government is not under the siege
by individual wealth, but by conglomerates who dictate policy for power
and profit.
Which conglomerates are controlled by <1% of the people.
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