I'm trying to find figures now. Do we include the military and defense industry as well?
THIS is "oppression" and "discrimination."
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I'm trying to find figures now. Do we include the military and defense industry as well?
Ok, that all makes sense but, if the government is going to take $800,000 out of every $1,000,000 you make then there would be no incentive to risk your money by starting a business that would enable you to make a million dollars, and if no one is starting businesses then there won't be any jobs. You would be better off putting your money in a savings account wouldn't you?
If you want to, I think thats probably a good idea. Any government emplyoee's, welfare recipients, disabiltity etc. Anyone whose livliehood depended on the federal or state governments. Some of those programs didn't exist back then so you may not be able to find any data on them.
Hold on now. That's income inequality, not wealth inequality. That's a different goat, and I've not addressed it.
$200,000.00 still sounds like a hell of an incentive to me. And, that's what they do in places like Sweden and Norway...and those people live a sweet life, and there still are rich people, investors and what have you.
$200,000 sounds like a lot until you make it and realise it doesn't go as far as you thought it would, at least in the US. It makes you comfortable and allows you to have nice things but your in no way rich. I know a lot of people who are really rich and thier lifestyle and mine are radically different.
Safe_Bet
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Jeebus, dude! If you're gonna TRY to cite historical info stop skewing the shot, okay?
YES, Saint Ronny did away with the 79% tax rate, but he also did away with the BUTT load of tax breaks and loopholes that went with it. NO ONE ever paid 79% in taxes. EVER!
What is fucked up however, is that after the tax rate was reduced the freakin Republicans stuck back in a lot of the same tax breaks for the wealthy. THEN, your boy Bush gave them a tax break on top of that!
So, no. Don't ask me to feel sorry for people who pay a lower effective tax rate than I do!
Stella_Omega
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It used to be that people weren't merely motivated by the making of MORE money. They were motivated by the status they got as philanthropists, by the good will they generated, by the admiration of their fellows.
Money, in itself, is nothing at all. Greenish pieces of paper.
And it dfoesn't matter fuckall if taxes are low for the multi-billionares. The money is not.
trickling.
down.
If it were true that lower taxes for the rich creates job, then where the hell are those jobs? Taxes for the rich are mighty low right now...
On the other hand, if we take the money away from the rich, we can use it to create jobs.
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RjThoughts
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That makes sense, but Neo-Cons will NOT go for it. It takes away their hard earned money. And like their House leader, they'll cry!!!
RjThoughts
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Tough men never bother me, shows low tolerance to their fellow man. They make me laugh. OMG, I tremble in fear of these "men"
Why have you hijacked this thread?
RjThoughts
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What makes me think that Reagan wasn't the person..I lived through it. I saw the news reports, I read the newspapers. I had letters from FIRST hand people - my maternal great-grandmother emigrated from Poland, and I still have family there, part of the 79 Gdansk port uprisings and creation of the Solidarity union.
Yeah, all the people in Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the former Soviet states of Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, etc, had NOTHING to do with it!!!!
Stella_Omega
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Nonsense. The USSR brought itself down, in a process remarkably similar to the one that is happening right now in the USA. Reagan had next to nothing to do with it.
And that is bullshit, my dear, because you have been talking to me and not seeing any belligerence.
kaboom3d
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It is interesting to note who controlled Congress versus what party was in the presidency during the seven years that the debt was reduced throughout the terms of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Three times the Democratic Party controlled both Houses of Congress and the Presidency (1948, 1951 & 1961). The other four years all had a mix of control, with Republicans in the White House (1956 & 1957), in charge of Congress (1946 & 1947), but never both. At no time since 1945 when Republicans have been in total charge of both elected branches of government have they ever reduced spending. They talk about it a lot, but they never deliver.
While the debt did go up every year during Johnson’s time in office (1963-69), he was the last president before Clinton to submit a balanced budget, and Johnson did this during a time of a very hot Cold War. Johnson’s average was a debt increase of 3% for the six years he served. He had a Democratic Congress to work with all his years in office.
Even Nixon (President from 1969 to 1974, when he resigned in disgrace) only had one year when he raised the debt more than 6%, 1971. His average was 5% for the six years he was in office. Between uncontrolled inflation and Ford’s conservative bend the debt increased 17% his first full year in office (1975), and 13% his second (1976). Ford’s plan to impose a policy of price controls failed to bring government overspending and inflation under control. Both these Presidents faced an opposition Congress controlled by Democrats during their time in office.
Starting in 1977 President Carter tried to control government spending even during inflationary times. The national debt increased an average of 9% per year while he was in office, and his policies eventually brought inflation under control with the help of a semi-cooperative Democratic Congress. He was thrown out of office after one term for making and implementing the hard decisions required to cut spending and deal with the energy crisis. (Had we followed his policies all these years we would not be dependent on foreign oil as we are now under Republican leadership.)
As President Reagan entered office in 1981 he repeatedly called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, yet never submitted a balanced budget himself. Many on the right reflexively blame the Democratically controlled Congress for the “big spending” during his administration, even though Republicans controlled the Senate for the first six years of his two terms. Only during the last two years of the Reagan administration was the Congress completely controlled by Democrats, and the records show that the growth of the debt slowed during this period. It appears that the frequently referenced Reagan’s Conservative mythology is contrary to the truth, he was an award winning, record setting liberal spender and government grower.
The fact is that Reagan was able to push his tax cuts through both Houses of Congress, but he never pushed through any reduced spending programs. His weak leadership in this area makes him directly responsible for the unprecedented rise in borrowing during his time in office, an average of 13.8% per year. The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined. From 1983 through 1985, with a Republican Senate, the debt was increasing at over 17% per year. While Mr. Reagan was in office this nation’s debt went from just under 1 trillion dollars to over 2.6 trillion dollars, a 200% increase. The sad part about this increase is that it was not to educate our children, or to improve our infrastructure, or to help the poor, or even to finance a war. Reagan’s enormous increase in the national debt was not to pay for any noble cause at all; his primary unapologetic goal was to pad the pockets of the rich. The huge national debt we have today is a living legacy to his failed Neo-Conservative economic policies. Reagan’s legacy is a heavy financial weight that continues to apply an unrelenting drag on this nation’s economic resources.
George Bush Sr. meekly followed in Reagan’s shadow after his election in 1988, by increasing the debt on average a mere 11.8% a year during his four years as President. In his last year in office he quite responsibly worked with Democrats to raise taxes to help reduce the massive yearly increases in the national debt. This bipartisan plan got the growth down to under 11% in 1992, but it was too little too late and didn’t make much difference in the overall trend. The Neo-Conservatives controlling the Republican Party rewarded him for putting the nation’s future above his party’s ideology by throwing him out of office even though it had hardly been a year since he was credited with winning the Gulf War.
In 1993 President Clinton inherited the deficit spending problem and did more than just talk about it; he fixed it. In his first two years, with a cooperative Democratic Congress, he set the course for the best economy this country has ever experienced. Then he worked with what could be characterized as the most hostile Congress in history, led by Republicans for the last six years of his administration. Yet, under constant personal attacks from the right, he still managed to get the growth of the debt down to 0.32% (one third of one percent) his last year in office. Had his policies been followed for one more year the debt would have been reduced for the first time since the Kennedy administration. Contrary to the myth fostered by our right-wing friends, under a Democrat, revenue increased and spending decreased.
When President Bush II came into office in 2001 he quickly turned all that progress around. With the help of a Republican controlled Congress he immediately gave a massive tax cut based on a failed economic policy; perhaps an economic fantasy describes it better.
While the debt did go up every year during Johnson’s time in office (1963-69), he was the last president before Clinton to submit a balanced budget, and Johnson did this during a time of a very hot Cold War. Johnson’s average was a debt increase of 3% for the six years he served. He had a Democratic Congress to work with all his years in office.
Even Nixon (President from 1969 to 1974, when he resigned in disgrace) only had one year when he raised the debt more than 6%, 1971. His average was 5% for the six years he was in office. Between uncontrolled inflation and Ford’s conservative bend the debt increased 17% his first full year in office (1975), and 13% his second (1976). Ford’s plan to impose a policy of price controls failed to bring government overspending and inflation under control. Both these Presidents faced an opposition Congress controlled by Democrats during their time in office.
Starting in 1977 President Carter tried to control government spending even during inflationary times. The national debt increased an average of 9% per year while he was in office, and his policies eventually brought inflation under control with the help of a semi-cooperative Democratic Congress. He was thrown out of office after one term for making and implementing the hard decisions required to cut spending and deal with the energy crisis. (Had we followed his policies all these years we would not be dependent on foreign oil as we are now under Republican leadership.)
As President Reagan entered office in 1981 he repeatedly called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, yet never submitted a balanced budget himself. Many on the right reflexively blame the Democratically controlled Congress for the “big spending” during his administration, even though Republicans controlled the Senate for the first six years of his two terms. Only during the last two years of the Reagan administration was the Congress completely controlled by Democrats, and the records show that the growth of the debt slowed during this period. It appears that the frequently referenced Reagan’s Conservative mythology is contrary to the truth, he was an award winning, record setting liberal spender and government grower.
The fact is that Reagan was able to push his tax cuts through both Houses of Congress, but he never pushed through any reduced spending programs. His weak leadership in this area makes him directly responsible for the unprecedented rise in borrowing during his time in office, an average of 13.8% per year. The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined. From 1983 through 1985, with a Republican Senate, the debt was increasing at over 17% per year. While Mr. Reagan was in office this nation’s debt went from just under 1 trillion dollars to over 2.6 trillion dollars, a 200% increase. The sad part about this increase is that it was not to educate our children, or to improve our infrastructure, or to help the poor, or even to finance a war. Reagan’s enormous increase in the national debt was not to pay for any noble cause at all; his primary unapologetic goal was to pad the pockets of the rich. The huge national debt we have today is a living legacy to his failed Neo-Conservative economic policies. Reagan’s legacy is a heavy financial weight that continues to apply an unrelenting drag on this nation’s economic resources.
George Bush Sr. meekly followed in Reagan’s shadow after his election in 1988, by increasing the debt on average a mere 11.8% a year during his four years as President. In his last year in office he quite responsibly worked with Democrats to raise taxes to help reduce the massive yearly increases in the national debt. This bipartisan plan got the growth down to under 11% in 1992, but it was too little too late and didn’t make much difference in the overall trend. The Neo-Conservatives controlling the Republican Party rewarded him for putting the nation’s future above his party’s ideology by throwing him out of office even though it had hardly been a year since he was credited with winning the Gulf War.
In 1993 President Clinton inherited the deficit spending problem and did more than just talk about it; he fixed it. In his first two years, with a cooperative Democratic Congress, he set the course for the best economy this country has ever experienced. Then he worked with what could be characterized as the most hostile Congress in history, led by Republicans for the last six years of his administration. Yet, under constant personal attacks from the right, he still managed to get the growth of the debt down to 0.32% (one third of one percent) his last year in office. Had his policies been followed for one more year the debt would have been reduced for the first time since the Kennedy administration. Contrary to the myth fostered by our right-wing friends, under a Democrat, revenue increased and spending decreased.
When President Bush II came into office in 2001 he quickly turned all that progress around. With the help of a Republican controlled Congress he immediately gave a massive tax cut based on a failed economic policy; perhaps an economic fantasy describes it better.
Your right nothing is trickeling down right now. Everybody is sitting tight on thier cash. No one knows waht tomorrow will bring so they are not spending anything and thats a big reason why unemployment is high. There is too much uncertainty right now. I hope that changes soon.
You make a good point about philanthropy but if the government were to take 80% of you income as opposed to say 40% do you think people would be more or less philanthropical. Besides the only philanthropists I know that really make a big difference are the wealthy. Go to any hospital and you'll see a wing dedicated in the name of someone that donated the money to build it. Its hard to donate that kind of money of the government takes it all.
You have two choices basically. Either people donate to the causes they belive in or the government confiscates the wealth and they decide where the money should go. I have more faith in the people that have earned the money to send it where it will do the most good than I have in the government that has a very poor track record in showing that they can allocate funds without massive amounts of corruption.
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Your right Stella, I should have excluded you and Teknight from that comment. I was a little pissed when I wrote that. I apologise for that.
If you don't like the direction the thread is going then change it. Offer up some ideas instead of just criticizing, take it in a new direction. I'm actually trying to learn something. I have disagreed with liberals for twenty years without ever taking the time to learn why they disagree with me. Its called expanding your horizons. I don't hate liberals I just disagree with them. You seem to hate anyone that disagrees with you or isn't like you, I thought all of us straight white guys were supposed to be the haters. If you ever want to bring people around to your way of thinking your going about it the wrong way. I'm not trying to change anyones mind here I'm trying to learn why you believe what you believe. I could read a bunch of stuff on the internet or I could actually talk to people. I prefer to talk, so if you don't like it tough shit.
Stella_Omega
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Thing is, you do it all the time. "Government is responsible for everything!" and then it takes two pages of walking you through your thought processes to get you to agree that the government isn't in fact responsible for everything.
Most of these convos here have been you making some sweeping and ignorant statement, and then me or tek getting you to back it down a little bit. You have to admit that for a lot of people it's just much easier to blow you off and write insults instead. Why should they spend time on you? They already know that whatever you say next will be equally ignorant and one-sided.
Andfor twenty years you've been voting knee-jerk conservative fashion, presumably.. I would say that's typical of conservatives, right there. It isn't that liberals hate cons-- it's that we know that they vote according to what they BELIEVE which is very often not supported by facts. So we are watching you guys destroy the fabric of this country, and we know that there's no fact on earth that can change the basic beliefs that run your lives.
You will find that most liberals want to bolster their beliefs with actual data. You can talk to people AND read "a bunch of stuff on the internet."
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Well in the USA if you want to make a salary of a million dollars and are not a lawyer, or a surgeon, or working on wall street or something along those lines then you need to buy or start a company. I personally know several people with million dollar salaries but they own very large companies with 200-400 employees with gross sales in the $60,000,000-$100,000,000 range.
It takes twnety or thirty years of hard ass work to start a company and build it to that level. Most companies will never reach that level of success. If you told those people that they would have to put in thirty years of hard labor, invest tens of millions of dollars, and hire hundreds of employees just to make $200,000 a year they wouldn't do it.
You have to work your ass off just to gross a million dollars let alone take home a million dollars. There is a big difference between the wealthy who got their wealth through inheritance and first generation wealthy. All of the richest people I know started business in thier garages and built enormous companies from the ground up and employed thousands of people along the way, paid tens of millions in taxes and gave tens of millions to charities.
There is another group and that is the one everyone likes to hate. They are the business school graduates that get hired as CEO's. But before you hate that group you have to look at the boards of directors that hire them, give them their rediculous salaries and golden parachutes that allow them to work for two years, drive the company into the ground and bail out with thier 30 million dollar severance packages. But if you were offered a job like that wouldn't you take it?
Stella_Omega
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The richest people you know are not the richest people in this country.
And if you think people hate the robber CEOS but forgive the stupid fuck boards of directors that hire them, you have another think coming.
And if you think people hate the robber CEOS but forgive the stupid fuck boards of directors that hire them, you have another think coming.
Safe_Bet
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no you aren't.
If you were you'd have stopped using that stupid $200 thousand left from a million number. I showed you that NOBODY ever, ever, EVER paid 79% in taxes, but you still keep repeating it. That is NOT trying to learn, dude!
RjThoughts
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1. I am NOT white. For the first tine since the 1980 census I am again cosidered Native American;
2. I don't hate people who disagree with me. I do not agree with YOUR brand of American history. You don't let the facts get in the way of your version of the truth. In the movie, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," there's a line that is apropos to your answers to most questions, "When rhe legend becomes fact print the legend." You tend to believe the half-truths and myths Neo-Cons and Reaganites have been spouting since Jan of 1981;
3. I agree that there are many people in this country that have been sucking off the teet of the government, but most of them are corporations. They are NOT people, theybare a business entity by and large owned and controled by the super and über rich, who paid LESS taxes than you and I. Want to increase revenue flowing back/ decrease government spending? Eliminate tax breaks for the billion dollar profit per quarter oil companies. That's a start;
4. Back to the topic. If a person is no longer taught to students because of their sexuality, next they won't be taught because of their religion, place of birth, skin color. Yes I'm using the slippery slope falicy used by conseratives but it is appropriate.
True but they are the ones I support because I know how hard they had to work for what they have and I know how generous they have been to their employees and thier communities and how much they pay every year in taxes. None of them inherited anything, they are all self made and not one of them even went to college. They were just hard working guys with some great ideas and a lot of guts. They are the ones that I defend, not the big CEO types whose fathers paid for the educations and thier fathers connections got them thier jobs which many of them suck at.
ok all valid points.
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Stella_Omega
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yes, okay, consider them supported. We've already done this. Go back and re-read some of the earlier posts.
You still haven't looked at those links, have you.
it's not really fair to lay all the responsibility for your education on everyone except yourself.
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SubmissiveBrat
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After reading all this I am going to quote my grandpa, "We are going to hell in a handbasket"
Things just do not look good.
Things just do not look good.
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