Yeah, that’s former Reagan budget director David Stockman despairing over his fellow Republicans’ “anti-tax religion,” and watching last night’s 60 Minutes piece on I-1098 has me despairing too. Of course, the anti-tax mantra is a religion, and a fundamentalist one at that.
And apparently, there’s no reasoning with faith.
And yet Dems still use phrases like “tax relief”.
Look on the bright side, Goldy – Murray will probably beat Rossi without the help of King County Elections intervention.
As far as I-1098 goes, I’m glad it will be defeated because having no income tax is one of the best reasons to live in Washington. Maybe somebody will run an initiative in the next election to amend the state’s constitution to permanently bar an income tax at the state level.
We need tax reform. 1098 is not tax reform. Why are we forced to use the initiative process to try and righ tthe ship because the boobs in Olympia can’t do it. The only time they jump and move with urgency is when a stadium is involved.
And is there any reasoning with your “more tax” faith, Goldy?
Interesting to see Stockman on the tube. Haven’t see him in many a year.
Agree with him on his assessment of demagoguery on the right about taxes.
Disagree with him STRONGLY on advocating raising taxes on the middle class. The middle class is TAPPED OUT. Their income and standard of living has STAYED FLAT to outright declined for the past 30 YEARS.
Many people have dropped out of the middle class to poverty status since Bush.
The most interesting factoid Stockman presents in the 60 minutes piece is how well the TOP 5 PERCENT have fared over the last 30 years from a net worth of 8 TRILLION dollars to 40 TRILLION.
C’mon if you care about fiscal responsibility about paying for the wars of choice, a military larger than the next umpteen countries combined, a halfway decent safety net for when the bottom drops of the business cycle, clean air and water, safe food and drugs, decent public education and all the rest of it – YOU KNOW WHERE TO GET THE MONEY!
Wow what great entrepreneurs this state has – they resent the Gates’ wealth and don’t want to pay a modest 5 percent tax.
It’s also incredible that Stockman, Raygun’s right hand man, favors exacting a one time 15 PERCENT WEALTH TAX on the 40 TRILLION CROWD to cut the debt in half.
Way to go David!
Last thing. I’m all for the middle class of this country joining their richer citizens in sharing an increased tax burden.
But let’s see an improvement in middle class income and standard of living FIRST.
How about we bring home the 250,000 troops we have scattered around the world plus the ones in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan?
How about we cut big corporations off the agricultural subsidies?
How about we use a means test for those making over $250,000 annually when their kids want to go to college?
How about we open the urban transit market to alternatives?
How about we let nurses and midwives handle a lot more medical issues?
How about we open the door to other educational models?
How about we quit locking up non violent offenders?
I can think of a bunch more but that’s a start and Goldy glad you have liked the idea of means testing for college students in the past and hope you still support that one.
@7
How about we end Obama’s wars? How about we close a bunch of Obama’s 700+ military bases spread around the world? How about we deny health coverage to illegals? How about we subject churches, mosques, and synagogues to property tax?
@1 Why shouldn’t we give tax relief to people who need and deserve it the most? Under Washington’s current tax system the poorest 20% pay 17% of their income to state and local government while the richest pay only 3%.
Apart from the fact our state and local governments need a new revenue source to preserve vital public services (such as education, police, fire, courts, jails, parks, libraries, and streets and bridges) in the face of plummeting sales tax revenues,* we obviously have a severe tax-distribution problem in our state that cries out for correction. I-1098 would help with both of these problems.
* Washington residents have received huge multibillion-dollar tax cuts over the last three years from plummeting retail sales and property values.
@8 What’s this? Troll thinks we should stop letting the military-industrial complex (which, BTW, was not created by Obama; but for Troll, that’s a detail to be brushed aside) gorge on our tax dollars? It appears we’re making progress with him.
You, this is almost an aside…but can we just have ONE tax? I think everyone who drives on roads, depends on police/fire, enjoy the fact that we have schools and libraries and parks, I think we don’t mind paying for them. I know for ME one of the big annoyances is the scatter shot method. A tax here, a fee there. Some tax on business, some tax on real estate, tax on gas, sales tax, etc. I’d almost prefer a flat tax (of SOME form) so that you can simply see the TOTAL you’re simply paying. Then if the public wants more stuff (and they always do), you simply say, “OK, we’ll have to raise ‘the tax’ by x% to give you the stuff you want…yes/no?”
Wouldn’t that be easier. Keeping in mind it’s almost always “the public” that asks for these increases. Almost all of the sales tax increases for example are driven by the public. I believe there’s one on the ballot this election. The legislator isn’t just raising them for giggles, the PUBLIC keeps asking for more taxes (yes on parks, yes on schools, yes on this, yes on that)…then they turn around like idiots and say “how come my taxes are so high?” Er….because you asked for all that stuff?
Wait…. didn’t tax cuts for the wealthy and taxes increases for the less wealthy bring us morning in America, balanced budgets & sh_t?
Give me that old-time religion,
Give me that old-time religion,
Give me that old-time religion,
It’s good enough for tea.
What’s hilarious is that you folks think high earner taxes will actually be paid by high earners.
What makes you think the successful local contractor or attorney or doctor or pharmacist will not pass the extortion money high earner taxes impose back to his or her clients or customers? I mean, you demonize these folks as fat cats living off the blood and tears of the poor. Why do you imagine these same folks will simply sigh and stroke a check to her majesty, Chris Gregoire? Even if your calumnies of the wealthy were true (of course they really aren’t) any halfwit knows what to do with the hot potato of taxation.
In effect your ‘high earner’ taxes will be paid by the middle class, like most taxes. The poor don’t pay them, subsidized as they are by our nanny state. The rich don’t pay them, protected by loopholes and tax havens in addition to the process of passing taxes on to others. The middle class, without the loopholes of the wealthy or the protection of poverty exemptions, will pay this tax as they pay all the others.
@8 What’s this? Troll thinks we should stop letting the military-industrial complex (which, BTW, Obama did not create; a detail Troll glosses over) gorge on our tax dollars? It appears we’re making progress with him.
@13 “What makes you think the successful local contractor or attorney or doctor or pharmacist will not pass the extortion money high earner taxes impose back to his or her clients or customers?”
Um, competition?
Hey lost, why don’t you explain this to us. If well-to-do contractors, attorneys, and doctors pass the cost of their personal taxes through to their customers, then doesn’t it follow by the same reasoning that workers pass the cost of their personal taxes through to their employers? By your logic, don’t all taxes get passed on to someone else, therefore no one actually pays any taxes? And if no one pays taxes, then taxes don’t hurt anybody, so why not have more taxes and enjoy the benefits of the public services that taxes pay for? Wouldn’t you want more roads, sidewalks, parks, libraries, cops, judges, and firefighters if no one has to pay for them?
Does anyone besides me get the feeling Lost is not a deep thinker?
@13 lostinaseaofblue on 11/01/2010 at 11:26 am,
What’s hilarious is that you believe yourself capable of thinking.
Do you understand disposable income?
Elasticity?
No, I didn’t think so.
@16…
Me.
@15 Roger Rabbit on 11/01/2010 at 11:26 am,
Nice reductio ad absurdum.
For better or worse it won’t cause Lost’s head to explode. Lost has got that Old-time religion.
re 1: Just as Rumsfeld had to fight a fake war with the only real army that he had, Dems. have to access the attentions of a deliberately misinformed electorate (misinformed by Republicans for over 30 years — of which you are but one victime)with the buzz phrases thast will be seen as significant.
Why do I bother. You’re an idiot.
Rabbit,
You’re assuming that some business owners won’t pass business expenses to customers in pricing? You might be right, but those business owners won’t be around long.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but on my projects the client pays for the cost of work done, together with a reasonable profit margin. This includes labor and materials and all the other costs of doing business. And yes, taxes.
When you go to the doctor you pay for malpractice premiums, office costs, the rate of pay the doctor and his or her partners determine to be fair etc. And taxes.
When you buy a television the costs of producing, shipping, marketing and stocking the TV are built into the costs. As well as the tax burden imposed on the manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, trucker and anyone else involved in getting it to your local Best Buy.
How would a worker pass costs back? To whom?
I can say that the wage one of my carpenters earn is determined in part by the costs of retaining them versus the amount a client will pay for their hourly work. I’m no economist, but if it costs me $30 to $32 an hour for an employee making $20 an hour, and I can charge a client $35 an hour, that limits the pay they receive. Pretty straightforward, I’d have thought.
You’re right, I’m no deep thinker. Just a good old boy from the East side of the state, who can tell shit from shinola, as the old saying goes.
Re 21`
BTW, ‘Shinola’ is generally understood to mean liberal thinking in general. Curiously, so is ‘shit.’ Hmm.
Rabbit,
You might also note that in the final paragraph at 16 your query about who finally pays taxes was answered.
@21…when is trhe dumbass gonna get that these opinions he pulls out of his ass (like his HEAD)…
…stink.
re 21: Wouldn’t a business owner in a similar business as yours simply eat the costs of the taxes and drive you out of business?
Business owners would have to conspire among themselves to fix prices for your scenario to work.
@16 – Me, too.
What conservatives constantly argue for is simple defeatism. No matter what the problem, if one offers a possible solution, the conservative answer is always that it won’t work, or that people will find a way around the solution, or the problem isn’t really a problem, or not a problem that is large enough to warrant action, or that the solution will exacerbate said problem.
It is yet another reason not to engage trolls. Instead of having discussions about solutions, trolls force the discussion away from intelligent thought and analysis into fever-pitched nonsense.
Now we know why he calls himself Lost.
What the hell does that ramble (@21) have to do with a high income earners tax? It eliminates B&O taxes for small businesses, and cuts state property taxes 20 percent.
RE 17
Distract yourself with ivory tower dismal science nonsense all you like. A working definition of a university economist is ‘one who, lacking the capacity to earn money, tries to tell others how it is done.’ Human nature is what it is, and anyone capable of passing a tax on to someone else will certainly do so.
@13: Lost
Wow, you really are an ignorant fool.
First, most of the uber rich got there by one of two ways – their parents or a combination of hard work and a lot of LUCK.
There are plenty of people (say 99% of everyone) who are smart, educated and work hard for their entire lives and do not make over 450K on their own.
Second, they can afford to pay more because they are mostly living off their interest – so most of them witll not pass the costs on – you are dreaming or living in a fantasy world that people making over 450K can’t afford an extra 12.5 K.
Passing the extra cost on….NO. Maybe one less yacht…YES. Or just less return on their “safe” investment money (that we don’t need right now anyways).
Lost, your knowledge of economics is so limited – I really wonder if you ever got past the third grade.
The business meme of “The only way to economize is to tax me less” is BS.
@28: Nice one LOST, cover up your ignorance by criticizing economists.
You really do have an intelligence and ego problem. You lack intelligence but have a huge ego.
Oh, and that health care reform that you hate – it will SAVE us money according to the non-partisan CBO. Too bad we did not get a government option or universal health care.
This is a government of the people, not visa versa. New Jersey is happy with its governor, because he GETS IT!
We have continually passed a 2/3 or no new taxes, and we will do it again tommorrow. The I1098 isn;t fooling anyone, and all the other I1100, I 1007 will also pass. WHY?
Because Government needs to be force pulled back in these depressionary times.
100k-200k + wages, Cadillac retirement plans, etc etc etc, don’t exist in the real world any more, and they need to be scaled back in government.
If you don’t get that clue tommorrow night, then you’ve missed what the electorate is saying. And that would not suprise me in the least.
RE 27
In the real world we call this ‘theft.’ In liberal speak it is ‘redistribution of wealth.’ Did you guys crib your entire approach to language from ‘1984’ for goodness sake?
Re 26
Yep. Conservatives deal with the world and human nature as they are. Liberals deal with reality (to the extent that they do) as they would like it to be, if everything were fair, and people were all saints.
We all know which produces real solutions, and which produces nonsensical theories that melt in the face of reality like snow in the sun.
Re 25
Conspire? My mechanic charges close to the same shop rates as the other mechanics in his area. The costs which drive the rates are similar, so the rates themselves are similar. No collusion, just business.
And my mechanic, my doctor, the electricians I use and so on aren’t picked solely on cost concerns. I’m as concerned that my doctor be competent as what a physical costs. I’m as concerned that my houses not burn down in electrical fires as what the electrician charges.
And most people want a contractor who will get the job done right at a fair price. Only those who want their homes damaged choose one on the lowest bid basis.
re 28:
If you found a snippet of it that supported or could be twisted to support what you were saying, you’d use it in an instant.
Calm down and have a smoke. George Elliot said it helped Silas Marner immensely — and she was a great novelist.
So –Smoking is good for you. George Elliot said so.
The only people really fighting against this warped, anti-tax, more wealth for the wealthy crap are the French, and we better pray they have some level of success, or it will even be more difficult to right the wrongs of the past forty years of conservative malfeasance.
re 33: You never object to redistribution of wealth when it goes up the economic ladder. You are a hypocrite of the worst sort.
By the way — I’m in the top 20% of wage earners. You know — the ones who own 84% of the wealth of this country — and I’m willing to share the wealth.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” I think the answer is Yes. No one is asking anybody to impoverish themselves — just pay enough for a civil society to work.
What makes you so special?
Re 29
Gee, I’m so stupid that I forgot that most of the economists you love so much blame the recession in part on drastically slowed consumer spending. I’m so ignorant that I forgot that if the wealthy stop buying stuff, that might just impact, well, consumer spending.
As for your childish temper tantrum about how the only path to wealth is inheritance or luck? Simply not true, but truth and liberals are like sun and moon anyway.
RE 36
“By the way — I’m in the top 20% of wage earners. You know — the ones who own 84% of the wealth of this country — and I’m willing to share the wealth.”
Congratulations. You regularly pay extra to the state and federal governments voluntarily, I assume. Last year you just slipped an extra check into your IRS return on general principles, yes?
No? I’m shocked.
Ya know what, if you want to pay extra, fine. If you want to moralize for me and tell me how I ought to be punished for my hard work and good habits? Go to hell.
@37: Lost
First, you are WRONG again. Most economists blame this recession primarily on the banking crisis due to bad business practices allowed by the credit default swap (see Phil Gramm and the “free market philosophy)
.
Wow, educating Lost is like trying to get a three year old to understand calculus.
Are you so stoopid you forgot about that?
I am not angry with you – I am just amused at how stoopid you are. You have no clue about economics but you keep writing your little platitudes and think you are actually arguing a point.
How funny!
I don’t want to bum you, the folks who have been speaking sanity and arguing against insanity, out – but we’re doomed.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
While folks like Lost are free to disregard the dismal science, you’d do well to prepare.
Krugman (Nobel Prize winning dismal scientist) has some good prognostication in his column today and his blog over the past week.
It truly is a pity… and I’ll need to explain to my grandchildren how after 2008 the lazy white people didn’t show up to vote in 2010 and the sheets got worse.
Re 31
You mean the same CBO that predicted that health care costs would rise at a greater rate with a mandatory health insurance provision than if nothing were done at all? To be fair, this was while dems were shilling for the public option, so the numbers were probably skewed as required for politcs.
That CBO?
Re 40
Amazing. Paul Krugman is trying to scare people into voting democrat tomorrow? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!
HP Lovecraft from 1936:
Re 39
All the textbook lib personal attacks on my intelligence? You might save yourself the bother. If you’re amusing yourself, please, enjoy. If you’re hoping to insult me, please, don’t waste your time voicing opinions to someone who doesn’t care about them.
@41: Nice try, fool. Republicans cite the non-partisan CBO numbers all the time. Typical of a fool, you try to deny the facts by attacking the source – then use that source to cite your budget data. Not only are you ignaorant, but you also are a hypocrite. I am not sure if you are a liar – or just too dumb to understand stuff.
Once again, you deny the facts and present NONE of your own.
But then again, you have no clue about economics.
@36 – He doesn’t object to ‘trickle-up’ economics because it fits his defeatist attitude and cynical, Ayn Rand / Gordon Gekko inspired vision of humanity.
As I said earlier, the conservative raison d’etre is not to find solutions, but to obstruct them. They “win” by perpetuating a culture war – and culture wars are not meant to be won, but perpetuated. They have always been at war with (fill in the blank). They will always be at war with (fill in the blank).
By engaging them, we allow them to get on their “two minute hate” 24/7. It is a losing proposition.
In 2007, the Pew Research Study published a report showing that “viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers rank nearly dead last.”
Um, yup.
Re 43
Well, Lovecraft wrote about evil space aliens, undersea amphibians copulating with maidens and a whole lot of other loony stuff. (Though admittedly in the creepy ghost story way I loved as a kid.)
Should we be concerned about those as well. I mean, we live pretty close to the sea….
I am attacking your intelligence because you are stoopid – I don’t need a textbook for that.
Your pathetically ignorant statement that the recession was due to rich people not buying enough (according to WHAT economists!)…well, that is certainly as shallow and dumb as one person can get.
Then you attack economists in general and then the CBO. See, you have a problem with facts if they conflict with your limited world view and you will not let facts get in the way of your third grade level philosophy.
So….I choose to call that stoopidity. Sorry. If you wrote something intelligent – then I could change my opinion of you – but I really have not seen intelligence and deep thought from you.
@42. lostinaseaofblue on 11/01/2010 at 12:21 pm,
Once again, you jump in with comments about stuff you know nothing about. You did not read Krugman. You assume your conclusion. Krugman knows that Dems are not going to win tomorrow, and he laments the poor leadership they’ve provided.
He’s a realist. As am I.
Re 45
Well, in fact I did cite the CBO on the insurance mandate. You must have missed that while reading your copy of ‘The Little Red Book.’
Re 46
Yep, Worf with the Ayn Rand again. I’m guessing you must once have loved her stuff, given the violent rejection you currently display. I always thought she was a shallow, overwrought extremist. Read about half of Atlas Shrugged before the slog got to much.
As for the culture war, I have to stand back with awe at how the left wages it against Christians, the wealthy, really anyone mainstreasm. Sorry, I’ll have to pass on the culture war, you guys have too much practice.
Well, real work to do now.
I want to thank you folks. This blog is a sort of white noise I use while thinking about, you know, real life. It’s kind of like humming, or tapping your fingers on the desk, only more amusing.
@51: Wow, is that all you have – to accuse me of reading a little red book. You certainly are shallow. I have never been a communist or even a socialist. All I am concerned with right now is how the right wing lies and how ignorant their followers are – becuase those lies are preventing realprogress from being made. That is how the rightwingnuts are winning – by pumping coporate money into elections and lying. Karl Rove is the man behind the curtain – the same guy that claimed the deficit doesn’t matter is funding the groups that are harping on the deficit.
http://www.campaignlegalcenter.....;Itemid=62
Thank you for proving to me that the right wingnuts really have no basis in fact for their third-grade level beliefs. If you are the best they have…well, let’s just say you could not argue your way out of a paper bag.
You know nothing about me – but feel no hesitation to call me names.
Come to DL – I think you might shut your little mouth up.
re 38: Spare me the BS, Lost. If you needed help from this government of the people by the people and for the people, you would be breaking arms to be first in line. 70% of the annual budget goes to supposed ‘defense’.
Do you want to cut defense? Do you want to make the uts that will really work rather than the cuts that will punish people with less wherewithal than you.
Why don’t YOU spare ME the crap about you being a hero of self sufficiency. I know better.
You are just jealous of liberals because we are economically more successful than you, better educated, and we are willing to share the wealth.
You are a selfish, finger twizzling Smigel. You’ll not get the ring — because you are an asswipe.
41. lostinaseaofblue spews:
You cite nothing, so the “CBO report” to which you refer is a mystery to me. Do you perhaps mean the November 2009 analysis that examined the expected impact on average premiums for health insurance in different markets? Although CBO and JCT have not updated those estimates, the effects of the enacted legislation are expected to be quite similar.
And in that report some interesting things were reported; that is, under the final bills (Senate + “reconciliation” bill) all of the following will be true for “non-group;” that is, individual converage not provided by an employer or through an HMO or other large-scale plan provider:
1. Average premiums would be 27 percent to 30 percent higher because a greater amount of coverage would be obtained. In particular, the average insurance policy in this market would cover a substantially larger share of enrollees’ costs for health care (on average) and a slightly wider range of benefits. Those expansions would reflect both the minimum level of coverage (and related requirements) specified in the proposal and people’s decisions to purchase more extensive coverage in response to the structure of subsidies.
2. Average premiums (for a fixed amount of insurance) would be 7 percent to 10 percent lower because of a net reduction in costs that insurers incurred to deliver the same amount of insurance coverage to the same group of enrollees. Most of that net reduction would stem from the changes in the rules governing the nongroup market.
3. Average premiums would be 7 percent to 10 percent lower because of a shift in the types of people obtaining coverage. Most of that change would stem from an influx of enrollees with below-average spending for health care, who would purchase coverage because of the new subsidies to be provided and the individual mandate to be imposed.
Item # 3 contradicts your assertion.
Nonetheless, the combined affect of 1, 2, and 3 will be to increase overall premiums by 10-13 percent, ONLY for non-group individual coverage, it assumes a basket of much MORE coverage than pre-ACA non-group plans (see #1), and this does NOT factor in subsidies for low-income enrollees, who will pay much less.
BTW, the effect of the ACA on so-called “small group plans” will be to raise premiums by only 1-2%, and the effect on so-called “large group” plans will be to lower premiums by 0-3%. Same source.
51. lostinaseaofblue spews:
Yeah, I don’t think so. You claimed they said something WITHOUT citing their work. Where/when did it appear, and in a document entitled what?
Daddy, that man-crush you have on Johnny Depp is just plain….creepy.
re 57: If I were gay, Johnny Depp would be high on my list, also. Looks like Keith Richards already got him, though.
now thats just Nasty with a capital N.
I’d like to toss in one more comment about Lost’s rants. He tells us taxes are driving contractors into the ground. What taxes? All the contractors I’ve dealt with recently wanted to be paid in cash and didn’t provide receipts. What do you think the chances are they remitted sales taxes, L&I taxes, etc., to the state? Contractors, as a group, are the biggest tax cheats there are.
@60: I’m a contractor (so sue me).
What’s driving us into the ground is lack of business. During the building mania it was not unusual for school districts to have to build a new $15m school based on only receiving one bid. Now? Stupid little projects at Lewis-McChord attract 12 bidders because the private market has totally dried up.
So if you’re the lucky low bidder under these circumstances you are either a crook, on a suicide mission, have made a terrible bid error, or just dumber than a box of rocks, and the idea of actually making a profit is utterly secondary. Of course, when the government “re-bids” the job…the real bloodletting begins.
“I have never been a communist or even a socialist.”
I have. It’s no big deal. I might join again, and I’m seriously considering voting for Gus Hall for prez in ’12.
ONE BIG UNION. ONE BIG STRIKE! I’m spending tomorrow night drinking a few to the memory of Big Bill Haywood…….
Gus is dead, unfortunately. Angela Davis is still alive, however. I’d vote for her in a heart beat.
With a side of Jello Biafra.
Davis / Biafra ’12.
A boy can dream, can’t he?
@44 Lost, most of us liberals here think you’re intelligent enough to know better. That’s why you’re so inexplicable to us.
@51 “I always thought she was a shallow, overwrought extremist.”
Eh, that’s pretty much the same as I view you.
“Read about half of Atlas Shrugged before the slog got to much.”
heh- And the same goes for your insipid comments.
You, Rand and denial. No surprise there. It goes hand in hand with the NPD.
@61 I’m a residential owner customer of contractor services. I’m doing major renovations to my dilapidated burrow ($40,000 spent in the last 18 months) about three-quarters of which went to contractors. My experience has been that residential remodeling contractors are hungry (my drywaller, a music buff, had to sell his prized guitars for food money) but they’re not shaving their prices. You still pay the same labor rates and materials costs you did 2 years ago. That’s understandable, they have to make something off a job, or there’s no point in working. But the recession is not trickling bargain prices to consumers like me. What it’s doing is idling a lot of workers — and perhaps driving some contractors out of business although I suspect that it’s mostly driving them onto food stamps because the entry barriers are so low anyone with a battered van and a box of tools can restart his contracting business whenever there’s work.
This recession is a human tragedy unfolding between our eyes. But it’s not all bad. It’s humbling a lot of people who got too full of greed. It’s breaking a lot of people of credit addiction.
I got off the credit bandwagon many years ago. There were many reasons for that which I needn’t and won’t bother to explain here. Let’s just say that when Mrs. Rabbit and I bought our present burrow 20 years ago we dedicated ourselves to paying it off as quickly as possible. More than that, we dedicated ourselves to a debt-free lifestyle. We didn’t enjoy the good life other people had by credit binging. While they were taking European vacations and buying Porsches, we paid off our two Fords and then paid off our burrow. When the Great Recession hit, we had no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card payments, and our jobs weren’t vulnerable because we had already quit working and were living on our pensions. Sure, state pensions aren’t all that great, but when you have low expenses you can make it on a modest income. The only things we worry about are inflation and health expenses. The Great Recession pretty much has killed inflation for years to come, but health expenses are a problem. I’m going to spend about $25,000 on health care for two of us (including our insurance premiums) this year. If health care wasn’t so damn expensive I could be driving a Porsche that I paid cash for. I don’t think Obama’s health care reform is a panacea, and I certainly don’t believe it’ll make health care free, but I do think it was the right thing to do and represents an enormous benefit for the beleaguered middle class. One thing to remember is that nearly all of America’s 50 million uninsured are people who are workign their asses off in low paying, dirty, and often dangerous jobs. The welfare class get Medicaid; the elderly get Medicare; the only way you can be uninsured in this country is to be working poor or lower middle class working for an employer who doesn’t offer health benefits.
RR – my favorite part of that screed @ 44 was
Not particularly self aware, is he?
@65 As I said to you at dinner, I don’t believe Lost to be very intelligent at all. The poor sap just can’t seem to see past square one. Indeed, he strikes me as being utterly incapable of thinking anything through. So I say he’s just a half-witted dumbfuck who is filled with a seething hatred that is barely concealed by his arrogance and conceit. He’s much more a “Loser” than he is “Lost”.
@51 “I have to stand back with awe at how the left wages it against Christians, the wealthy, really anyone mainstreasm.”
Okay, so we have a hard on for the rich, I admit it, but they’ve got it coming. Waging “culture war” against Christians? You’re confused, in addition to being incredibly shortsighted.
Let me explain something to you. By insisting on separation of church and state, we’re protecting the right of everyone to practice a religion of their own choosing, including Christians. Now here’s where your shortsightedness comes in. The demographics of America are changing. Whether you like it or not, Caucasians — the primary Christian demographic group — will become a minority in America within your lifetime. Islam’s demographic base is African-Americans and various Middle Eastern and Subcontinent groups. What if they become the population majority in the future? You’ll wish then that you hadn’t been so eager to let government put religion in schools, courthouses, and government offices.
I’m not gonna take the bait and fall for rightwing fright-talk about Islam. All Muslims are not Taliban. But if you want to know what Islamic extremists are capable of when they get control of a government that doesn’t keep its beak out of religion, I refer you to the mass executions in sports stadiums in Afghanistan during the Taliban era. And cutting off people’s hands for shoplifting and stoning women for adultery or not wearing a veil.
Do you want that in our country? You’re fucking nuts if you do. If you want to live like that, then go to a country where they mix up religion with government power. Don’t screw things up here. Our efforts to keep church and state separate are for your own good, as well as ours. You’re just too stupid to know it.
@69 I think he’s intelligent enough to know better, which makes him guiltier than our other trolls.
Rabbit,
Good luck with the remodeling. I hope the contractor is doing good work for you.
As for your views on the separation of church and state, I’m in complete agreeement. My right to free speech assumes my tolerance of the same right in others. My right to practice my faith is preconditioned on the universal grant to let others do so, or to practice no faith at all. At the core of my faith in any case is the notion that I choose it, not that my government choose it for me.
The culture war against Christianity is waged by the media, not the state. A politician who identifies as Christian is viewed with suspicion by much of our press, despite this being the dominant faith in our culture. They use terms they see as derogatory, religious right, or fundamentalist. They question whether a person who is Christian can do his job as Attorney General, or as an officer of the court, or as a legislator. A Muslim might face the same level of scrutiny if seeking public office. I doubt very much an atheist or someone who simply doesn’t identify a faith would from the media in this country, with its strong left leaning bias.
Re 69
Does that mean you won’t be friending me on Facebook? Damn. I’m crushed.
the term “tax relief” buys into the notion that taxes are something you need to be cured of; rather than a necessary part of civilization.
Rabbit @9; I would call what you are talking about tax justice, or tax fairness and I support that.
“You cannot serve God and money.” — Matthew 6:24
A religion is being “green”. Keeping taxes low is common sense, and anyone who doesn’t see that is… a horse’s ass.
Too bad they didn’t call 1098 a tax “reform” – then all the dumb liberals would’ve been thrilled! Hey, liberals: it’s been proven time and again at the city, state and national level that raising taxes actually lowers tax revenue. Why are you too dense to understand that? Why does your liberal religion blind you to simple facts? Go look it up. I know, you’ll never admit you’re wrong – that’s because for you politics is a religion not a matter of fact. Now go pray to your gods of taxation, income redistribution and recycling.