what poor folks and the elderly are contantly pressured to sacrifice vs. what rich folks

[cali]

are asked to sacrifice.

Poor folks: food, heat, housing, their health and safety.

rich folks: disposable income that will still leave them with plenty of disposable income.

Quite the comparison.

[deutsey]

1. Don't forget sacrificing poor people's kids

through wars or few affordable educational opportunities.

[MotherPetrie]

2. K&R

[progressoid]

3. But if the rich have to cut back, there won't be as much to trickle down on us.

[grilled onions]

4. Sacrifice VS No Sacrifice At All

On the one hand people are at the minimum of what they need to just eek out existence. They have cut back,cut out so much already that they don't know where to cut next. Eating fine cuts of meat,cheese no hardly any cuts at all. Their kids are lucky to see a budget box of cookies in a good month(or year). Clothes becomes fashionable if it doesn't show skin. Heating and cooling is not always what they want. They get the heat in the summer and the cooling in the winter. Exercise is now in the form of walking because they can't afford to fix their car and they live far away from public transportation.
On the other hand they are angry. They resent the "high life" those at the near bottom are enjoying. They just know if those lazy louts(grannies too) would get off their aged butts there would be more $$$ for the top. They have made so many sacrifices from underpaying their cook or other staff just to keep ahead. Their fancy dinner parties have to be shaved to a couple times a month. Horrors! Kids birthday parties only allow one hundred kids instead of two. The chocolate lava cake is now shut down after one hour. The costs at the gym have become so bad that they are often forced to buy the same equipment,build a special gym in the back forty and pump iron there. The grand lady of the house must spend more time inside their indoors swimming pool(again resenting what they have to pay the pool boy!
Yes they both are forced to make sacrifices but what is vital to one group is hardly earth shattering to the other and yet they think it is. They think they have made all their life long sacrifices just for the rest of us.

[LooseWilly]

9. Well, to be fair, when SS benefits are cut for the wealthy, they have to draw more from their IRAs..

and, unlike SS which caps out at a taxation rate of 85% of your SS income counting toward your Adjusted Gross Income, potentially all of your IRA distributions will be taxable- and taxable as income, not capital gains or preferred stock! Why, increased distributions can also potentially push the tax rate of dividend and interest income tax rates into a higher marginal tax bracket!

No... the wealthy have to make plenty of sacrifices. It can be tough. So very... tough.

[Populist_Prole]

5. Ever since I've become "political", a similar musing struck me, and continues to:

In political battles for public economic policy:

The poor "winning" = Mere survival

The working class "winning" = Getting by with a bit more disposable income and whatever tangible or psychological comforts it can bring

The rich winning = Their gains and lofty position just that much more solidified

The poor losing = being utterly destroyed. Literally "going away"

The working class losing = becoming the poor, and a slight delay to the inevitable slide downward

The rich "losing" = Somewhat less solidified lofty position.

How can any normal human being be OK with this.

I got an angry response from my hard right father when I said this statement pertaining not not to ourselves as such, but our respective peers. ( he's not rich but comfortable and carries water for them with gusto )

"I have more of a right to make a living, than you do to make a killing" It's utterly fair and does not threaten in any way the rich's well being.

[Cal Carpenter]

6. K & R

I don't always agree with you, cali, but you nailed this.

[cali]

7. thanks.

[betterdemsonly]

8. Progressives need to start playing offense instead of defense

if they want to repair the damage that has been done to America's most vulnerable and to formally middle income people.

Propose bills to wage raises. Propose bills to raise taxes. Do so independently of the dino leadership of the democratic party.

[forestpath]

10. That's Obama's definition of "balance."