So talk to me about taxes, I'm surrounded by fiscally conservative

[holiday]

people.

Do you think welfare is bad?

Do you think that if we did not have gov't programs to help people and instead had lower taxes... People would take that new found money and donate it to the charities that they want to give to?

Is it unfair to give lower wage earners less taxes? To make rich people pay more taxes?

Just want to see others opinions and see if I'm thinking like other democrats on this issue.

[Kip Humphrey]

1. I'm all for the Palin Plan: dividend/royalty checks for every citizen!

[dtotire]

11. The top !% of taxpayers obtain 20% of the total national income

It it only fair that they pay at least 40% to 50% of all income taxes. The next 5% get perhaps another 30% and could easily afford to pay another 35% or so.

[Spinzonner]

2. Nothing wrong with Fiscal Conservatism

It's just that the Republicans promote it without practicing it.

[holiday]

4. Well

the beliefs that I'm surrounded by is:

If we had lower taxes and no programs (like unemployment, Head Start, etc etc) we would just give money to charities

my opinion: People would find other uses for that money and spend it, not necessarily giving it to charities. You can't guarantee everyone will pick up the slack with their newfound money.

And I actually had someone tell me that democrats want to keep people on welfare so they will continue their political power lol

I also don't believe in Republicans claiming the Bible for social issues but yet can't put the Bible away fast enough when it comes to money. The republican economics are nothing like what it says in the Bible.

[Stellabella]

13. No great improvement in a group has ever, EVER

been achieved without government intervention and government programs. Before Social Security, there were a large number of very poor seniors. Before WIC and AFDC, there were very, very poor children. Charities have never been able to solve problems on a massive scale.

The Bible says "render unto Caesar that which is Caesars'". Jesus also mandates that we help the poor, the sick, the elderly, the hungry, and children. I don't see many repukes following that mandate.

The country and economy is built from the bottom up. With a large underclass, crime will increase, education will suffer, and we'll lose our standing in scientific and medical research in this country.

And BTW, anyone who suggests that a child should go hungry or should be homeless because her parent can't find a job should be condemned to the lower levels of hell.

[El Pinko]

42. There's also nothing wrong with fiscal liberalism.

Pork Barrel spending creates immense economic benefits all over the country, and even welfare checks get spent in local stores.

The same cannot be said for the trillion dollars we have dropped into a bottomless pit called Iraq.

Fiscal conservatism is a crock of shit, because the only major national politician who ever practiced it was Clinton. All the other GOPers spent like drunekn sailors - on corporate welfare and the Department of Offense.

[Greyhound]

3. Welfare no longer exists (thanks Bill, you asshole). "Private charity" has never worked.

Taxing labor is anti-American.

[blueknight]

6. well

i dont know where you live, but welfare is alive and well in kentucky

[Greyhound]

18. Maximum benefit in CA in 2002 was $254 p/mo and recipients cannot have any assets at

all. No car, no apartment, no tools, nothing of any value, now try to survive on $254 a month anywhere in CA.

Even under these draconian restrictions, there was a 2 year backlog due to underfunding, and a two year limit on relieving benefits with no assistance to remedy the problem thanks to welfare "reform".

When you say alive and well, please define the term.

[F2XL]

8. Disagree

I would rather donate to people who choose to help by choice and use 70 cents of every dollar (Salvation army) then a fed-run system that only uses 30 cents of every tax dollar (the rest is lost in bureaucracy). This all according to Thomas Sowell.

[Greyhound]

10. Your preferences aside, private charity has never once worked. n/t

[NoGOPZone]

12. Sowell, huh? Well, I'm convinced! LOL nt

[Stellabella]

15. Doesn't work that way.

Before The Great Society there was a large population in this country that was heart-breakingly poor, including the elderly and children. Charities just don't make up the difference.

http://www.cbpp.org/4-8-99socsec.htm

"Social Security reduces the proportion of elderly people living in poverty from nearly one in two to fewer than one in eight, according to a new study released today of Census data. The study found that in 1997, nearly half of all elderly people — 47.6 percent — had incomes below the poverty line before receipt of Social Security benefits. After receiving Social Security benefits, only 11.9 percent remained poor."

[Trajan]

17. Thomas Sowell is an extreme Right Wing Libertarian ...

This claim of the superior efficiency of NGO's should be proven by facts ...

Are you sure you are in the right forum ? ... You know this forum is exclusively for Democrats and Liberals ..... right ?

[happyslug]

23. The overhead cost for SS is less then 1% NOT 70% of money donated

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/AntisocInsec.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050103/scheer1221

Now there are a lot of Right wing sites that says the opposite, but the costs has been low since its inception and going down with the use of Computers.

[tkmorris]

35. That 70% figure is utter horseshit

Do NOT listen to what any pundit or editorialist tells you. Find the figures for yourself, and scrutinize them with a very critical eye, vigilant for bias.

Thomas Sowell is but one of a great number of people whose sole business is creating arguments that justify the incorrect positions of certain subsets of people. Most people do not think critically about issues, they decide beforehand what it is they want to believe and then gravitate toward arguments that make that case for them, whether the argument is sound or not. This is intellectually lazy, and is anathema to a functioning Democracy.

[Selatius]

38. If bureaucracy is so big, tell me why Medicare only has operating costs of 3 percent???

A private entity that does the same thing as Medicare typically has "operating costs" that are closer to 30 percent. Thomas Sowell is not a credible source but a biased one.

[snappyturtle]

5. I have never undrstood why conservatives can't/won't understand that

helping the disadvanged is less costly in the long run rather than leaving them to suffer ever growing hardships.

[prayin4rain]

16. exactly, if you make millions off of a community

and don't reinvest in that community... you ruin the community that allows you to make, keep and spend those millions and then what is the point??

[snappyturtle]

36. Greed is a powerful trait. I'm prayin' for rain too! nt

[Odin2005]

41. The Investor Class wants a desperate underclass because it keeps wages down.

Capitalism requires an unemployed/under-employed underclass to function

[NMDemDist2]

7. borrow and spend Republicans have made a mess of this country

Democrats offer "PayGo" and the last balanced budget we had was under Clinton. Did they do well under Clinton? are they better off today than they were 8 years ago?

Don't get pulled into the "is welfare bad" game. and ask them if they want to privatize schools too and if they plan on collecting Social Security.

[Trajan]

9. Taxes are a necessary part of civilized government

Do you think welfare is bad?

Welfare is bad, but the need for welfare is what drives using it. If the conservative style of capitalism were so wonderful, there would NEVER be a need to have welfare programs. FIRST came poverty: THEN came welfare, not the other way around. The poor and middle classes WANT to work, and they will work if decent jobs are available. It is a lie to assert that the poor are just lazy and unwilling to work.

Do you think that if we did not have gov't programs to help people and instead had lower taxes... People would take that new found money and donate it to the charities that they want to give to?

That might be true, but think of the consequences: Very rich families would give to the charity of their choice, which may offer services to other whites, but avoid helping nonwhites. This is certainly true in american history. And what if the rich do not give, for whatever reason ? ... What would happen to the poor then ? .... One only need to look at how things were before FDR to see how a pure Laissez Faire marketplace worked, and it was not a pretty picture.

Is it unfair to give lower wage earners less taxes? To make rich people pay more taxes?

Yes: It is fair ... A quote from Adam Smith, from The Wealth Of Nations:

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state ....(As Henry Home (Lord Kames) has written) a goal of taxation should be to 'remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the poor and burdening the rich.'"

This battle is nothing new: There are a few points to make about this:

1) When the Middle Class does well, the rich do well .... It is not necessarily true the other way around.

2) The more pay the middle class receives, they more they spend, the more producers produce, the more sales volumes increase, the more goods need to be manufactured, the more jobs are created .... It is a self propagating cycle: Call it 'trickle up' economics ...

3) The problem with many conservatives is not that they want to pay a fair share of taxes: It is that they dont want to pay ANY taxes ....

4) The Right rail regularly about how taxes hurt people, but they doesnt seem to have a problem when the people are gouged by their friends in industry, or to use the people's taxes to pay themselves in fat no bid contracts by steering government work to their friends ...

[Phentex]

21. Great response!

Currently, however, we do not have a civilized government.

*sigh*

[gulliver]

14. Fiscally conservative or just stupid?

There is a high rate of identity fraud. The true fiscal conservatives are the ones who like arithmetic and accounting to work out according to the laws of arithmetic and the practices of accounting. People who worry that 3 cents of their tax dollar (or whatever) goes to someone who is on hard times are not "conservative." They are just flattering themselves.

America is learning a hard lesson. It is not safe to be dumb any more. Time to grow up. The true conservatives are reality based. The false ones are just prey.

[earth mom]

19. Tax the Rich Bastards and Corporate America. nt

[Blue Meany]

20. I added up all the taxes I paid last year and it was

about 40% of my income and I make less than $50,000. When you add up federal and state income, social security, sales, and property taxes we pay a pretty high rate, given what we get back in govt. services. The wealthy are not paying this kind of percentage in taxes and they should, if we have to. It is absurd that capital gains in taxed at a lower rate than earned income and that conservatives are squawking about SS being broke when they have used a the trust fund, built up from regressive SS taxes, to fund the govt. for the last 30 years.

[Selatius]

39. Warren Buffett famously said he was taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.

His secretary basically paid an effective rate that was about twice of what he had to pay, and he did no tax preparation at all, didn't use every opportunity to take advantage of every tax loophole/credit under the sun.

[Poseidan]

22. we deal with taxes in moronic ways

It's overly simplistic. We tax only based on income? We should tax based on profession. Like professional athletes should get the living fuck taxed out of them. They play games for a living, games they love, and games which are ultimately unnecessary, yet they are paid millions of dollars per-year.

Want better health-care? Adjust taxes for the health-care industry. Necessary institutions should have very low taxes while unnecessary should have high. Health-care, farming, education, all should have extremely low taxes.

[CitizenPatriot]

24. fiscally conservative to a gopper means

a 700 billion dollar bail out of their Wall Street

and

no bail out for the people

It also means higher taxes on the middle class than the rich

it also means rich corporations taking advantages of tax loopholes by positioning their company HQ off shore and paying NO taxes


is this what your friends support? That's not fiscal conservatism. It's highway robbery of the middle class.

My grandparents were fiscally conservative republicans and they thought paying taxes was a part of their JOB as citizens. they paid for their own health care instead of using the free one offered by their employer. They were very wealthy and donated money anonymously to their community and to charities around the world. they taught us all to never buy what we could not pay cash for. They never hoarded their money or felt entitled or superior to others. They weren't flashy and they didn't buy a lot of things. They lived modestly and gave generously. They wanted every citizen to work hard AND be given the same opportunities they were given. They lived with a balanced budget, an open heart, and paid their fair share of taxes. They never took what they did not need from the government (unlike John McCain who takes 28 k in social security, 68 k in disability, and 200 whatever as a senator EVERY YEAR on top of the 318 million his wife is worth and the 23 million he is worth from taking lobbyists money).

hypocrites: thy name is GOP "small government, fiscally conservative"

In other words, they walked their talk. That is the true meaning of fiscally conservative.

[ThoughtCriminal]

25. Progressive tax rates are more fair

Taxing the poor at the same rate places a burden on their ability save or even survive. MOst of a low wage earner's income has to go to basic survival needs: housing, food, heat, medical care. The rich have FAR more discretionary income and can afford to pay higher rates. Further, contrary to free-market fundamentalist dogma, the rich receive far more benefit from government spending.

[gravity]

26. The government has to pay the bills

With fiscal conservatives, I always talk about balancing the budget. You can say that a responsible government would cut spending first, then worry about cutting taxes. If they increase spending, then they have to increase taxes.

With welfare, I think any problems with it could be how it is implemented, and not the concept by themselves. The entitlement programs have to have the proper incentives in place, so it doesn't cause unintended consequences or gives money to people who don't need it. They also need to encourage people to look for work, while not fearing that they will get their benefits cut off.

And this idea of giving money to charity is nonsense. Yes there could be more donations to charity, but it won't be enough to cover for the cuts in the entitlement programs. The Great Depression proved that private charities couldn't solve all social ills alone.

[RainDog]

27. do those people like to drive on paved highways? or the interstate?

if so, then they should stop whining about welfare. Do they want to get a tax deduction for fees/interest on their mtg payments? If so, then they should stfu about welfare.

do they think it's good for a nation to educate children, whether or not a parent can afford to pay for a private school? If they don't, then they are more backward than the Victorians. (universal education, btw, started b/c workers needed to be able to read instructions and understand factory machines, and b/c of the benefit of Sunday schools... so if the people you know are against public education, they're poor excuses for humans.

did any of them attend a public university? If so, then they like welfare.

did any of them ever receive social security for a child after a parent died - to help, say, a stay-at-home mom pay bills while getting a job, etc? This isn't a "poor person" thing - this is a middle-class phenomena that made it possible for some to go to college that wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

do they think that Theodore Roosevelt was a horrible president? He started the anti-trust laws to keep monopolies from turning citizens into slaves.

Labor unions, btw, also gave people the five day workweek, so if they are opposed to those sorts of liberal groups, they should make sure they work those two extra days of the week for no pay.

Ask them why the U.S. ranks so low in quality of life indices - behind other western democracies. If they can't figure it out, it's because those other democracies have universal health care and progressive income tax.

If they want the U.S. to be a third-world country that's what they would get with no taxes. The rich would be like some third-world dictator. Anyone who could leave this nation would... that's already been happening... and those left here, like the people you know, can go broke paying for basic modern amenities like roads and health care.

[hoosier_lefty]

28. I usually shut them up with...

From 1964 to 1995 when the republicans reformed welfare
the U.S. had spent about a trillion dollars. That's a bunch of money !

(I always pause for them to nod in agreement)

In 2006 alone the pentagon spent 1.6 trillion dollars.

As far as taxes maybe we should just roll the tax rates back to the 1950's
when Ike was in charge... and the top tax bracket was 90% on
unearned income.

In 1941 when the Japanese bombed pearl harbor and we went to war
with the Axis why didn't they lower taxes? Maybe we should be asking
why in 2001 when we were attacked the president didn't roll back the tax cuts,
issue war bonds, have the American people grow victory gardens, ration gas etc.
Why didn't F.D.R. just issue yellow ribbons and plastic flags to everyone?

Maybe the greatest generation knew the meaning of sacrifice. Did we forget?

[lligrd]

29. A Safety Net Is Needed

and we should all welcome it because one never knows when one will need it. I would prefer a system that ensures that anyone who can work is able to find a job that pays a living wage and that only those who are unable to work are given aid. That along with a single payer health insurance and free childcare and child nutrition programs would seem fair to me.

Taxes should be progressive and those that are able to make loads of money from the system should be happy that the system allows them to do so and be happy to support it by paying their taxes. In other words, the rich are the ones who benefit the most from the society and instead of constantly griping about wanting more, they should count their blessings.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. The biggest chunk of "welfare" goes to an unproductive military.

That spends most of it's energies "protecting" the fatcats and their fortunes and providing riches for the other fatcats who sell them toys.

[TexasObserver]

31. First, no one in the GOP leadership is a fiscal conservative.

Challenge them on that point. Tell them the 20 years of Reagan, Bush I and Bush II produced annual deficits that averaged over $300 billion per year, while the 12 years of Carter and Clinton produced annual deficits that averaged about $100 billion per year, most of which was interest paid on the debt that Republican presidents ran up.

It's a LIE that the GOP has been the party of fiscal conservatism, so you must call them on the LIE.

The only two presidents to balance the budget in any years since 1976 are Carter and Clinton, both of whom did it. Reagan, Bush I and Bush II never once balanced the budget. They did run the national budget into the ground every year, and they are responsible for 90% of the national debt.

Now for your OP and its questions:

Welfare is not bad. It helps people who need it. While it can be abused, it's not the place our budget goes awry.

Charities cannot fill the void left if government does not engage in welfare payments. They never have and they never will. There's no evidence to suggest they will, either.

What IS fair? I submit it is UNFAIR to require those who benefit the least financially from this country to pay taxes to run the country. It is fair for those who have benefitted the most from this country to pay the most taxes. Do we really want to tax the guy working at McDonalds at the same rate as an NBA star making millions a year? Do we really want the guy working in a cubicle in a big corporation to pay the same rate of taxes as the CEO making $20 mil per year?

To whom much is given, much is expected.

[SmileyRose]

32. REAL fiscal conservatives don't think taxes are the problem.

I am a fiscal conservative. A real one - like Barack Obama. I believe in using our collective efforts to gain services at the best price possible. I believe in government and citizens living within it's means. I believe in investing money to make money (such as investing in education, both on the personal and societal level). As a fiscal conservative, I believe the financial rules should be the same for most everyone. I believe encouraging and rewarding work, at every level, should be the goal of our social programs.

My husband is permanantly, but only partially disabled. He's not college material and most jobs within his ability are physically demanding. All of his choices were terrible because he was too disabled earn enough money to support himself, but not disabled enough to feel comfortable taking disability payments. HE WANTED TO WORK AS MUCH AS HE COULD. I believe most Americans are like this. Nearly everyone who has any sort of opportunity to be a productive member of society will take it. Some of us just nee more help than others to do so. If all expenses paid coupled with job training and mentoring for 5 years or more will give parents and especially their children the ability to reasonably self sufficient then that's not welfare IMHO, that's investment.

The so called conservatives are false conservatives. They waste, they steal, they lie, they destroy.

[anigbrowl]

33. I'm fiscally conservative - I like balanced budgets and limited deficits

What you are surrounded by are fiscal arguments for socially conservative policies. I am not in favor of free-flowing welfare or very high taxes, but nor do I think the low taxes/weak safety net approach that prevails in the US is a good thing. I'd like to see the US go about half-way towards a typical European setup. I also think that if there's better welfare and health care, people will be willing to pay a bit more in income or payroll taxes in exchange for financial security; and if there's a reasonable, progressie tax on capital gains income etc., then corporation tax can be somewhat lower.

I don't want to go laying out an entire economic platform here - the thread will have sunk by the time people finished reading it :-) Basically I think that *some* Republican ideas about fiscal/tax policy have value, but that in the last couple of decades those ideas have become ideological rather than pragmatic. So for example I'm in favor of progressive taxation (a left wing concept), but not for excruciatingly high rates on high income (70 or 90% is too much - I'd rather move to a different country and give up US citizenship than pay 90% on a million a year).

For me, 50-60% would be the limit. I don't think that the pursuit of profit or the desire to become wealthy is inherently wrong, it's a reasonable ambition (a right wing outlook) but I also believe that that has to take place on a level playing field with low barriers to entry, so everyone can have a fair crack at those opportunities (which is why I believe the state should support healthcare and education).

I do think that the fact of 80% of the wealth being controlled by 20% of the population is probably a natural circumstance - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution for why. I'm not sure it gets much better than this; it may be something that's wired into our genes. Having spent time in the Soviet Union back when it was still communist, I was struck by the fact that they still had very uneven wealth distribution. Even if you could wave a magic wand tomorrow and make everyone economically equal, within a generation the same 80-20 distribution would probably reassert itself.

[PoiBoy]

34. send your fiscal conservative friends this...

it explains a lot... :hi:


also, in this book review Thom Hartmann explains pretty clearly how we got into the Social Security mess compliments of Reagan and Greenspan.

http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/05/07/har05007.html

IMO, the thing that gets me about the Social Security Trust Fund is that every politician approves borrowing from it, but none step forward with a plan to begin paying that money (our money) back into the Fund... and they laughed at Al Gore when he advocated putting the SSTF into a lockbox... it's the law.. they are supposed to pay the damn money back...!!!

<snip>
Technically (and legally) it's simple - the Social Security Trust Fund will give back its IOUs to the Treasury Department and in exchange for them get cash to pay the Boomers' retirement checks. Practically, though, it'll be a crisis of biblical proportions. In order for the Treasury to come up with that kind of cash will require either massive tax increases or increased massive borrowing - at a time when we're already borrowing so heavily that China is propping up our economy with weekly loans.
<end>

[Orsino]

37. Welfare and the rest of the social safety net are antidotes to capitalism.

Being wealthy in America is an incredible privilege, and ought to be taxed at a higher rate than are middle-class incomes. The economy is arguably failing people at or below the poverty line, so why not exempt these folks from taxation by the system that doesn't really represent their interests? The death-taxers have done their best to make wealth hereditary rather than meritocratic, so I reject the "lazy" meme that wingnuts love.

We have an economy that depends on a certain percentage of us being left behind. I can live with that if a well-funded social safety net guarantees subsistence to all.

[HughBeaumont]

40. This thread is also a good source when talking about taxing the wealthy/corporations:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4055386