Posted on 04/15/2014 9:10:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
All too often, rich individuals in this country are demonized for simply being rich. If some sort of financial catastrophe happens, such as the latest recession in 2009, the rich are to blame. If the government is running large deficits, the rich are not paying their “fair share”. If an individual is poor and cannot find employment, it is because the rich hoard all their profits and don’t share with anyone else.
It’s time to set the record straight by looking at the facts. The top 1% of all individual income earners in this country pay nearly37% of all federal income taxes. The top 50% of individuals pay98% of all federal income taxes.
The so called “greedy corporations” and big businesses get it even worse. The current corporate tax rate on big business in the United States is the highest in the industrial world, set at 39.1%. Despite providing work for over 45% of American citizens and contributing to 65% of new jobs created in America, big businesses get punished with the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. They certainly pay their “fair share” and then some.
The poor on the other hand, defined as the bottom 50% of income earners, pay essentially no federal income taxes. Many of these poorer Americans enroll in Medicare and receive free healthcare. If they don’t qualify for Medicare they can now, thanks to Obamacare, receive taxpayer funded federal subsidies to pay their own healthcare expenses.
But this is not all government does; it also provides funding for poorer American’s food. Today, one out of every six Americans receives food stamps. Recently renamed SNAP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal government now spends almost $80 billion helping feed the poor.
Last year the CATO Institute came out with a study named “The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off: 2013”. In their study, CATO found that individuals receiving all government welfare benefits make more money than they would working a minimum wage job in 35 different states. In 13 states, government welfare benefits are more lucrative than a $15 per hour full time job. Our current welfare system is completely backward. Government should be encouraging work and independence, not trapping individuals in the welfare system.
Poorer individuals in this country are certainly not left to fend for themselves, but many democrats would have you think this. The entire income inequality discussion continually brought up by democrats is simply another way to promote more government policies that take even more from the rich and give to the poor.
The solution to poverty in America is not to take from the “have’s” and give to the “have not’s”. The real solution is to encourage Americans to work. Working a minimum wage job or a job that isn’t exactly what you want is part of life. Millions of Americans across the country have had to do this.
Congressman Paul Ryan recently commented on this exact topic in an interview with Bill Bennett: “We have got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities, in particular of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”
While campaigning for President in 2008, candidate Barack Obama offered a similar analysis specifically among minorities: “Fewer young black and Latino men participate in the labor force compared to young white men. And all of this translates into higher unemployment rates and poverty rates as adults.”
Work is the solution to poverty, not government handouts funded by the rich.
The destructive pattern of the poor blaming the rich for all their problems must end. Productive and successfully citizens don’t blame other people for their problems. They find a job, even if it’s a tough one, they work hard, especially when the going gets tough, and they move up the economic ladder.
The rich should not be treated as a scapegoat. It’s time for the poor to pull their own weight.
Why would the Democrats and bureaucrats encourage independence and self reliance, when they can buy the votes of these people and build their empires using their enemies’ money?
Don’t work,don’t eat.
Will someone please learn the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.
Especially if you are able to work
That’s what I meant.Of course the truely disabled need and deserve our help,but the lazy bums need to get to work.
Excellent point. You pay into medicare when you work and once you are on it you still pay into it and therefore it is earned. Those on medicaid on the other hand do not pay anything.
Perhaps they could start by shedding some of their excess weight.
First of all, lets stop calling people rich. many of the people whose incomes are taxed out the a$$ are not rich. The policy is really to punish success. The debate should therefore be framed as punishing successful people in order to pander to, and reward those unable or unwilling to do what it takes to become successful. To those that are simply unwilling - cut them off the dole.
You have to get up out of a chair and MOVE around (sweep, clean windows, shovel snow, rake leaves, etc.) to do THAT!
I need some help with that sort of thing and you’d think I asked for blood when I ask a neighborhood kid to come over and do some actual WORK, for pay.
They look at me like I’m speaking another language... ‘work’ What is that?
L O L
seriesly
It’s called being a slave to the American Government tit.
Want to get the freeloaders off the dole? Let’s try my plan...
Report the rape, or name the father. No benefits of any kind for those that don’t.
5 years mandatory in prison for a false report of rape.
You will work to support your children, thru employment or the chain-gang, the choice is yours.
Only the truly disabled will get any sort of welfare without being required to work.
When you fall on your back with legs pointed at the sky every time a gang-banger walks past, you better be prepared to live off whatever support they can provide.
Medicare?
Unless you are over 65 or have certain disabilities you don't "enroll" in Medicare.
When you turn 65 you have no choice but to enroll unless you can pay some major financial penalties.
And you also have to buy supplemental insurance for yourself which can be quite pricey.
Free it ain't.
Perhaps the writer meant to reference Medicaid which you might get if you are in the lower 20% not 50%. In fact most of what he says applies only to some of the lower 50% (to those of you who don't know that those who earn less then $51,371 per year).
Most do not get any kind of government benefit at all and yes they are working.
The lower 25% (those who make less then $25,000) may qualify and may get some government benefits with the amount rising the lower the income amount goes.
But the idea that all or even most of the bottom 50% of income earners are collecting government benefits is nonsense. To get food stamps and medicaid, the easiest benefits to qualify for, you need to be in the lower 20%.
This article in it's way is just as much class warfare as any "soak the rich" liberal propaganda piece.
As My Late Mother always said, “You help People who can’t help themselves, not people who won’t help themselves”.
Her younger Sister, my Late Aunt Gracie, lost her Sight to Glaucoma when she was in her early 20’s. She worked on and off for 10 Years after that, sewing Garments in what some would consider a Sweat Shop. Got herself to work and back on the Bus in Brooklyn every day.
Very seldom did she feel sorry for herself and she seldom complained. She passed away last August at the age of 89, having outlived her five Siblings.
Rewarding laziness and an entitlement mentality does not promote a positive outlook for the future, period.
BTW - The first time she ever heard Lord Obama, she told me he was a Phony Baloney. She knew more than 60 Million Voters with eyes that could see.
It is actually time to force the Democrats to live like the destitute monks they claim themselves to be....
[ As My Late Mother always said, “You help People who can’t help themselves, not people who won’t help themselves”. ]
My Take on it:
Help the Helpless, Screw the Clueless...
The sluggard dips his hand in his bowl but is too lazy to bring it to his mouth.
>”Help the Helpless, Screw the Clueless”<
Well, not really. The Clueless don’t get screwed. The Clueless screw the people they are stealing money from.
As Rush put it. “Some people Work for a living and some people Vote for a living”.
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