Posted on 02/21/2012 12:29:27 PM PST by jazusamo
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During a recent Fox News Channel debate about the Obama administration's tax policies, Democrat Bob Beckel raised the issue of "fairness." He pointed out that a child born to a poor woman in the Bronx enters the world with far worse prospects than a child born to an affluent couple in Connecticut. No one can deny that. The relevant question, however, is: How does allowing politicians to take more money in taxes from successful people, to squander in ways that will improve their own reelection prospects, make anything more "fair" for others? Even if additional tax revenue all went to poor single mothers which it will not the multiple problems of children raised by poor single mothers would not be cured by throwing money at them. Indeed, the skyrocketing of unwed motherhood began when government welfare programs began throwing money at teenage girls who got pregnant. Children born and raised without fathers are a major problem to society and to themselves. There is nothing "fair" about increasing the number of such children. A more fundamental problem with the "fairness" issue raised by Beckel and many others is the slippery vagueness of the word "fair." To ask whether life is fair either here and now, or at any time or place around the world, over the past several thousand years is to ask a question whose answer is obvious. Life has seldom been within shouting distance of fair, in the sense of even approximately equal prospects of success. Countries whose politicians have been able to squander ever larger amounts of a nation's resources have not only failed to make the world more fair, the concentration of more resources and power in these politicians' hands has led to results that were often counterproductive at best, and bloodily catastrophic at worst. More fundamentally, the question whether life is fair is very different from the question whether a given society's rules are fair. Society's rules can be fair in the sense of using the same standards of rewards and punishments for everyone. But that barely scratches the surface of making prospects or outcomes the same. People raised in different homes, neighborhoods and cultures are going to behave differently and those differences have consequences. The multiculturalist dogma may say that all cultures are equal, or equally deserving of respect, but treating cultures as sacrosanct freezes people into the circumstances into which they happened to be born, much like a caste system. While talk about "fairness" may provide a fig leaf to cover politicians' naked attempts to grab more and more of the nation's resources to spend, there is no assurance that raising tax rates on "the rich" will result in any more tax revenue for the government. High tax rates have too often simply caused wealthy people to put their money into tax-free securities or to send it overseas. Four years ago, TV interviewer Charles Gibson pointed out to candidate Barack Obama that raising capital gains tax rates had on a number of occasions led to less capital gains tax revenue being collected and, conversely, lowering the capital gains tax rates had on other occasions increased the amount of capital gains revenue collected by the government. Obama readily admitted that. But he said that "fairness" justified a higher tax rate on "the rich." Yet how does a higher tax rate on paper, without a real increase in the amount of taxes actually collected, promote fairness? However, raising tax rates on "the rich" pays off politically, even if the government loses revenues when the rich put their money into tax shelters. High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates or perhaps any taxes at all. What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare. Slippery talk about "fairness" is at the heart of this fraud by politicians seeking to squander more of the nation's resources. |
Too bad a fellow pundit didn’t point out the obvious. DeeDee dearest, it is quite clear that you are not the most brilliant and that you used the “rigged” system to acquire all the money you have. When are you going to hand it all over to the Salvation Army?
Spot on!
I can’t don’t know about drug sales, but I speak to people who have all the other atributes on a weekly basis as a triage interviewer for a food/clothing bank. By and large, they are a lazy, pathetic, “gimmee ma stuf” type people.
They will be dangerous when the riots start.
Welfare families are virtual millionaires. The cash equivalent of their total lifetime benefit package is worth around $2 million.
Only to themselves.
And then only as long as they can find food and water and stay warm......and don't run afoul of me or mine.
How'd that turn out for the Frenchies or the Afreakans?
No one has captured the situation more succinctly.
Promises to the poor about taxing the rich, promises to the rich about loopholes and special treatment. Money from the rich, votes from the poor.
The rest of us get the shaft.
Great explanation!
If you can't appreciate the pure beauty of the violin after hearing this, something's wrong with your ears.
Or you can get raw with these strings.
How about this gamechanger from America's Got Talent (which they SHOULD have won).
And finally, this, dedicated to the one and only rdb2, whose eyes are growing dim.
Either way, the violin is sweet yet LETHAL.
Do it!
I think even this misses the point; a lot has to do with the way the parent and the offspring define “success.” If Bob Beckel thinks he’s successful because he plops his big gluteus into a chair and spouts off ignorant comments, most of which are lies, I would beg to differ with him, whatever he’s paid. He ‘s an ignoramus , and I’d rather know how to change the spark plugs in a car and tune it to my customers’ satisfaction all day long for a tenth what he gets paid, any day, all day, every day.
Not for long, in Texas.
When those people assume responsibility for multimillion dollar projects, work 12 hour days (minimum--some run 20) far from home, for weeks back to back, and often in difficult conditions, until the project is done (whenever that will be), they we can discuss the question of their compensation being 'fair'.
In the meantime, I will continue to resent the implication that I in some way owe any share of the fruits of my labors to those who will not lift a finger other than to claim they 'deserve' a cut.
It is only the thought that some small fraction of the checks I cut annually to the US Treasury goes to those who work even longer hours in worse conditions (with their lives on the line) that makes it possible for me to sign those checks, especially when I consider that often the annual amounts of those checks exceed my total earnings for over half of the years I have worked.
“High tax rates have too often simply caused wealthy people to put their money into tax-free securities or to send it overseas.”
The irony in all this is that the “rich” people who pay $30,000 per plate to meet and greet Obama are doing just that.
In fact, even if you succeeded in making outcomes uniform, that would DIMINISH fairness, not achieve it.
In any society, some people are willing to work harder to excel at whatever metric is under consideration (wealth, health, love, etc.), and ensuring that those who don't care and don't work get exactly the same reward as someone willing to work their ass off is inherently UNfair. Even if the hardworking person knew about the equalization system beforehand and dialed back their effort (if they could even bring themselves to do so) so that they got equal reward for equal (reduced) work, they've still been ripped of of the OPPORTUNITY to trade harder work for success in an area they care about.
Hopefully many will read and consider and see the truth and how they are being misled intentionally.
IT WORKS! The is why they continue to deceive the voters.
WAKE UP!
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