[JoeFromSidney]

I see it in my own family. My grandson's girlfriend won't marry him (yet) because she'd lose her publicly funded nurses training. Sad.

[BenLurkin]

I'd say that this kind of demorlaization is exactly what the 'Rats wantOnce individuals lose all incentive to advance themselves, the governemnt will step in a select people it likes to be society's aparatachiks.

[Vigilanteman]

. . . and by that time the country we knew will be just like that fading Polaroid, a memory.

And most of the jag-offs who voted to reelect ObaMao will still have learned nothing.

[originalbuckeye]

A BIG problem in this country: the younger generations see a man with no actual accomplishments elected, and then reelected (with help from massive voter fraud) President. Without having to work for it. We have a poseur as Leader of the Free World and no press even questions anything he says or does. The American Dream is truly dead. I am in mourning for my once great country.

[Vaduz]

The socialists dumb down program appears to be working as planed has breed so many slackers.

[arthurus]

the picture is slowly disintegrating.

Actually, it seems to be proceeding rather rapidly.

[arthurus]

This is NOT America, this is not who we are as a country.

This is NOW America, this is who we have become as a country.

[Grampa Dave]

We have a few younger relatives and friends, who are/will be in the new tax bs.

A couple have told their bosses or if they control/run the company, they only want to earn about 200K and have more time off each year.

They saw this coming with the Joe the Plumber and reactions from Obozo to Joe’s comments.

So they are spending more time on vacations and/or just off work.

Two young couples in their late 30’s-early 40’s, where the wife is the big earner, the husbands have given up working and are house dads.

Another couple in their early fourties with now two teen agers, had planned on the wife going back to work. She is now messing around with a couple of small business startups with minimal pay instead of going with a good 6 figure salary.

All of them saw this coming and knew if they brought in more money, they would have gone to another level of spending and then taxes from the Obozos. So they are capping their incomes and doing more enjoyable things.

[Carlucci]

“H.I., You are young and you have your health. What do you want with a job??” — Gale, in Raising Arizona

[griswold3]

www.whywork.org
“Welcome to CLAWS (Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery)
at whywork.org. We’re a pro-leisure and anti-wage-slavery group of people dedicated to exploring the question: why work? This site provides information, support, and resources for those looking for alternatives to traditional employment.”

[KrisKrinkle]

“...side effect of discouraging harder work and higher earnings.”

I remember many years ago seeing Bob Hope on (probably) The Tonight Show. He said with the then current tax structure, he had to charge $1000 in order to make $100.

To fill the jobs that really must be filled, they will have to raise the salary to the point it is worthwhile to undertake the job. That cost will be passed on.

[driftless2]

The difference between a liberal and a leftist is that while most liberals think, however wrongheaded, taking from the rich will help the poor, they don't want to destroy capitalism. Leftists are quite different. Leftists want to punish the rich. Leftists want to either severely limit the free-market system or destroy capitalism altogether.

The Dems used to be made up of more liberals than leftists. That was bad enough i.e. LBJ's Great Society, but now more and more Dems are leftists. They want to punish the rich even though a sizable percentage of Dems are very wealthy like Warren Buffett. Even supposed conservative Ben Stein thinks taxing the rich more will help balance the budget. He's full of bananas, but more and more people have bought into the "tax the rich" scam. We're going over the cliff alright, and now we're in a freefall without a parachute.

[Thorliveshere]

Perverse, isn’t it. And here’s Obama extolling the virtues of a college education, but you’ll never be able to pay it off decently if you ever wanted to.

[ryan71]

Yeah, but we’re going to make great little communists.

[TomGuy]

I recall from the mid-80s several at the company tried to decline ‘raises’ because the raises put them in a higher tax bracket. As a result, their take home pay was actually less with the raises.

The company refused, because it was a government contractor. They had a choice of taking the raises offered or finding a new job.

[stuartcr]

Wow, if I made $250k/yr, the govt could take 60% of it, and we’d still make more than we make now combined.

[zagger]

When any government taxes (punishes) a behavior, they get less of that behavior. If they punish making money, people will find ways to avoid making money. When a behavior is rewarded, you get more of it. Nitwit progressives just don’t want to understand. Give more money to help single welfare moms with their kids = more moms and kids on welfare with fathers absent. Tax society’s workers and producers more = get less taxes and less production. It took 70 years for the Soviet Union to collapse from the logical outcome of their policies. How long with it take the US to do the same?

[Behind the Blue Wall]

I’ve thought about this. If I’m not living that much better than someone who maxes out on all of the freebies that are out there, why not spend my time raising my own kids instead of having to turn them over to day care providers and public schools? Might they not be better off in the long run. Their dad would be a loser, but at least they’d get to see lots of him!

[ksen]

He is a college graduate with a business degree and fortunately has a job. We were all talking about the fiscal cliff and how it would affect people making over $250K a year. His reaction to the top rate rising to 39% along with the California State tax increase due to Proposition 30 prompted him to say, “Whew, I think I dodged a bullet! I was up for a promotion with a pay raise but someone else got it. I’m pretty sure my taxable income will be under the level where I would have gotten punished.” PUNISHED.

I call BS. If someone really did turn down a promotion or a different higher paying position because of a 39% top marginal rate then that person is an idiot. Who in their right mind would turn down more cash in their pocket?

Those 39% top marginal rates sure did hurt people back in 2000. :rolleyes:

[dragnet2]

Making 50k in America nowadays means after all the taxes ya pay, you're really making about 37k.

With the price of everything doubling and tripling in the past 10 years, 50k is like earning 1980s wages in 2012.