Posted on 08/09/2011 8:12:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Obama has said that he wants to "spread the wealth". He proposes to raise taxes on "the rich" to get more money for "stimulus" spending, such as longer unemployment benefits. Let's look at how this "spread the wealth" thing would actually work.
Joe Lunchbox works in a factory owned by Reginald Bigbucks III, a billionaire. Obama stops at the factory during a "Jobs" bus tour through the Midwest. Joe and his coworkers assemble in the lunchroom to hear Obama speak.
"Good news," the president tells the workers. "We are going to be spreading the wealth. We are raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires-like Reginald Bigbucks III-and we are going to spend the money to benefit the middle class, people like you."
Joe raises his hand. "What do you mean?" he asks. "I mean, like, what is actually going to happen?"
Obama explains, "To pay my new taxes, Mr. Bigbucks is handing this factory over to the federal government. We are going to tear it down and sell it for scrap. Then we are going to use the money to extend unemployment benefits for another 99 weeks."
"Oh," Joe sighs. "Well, then, I guess that I'm going to be needing those unemployment benefits."
If the above example strikes you as fanciful, consider the following. To "tax" is to take away something from someone and give it to the government. "The rich" are rich because they own a lot of assets. So, what it means to "tax the rich" is to take assets away from rich people and transfer them to the government.
So, what are the assets that the rich own? The rich don't have money bins full of cash, like Scrooge McDuck. Rather, they own things like factories, office buildings, and oil wells, either directly, or indirectly via stocks and bonds.
In other words, the rich own most of the "nonresidential fixed assets" of the nation. These assets certainly count as "wealth", but what they are physically are the tools that workers use to produce America's GDP.
The government doesn't want factories, office buildings, or oil wells. It wants cash. So, taxing the rich forces them to liquidate assets. This liquidation is accomplished financially, rather than by actually tearing down factories and selling them for scrap.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST
I am obviously not talking about the dems fixing a damn thing with there ideas especially socialism. See, everyone goes to the finger pointing here without seeing the broader picture. This really isn’t a left or right issue. The actual blame for all of this mess goes across party lines over and over ten fold. We haven’t had a fiscal conservative in the truest form for quite some time. If neither side is willing to make some concession then we will get nowhere. It’s a fact.
Do I know where those concession should be made? I have no clue. I just know that gridlock never gets you anything.
Nice strawman. It is people like you that see no fault in your logic that hurts more than it helps. No real answers of your own just made up scenarios in your mind.
Unless the other side is making unreasonable or ruinous demands. Then gridlock is the preferred state.
Do you need my mailing address? I take money orders. ;)
It can’t be “concession”,
these socialists have to be DEFEATED.
When you compromise, or make consessions with socialism, you always get more socialism, it only goes in that direction.
You might want to look up "strawman" and figure out how to use the term properly.
Well, I lost you, but others can see.
Mr. Bigbucks will also lay off employees before going home to Mrs. Bigbucks and telling her to give up her caddy or move to a smaller house...
If we make it tough enough on Mr. Bigbucks he will simply take his bucks to another country...
I try to tell younger people all the time that you can only tax the rich as much as they are willing to pay. The rich have options that others don’t have... I cannot imagine why politicians can’t figure this out.
The other issue is there simply aren’t enough rich people to bail us out, that is why when something is done to the “rich” it always ends up including the middle class as well.
RE: If we make it tough enough on Mr. Bigbucks he will simply take his bucks to another country...
Ahhh... but here’s the rub, it isn’t as easy to open an account in another country any longer. Offshore banking is not what it once was since the advent of the Obama administration.
There used to be a time when Mr BugBucks could open a secret Swiss account in Switzerland. No longer.
This administration has hired divisions of IRS agents to hunt the money of the Mr BigBucks of America worldwide and by threatening the two bug Swiss banks who do business here -— UBS and Credit Swisse, they were able to cause Switzerland to CAPITULATE.
Last Year, the Swiss Parliament agreed to let banks disclose the names of American account holders in Switzerland.
Switzerland is no longer a safe money deposit haven.
If the USA can by virtue of her size and influence, bully a strong neutral country to change its banking policy, how much more the other offshore safe havens like the Cayman Islands or Bahamas?
Mr. BugBucks will from now on have a hard time taking his bucks away from the United States. He is being tracked by the IRS.
In 1986, 1991 and 1993 the US Taxpayers gave the DC political machine more tax money and they turned right around an exponentially grew spending faster then revenue came in.
And Democrats propaganda bots in the Junk Media, can drop the stupid lie about Clinton's tax hikes balancing the budget. Just prior to the Republicans taking over Congress in 1994, the Clinton regime presented a budget plan that projected $200 billion plus budgets thru the year 2000. It was the GOP Congress's restraining spending over the strident, hysteric demagoguery of the Democrat party's media machine, that created the appearance of a balanced budget in the late 1990s.
So how about this ONE time Democrats, we do this a different way? How about we significantly cut spending now. We make real cuts, not merely trimming the rate of growth and calling it a cut. Then once we have had balanced budgets for 5 years or so, wholly by restraining spending, then we can start talking about the revenue side.
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.[1] To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position
That is exactly what you did. I never claimed nor would I claim that you should or any should give “me” half of what you owe. I never said that. I said that there needs to be a happy medium. You took that to mean I am for taxing you into the poor house.
Rah Rah... Go team! Even if that means destroying the country just enough to get our team elected.
Even if OUR team gets elected nothing changes. They give us all lip service and throw out things like gay marriage to divert us from their positions. Name one Republican nominee that has come forth with a plan that will work for you. WTF are the ones we did put into office doing. Whining and not putting forth viable plans. Not good enough.
Federal revenue is always - ALWAYS - between 15-20% of GDP. We’re about 18% right now. At best we could, with extreme optimism, squeeze another 2 points out - which would net at most $0.3T additional revenue. Doesn’t matter how you squeeze who, that’s the practical maximum - beyond that, the economy will slow to match as people realize working much more doesn’t return much more.
GDP, other than under the Obama, has been increasing about $1T/yr for 15 years. Jump-starting the economy to double that growth (again, extreme optimism) would net an annual revenue increase of $0.4T - beyond that, may as well wish for rainbows and unicorns as well.
So between tight squeezing and profound growth, and shots of happy juice, we could conceive of an outer-limits maximum growth of $0.7T in revenue per year. More than that just ain’t happening.
Nope. I used an analogy to demonstrate how silly your "middle ground" rant was.
Maybe you should look up the words “middle ground” and get back to me Mr. Extreme Example.
ping for later....
Please use the term “supply-side economics” instead of “trickle-down”.
“trickle-down” is semantic infiltration from the left.
(sigh)
There's no such thing as "Trickle Down Economics." The term is a leftist construct designed to ridicule Supply Side Economics, which worked every time it's been tried. You make yourself sound economically illiterate when you use the leftist phraseology.
I'll find it between "compromise" and "RINO".
I have a dollar here that says there's a tax increase somewhere in that package of rational thinking you have.
I think the leftist wants to trickle your $500K out of the hide of some corporate jet owner.
If need be. I guess I come from the old school Republican thinking like Reagan who knew that raising taxes sometimes need to happen to improve the fiscal conditon of the Government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.