Posted on 11/14/2011 9:11:04 AM PST by Publius804
Talkin’ about my generation”: the Who song once expressed the hope and self confidence of the Baby Boomers as they reached biological if not emotional maturity. It was an attack on the older generation, a defense of the young, but it includes an ominous refrain: “Hope I die before I get old.” Already, perhaps, the shadow of generational failure hung over the twenty something Boomers. Those shadows have darkened considerably as the Boomer sun moves past the meridian and an unmistakable air of twilight infiltrates into the declining hours of the long Boomer day.
Talking about our generation is not going to be as much fun for the Boomers as it was in those long distant days of infinite promise. My generation has some real accomplishments under its belt, especially in the worlds of science and technology. And we made important progress in making American society a more open place for people and groups who were once excluded. In every field of American life, there are Boomers who have made and are making important, selfless contributions: in hospitals, in classrooms, in government, in business, in the military. You name it and we are there.
But at the level of public policy and moral leadership, as a generation we have largely failed. The Boomer Progressive Establishment in particular has been a huge disappointment to itself and to the country. The political class slumbered as the entitlement and pension crisis grew to ominous dimensions. Boomer financial leadership was selfish and shortsighted, by and large. Boomer CEOs accelerated the trend toward unlimited greed among corporate elites, and Boomer members of corporate boards sit by and let it happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...
“You may rephrase it, the end result is the same. More people being taxed, for the benefit of the government.”
I didn’t rephrase anything, I was quoting someone.
The observation that the income tax had gone from being a “class tax” affecting millionaires to a “mass tax” affecting everybody was made by Henry Morgenthau the Secretary of the Treasury.
“They went from 8 million to 35 million people being taxed, and it STILL wasn’t enough.”
A little bit of historical perspective is necessary.
The 8 million taxpayers in 1941 were supporting a peacetime America in its 13th year of Depression.
The 35 million taxpayers in 1943 were supporting an America fighting a two-front global war while engaged in the greatest build up of war materiel in world history.
That increased taxation paid for WWII, during which a full one tenth of the US population was in uniform and many more worked in civilian support.
You may wish to appear reasoned, but your defense of the unconstitutional taxing of citizens of this country by taking it straight out of people’s paychecks is nothing to be proud of.
And it is not necessary ANY MORE.
That ended more than sixty years ago, and here you are defending it.
Whose side are you on, the government, or freedom???
It wasn't the boomers that gave us FDR, LBJ. Most boomers did not vote for George McGovern. Most boomers did not vote in 1972. Anyone born in 1955 or later did not vote. The youngest boomers could not even vote for Reagan the first time he ran.
I wasn’t defending the income tax unless you consider providing historical perspective “defense”.
You need to learn to read with comprehension instead of popping off.
That even pre-dates the Great Depression, so I wouldn't lay that one squarely at the feet of the Greatest Generation. Methinks that change was driven by the same people who brought us all that one world order stuff in the early portion of the 20th century.
And you need to learn that this is how your posts have been read.
I am not the only poster who has said that to you.
Your “historical” perspective sounds more like apologetics than trying to enlighten.
The end result is the same.
Some RINO in a corporation was doing something, holding his employees money, to pay for them. He was/is what has happened to this country. Some self appointed kiss @$$ who brown nosed with the government.
To the cost of thousands and millions of other Americans, and shackled them with taxes of a greedy government who has no intention of doing anything of lasting good, but try to only help their own agenda, an agenda that is against what America is supposed to be, FREE!!!!!!!!!!
Withholding actually only dates back to the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943.
Before WWII income taxes primarily fell on millionaires. Some government funding still came from tariffs rather than income taxes. The income tax didn’t become widespread until the 1943 act was passed.
I was 12 when Kennedy was assassinated. At the time, I marveled at how this man (actually a letch, as I later came to know) was portrayed as a King and the Kennedy's and wholesome Jackie/family was portrayed as a martyr's faithful wife. The social, moral, potitical and financial ills of this country began then in earnest. And, I've been a conservative all my life.
Two years later I went to work, finished high school, did 8 years of military time, went to college, and have been paying the maximum to SS since I don't remember when.
I've supported GGer's who put in cents on the dollar of what I and you have put in, and they lived to their 80s and 90s. Today, I filed for my Social Security at 62 and I'm damned well gonna take it.
The Xers can complain all they want. Had not this government been spending the SS fund as lotto winnings all these years, it would be in reasonable shape. The key to financial stability is starving the 'entitlement for no work' crowd and making them produce. Stop the government from spending money to buy votes and promote rabid foreign governments. It isn't in carping about other taxpaying, working citizens.
The two of you should start a club. Buy yourselves a book on reading comprehension.
There is a difference between description and advocacy. It’s apparent you don’t bother yourself with that distinction.
If you can’t understant my posts, go buy the book for yourself, you need it.
Dig, but I remember picking up in some research I did some time ago that the actual method of collecting taxes was discussed and debated by the powers that be for some time before that, with the withholding people being defeated at first until they were worn down by those who favored it by '43. Just going off the top of my head, here, but there was talk about whether it was just to collect for next year's taxes or better to bill for last year's taxes, etc., etc. I think this was the stuff you were alluding to further upstream.
But this is just the history, of course. The system we have in place now (withholdings) absolutely blows, and I think it's led to many of the issues we face currently viz-a-viz massive government spending. Just the attitude withholdings fosters is absolutely devastating. Every time I hear someone talking about the money he/she is getting BACK I want to tear out the remaining hairs on my head.
If we have to have a federal income tax, I think it should be a bill for "services rendered" that you pay out-of-pocket just like every other bill, perhaps on a quarterly basis. Two benefits, there: (1) People could stash money in an interest-bearing account until it's time to pay the piper, and (2) People will no longer be detached from the dollar amount (typically in the several thousands) they pay to the federal government. I am fully convinced once people wrap their heads around that amount, you'd see wholesale change. And that's exactly why the powers that be will never do it.
The Kennedy assassination really did seem to be a dividing line.
Following on its heels we had the Beatles, Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson, Great Society, Civil Rights bills, riots in Watts, Newark, & Detroit, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King murders, Nixon, Timothy Leary, Haight Ashbury, hippies, acid rock, pot, Moon landing, Woodstock, Charles Manson, Watergate. And then came the ultimate evil: Disco.
Nope, it started right then and there.
sorry Pelham...I misread your first line and ‘went off’...apologize.....
Exactly.
Every one of the generations has warts, but I get so tired of “The Greatest Generation” crap. And I’m barely a boomer.
The boomers parents bought new homes for about 4k -- That was the total price for the home!! Nowadays boomers are nearly paying that much every month or two just for a mortgage payment..
That new home the boomers parents bought for about 4k? It was purchased on **ONE** income...
The boomers parents pulled into the gas station and said, "Gimme a bucks worth of regular"....lol
The boomers parents were able to have mom stay home and raise the kids...
The boomers parents have steady secure jobs, which lasted 20 or 30 years...At the SAME job.
The boomers parents for the most part had affordable healthcare and it wasn't even an issue.
“Neither Paterno or Sandusky was a Boomer.”
Being that Sandusky is 67, I have to ask... how do you figure?
“If you can’t understant my posts, go buy the book for yourself, you need it”
At least get your own material instead of plagiarizing mine. When I suggest that you get a book on reading comprehension it works because it fits you. It doesn’t work when you simply try repeating it back to me.
I understand your posts perfectly well. You have difficulty understanding what you read.
You can’t tell a normative statement from a descriptive one. For you “ought” and “is” all blend together.
When I described how income tax withholding was implemented to finance WWII, you managed to read that as an endorsement of the income tax.
Reading history must be a real adventure for you. In your mind authors aren’t just relating events, they become advocates for them.
And your assumptions speak about your mind and your limitations, that it says anything about me.
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