No one should feel sorry for the rich. The past 8 years of the neocons have elevated the top one-percent of "the highly compensated" to levels of pure, shameless greed, indecent selfishness and incomes that are totally out of line...beyond any measure of realistic compensation for CEO skills and labor.

Anyone making over $250,000 a year can afford a 9% increase in taxes and not be in danger of losing his obscene luxuries.

Most, if not all, of the new government agencies ushered in by Bush and his neocon country club cronies can be completely shut down, thus saving the USA enough billions to help the poor and needy.

Gee, what a brilliant experiment. Except of course, that the only "redistribution," which in itself isn't even accurate per se, is based on taxes. A homeless guy who earns nothing, doesn't get reduced taxes now, does he. Considering your "experiment" involved the wrong two classes of citizens, it doesn't make much sense, except as a sensationalist example, as I expect what is what you wanted.

Now, if your example involved a person making over a quarter of a million dollars a year, taking a higher % of taxes, and giving it to that waiter, I guess it would be slightly more accurate. It's funny so many protest this idea. Why it's fine that those who have a huge cash influx get breaks and bonuses, versus the working stiff who gets taxed over 25% of their income, baffles me. How many of YOU make over 225k a year? I'd venture not many.

All I know is that the regular working person busts their butt for meager pay that is taxed insanely. Their healthcare is high and sucks, and taxes are a backbreaker. As an example: I dug up a paystub from a year ago.

Gross: 2318 Net: 1587 Difference of: 731 bucks.

Fed taxes alone: 359 bucks - for TWO WEEKS of work. Wow.

Here is a little fact for you. When I was younger, households could EASILY have ONE PERSON working, and they'd get by. There was a reason there were moms that COULD stay at home. Because one income was enough to survive on. Now however, that's very implausible. Both parents work.. some have two jobs, just to get by!

I find it funny you support folks like the last administration, through whom their horrible policies have buried us deep in national debt. I used to be fairly neutral when it came to selecting who I wanted to be president. I actually based it on whom I felt would do the better job, not based on the fact I was this or that party. I felt that this was a ludicrous way to make a decision. It's your "team" so you just blindly accept all they say and do? hmm... weird way to select a leader imo.

But over the last 20 years, I HAVE noticed one thing. Every time a republican president takes office, their administration puts us more in debt. Whenever a democratic administration is running the show, it goes down.

McCain said "Let's not raises taxes on anyone!" What a pipe dream. Does he think we are going to magically get out of all the debt the last administration put us in? No.. I guess he feels freezing absolutely ALL programs is the way to go. What a crock imo. What a heavy-handed, non intelligent way to go about fixing things. I really don't agree with all the policies of either cantidate, but I fear McCain, and what he might do to our country, much more than I fear what Obama might do.

Socialism.. certainly is getting slung around a lot, but what Obama proposes is nothing close to real socialism. I don't know about you, but I think the middle man.. which is the MAJORITY of our working population deserves a break. Every time I work with tech support now for almost ANY computer product (being in the tech field), I get foreign tech support. I can barely understand the guy on the other end. Because a HUGE PERCENT of American companies are now hiring folks overseas. They go the cheap route. And so Obama wants to tax them higher. GOOD FOR HIM!!!

Socialism? No.. it's common sense. The American people can hardly afford to live now. The idea to give the largest % of working class a break is hardly a "bad thing." And when it only pertains to existing taxes, and taxes only, it's hardly full blown "socialism." When people mention socialism, Obama cracks a huge grin and shakes his head. Why? Because he knows it's simply being blown way, way out of proportion, to try and convince folks that he harbors Marxist ideals. Please. Have any of you actually READ stuff that guy wrote? In one of the books I've read written by that man, he tries to "improve" the working conditions of the general public, by changing the working hours for woman and CHILDREN to 15 hour days, 6 days a week.

Does that sound like what Obama proposes? No.. he only suggest a tax fix to help an ailing country, and yet people jump all over this like rabid dogs, comparing him to a guy that is absolutely NOTHING like this cantidate.

Something has to be done, we are in a massive hole, curtesy of Bush and Co. Would you rather pay MORE TAXES? The money has to come from somewhere. Our nations debt isn't going to magically pay itself. It has to come from somewhere. Taxes have steadily risen until they are just ridiculous now. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not see my taxes and cost of healthcare risen to a point where although I work in a tech support field, it's as if I work as an entry-level food service employee.

I love how people make the 250 argument.

The rich who earned it are just as deserving as the poor waiter.

if you can't make the connection, think of it as a ratio. In proportion to the bum, the waiter IS a 250+ rich man, while the bum is not.

If you can't make that connection, well, now everyone knows why you support who you do.

[edit on 2-11-2008 by Gorman91]

Grover:

I began working is restaurants at the age of 11, as a bus boy. I have also worjked as a waiter, a bartender, a cook and as a chef.

Tips are not required. They are to be given for S E R V I C E, and far too many wiaters/waitresses forget that simple truth.

If a server were to wait on me wearing ANY political statement, I would tip them exactly 1 cent. 1 cent, so they would not think I was stiffing them.

I don't go to a restaurant for a political discourse. If the server is stupid enough to wear a button espousing one candidate, they frankly deserve what they get.

The people that own that restaurant have already risked THEIR capital, in a field where 90% of new stores fail within 3 years. They had to pay staff, pay for supplies and materials, pay for employee (and to a lesser degree patron) theft, pay insurance, spoilage of foods, etc., etc.

The waiter/waitress risks nothing.

The same principle works in almost all fields. The workers are paid for their work, but it is the owners that either win or lose at the end of the year.


So why shouldn't the owners get a much higher rate of return?

I worked hard, had to drop out of high school because of family economics, went through 9 years active duty in the Army, went to college on the GI Bill, and then put myself through Graduate School. I worked hard to get into my own business, and risked everything, and I mean literally everything including my modest 3 bedroom home, to make it.

Then some lazy bastard, that refused to work like I did, comes along and says, "I deserve a big chunk of your earnings"?

Bull S**T! If you want it, work for it. Get an education, and work YOUR ass off like I did,

I was 27 years old when I started college, 32 when I got my Masters Degree and I got out of college owing NOTHING, NADA, NOT ONE RED CENT. I worked weekends, holidays, and some weekday evenings to make certain I paid my bills.

Don't try to tell me that poor kids can't make it. My family was so poor that we literally ate dry dog food for weeks on end. Yet of the three kids my mother bore, two ended up with Doctoral degrees, one just got a B.A. (and he made more money than my sister and I combined.)

I went to 28 schools by the 11th grade. My mother was an alcoholic, and my father never paid a cent in child support. We lived in 7 different states, and yet we made it.

Stop making excuses for the lazy, the unmotivated, the ones that are just unwilling to even try.

I worked for years with developmentally disabled teens and adults. I learned that they would work their asses off, if only given the opportunity. With all of their disabilities, if they can make it, why can't all of those minorities, etc?

I will hate to see the USA become a communist country, but if Obama and the Democrats win big, that's exactly where they plan on taking us.

And my family will leave, before the revolution starts,.

.

Good news is that a revolution with nothing but talking heads is nothing more than talking heads.

The common man doesn't support communism, only the elites.

I doubt that we'll be seeing elites in the streets crying for the revolution, while the common man walks by uncaring.

old medic, yes, its possible to work your fingers to the bone and get ahead. But i bet that most people taking that path will die a nice young death of heart attack or other lifestyle disease from the extreme stress such a lifestyle over extended time puts on the body. Yes, people can work nights, can work two jobs and go to school at the same time, etc, but you have no idea how massive the burden of this is on the system of even a healthy person. Is it any wonder in our overworked american society, that our life expectancy has actually begun to DECLINE, alone of all advanced nations? That our levels of depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, have all begun to sky rocket? Just because it CAN be done, doesnt mean it should.

IM sorry, but i consider it pretty sad that in todays world a person has to have their family live off of dog food in order to secure a future in a land where the GDP has doubled over the last 30 years. We're not talking the wild west or rule of the jungle here, we're talking the land of opportunity. People didnt come to america originally so they could eat dog food to get ahead. They could have raped and murdered and stolen their way up the food chain in europe as well, but in america, opportunity was supposed to be plentiful and REASONABLY attainable for EVERYONE. Now, a person who succeeds and achieves financial freedom is the exception and not the rule. That was never the american dream, and now we have it forced down our throats like we're supposed to be happy about it.

Anyone who makes more than $10,000 per year is standing on the shoulders of other people. I bet that makes you feel really big doesn't it?

Don't kid yourselves: you work at a job because it's easier than the alternative. Having a nice warm home while it's raining outside is easier than trying to sleep in a field while you're freezing and it's raining on you.

My point is, anyone who makes more than 10k a year is a parasite because you only make that much money because of everyone lower on the totem pole than you are. If you really cared, you'd give away the money you make more than 10k and you would produce after that instead of spend because that's the average salary in the world.

i really cant understand that people really think that obama will be different. i too hope so but we all know in reality that he wouldnt even be in the running without making those special " concessions" !!! revoultion. read it, live it breath it . god bless all my fellow humans