If we decide to start two wars, allow Wall Street to continue being a megacasino with insane derivatives schemes, allow insurance companies to keep raising premiums and minimizing services while the US continues to have the most expensive (but far from the most effective) health care, then you should pay the 300.00 a month and feel happy about it.
We could just stop starting wars for a while against an ideology. Hint: you cannot shoot or bomb an ideology (Tuhrer-Ism) or a social problem like drugs.
Has to be some other way and instead of fighting about non-issues we should ALL put our heads together and find solutions to our problems or at least PROPOSE solutions instead of trumpeting inane, vague, heart-tugging, bumper sticker philosophies like TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK and DON'T TREAD ON ME...or CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.
Adam--I really am open to thinking about your solutions to our current situation. 10% unemployment; escalating foreclosures; out of control health care costs; a recovery that benefits Wall Street but not the middle and lower middle class etc.
OR we can find a way to balance the budget deficit (a big deal for Tea Partiers, Repubs, and future generations) while allowing the wealthiest Americans to keep paying 15% taxes (for hedge fund managers while mere 16milionaires like Warren Buffet pay 17%) while folks like you and me pay 25%. C'mon we gotta get this right.
How do we make sure everyone has health care, that social security remains intact (and not privatized so that the financial/banking complex make even more money), that our veterans and active service members are taken care of, that we GROW JOBS in the US in this new world economy, AND extend tax cuts to millionaires, man? I honestly want to know.
Flat tax? No way. The wealth of the top income earners in the US and top corporations are estimated to avoid 100 BILLION in taxes by using offshore instruments/strategies. They don't spend that money buying stuff. Therefore a flat tax would be disproportionately paid by the rest of us who actually BUY STUFF.
How about this: Give the tax breaks ONLY to people who buy stuff i.e. the MIDDLE CLASS? Maybe then we would see the middle class grow again, see some improvement in employment figures, see some increase in public confidence in the economy....And the progressive income tax worked fine when it was PROGRESSIVE.
Trickle down economics (read Reganomics)has almost destroyed the middle class. The continued influence (on both Democrats and Republicans alike) of lobbyists who represent the energy, banking, other financial, insurance, health care, gaming, military industrial complex (referring to Boeing, and their ilk who make the nice bombs and beautiful bombers not those who serve in our military while they had to fight the Bush admin for acceptable living conditions) cannot be allowed to continue.
Productivity at workplaces in the US has risen while job satisfaction, wages, and the opportunity to maintain a home life with enough quality time while doing the job of three (laid off, downsized, outsourced) people at work has fallen.
Over 30% of former Senators and House members become lobbyists! C'mon....let's get this right.
This is no longer about Repubs versus Dems or Left versus Right. It is about the HAVES (whose ranks have grown a LOT in the last 20 years) and the HAVE NOTS (whose ranks have also grown exponentially including 1.5 MILLION HOMELESS CHILDREN for God's sake). And I am NOT talking about "redistribution of income". Such BS that this phrase is thrown around so much. I am talking about everyone paying a fair share, not redistributing income. We don't even NEED socialism or communism. Capitalism has become a monster that has the poor whistling a happy tune while digging their own graves because they believed lies over and over and over. A recent poll shows that most Americans don't even believe in the American dream anymore. C'mon!
The top 25 hedge fund managers made a billion dollars each in 2009. One of them made 4 BILLION. They were taxed as if their income was "carried interest".
In other words they were taxed at the capital gains rate of 15%.
I bet you''d like to have some of THAT, Adam.
If we closed this loophole for these hedge fund managers we have 20 billion in revenue to spend on infrastructure, not firing teachers or closing schools or limiting basic humane support programs for people who need them I am not talking permanent Welfare here. We know that creates a class of people dependent on it.
We can do better than we are doing.
We need to keep the best of what Capitalism has to offer (competition, the ability to do better than our parents did, the ability to have an educated population, the ability of individuals and corporations to make a fair profit while paying a fair amount of tax, etc) and end the horrors of other aspects of Capitalism (War <<anywhere and against anyone>> as a driving force in a growing economy; the unfettered greed of corporations; the insane idea that anyone (INCLUDING HEDGE FUND MANAGERS) deserve to make a BILLION dollars a year while paying 15% in tax.
C'mon we have to stop the madness. We have to stop being so Ayn Rand-ish....What have we become?
The numbers I used here are available for anyone to find via non-partisan, non-activist channels.
I would also (AGAIN) suggest reading anything by Robert Reich and Arianna Huffington. They are really smart and they use accurate numbers instead of speaking in vague, nebulous, and endorphin-releasing patrio-speak like we hear from each political party and all those who want to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
Thank you. Thank you for putting into words what many of us feel but cannot find our voice. Whether it is that we do not grasp the plight of others, or that we simply feel that no one will hear, many of us stopped saying the things that need to be said. I am one of the working uninsured in this country tht cannot seek medical care and still feed my children. And as parents (good parents, at least) I will do without this needed care to feed my children. It simply is not a choice for me, but I do feel anger at being put in this position. As someone who has worked all of her adult life, I am often enraged with what appears to be my status as a citizen of this country. Like you, I'm still searching for a better way. Namaste.
ReplyDeleteLet's change the world my friend.
ReplyDelete