Sunday, September 12, 2010

 

Thought of the Day

If Obama can speak lucidly about a subject as thorny as race, he can surely do a far more specific job of telling the story of how we got to this economic impasse. He must join the many who are talking about why the top 1 percent of American earners now take home nearly a quarter of Americans’ total income — perhaps the single most revealing indicator of how three decades of greed and free-market absolutism have eviscerated America’s fundamental ideals of fairness.

Former Theater Critic Frank Rich

My fundamental ideal of fairness is to have the Government maximize the conditions of freedom so that we Americans can work hard to approach and join the top 1%. My fundamental ideal of fairness could never include the government redistributing income a la Robin Hood. The left elevates equality of outcome over freedom--a fundamentally unAmerican ideal.

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Comments:
Yep.

We have a Supreme Court whose majority is mostly concerned w/ preserving the rights of corporate interests. We have the current minority party which is happy to sell the country to special interests. And we have Roger pedaling the greatness of our country should be the government maximizing the prospects of the 99% to become a member of the 1%.

We have states repealing the Rule Against Perpetuities while the GOP champions not only the preservation of tax cuts for the uber rich but also the abolition of the inheritance tax. In a few generations, we will have landed gentry while more ordinary citizens will live in Potterville.

Wait a minute. Did not our English (well, your English--I mean Scottish)forebears settle this continent for equality of opportunity unfettered by the nobility and primogeniture?

I am mindful that economic globalization is largely responsible for the widening gap between the rich and everyone else.

I am also mindful that that primary ethos of the GOP establishment is to preserve the wealth of the rich. That the GOP want to provide everyone w/ the opportunity to become rich is a canard.

T
 
It doesn't have to be a Potterville, it could be a Bedford Falls. I always thought it was Republican values which helped the poor get out of the rentals and into middle class home ownership rather than the reverse. I could be wrong. If taxes are the rent for living in our great nation, why should successful people have to pay more rent than semi-successful ones (the unsuccessful pay few taxes at all)? Why should the lifetime accumulation of taxed income be taxed again when the earner dies? Involuntary income redistribution is a crime no matter who does it, and the fact that the government has done it for nearly a hundred years doesn't make it less of a crime. These are party essentials on which I fear we will never agree.

As I recall it, the tax rate cuts of '01 and '03 were for all taxpayers. Am I misremembering it?

I'm pretty much all German heritage except the men down the trunk of the family tree married a lot of Scots Irish women over the centuries. Hillbilly but smart is I think my legacy. Perhaps you disagree with the latter part.
 
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