From: Vince Richards
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 5:19 PM
To: Steve Schlosnagle
Subject: You liberal, you...
Hi Steve,
If you get bored, check out my discussion with my cousin Dusteen here:
http://www.facebook.com/dusteen.j.barber?v=feed&story_fbid=421745005719
I'm just so sick of the Obama-bashing and the "outrage" from the right that was absent the whole time Dubya was not-taxing and spending.
Anyway... let me know if I'm off base anywhere or missing anything. You are more liberal than I am and much better at arguing this kind of stuff.
-V
-----My Response-----
OK:
The only reason "Obama" is spending more money than W is the TARP bailout and the economic recovery programs that were started and precipitated by failures on W's watch.
The economic recovery spending is working. Things are looking better, faster than even the most optimistic experts thought. Are we "out" of our depression? No, and we will probably never get back to the level we were "pre-bust". That is one of the reason we had a bust, the economy was inflated beyond our ability to sustain it.
Medicare and Medicaid are a failure because they are in the red? All of the federal government has been operating in the red for decades! Does that make the whole country a failure? No, what it tells me is that taxes are too low to pay for the programs that we have. And gee, the answer is not to cut programs (again we have tried this tack for decades) the answer is to raise taxes.
If the reason we are in Iraq is to "quell the crap going on in the middle east" then we are failing. The Russians failed when they tried, and the crusades failed when they tried. You would think we would learn from history eventually.
The time has come for people to stop listening to corporations that say "Just let us keep more of our money and let us get rid of restrictions that keep us from making more money and then everyone will have a better life".
It's a lie.
It's always been a lie. And every now and again the american public wakes up from it's dream that they too can maybe be a millionaire (if they just let the corporations get more power).
Greed is a fabulous way of generating more greed. It does not foster social or even economic justice or stability. If you want any sort justice and stability you have got to put controls (read: laws) on greed.
And if you want to pay for the infrastructure (roads, schools, cities...) that enables the greedy to get super-rich, the best way (that we have figured out) is to tax them.
The US has about the lowest tax rate of any "First World" country. I want better schools, I don't want to have to worry about heath care when I retire (or when I lose my job) and I am willing to pay for it. I don't see how people think that testing students and teachers more will make the schools better. If my car is broken I don't keep testing it, I spend the money to repair it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Vince Richards
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 12:35 PM
Thanks.
I had already responded to her before you sent this and we used several of the same arguments.
To hear the Right talk you'd think we are one of the highest taxed nations in the world and in fact, they say that a lot.
Oh well, people will continue to believe what they wish to believe I guess.
-V
-----My Response-----
Well, on the books the base corporate tax rates are the second highest in the world:
Mean Income Tax Rates in the Year 2005 as a Percentage of Income by Country
But I doubt that most large corporations pay anyway close to that with all the loopholes in the system.
On personal base rates the US is seventh from the bottom, AND the same statement goes here as it did on the corporate rates, I doubt that the "rich" (>$200k per year) pay anywhere close to that rate.
Look at this chart:
This is not a 1-to-1 comparison since a UK citizen has a higher tax load outside of these two areas than we do in the US. But it is well within a 10% variance.
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