Next time you think you are the 53%, remember that the top taxpayers pay taxes on only 50% of their income because they have access to classes of income which are not taxed, classes of income the rest of us (including you) do not have access to because we do not have sufficient capital to make war in that theater. The people who aren't paying any taxes are living in poverty. A lot of those people are literally going to be burning their furniture to stay warm this winter.
Since a lot of people were burning their furniture last winter, I suspect a lot of them are going to be freezing to death this year. The problem is not repeat not the people below you on the social ladder, it is the people above you who are not paying their share. The people below you on the ladder don't own anything, why should they be expected to pay taxes at all? The people above you aren't paying their share, and more to the point, their fair share even at a flat tax would be vastly more than they are paying right now, and vastly more than the people below you aren't paying. Getting upset at the people LESS fortunate than you are who need MORE help is not only illogical, but it's also brainwashed, and morally bankrupt.
Finally, let us not forget that the people at the top of the ladder are the ones deciding HOW the tax money will be spent, because they can afford to buy the legislation that controls the dispensation of the funds. Not only are they not paying their fair share, but they're deciding how YOUR share will be spent -- mostly for their profit. I simply do not understand the failing of logic that leads you to blame people barely hanging on to financial solvency for not paying in to a corrupt system.
The 53% responds
Drink,
I would like you to show me how to shelter 50% of my income from taxes....I would like to do that too, so please let me know what kind of income gets that sort of tax treatment. The only other thing I take exception to in your rant is the assertion that those "above us" are not paying their fair share. The problem is not that the 1% don't pay their share, they pay 70% of the total tax burden. The problem is that the bottom 47% are recieving subsidies (Earned Income Credit) paid for by the rest of us. This should end, and all citizens should participate in paying taxes. The idea that one citizen can receive the benefits of another's labor is illogical, and morally bankrupt.
Being poor is a choice; it is the result of bad decisions made in youth, and failure to expend the effort required to change one's lifestyle. I have no sympathy for those burning furniture and "freezing to death" (highly unlikely in a welfare state). These "poor" always have cigarettes to smoke, alcohol to drink, and a car to drive, usually without insurance (I'm in south Texas) one of the poorest places in the country. What they don't have is the ambition to get out and work. Don't lecture me about compassion for the poor. You come down here and see how the 47% fleece the shit out the 53%. Its time everybody took their hands out of everyone elses' pocket and this country got back to individual self sufficiency.
I am in full agreement with you in regard to moneys role in our political system. The only solution to this issue is public financing of political campaigns, and provision of equal air time to candidates. I believe it should be illegal to give anything to any politician, and I fully support the 28th amendment movement to curtail Congressional benefits and impose term limits.
At least we agree on something, but...
Drink, I would like you to show me how to shelter 50% of my income from taxes... If you had enough money to accomplish it, you would be doing it already. These "poor" always have cigarettes to smoke, alcohol to drink, and a car to drive, usually without insurance (I'm in south Texas) one of the poorest places in the country. Cigarettes and alcohol are addictive, and yet are essentially promoted by the federal government in that they wage war on the non-addictive alternative. A car is a necessity, especially in a state like Texas where everything is far away from everything else, even within towns; I spent a year and a half living in Austin and I drove all over the state during that time. The auto companies anticompetitively bought up profitable rail and bus lines and shut them down in order to force people to buy a car, or be marginalized by their inability to participate in modern society. In this country, driving ought to be a right — well, that's the inferior solution. In reality we ought to do away with the car and move to rail, PRT, and golfcart-like vehicles — and I say this as someone who loves to drive. You come down here and see how the 47% fleece the shit out the 53%. I'm living in California, the state that gets the least back in taxes for what we send to the federal government, the state that's supporting the other states. If there's rioting and starvation in those states, though, it won't be good for my state. See how that works? The only solution to this issue is public financing of political campaigns, and provision of equal air time to candidates. I believe it should be illegal to give anything to any politician, and I fully support the 28th amendment movement to curtail Congressional benefits and impose term limits. I personally think we should run political funding through a system designed to equalize things, where when you make a contribution to a candidate half of it is siphoned off into a fund which is equally distributed between all other candidates who have got enough petitioners to be one of the top n candidates or something.
Oh yes, and we all pay taxes. Property taxes, which renters pay in the form of rent which is used to pay the taxes, are probably among the fairest of taxes, since all wealth is derived from the land, and everyone wants to live where it's nice. Sales taxes are among the least fair of taxes, but most of us have to pay them at least some of the time. They're unfair because the poor end up spending a larger portion of their income on taxes on necessities than anyone else. Aside from fairness there is the issue of the result to society if people become homeless, which is why we have the Earned Income Tax Credit. The people receiving it are truly the people making this country work. If they don't go to work and do their jobs then nothing happens. If they can't afford to exist then they don't do their jobs. Of course, we do seem to have quite a bit of unemployment in this country right now; official estimates are a pathetic joke. If all those people just died, then the problem would be solved, I guess. Even if you consider that a valid solution to the problem, people don't just "go away" in the process of dying of starvation. First there is crime. A graduated income tax that not everyone pays is a remarkably fair system and yet it still provides increasing rewards for increasing effort. Forcing the tax money from the wallets of the people at the top, who profit from capital gains while not actually contributing anything to society, is the only fair system. These people who derive the most benefit from our system (as measured in dollars) should pay the most back into the system, again in dollars.
One thing we can probably agree on is that most current welfare systems are designed to self-perpetuate. A base of people dependent on your social program can provide valuable votes. A welfare system that cuts you off when you get a little bit of savings, and thus the glimmer of hope of escape from your situation, is not actually meant to help people — and it does not solve any problems, rather exacerbating them. We'll give people food stamps so they can feed their family, but if they manage to also get enough money to clothe them, we'll take away the food stamps. This only encourages fraud and creates more criminals that we can throw into privatized prisons-for-profit, which in my book is overt slavery.