Expiation on our backs
Bookworm on Sep 24 2008 at 6:49 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
This election is forcing liberals, especially rich liberals, to admit two things that they’ve long implied and never stated: The liberals rich want to expiate their economic guilt by raising our taxes. And the racist liberals want to expiate their racial sins by electing a . . . yes, she’s going to say it . . . token black to the White House.
I have a couple of suggestions for these people:
If you feel guilty for having too much money, give it away. I don’t have too much, I don’t feel guilty, and I don’t want you to reach your hand into my pocket to absolve yourself of your own guilt.
If you feel guilty about America’s racial history, please don’t address that sin by turning the country over to the most secretive, incompetent, far Left loony who has ever made a run for the White House. If you need a token black (there, I’ve said it again), why don’t you pick someone who is rational, accomplished and moderate?
And if you need the personal touch to drown out your guilt, rather than giving my country away, why don’t you let expiation start at home: Donate your house to Glide Memorial Church, give your car away to poor black people who don’t live without easy walking distance of work, empty your bank account into an all black school, or think of some other creative transfer of wealth that doesn’t involve me or the government.
And please keep in mind that this post is not a slap at blacks. This post is a slap at White liberals who want to turn our country into some massive social experiment so that they can feel better about themselves. It’s taking the self-involved, feel-good notions of the 1970s (an idea that resulted in under-performing, massively arrogant children when tested in the schools), and applying it to our whole country.
Incidentally, I figured out last night the difference between me and an embittered liberal. Mr. Bookworm and I were making vacation plans. This is a tedious job, since it involves tens of hours (sometimes hundreds) looking for affordable vacations. As we were working away, it occurred to me that a lot of people I know book their vacations without a blink. They think of a place they want to go — and money is no object. Now, here’s the difference between me and an embittered Lefty: Rather than wanting to destroy their wealth and ability just to pick a place and go there (that would by the statist/Communist approach), I simply wished that I could do what they do (that would be the envy spurs Capitalist energy and initiative approach).
I’ll leave you with an old joke:
First man: Come, the Revolution, we’ll all drive Rolls Royces.
Second man: But I don’t want to drive a Rolls Royce.
First man: Come the Revolution, you’ll have to.
A darkly funny joke when it first appeared in the 40s or 50s, because everyone knew that, come the Revolution, peasants were starving to death in the mud.
Related posts:
- Biological weapons on children’s backs
- A new post about the Palin pick
- Dissecting the inanities of the Democratic political guilt machine
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29 Responses to “Expiation on our backs”
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well book, there’s one thing that can always be said for you. it’s impossible to confuse you with the facts:
http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/blog/_archives/2008/6/11/3739543.html
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/presidential_candidates.cfm
also book, don’t you realize that we’re going to HAVE to raise taxes, with a mushrooming debt, the daily trickle of billions to iraq and afghanistan and now with this bailout? even mccain is going to have to raise taxes. americans were not asked to sacrifice anything during the war in terms of taxes (a first for the nation btw) and now we’re swimming in mountains of debt. it’s just that obama’s plan is better for working people than mccain’s is the only real issue.
peace
peace
Uh-oh, Book. Helen will be upset by this.
Dagon…so boooring! Problem is that Obama can say anything he wants to but he has no credibility.
He and his Chicago Democrat handlers will raise everybody’s taxes…because, like the story of the scorpion and the frog, this is what they do. They’re socialists.
Mmmmm….forgot the sign-off.
“Pieces”
Sorry about that.
danny
Dagon
so, bookworm bloviates out of the ether and i post the actual analysis from the leading authority on taxes in washington and that’s boring to you? well, explains a lot.
have you ever been to chicago danny? trust me, they aint socialist here. and btw, we’re all socialists now…just ask paulson and bush.
peace
Dagon –
First, I believe Danny is from Chicago . . .
Second, I do not pretend to be an economic expert. Few people are. Neither candiate seems to have an ideal economic and tax plan at this point. But one thing is clear to me: there is something very, very wrong when such a small percentage of people in this country is forced to shoulder such a disproportionate part of the tax burden.
According to the Tax Foundation (see link below):
“. . . the reality is the 122.7 million taxpayers earning between $0 and $100,000 pay a collective 29 percent of all federal taxes while the 7.1 million taxpayers earning over $200,000 collectively pay 45.5 percent of the federal tax burden. Apparently Obama is not content with that ratio . . .
“As a result, Obama would have wealthy households shoulder more than 51 percent of the federal tax burden while cutting the burden on the “middle-class” to less than 25 percent. In other words, Obama believes that the wealthy’s proper share of the federal tax burden is twice that of the middle-class.
Two questions for Mr. Obama:
1. How is the economy expected to grow when the most productive people in America are expected to shoulder more than 50 percent of the nation’s tax burden?
2. Is it healthy for our democracy to have the vast majority of Americans contribute so little to the cost of government yet enjoy all the benefits of it?”
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23503.html
And this, from the Wall Street Journal:
“History has demonstrated time and again that raising tax rates on the wealthy in the name of “redistribution” leads to so much income shifting, reduced work and investment, and redeployment of money into tax shelters, that the rich usually pay less, not more taxes, at higher rates. The burden of paying for government shifts to others, including some who may not file an income tax return at all – because they no longer have jobs or no longer earn enough to pay income tax. . .
“Economist Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University has shown that in 1970, when the highest tax rate was 70%, the top 1% shouldered 16.7% of the income tax burden. Today the top tax rate is 35% and the same class of taxpayers pays a whopping 39% of the burden. The worst way to “soak the rich,” Mr. Hubbard finds, is to raise tax rates.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121555916730437401.html?mod=opinion_journal_political_diary
Dagon – just so this is clear: I am not wealthy. I will never be wealthy. I am back in school right now and when I’m done, I’ll be working in a field where I may eventually earn $60-70k. That’s it. What I am saying though is that while I do not support tax increases on the middle class, it is particularly wrong-headed to place an even greater burden on the very wealthy. It winds up hurting us all.
Deana
Dagon –
On a completely separate issue: you would be far more convincing if you would be a little more respectful in your tone. Repulsing people from the giddy-up does not make people inclined to listen to you, much less give credence to anything you say.
Deana
deana
no one likes taxes. but as i stated earlier, what are the options given the current climate? and that being the case, i’m not necessarily in favor of gouging the rich but giving them a percentage tax BREAK doesn’t make any sense either.
both of these guys are going to have to raise taxes. that’s a fact, no matter what mccain says, so with wages being stagnant, an expensive war being waged, a 1 trillion plus bailout, mortgage issues etc, the middle class can’t take much more of a burden.
so, what would you do?
>>so, what would you do?>>
Reduce spending.
Just like you do, and I do when there is a shortfall in income for some reason.
>>”Obama’s generosity comes at a price, however, He’d raise the national debt by a staggering $3.3 trillion over the next decade, and that includes more than $900 billion in promised revenue raisers that TPC could not verify.”>>
That kind of jumped out at me…
suek
did you notice that mccain’s plan comes at an even BIGGER price? a couple of paragraphs down. you should have read the whole thing.
peace
deana,
my tone shouldn’t matter; only my arguments. fact is, i’m pissed off.
bookworm might light fires with a smile on her face but her steady stream of untruths and unsustainable character assassinations is just as repellent to me as my “tone” may be to you.
peace
Then, dagon, your behavior is inconsistent. You say you are repulsed and yet you return here like a moth to a light in the dark.
Tone, or to be more precise, manners matter. It is the most powerful of forces and what allows a person to introduce whatever other talents he or she may possess. The most intelligent person in the world is going to be utterly irrelevent if he or she doesn’t understand that simple truth.
You asked what I would do in terms of the economy. Again, I’m no economic expert but I think I would first start looking at how we would reduce spending. That always should be the priority before we start deciding who is going to pay more taxes.
As for the whole issue surrounding the federal deficit – McCain’s plan may indeed increase the federal deficit but it is my understanding that reducing taxes traditionally has led to a reduction in the federal deficit.
Back in 2003, de Rugy from the Cato Institute wrote a piece titled, “Tax Increases Won’t Cure Federal Deficit.” The article takes 2 minutes to read and is completely worth reading but I’ll just what is key:
“On the campaign trail in 1932, Roosevelt noted: “For over two years our federal government has experienced unprecedented deficits, in spite of increased taxes . . . Roosevelt decided to increase taxes more. He found out that a tripling of tax revenues did not balance the budget because the deficit soared from $2.2 billion in 1932 to $2.9 billion in 1940.
“A key problem in trying to balance the budget with tax increases is that higher taxes fuel more spending. As Milton Friedman has said, “Raise taxes by enough to eliminate the existing deficit and spending will go up to restore the tolerable deficit.”
Another reason why tax hikes don’t balance the budget is because the hikes contract the tax base by reducing economic growth and spurring greater tax avoidance. As a result, the government gains only a fraction of the revenues it hopes to receive.”
And this is my favorite part:
“Roosevelt’s ideological devotion to soaking the rich blinded him to the economic reality unfolding around him. He claimed that increasing the tax paid by individuals in the higher brackets was “the American thing to do.” Yet that and other anti-growth policies killed incentives for work, investment and entrepreneurship. As a result, while the U.S. unemployment rate fell during the tax-cutting 1920s, it soared to 25.2 percent in 1933, and remained high through 1940, at 14.6 percent.
“The tax increases of the 1930s coincided with large deficits and economic stagnation.”
Wow. Except for the names, that last part could have been written yesterday. Who is out there telling us that paying taxes is “the patriotic thing to do?”
Deana
All –
I should have cited the Cato Institute article. Sorry. Here’s the link:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3035
Deana
dagon
bookworm might light fires with a smile on her face but her steady stream of untruths and unsustainable character assassinations is just as repellent to me as my “tone” may be to you.
Please provide documentation to support the allegations of “untruths and unsustainable character assassinations.” Links, please.
peace
Yeah, right.
deana
hardly, i show up sporadically at best. usually, when i see something so completely misleading that i can’t help but chime in.
would that this were so. trust me, i would be the most gracious poster you ever saw if i wasn’t in turn confronted with lies and obfuscations.
numbers please! actually, this is patently false. witness the last 8 years which has seen the deficit grow at an unprecedented rate, all under tax cuts. also deana, we are supposedly at war. there has NEVER been tax breaks to the extent that we have seen during wartime in this nations short history.
and both men say they want to cut spending, but that’s not going to be nearly enough given the challenges we face. trust me or not, mccain will HAVE to increase taxes. if this is a subject that interests you, i’d suggest doing some independent study rather than merely listening to pundits and bloggers.
this will after all affect all of us as citizens and may impact generations of families.
peace
Dagon,
I’ve yet to find unsustainable facts here or character assassinations. I’d have to go to DKos or DUnderground for that. I have seen questions on veracity, valid inquiries on stance, and stated personal opinions presented as such. If you don’t like BW, then go away. Stop whining, learn how to properly phrase and punctuate your postings, and stop insulting our hostess.
You may be “pissed off”; I get that way sometimes. Most people that have seen me comment know when I’m angry – I rant. However, I obey the rules of grammar and punctuation, keep it above the belt, and try to back up all that I can with either widely reported facts or links. I have avoided drawing on other sources available to me that are not public domain. I avoid calling people liars, even at the height of my ire.
I’m going to give you advice here, the same advice I have and will give to all my students, soldiers, and subordinates. Get the angry out or you’ve already lost. If you cannot control yourself, you will never convince another of your veracity. Passion belongs in the bedroom; dispassion is the only way to get things done.
And from another thread – BW was once a liberal. You haven’t been reading her writing closely enough to see the threads here and there that show the once-present idealist that still flavors her work. If the “liberal” world had not gone so far into the night, she’d still be one. I still call myself a Truman Democrat; I just can’t vote for the party of Slick Willie, Al Bore, and a Chicago machine politician. The buck is passed on here – depending on what “is” means.
SSG Dave – “It is not that he knows nothing; it is that so much of what he knows is wrong.”
Dagon –
You ask for numbers and I gave you an analysis from the Cato Institute.
I’m not saying it is definitive – I’m merely suggesting that there is some historical evidence that raising taxes does not address the federal deficit.
Deana
Taking the tax plans at face value, Obama would take about $1 trillion dollars more in taxes then McCain over the next 10 years. He would also take an additional $400 billion dollars in social security tax from those making more than $250,000. He would also raise the capital gains tax to 20% while McCain would lower it.
On paper that looks like Obama is a populist sticking it to the rich. The problem with this is that $1.4 trillion dollars will not be available for investments to promote economic growth over the next 10 years, because that’s what the wealthy do with their money.
So to stimulate growth, Obama would offer tax rebates or other deficit raising gimmicks to stimulate consumption, which is one of the systemic problems with our economy.
So under Obama we would be looking at a total operating deficit of $5.8 trillion and under McCain $7.3 trillion, but some of Obamas savings would be spent stimulating the economy that McCain has built in with the reduced tax cuts for those most likely to invest in the economy.
This does not count the $1.3 trillion McCain would spend on health care or the $1.6 trillion Obama would spend.
To say that neither plan adds up is an understatement. McCain said he will cut spending. While I doubt that will happen given the scenario of a Republic president and Democrat Congress, it is more likely the budget would increase LESS than with Democrat-Democrat. And McCain is feisty enough he might wield the veto pen, so it would be interesting to see.
Part of the problem started when Congress went along with the Reagan tax cuts, and then refused to cut spending back in the early 80′s. Remember the years when a budget cut was not a budget cut.
Personally, a good place to start right now is telling your representative to slow down this bailout.
What I would like to know is how you sustain a consumption economy. Yeah, we all know the ripple effect of sales, but eventually the money leaves the country (think China), and leaves us with our hands out, and right now they are saying no thanks to bankrolling us (the liquidity crisis).
So we chip in a $1 trillion dollars to start the process all over again.
Well, I think Bookworm just disabled dagon’s ability to post.
For the past couple of weeks, I felt like I had been invited to someone’s home for a gathering and instead of an enlightening and spirited discussion among everyone, I was forced to listen to a guest who kept insulting the hostess, her food, home, and friends.
It’s a shame but it didn’t seem to matter how nice anyone was to dagon. He seems to operate on only one mode. I can’t imagine that he tends to win many over to his side . . .
Deana
Deana,
That was always the frustrating thing about dagon. There were often interesting arguments there, but he just couldn’t resist intermixing with them the stream of ad hominem attacks and the out-and-out insults.
And he always seemed to save his worst for Book. Good riddance to him.
Deana,
Yes, but he’s “getting in our faces”, as Obama advised.
Dagon was “getting in our faces” well before the admonition to do so from the Empty Suit of Chicago.
You haven’t been reading her writing closely enough to see the threads here and there that show the once-present idealist that still flavors her work.
Dagon was here when I first commented here: that was years ago. Ignorance is not something dagon can claim credit from.
While dagon may not be able to convince many folks, what he does do is to attract people of similar minds. If there’s one person attacking Bookworm, you can be assured dagon and similar folks will also join in the attack and support each other. This also includes attacks on Book’s readers, as well.
I have to agree with you, Zhombre. He had a long history here of doing that.
It’s so funny – Obama instructing his followers to “get in the faces” of people and argue with them. And the media has said almost nothing about it.
Can you imagine Kennedy saying something like that? Or Roosevelt? It’s unthinkable. But somehow, that order coming from a presidential candidate is now acceptable.
Deana
What an excellent point, Deana. It’s a rather spectacular degradation of the presidential candidacy, isn’t it, when he advises his supports to role in the dirt (so to speak).
Yes, Obama tells his supporters to “get in their faces”.
And Al Gore today just called for his youthful supporters to begin civil disobedience:
“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration”
Is Obama urging his supporters to behave in a worse manner than himself? It sure appears so.
And Gore is also urging his followers to do something he won’t do himself. What a coward. It reminds me of Osama sending his suicide bombers to blow themselves up, while he reclines in the comfort of some Pakistani supporter’s luxurious home (if he’s still alive that is). Good job, Al Gore: let the little people pay the price while you coast along in the best comfort and splendor that you can arrange. In your energy-wasting mansion or your energy-wasting huge yacht. Not exactly talking the talk and walking the walk.
As I read about how much money a tax increase is going to raise, I always wonder if the figures are based on “dynamic”, or “static” scoring.
If the latter, which is the ONLY way the government entities do it, then Obama’s tax increases will NOT generate the revenue they are estimating. Figuring that raising taxes won’t cause people to change their behavior is just stupid. Rich people have lots of options when the tax man wants a bigger hunk of their marginal income – they hire attorneys to help them avoid the tax, or they invest in something that offers a tax break, or they move things around so they don’t “recognize” the income until later….there are hundreds of ways to avoid paying Uncle Sugar if you have the money.
Which blows the deficit comparisons sky high. History is clear – raise taxes and you stifle the economy, so your tax take goes DOWN. The only significant source of increased funds for government is those of us in the middle class — we are numerous, which the rich are not; and we can’t avoid the payroll tax.
It’s the very fact that people like Kennedy, Byrd, Kerry, Heinz, Michelle Obama and Barack can avoid income taxes on their wealth that they are able to advocate so hard for increased taxes here in America. They get the benefits of both power and wealth. Only the middle class and the majority have to sacrifice their wealth. That’s a cool deal for the likes of Michelle Obama.