jwt Loc: Texas Hill Country

I received this via email and decided to share it. This should stir up some discussion.

HIS IS THE BEST ARTICULATION OF OUR CURRENT SITUATION I HAVE READ.
In early January 2014, Bob Lonsberry, a Rochester talk radio personality on WHAM
1180 AM, said this in response to Obama's "income inequality speech":
Two Americas
The Democrats are right, there are two Americas.
The America that works, and the America that doesn’t.
The America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t.
It’s not the haves and the have nots, it’s the dos and the don’ts.
Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves,
contribute to society, and others don’t. That’s the divide in America.
It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility.
It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in
order to win elective office.
It’s about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country.
That’s not invective, that’s truth, and it’s about time someone said it.

The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President
Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting “income inequality.” He noted
that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher
incomes than others, and he says that’s not just.

That is the rationale of thievery. The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will
take it for you. Vote Democrat.

That is the philosophy that produced Detroit. It is the electoral philosophy
that is destroying America.

It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense
because it ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal.

The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a
culture of dependence and entitlement, of victimhood and anger instead of
ability and hope.

The president’s premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the
successful – seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and
spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices.

Because, by and large, income variations in society is a result of different
choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and
responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose
foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. Success
and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income.

You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college - and you are apt to
have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with
purposeful education.

You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you
have them within a marriage and life is apt to take another course.
Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take.

My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income
inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but, our
lives also have had an inequality of effort. While my doctor went to college and
then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in
a restaurant.

He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes.
His outcome pays a lot better than mine.

Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it
means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to
different outcomes.

It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom. The
freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail.

There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure.
The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand
of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy.

Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. Even if the other guy
made a lifetime’s worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions.

Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while
completely ignoring inequality of effort.
The simple Law of the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes
applied as, “The harder you work, the more you get." Obama would turn that
upside down. Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and
those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society.

Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American
society if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator
society in which the government besieges the successful and productive to foster
equality through mediocrity.

He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on
using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not
divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in
our efforts. It is a false philosophy to say one man’s success comes about
unavoidably as the result of another man’s victimization.

What Obama offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division
and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own political
benefit. That’s what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a
bow.
Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln’s maxim
that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
_______________

GeneB Loc: Chattanooga Tennessee

Remember what President Kennedy said?

"Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country"

And he was a democrat. What happened? Oh yeah LBJ came along and his view of the "Great Society" changed the game. And he was a democrat.

Go figure. :hunf:

surfshoptom

that whole thing is bullshit. are there people like he describes - that take advantage of the system? yes. are they all democrats? are all democrats like that? no. my brother in law is like that. he's a a taker and he's a proud Republican. are people that take advantage of the system the biggest problem we have? no. Is Obama talking about the difference between what a plumber and a doctor make? no. he's talking about the rich bastards that make over a million with their investments alone and pay a lower rate of income tax than the plumber or the doctor. you people that think the biggest problem we have is food stamp scammers are part of the problem.

FrumCA

Nonsense.

Steve_m Loc: Southern California

Yes, Obama is talking about plumber and doctor. Listen to him. :thumbdown:

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

Powerful words and I agree with all of them.

Dogman Loc: Michigan

Question,,,why is someone who makes a million dollars on investments or legally anything else and taxed (legally) at a lower rate a rich bastard?

Dogman

Steve_m Loc: Southern California

Because Karl Marx said so. And Obama likes his doctrine.

Dogman Loc: Michigan

Did ya hear the forehead slap??

Dogman

ALYN Loc: Lebanon, Indiana

You almost hit the nail on the head in your last statement.What Obama wants is COMMUNISM Yes, he wants equality---equality of the stupid, the uneducated, the unskilled and the untrained---all equally poor. Remember the great USSR under Comrade STALIN, the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Were I in charge the first order of business under the newly elected congress would be to undue everything passed by the
Obama Congress. Alyn
P.S. I am not a nut job; I am just fearful for the future of our Nation.

SBW

No, you, maggot, are a large part of the problem.

Steve_m Loc: Southern California

You probably drive around in a pickup truck with bumper sticker which says: PEOPLE WHO WORK DON'T KNOW HOW TO SURF.

Billynikon Loc: Atlanta

Income inequality has increased substantially in the last 30 years. Much of it has to do with the bosses now making 250 times the average wage whereas in 1980 that was only 15 times. Lower taxes for upper incomes exacerbated the problem. Obama has proposed more education as the best way to raise incomes, his ideas are how to get the lower classes up more than how to take the upper classes down. And higher taxes on the wealthy are justified as they are paying the lowest in modern history now and benefiting greatly

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

A typical lib response: no facts just attacks. We shouldn't really expect any more from someone IN HIDING.

Dogman Loc: Michigan

From CNBC December of 2013 Here's the link> http://www.cnbc.com/id/101264757

Buried inside a Congressional Budget Office report this week was this nugget: when it comes to individual income taxes, the top 40 percent of wage earners in America pay 106 percent of the taxes. The bottom 40 percent...pay negative 9 percent.

You read that right. One group is paying more than 100 percent of individual income taxes, the other is paying less than zero.

It's right there in Table 3 on page 13 of the report. The numbers are based on 2010 IRS and Census Bureau figures.

How does someone pay negative taxes? The CBO's formula offsets whatever taxes are paid with "refundable tax credits." Some of these are due to "government transfers" of money back to the taxpayer in the form of social security and food stamps.

That's not to say the rich are going broke. Hardly.

According to the CBO, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw before-tax income grow more than 16 percent from 2009 to 2010, which isn't such a surprise since the stock market was coming off the bottom. Most of the rest of the country only saw gross incomes grow about 1 percent. When it comes to federal taxes,the top bracket paid 69 percent of the total last year. The bottom bracket paid 0.4 percent.

Do high taxes chase away the rich? Will a potential tax hike on the rich drive millionaires out of their home states? Probably not. CNBC's Robert Frank reports.

"For most income groups, average federal tax rates in 2010 were near the lowest rates for the 1979-2010 period," reads the report. "The exception was households in the top 1 percent,whose average federal tax rate in 2010 was significantly above its low in the mid-1980s."

It does not look to be getting better. The CBO said that since 2010, new taxes have been added which will raise rates for everyone, with the biggest increase hitting the 1-percenters. They could end up with their highest federal tax rate since 1997 this year.

However, the greatest disparity in the report is the one mentioned above, regarding the share of individual income taxes paid by various income groups.

First, let's look at incomes. The report shows the lowest-paid Americans earned on average $8,100 in 2010 but received nearly $25,000 in government aid. You begin to see how "transfers" create a negative tax burden.

But wait, there more. The CBO says about a quarter of the lowest earning group actually paid negative 15 percent of all individual income taxes. Contrast that with the combined share of the wealthiest two groups, which totals more than 100 percent.

Fair or not, I will let you be the judge.

People who make more should pay more, generally speaking. In America, they are. Yes, the rich (and almost rich) are getting richer. When it comes to individual income taxes, they're also covering the entire bill. And leaving a tip.

Dogman