Tax

The position of the Republicans in the budget negotiations is an outrage to every responsible citizen in our republic. Let's get some facts straight:

The debt is money already spent

We owe it. For the Republicans to even threaten that America will flake on its obligations borders on treason in my book. At the very least they are taking an un-Constitutional position by trying to force our nation to skip out on its debts. See the 14th Amendment. This act alone strikes me as more than enough grounds for impeachment hearings on the lot of them.

Oh, and regarding taxing the wealthy....

Job creation is tax deductible

That's right. Every dollar that job creators invest in job creation is tax deductible now, and tax deductible even if the Bush tax cuts are repealed. It's the dollars that job creators keep for themselves that would be taxed. If they create jobs, they don't have to worry about it.

Comic: XKCD http://xkcd.com/512

President Bush today crowed over the "success" of having given the wealthy a pass on financing his rapidly growing national debt.

"Cutting your taxes worked," Bush said. "Unfortunately, the Democrats are still determined to raise your taxes, and if they gain control of the Congress, they can do so without lifting a finger."

Bush said taxes are a huge issue in the Nov. 7 election. He said the tax cuts orchestrated by his administration have left more money in the hands of workers, families and small businesses — money they have used to sustain a bustling economy.

Actually, the vast bulk of the GOP's tax cuts went to the GOP's "base": the millionaires and billionaires. Workers, families and small businesses got the crumbs of the tax relief cake ... if anything.

Tax Cuts for "the haves and the have mores"

When President Bush goats, "You're my base: the haves and the have mores," when talking to a roomfull of the wealthiest people in America — the Republicans' fundraising base — it's should be no surprise to anyone but the news media that average folks like you and me have not seen much upside from tax relief for the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons of the world.

Bush Tax Cuts Favor Wealthy:

People in the top 20 percent of incomes, averaging $182,700 a year, saw their share of federal taxes decline from 65.3 percent of total payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year, according to the study by congressional budget analysts.

We are looking at this all wrong.

We as liberals, need to argue it this way, b/c conservatives are not moved by the "do you want to let people starve in the streets?" They don't care, it is everyone else's fault but theirs. They argue that they will be happy to use the extra tax money they could save if they didn't have to pay for the poor and put it into private support systems.

I am not asking for something for nothing. I paid for this. Every week that I have worked since I was 17 (not including babysitting, which wasn't taxed) and I'm 38 now. I paid SSI and disability insurance taxes, state and federal taxes. In new york city, I also pay city taxes. I pay sales taxes, I pay taxes on my utilities. I've paid for this for me in my time of need and for some other people in their times of need, no matter how they got there.

I'll have to look up the numbers, but isn't all the social services including medicaid and everything along those line only 10% percent of the budget? I think it might be less, I'll look it up and get back to you.

I don't want to pay for an unfair and unprovoked war. I didn't like paying for the Gulf War, I don't like paying to keep oil cheaper here than the rest of the world or covering the taxes that corporations and the wealthy don't pay b/c they've got their money tied up, hidden and otherwise excluded from paying.

If only we could choose personally where our taxes went. I'd bet the slice of the pie that went to taking care of our citizens would rise. I'd also set aside some of my taxes to pay for abortions for the poor and women in the armed services overseas that can't get them.

We already get to donate a dollar to the prez campaign if we wish, how great would it be to have a sheet with our returns that listed the things we need taxes to pay for and we could check "defense" or "police/fire/trash" or "Social Services" or "Prez trips to his ranch/camp/vacation home". I think the prez should pay for those himself, tho I will contribute to his round the clock security. Not b/c I love bush, but he and his family do need it. But he can pay for Air force one to take him there.

Unfortunately, not many people know all the places their taxes go and once they found out all the useless places, those places would either dissolve or figure out what major need they can attach themselves too.

In the end tho, no one would need to complain about what they *have to pay for*. and if suddenly there isn't enough money to pay for a war, conservatives will get the chance to contribute more, just like they believe only *private* institutions should offer social services. They could make their own grants to the war. hell, the poor already pay for it in lives.

Media girl writes a post "Go along, because you can't win" and in it she quotes,roseeriter who decries an attitude that

You are a burden on America.

Burden. Yes. An interesting choice of words.

Define "burden."

Define "America," or is it "Amerika," as we said during the anti-War Movement.

Exactly what is the "burden?" The reason it is a "burden" to help a baby who needs health care is because the American economy is tanking. America is on a spending spree on a war it can't afford and so to win the war against Sadam and his yet-to-be-found weapons of mass destruction, WMD, Americans have to cut out social services.

Yet, I have to ask, why was this Republic formed? So we can go on foreign adventures? Some of the more forthright Neo-cons admit that they believe the oil in the Middle East is America's oil and it belongs to...what?...America?

To get the price of oil down and to seize the reserves, America has invaded and occupied Iraq--not big news there. But what is the burden? Who pays for this expansionism? Who benefits?

Debora Spar in her [url=http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=2515&t=innovation>[b]Ruling the Waves[/url] and my early essay on Media Girl A View from Partenia recalls the California Gold Rush of 1849. Men came to find gold and they staked out land. But there always was the specter of claim jumpers who would steal the gold.

And it was inefficient for the miner to sit around with a shotgun, guarding the mine. You can't get much mining done that way. You had to hire guards. In fact, why not have "law and order," a great concept that I recall Richard Nixon used to speak about, and get the tax payers to pay for guarding the miner's claim. So, according to Spar's thesis, it is the businesses themselves who ask for government intervention to deal with guarding their gold, and as Jed Clampett found out, "gold" can be black.

So, who pays for guarding the claim of the gold miners? The tax payer! And since the taxes are now going to guard the claim, who can be burdened with caring for the ailing baby? The baby burden is too much.

America's agenda is now the corporate agenda. "What's good for General Motors is good for America," as the fractured quote goes. "What's good for Halliburton is good for Halliburton," and so long as those pesky tax payers foot the bill for America's latest claim jumping, maybe some social services should be sacrificed.

The ironic thing is that those who are the most irate about spending on the poor have not connected that the money is running dry because they are spending on the rich.

In the end, Marx may well be proved right by the Right.

Some men seem to want to be rulers. How to keep them in check?

German sociologist [url=http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/weber.htm]Max Weber[/url] wrote that there are three basic ways a ruler legitimizes himself:

1. By heredity

2. By a contest

3. By charisma

Sometimes a ruler will cement his power by two, or even three, of these means.

Jefferson and Franklin wrote in the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Government has to do something, otherwise, why isn't anarchy any better?

Anarchy is a system favored by the rich and strong, but even then, a government begins to form.

Take medieval kings/barons/war lords/princes and other satraps. At first they were not much more than brigands riding around extorting food and other things from the local farmers. Then two things happened, sometimes together, sometimes one after the other.

One was, rather than have the war lord (I'll use this title for the satraps) attack to take crops, the farmers (and others) said they would pay "tribute" to the war lord and dispense with the annual burning and looting and this turned out to be rather efficient.

The other was, if another war lord showed up and also demanded tribute, the farmers would say "I gave at the office." No. Actually, the first war lord would have to run off the second war lord.

We saw this in the gangsters on the 1920's and 1930's in the United States when the merchants had to pay "protection money," or the gangsters would bust up the merchant's shop. But part of protection was that if another gang muscled in, the crime boss in the area had to run off the new gangsters, otherwise, he'd be the one who was run off or rubbed out. Hence, "protection" was protection against other "war lords" or "crime lords."

Then the war lord got sucked into handling local disputes. Not just other war lords, but locals got into some nasty stuff and this had to be handled by someone with "the muscle." There were crimes, sometime capital crimes, and the war lord could exact money - literally "blood money" - and soon the war lord was performing justice and convening elders who recalled the local (village level) traditional "laws," fines, and customs, and even swear to the character of the people before the bench and, in effect, the "jury" came into being.

Soon justice was being handled by representatives who arrested criminals, as Sergeant Preston said, "I arrest you in the name of the Crown." No longer a brigand, the war lord was keeping order, running courts, collecting taxes to pay for all this administration, and soon government evolved out of all this.

But one great war lord could have an idiot son or another war lord might want in and so succession became part of the deal. Weber's "three ways power was legitimized" came more into play as succession and continuity became more important to commerce and peace and emotionally stabilizing to the people being ruled.

Elsewhere, we discussed the Constitution of 1789. In the American system, at least in theory, government has NO power except powers given by the people who are given power from God. The loyalty sworn by citizens and soldiers is not to the Commander-in-chief or even to the government of the United States, but rather to the Constitution. A strange oath, yet one that appeals.

What is this Constitution? It is the talisman we have chosen. It is a Rorschach Test of what we see ourselves to be.

When rich and powerful men, like war lords, want to rule, they want to keep government down as it gives them freedom.

When people want to curb excesses, they want more government.

Sometime despots and dictators set up totalitarian regimes and people think of this as "big government," but it's not. Sometimes, as in the Soviet Union, it is state capitalism.

More to the point. What is the government charged to do? Do the citizens want it to do nothing? As the farmers of old who paid their tribute, did they want something in return? Perhaps a war lord might say, "the war lord that governs best, governs least," so "I'll take the money and run." Yet, what of all the taxes? What legitimizes the war lord's rule? Who needs him, anyway?

It gets back to the Rorschach Test and the Constitution really is vague on most things. It allowed slavery. It prohibited alcohol. It allowed states to deny women the vote. It allowed a poll tax. It allowed state legislatures to select senators (since Senators represented states, after all), and it set up an Electoral College where a man who did not win the popular vote could be President. It forbade income taxes. And, it could all be brought back, too. Just like the amendment prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, any amendment can be reversed if there are enough people who want it changed.

Thus, to speak of obligations by citing the document of 1789 and its amendments really does not get us to a substantive discussion on what citizens want from a government. Two people can want a very different governments, and yet they use the same Constitution as their common reference point.

Law and juries evolved away from a system of trial-by-combat and trial-by-ordeal when the carnage in settling matters was quite high. Law and governments have evolved since they serve to reduce violence and civilize forms of punishment and make trails less a matter of brute force.

So, then,what is the obligation a government has? To merely settle disputes and fight other war lords? Some of the "strict constructionists" believe that that is all the government should do. The welfare of the people is not even on the radar.

I don't know for sure, but it has to be more than lining the pockets of the "lords of the manor." History teaches us with unmistakable emphasis, that when governments serve only a narrow class, the people rise up and take it away. Will Durant's books spoke to this.

The rules of ALL governments should take note and while they might ride high for a while, they always end up in the dust bin of history. Always.