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What does it solve?

Also, how are you defining "fair" in this context? A dollar has the same value whether I make 5 times more than you or not. It distributes the cost of things such that those with more money pay more of it, but is that actually "fair"? Why?



We can also argue that they have the greatest vested interest in how money is taxed and spent by said government. Think it through. Imagine if the government didn't tax corporations at all. Let's imagine that we funded our government via tariffs and sales tax alone. How much lobbying would the corporations do? It's easy to make the argument that we have so much interaction and intrusion by big business into government exactly because government taxes them so much. It's all about money, right? No one would spend millions of dollars lobbying if they didn't think they'd save themselves more millions as a result. If the government didn't intrude in the businesses, they wouldn't spend money intruding on the government. There'd be no reason to...



That's only true if you assume that the government funded programs "run the country", and that the results of those programs are critically necessary for those same middle and working class people to prosper. Maybe if we just made the bill smaller things would be better, right?

Also, I think it's incredibly simplistic to just look at the income taxes paid by each group and conclude that the middle class is paying too much. The cost of pushing those taxes onto the wealthy and on corporations would hurt them even more. As a group, the middle class is better off paying say 5% more taxes, than pushing those taxes onto their employers and essentially being "taxed" by having fewer opportunities (and perhaps a smaller middle class in the first place due to fewer higher paying jobs). I just think that you're ignoring half of the equation when you make this sort of argument.


What's bizarre to me is that everyone "gets" that if you raise taxes on say oil companies, that this will just be passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas prices. No one had any problem seeing that as a gaping flaw in the whole windfall profits tax idea, right? Yet, those same people fail to see that the same sort of effect occurs with *any* tax at the top of the economic spectrum. Those are the people and businesses that employ most Americans. Raising taxes will result in a combination of increased costs for the products they make and decreased income for those who work for them. The net effect is worse in many ways since it tends to manifest in a much more "all or nothing" manner. You either get that job, or you don't, and with higher taxes on the employer the odds of that job being there for you is decreased. Statistically, you can't see this because that person who didn't get the nice paying corporate job is sitting right where he was before (perhaps poor or working class rather than middle class). You can't measure something you could have had but don't, and that's ultimately the real problem with defining why socialized systems are bad. You can't point to a number on a stat sheet and show people what it's costing us.


I'm of a mind that if people had to pay those taxes right out of their own pockets directly instead of having them hidden from them in the form of lost opportunities, they might just be less supportive of all the government spending that is done in this country. Let people see the true cost of those things, and they can make a good decision. Hide that cost and they'll continue to allow the government to take more and more. And yeah. I think that's a problem in the long run...

I think it's a bit silly to base your vote for president on who might be president if that person dies. Can I extend that logic further and point out that no matter who wins, Nancy Pelosi will be third in line? (shudder) We could sit here and calculate the odds of all sorts of things happening, but I think there isn't much point in doing that.

The recurrence rate of the type of cancer McCain has had is relatively low. Also, the worst case he's had was ranked at Stage2, which is out of 4 (so not that dangerous, but not completely benign.). He's also under far greater medical scrutiny than most people. The statistics on melanoma are already pretty good in terms of survival rate over time, and that includes all the people who *don't* receive regular checkups, much less the kind of aggressive examinations and treatment he undergoes. At his age, the cancer is pretty much a non issue. He's statistically more likely to die of something else than to die of that cancer (if he's going to die at all).


The cancer issue is really irrelevant. And his health is excellent. I just think that maybe ignoring his qualifications because he might die is the wrong way to do it.

Your motherfucking war takes up most of that other 80%.

You do spend more on 'defense' (stupid term, but there ya go), than the rest of the world put together tho'..

US spends......................$623 billion.

Rest of the world spends.......$500 billion.

China comes in second with.... $65 billion.


I could be wrong, but I dont think that includes the money you are spending in Iraq and Afhanistan.

Oh god, we are a conquering war nation.

Why the **** would you want an average American running the government? There's a reason politicians go to law school: they are in charge of the laws.

If thats a stab at Obama's race, any viewpoint you offer from here on out is completely null and void. Jackass.

Is it safe to assume that every time knox says something to the effect of 'research ___ and get back to me' that he's gotten some fringe article from some alarmist website that he expects me to somehow find? Is that pretty much how it works?

Don't you have a pointy white hat you should be cutting holes in right about now, knox?

If it's on Newsmax.com, it has to be true!

Dunno but the fact that he graduated magna *** laude from Harvard Law tells me he probably met or exceeded the requirement.