@Metre – I have to say I wonder what YOU do for a living. Overpaid executive perhaps? Where did your wife get the capital? Risks? – I hear that alot from people in your situation. What risks? Oh, you mean the possiblily that the precious capital might be lost. I’m sure if it is you will file for bankruptcy so the debt doesn’t have to be paid by you anyway. Does your wife employ anyone? If so, how well are they paid? They don’t contribute to the success of her business? As far as your taxes paying for my handouts – I pay taxes as well, and I take no handouts. Would you like me to pay $180k on my $40k salary? You do the math. I pay more taxes than people who make less than I do. It’s based on a percentage. Why should that percentage miraculously stop increasing when I reach a level of compensation that allows me to have “disposable” income? In regards to the National Parks I’m enjoying, I have never been to one, I can’t afford to get there. You know travel costs money, mine has to pay to keep a roof over my families head, food in their stomachs, and heat so they don’t freeze to death in the winter. So much for disposable income. I am a dedicated and hardworking employee. I work for a privately owned small company. The owner promises us a bonus every year if we make enough profit, but we don’t make enough profit. The owner had to build a wine cellar with company funds and is currently spending $6k pf the company profits a month stocking it and taking his wife out to expensive dinners on the company every Friday and
Saturday. By the way, I am typing this on my lunch hour at home because I don’t believe in using company time for personal business, my boss was in his office ordering more wine when I left. Where were you when you typed your statement?

Yet you and everyone else benefit from my unequal share. I get no special priveledges.
You can’t see how helping those that are less fortunate helps you? And what special privileges do you want? You get a bigger house, a nicer car, and better vacations. Do you want everyone to wear funny hats that indicate how much they pay in taxes? Those who pay the most get to move to the front of the line, and the lesser hatted must bow down to them as they pass.

You are very welcome. I will expect your thank you in the next post.
Oh great king Metre, I thank you for the generous gift you have bestowed upon the nation, even thought you only did it because you were forced to.

Entrepreneurship is the engine that drives the American economy. Yet if the government redistributes the rewards, what is the incentive?
I bet your wife regrets ever having gone down the path which led to her riches. There were absolutely no rewards. For the life of me, I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would want to make more money.

If I can just sit on my duff and expect a free handout picked from someone else’s pocket, why should I work hard?
Wait a minute, I work really hard too, and I pay a lot in taxes as well. I didn’t realize the key to success was being lazy and making less money. I’m going to have to re-think my life.

There seems to be some confusion about socialism as it applies to the government of a country. Having a tax system that favors one group (e.g., the working class) over another group (e.g., the wealthy), or one that keeps the burden even for everyone, is not socialism.

If Obama truly were a socialist, then he would be calling for the federal government to own, not just regulate, all production resources in the country. Government, rather than private, insurance. Government control of media, rather than private media companies. Government control of energy resources, rather than independent, private gas, electric, oil, etc. companies. Government control of financial institutions.

Saying that Obama is a socialist based on a turn of phrase or an image promoted by McCain’s campaign, an ignorance of what socialism really means in a government, and a misunderstanding of Obama’s tax plan is, well, wrong. I have yet to see anything from Obama that he wants to nationalize industry and resources in a manner that reeks of socialism.

And even if he were a socialist, would that make our system of governance socialist as well? Nope. Remember that we also have a legislative branch that, I would wager, is pretty overwhelmingly capitalist. So even if Obama were a socialist, your fears are unwarranted.

You seem to suffer from some common misperceptions. The first is that well-to-do-people – those who earn over $250K a year – pay no taxes or don’t pay their fair share. Up until a few years ago, my wife and I both worked and earned under that magic $250K threshold. Then my wife decided to start her own business. She raised the capital, took the risks, and has worked very, very hard to make her business a success. As a result, our gross income has doubled to about $400K per year. Of that amount, we pay over $180K per year in taxes. While this still leaves us with more disposable income than we had before, it is a tremendous amount of money to give away. So I think I pay my fair share for national parks and other government funded programs. In fact, I pay a whole lot more than most and more than you. Yet you and everyone else benefit from my unequal share. I get no special priveledges. You get the same access to those parks as I do, even though you contribute much less to their upkeep than I do. You are very welcome. I will expect your thank you in the next post.

Second, what makes you think that you are entitled to some of my wife’s success? She is the one who took the risks and has worked hard to make her business a success. You have done nothing. You did not contribute capital, you did not take any risks, and you did not work to help her business succeed. Why do you think you or anyone else is entitled to a “re-distribution” of my wife’s income? It is just government welfare for the middle class, aka socialism.

Entrepreneurship is the engine that drives the American economy. Yet if the government redistributes the rewards, what is the incentive? If I can just sit on my duff and expect a free handout picked from someone else’s pocket, why should I work hard? And that is the problem with socialism and it’s big brother, communism. Communism did not fail as a political system, it failed as an economic system.