Tax breaks for the rich:

[kallend 2,175]

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Or does your University not take government loans and research grants. Seems to me your involved in feeding off the system to a greater extent that most of us!

Possibly, but I don't then turn around and whine about paying my taxes like many of the wealthy do despite their feeding at the government trough.

PS my university is private.

Editted fur Spelin'

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[gemini 0]

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...my unversity is private.

My apologies! I thought you were at a large public.

But I even private schools get some type of funding or research grants from Uncle Sam. Would be interesting to know the percentage.

Blue skies,

Jim

[kallend 2,175]

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...my unversity is private.

My apologies! I thought you were at a large public.

But I even private schools get some type of funding or research grants from Uncle Sam. Would be interesting to know the percentage.

Let me re-state my position:

Taxes are the "dues" one pays to belong to an advanced society that in return provides services and opportunities. On the whole the rich get far better opportunities and more services than the poor, so it's only fair that the rich should pay higher dues. The poor actually get very little in absolute terms from the government compared to the handouts that wealthy stockholders in major corporations benefit from.

Anyone that makes a living in or owns stock in a company in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, medical care, energy, transportation, education, most pro sports, defense, mining, forestry ... receives indirectly or directly significant government (taxpayer) money. On the whole, the poor are not included in this list.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[tcnelson 1]

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...the FACT that on average the wealthy benefit more from taxpayer dollars than do the poor...

And that Professor is the real problem! The tax system should be used to run and defend the country. Not as a vehicle to redistribute wealth, impose political social programs or any of the other beltway BS by those who know better how to spend our dollars.

Let communities take care of themselves. If there were less handouts to everyone, individuals and corporations, and tax exempts including colleges and universities, each would have to work for a living/source of income.

Or does your University not take government loans and research grants. Seems to me your involved in feeding off the system to a greater extent that most of us!

if someone ran on that platform, he/she would have my total respect and admiration for life. he/she would also get about 0.001% of the pop. vote but, it sure would be refreshing.

it's kinda sad that america is going to have to go through some kind of economic and/or social tragedy in order for the ship to get righted.

"Don't talk to me like that assface...I don't work for you yet." - Fletch
NBFT, Deseoso Rodriguez RB#1329

[gemini 0]

You really don't need to restate your position. It doesn't change my answer and I strongly disagree with you that taxes are "dues". Nobody asked me if I wanted to join the club, and congress sure doesn't listen if I scream that the dues are to high for me to pay!

Now I can restate: Taxes should be not be used to redistribute wealth or for social programs period.

Here's an example of spending gone mad in our society:

For L.A. homeless: a gym, movies, and hair salon

The city opens a $17 million shelter Monday amid controversy that funds would have been better spent on affordable housing.

By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

LOS ANGELES – The modernist concrete-and-steel structure rises in the shadow of gleaming downtown skyscrapers, looking like a new museum or corporate headquarters. Yet its identity is given away by where it stands: in the heart of a 55-square block area of aging single-room-occupancy hotels, where homeless men, women, and children crouch in cardboard boxes, push shopping carts, or lean in doorways.

Opening Monday and trumpeted proudly by city officials is the Midnight Mission - and one of the nation's plushest homeless shelters. The $17 million state-of-the-art facility boasts a full-sized gymnasium, library, playroom, hair salon, education center, and professional kitchen. The shelter is the city's latest effort to address one of its most visible and resistant social problems: the more than 6,000 people who live on the streets.

But the fanfare surrounding the new mission also raises questions increasingly being faced by cities coast to coast. At the same time that some homeless advocates embrace such new facilities as the best way to attract homeless people into counseling and job-placement programs, others openly ask whether the money could have been better spent in finding more permanent solutions.

"Since the late 1980s, America has built a mammoth infrastructure of shelters and the number of homeless has gone up, not down. It's a bit of the if-you-build-it-they-will-come phenomenon at work," says Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. As Ms. Roman and other national officials see it, the lack of affordable housing is what needs to be addressed.

"That same $17 million could have gone a long way toward creating homes and jobs," says Bob Erlenbusch, vice president of the board for the National Coalition for the Homeless. "Affordable housing is what these people need, not a way to institutionalize their temporary status."

Blue skies,

Jim

[kallend 2,175]

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You really don't need to restate your position. It doesn't change my answer and I strongly disagree with you that taxes are "dues". Nobody asked me if I wanted to join the club, and congress sure doesn't listen if I scream that the dues are to high for me to pay!

Nobody asked you if you wanted to be born at all, or who your parents should be, or what country you were born into. No-one asked your opinion on the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

So what?

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[gemini 0]

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Nobody asked you if you wanted to be born at all, or who your parents should be, or what country you were born into.

???

Nice try so let me rephrase for you. I strongly diagree with you that taxes are "dues".

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No-one asked your opinion on the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

(Don't know why you brought this up in a discussion about taxation, but) And why not?

I believe they apply to me and equally to you. Should we the people not be consulted when they are being interpreted in a manner that impacts us?

Or do you want to allow someone else to do that for you? Be careful what you ask for...

Blue skies,

Jim

[kallend 2,175]

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Nobody asked you if you wanted to be born at all, or who your parents should be, or what country you were born into.

???

Nice try so let me rephrase for you. I strongly diagree with you that taxes are "dues".

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No-one asked your opinion on the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

(Don't know why you brought this up in a discussion about taxation, but) And why not?

I believe they apply to me and equally to you. Should we the people not be consulted when they are being interpreted in a manner that impacts us?

Or do you want to allow someone else to do that for you? Be careful what you ask for...

My point is that there are a lot of issues that we all are forced to accept without being consulted. You apparently don't like the concept of paying taxes in order to enjoy the benefits of being a member of an advanced society - that's too bad.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[gemini 0]

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You apparently don't like the concept of paying taxes in order to enjoy the benefits of being a member of an advanced society - that's too bad.

Wrong again professor! Reread what I have said over and over. There are some benefits I agree we should pay like funding defense, interstate highways, treaty negotiations, the judiciary, customs and immigration, the CDC, NASA, etc.

What I disagree with is paying for social programs that do nothing but create a dependency on a welfare state; handouts, greed, promiscuity, fraud, laziness, sloth and a myriad of other traits that do nothing to make society better.

If that's what you support, then maybe you should pack up and move to the nearest socialist country that more closely matches your ideas...say Venezuela! I hear they really love college professors there.

Blue skies,

Jim

[Botellines 0]

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What I disagree with is paying for social programs that do nothing but create a dependency on a welfare state; handouts, greed, promiscuity, fraud, laziness, sloth and a myriad of other traits that do nothing to make society better.

No one likes those programs until they are needed. Some people though think it is good to have them before they actually need them.
Just wait till your health insurance realize that your are not profitable anymore and compare it with the health care in a system where money is not the issue.

[kallend 2,175]

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You apparently don't like the concept of paying taxes in order to enjoy the benefits of being a member of an advanced society - that's too bad.

Wrong again professor! Reread what I have said over and over. There are some benefits I agree we should pay like funding defense, interstate highways, treaty negotiations, the judiciary, customs and immigration, the CDC, NASA, etc.

What I disagree with is paying for social programs that do nothing but create a dependency on a welfare state; handouts, greed, promiscuity, fraud, laziness, sloth and a myriad of other traits that do nothing to make society better.

.

So you don't mind paying for the things you like, but object to paying for things others want. Where in the Constitution does it say the taxpayers should pay for a space program?

Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. If you don't like it, I hear Uzbekistan is a pretty freewheeling place.

And who said you should decide what makes society better. Some of us think the measure of a society is how it treats its poorest members.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[newsstand 0]

Damn hell must have frozen over.

National sales tax, way unfair. Flat income tax, fair.

The liberal in me would play some games with it down at the poverty level and allow some breaks for mortgage interest and child care (2.5 kids max) because I think owning your own home and being able to support your kids makes you a more productive individual which means in the long run you will probably pay more taxes.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes