[W*GS]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

"People making $60,000 paid a larger share of their 2001 income in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes than a family making $25 million, the latest Internal Revenue Service data show."

So show the data. Why were $60,000 and $25 million chosen?

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

"And in income taxes alone, people making $400,000 paid a larger share of their incomes than the 7,000 households who made $10 million or more."

So show the data. Be specific.

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

The rest of us are subsidizing not only the super-rich, but also corporations. Fifty years ago, corporations paid 60 percent of all federal taxes. But by 2003, that was down to 16 percent.

What was the corporate share in 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 and backwards? If in 1999 it was 16.2% percent, well then, Bush didn't do anything different than Clinton had done.

Provide numbers, LABF. You have this real problem with real research. Carefully-chosen factoids from op-ed pieces are not sufficient.

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

So individual taxpayers have to make up the difference, as corporate profits soar and wages fall.

The implication being that wages fall because profits increase. There's that zero-sum mantra of the liberals showing its ugly face again.

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

We need tax cuts that don't favor the obscenely rich.

Being rich is not obscene. That tired old phrase is a tip-off that the person using it is consumed by envy. The people who use it have a very simple position on taxation: "I shouldn't pay any, the 'obscenely rich' should pay all of it", with the "obscenely rich" defined as "everyone who makes more than me".

I don't deny that the tax code is deliberately-confusing and loaded with write-offs, breaks, exclusions and so on designed to favor small segments of the population. It's also designed to be as contradictory as possible, so the IRS can trip up taxpayers - hell, even the IRS gives more than one answer to a specific tax question. The solution isn't to rejigger the tax code, again, to get what liberals like LABF want - what I mentioned above. That sort of social engineering via taxation will always fail, because as soon as you try to "soak the rich", the rich will get the code modified to protect their interests. Nope, the solution is to scrap the tax code and replace it with some sort of flat consumption tax, with things like food and other essentials exempt. Instead of punishing people more and more for every dollar more they earn, let's make those who consume more pay more.

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Last year, America got a pay cut. Wages for the average worker fell, after adjusting for inflation -- the first such drop in 10 years. That means the standard of living for most Americans is in decline.

Wages aren't the only measure of standard of living - plenty of old people have very little income in the form of wages, but are doing quite well thanks in large part to the subsidy in the forms of Social Security and Medicare that they get from truly working folks. Toss in non-wage benefits like health insurance, employer-matched retirement plans and so on, and it's not so easy to say most Americans have a declining standard of living.

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Again, I don't think Republicans are doing this because they are mean, but because they have convinced themselves that people shouldn't be "dependent" on government, that it's bad for their moral fiber. Only corporations and the super-rich should get welfare and subsidies.

Clearly, LABF, you didn't write this since you think Republicans are mean - evilly so, actually. And no, the "super-rich" and corporations shouldn't get subsidies any more than anyone else should. And being dependent on government is bad, not because of the effect on one's "moral fiber", but because it's a losing proposition. As more and more people decide that being dependent is easier than actually supporting themselves, eventually you get to the point where so few people work, and the rest mooch, that the system falls apart. Folks like LABF short-sightedly advocate policies that vastly increase the likelihood of that happening.

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

As economist John Kenneth Galbraith put it, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Galbraith is a putz.

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Bi.../Galbraith.htm