I have a question

Christine N.

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and I would like honest answers. So far this election season, we've heard so much about the economy, and how unfair it is that Obama wants to tax the upper echelon of earners a little more tax, in order to be able to tax the rest of us a little less. We've heard "why is is my problem?" from those who think he's wrong to do so, how unfair it is that those who earn more should pay more.

But those same people, who support McCain on the tax issue, many believe the Iraq war was not a mistake. I've heard the whole "why should we abandon the country, we've got to leave them in a stable government, etc..."

My question is...why? Why is it OUR problem? Beyond the whole terrorist thing. Why is it our problem to spend billions helping a country halfway around the world, but not our problem when it comes to helping our own citizens? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested, because it seems to be a mindset with some. They are separate issues but intertwine, yet many don't seem to see them the same way at all. Now we're the "world's police" and the people who give the most when it comes to foreign crises, but we can't be bothered to lift up our own? Why is that?
 

rugcat

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Because it's in our own self interest to do so. By establishing a stable democracy in Iraq, we take away a base for terrorists. More importantly, Iraq will serve as an example to other Middle East countries that democracy is a viable option, as opposed to dictatorships or theocratic governments, which have been their only options up to now. This will stabilize the region and reduce violence and terror, which affects the entire world.

And also, we will have a country with proven oil reserves friendly to us, and beholden as well.

That's the logic. Unfortunately, it has no relation to reality. The ME is incredibly complex, religiously and politically, and our bumbling in there with our naive neocon beliefs has been a disaster.

Imo, of course.
 

MoonWriter

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No problem with those earning more paying more - just have a problem with them paying a higher percent than anyone else.

Second question - a good one. I think it was a mistake, but what am I basing that on? Just a feeling. I don't know how much of the info re the situation at the time has been or will ever be released. Maybe there's something we don't know. If we know everything that Bush knew - yeah, it was a big mistake - one that has and will continue to cost us dearly.
 

rugcat

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No problem with those earning more paying more - just have a problem with them paying a higher percent than anyone else.
The progressive income tax was instituted by that well know socialist Teddy Roosevelt. Take it up with him.

"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar�s worth of service rendered�not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective�a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."

-- Teddy Roosevelt, 1910
 

MoonWriter

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The progressive income tax was instituted by that well know socialist Teddy Roosevelt. Take it up with him.

I think I will - getting past his Secret Service detail shouldn't be a problem.
 

James81

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Because it's in our own self interest to do so. By establishing a stable democracy in Iraq, we take away a base for terrorists. More importantly, Iraq will serve as an example to other Middle East countries that democracy is a viable option, as opposed to dictatorships or theocratic governments, which have been their only options up to now. This will stabilize the region and reduce violence and terror, which affects the entire world.

And also, we will have a country with proven oil reserves friendly to us, and beholden as well.

That's the logic. Unfortunately, it has no relation to reality. The ME is incredibly complex, religiously and politically, and our bumbling in there with our naive neocon beliefs has been a disaster.

Imo, of course.

Is it really in our self-interest to stabilize one country while our own goes to hell in a handbasket?

Seems to me that we lost our priorities somewhere along the line.

The priority should be "ok, first lets make sure our OWN country is stable before we try to stabilize another country."
 

maestrowork

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I think without progressive tax (and yes, it's unfair, even if "the rich can afford it"), there is a huge question of how we're going to raise enough taxes for everything? Most people in the US make under $100,000 (the median income is about $61500). If we have a flat tax, then either a) we'll have to tax more on everyone (say, a flat 25% tax) or b) we'll have to cut most of the programs, including military spending.

There's no other way around: either raise revenue or reduce spending (or do both). But seems like no one wants to pay more taxes, it seems like we're only left with one option.

I personally believe in a smaller, leaner government, I have no problem with cutting programs, especially the pork, and reorganizing federal agencies (the INS, for example, could use a huge overhaul and trim -- and the IRS could become a small agency because of a simplified tax code).


The problem with cutting spending is that a good portion of Americans will be left in the dust. Senior citizens, children, homeless people, etc. As well as infrastructure spending. Can our prosperous society be sustainable if these people are left on the street at the mercy of private charities? And what about military spending and expansion? Certainly, we can't see our country spend more money in that than domestic programs? So a smaller government would certainly mean smaller military spending as well (no more than 25% of revenue).

So, if we take out progressive tax, what will happen? Would you tolerate a flat 35% tax on all Americans?
 
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James81

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I think without progressive tax (and yes, it's unfair, even if "the rich can afford it"), there is a huge question of how we're going to raise enough taxes for everything? Most people in the US make under $100,000 (the median income is about $61500). If we have a flat tax, then either a) we'll have to tax more on everyone (say, a flat 25% tax) or b) we'll have to cut most of the programs, including military spending.

There's no other way around: either raise revenue or reduce spending (or do both). But seems like no one wants to pay more taxes, it seems like we're only left with one option.

I personally believe in a smaller, leaner government, I have no problem with cutting programs, especially the pork, and reorganizing federal agencies (the INS, for example, could use a huge overhaul and trim -- and the IRS could become a small agency because of a simplified tax code).


The problem with cutting spending is that a good portion of Americans will be left in the dust. Senior citizens, children, homeless people, etc. Can our prosperous society be sustainable if these people are left on the street at the mercy of private charities? And what about military spending and expansion? Certainly, we can't see our country spend more money in that than domestic programs? So a smaller government would certainly mean smaller military spending as well (no more than 25% of revenue).

So, if we take about progressive tax, what will happen? Would you tolerate a flat 35% tax on all Americans?

Lack of a clear solution is no excuse to throw our hands in the air and say "Welp, too late now, guess there's nothing to do."

Usually the solution just involves undoing what has been done by phasing out the old plan and implementing the new plan slowly over time.
 

Christine N.

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Is it really in our self-interest to stabilize one country while our own goes to hell in a handbasket?

Seems to me that we lost our priorities somewhere along the line.

The priority should be "ok, first lets make sure our OWN country is stable before we try to stabilize another country."

That's exactly my feeling, which was why I asked the question. I wanted to try and understand the another point of view. I mean, after Katrina we just slid downward like a rocket, IMO mostly because we were so busy pouring money halfway around the world that we had nothing left with which to clean up our own mess. And no one sends US humanitarian aid, but we're expected to.

It just seems to me there's a mental disconnect when it comes to these two issues.
 

MoonWriter

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See, even though I think the rich should pay the same rate, I think every freaking loophole should be cut out. Then, they may end up paying more in taxes, yet it would all be legit.
 

Christine N.

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We've been pouring money overseas for decades. It's not like this is new.

No, however now we're in an economic crisis. Yet the country is still expected to pour revenue into a war, while the economy hemmorages like a bayonet wound. I've heard the sentiment that we still need to push in Iraq, but we can't afford more social programs. It doesn't seem to make sense is all. The whole "why is it my problem" line I've heard in reference to our own people doesn't seem to stick for people of foreign countries. Is it our problem?
 

maestrowork

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The whole "why is it my problem" line I've heard in reference to our own people doesn't seem to stick for people of foreign countries. Is it our problem?

Because we started it -- right or wrong, we can't just bail and leave the country in chaos and destruction. We bombed their villages. We need to help them rebuild. That's the morally right thing to do.

Fixing our domestic problems and helping our own citizens is also a morally right thing to do.

No one says it's going to be easy. But you know what? We've been through the Great Depression, wars and multiple economic downturns before. We'll do okay.
 

mscelina

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This has been a policy of the US for sixty years, one perpetuated and extended by every single president and Congress since that time. A few examples:

The Truman Doctrine in 1945 paved the way for foreign aid to the tune of $400 million dollars just to Greece and Turkey. The Marshall Plan allocated $12.5 billion dollars to Western Europe over a four year period beginning in 1952.

The Kennedy administration established the USAID to help coordinate US foreign aid--a large percentage of that went to the Alliance for Progress--in an attempt to stop the inroads of communism into Latin America. On his watch, we spent $100 billion in South Vietnam and other countries in the region. His adminstration also backed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961--which was then amended between 1973 and 1978 and took the focus for foreign aid to human rights.

The Clinton administration dispersed $2.2 billion dollars of foreign aid to Russia between 1992 and 1997.

Check this out: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa065.html
Since 1946, the United States has given over $146 billion in humanitarian assistance to foreign countries. In 1985, the United States provided over $10 billion in non-military aid abroad, ranging from free food to balance-of-payments support to project-assistance and population-planning programs. AID employs over 4,500 employees to administer these programs, many of which have expanded rapidly under the Reagan administration.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/593/official-global-foreign-aid-shortfall-33-trillion

http://www.answers.com/topic/foreign-aid

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa065.html

American money is the greatest diplomatic weapon in the federal government's considerable arsenal, and we have wielded it regularly since WWII. To assume that the situation now is somehow different is naive to say the least.
 

JoNightshade

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Here's my issue:

The problem with cutting spending is that a good portion of Americans will be left in the dust. Senior citizens, children, homeless people, etc. As well as infrastructure spending. Can our prosperous society be sustainable if these people are left on the street at the mercy of private charities?
(Bolding mine.)

I think our society has somehow acquired the mindset that "if the government doesn't take care of it, nobody will." In my opinion, that couldn't be further from the truth. Americans are amazingly, amazingly generous. Just think about the efforts after Katrina and 9/11 - particularly Katrina. Who helped more effectively... private citizens or the government? The government failed utterly, but I'm in California and every church I know was flying people out there.

All massive government assistance has done is dehumanize the people who need help - and removed personal accountability. When I was growing up, we had a local food pantry supported by the entire community. Churches and other organizations rotated every week to take care of the needy families and elderly folk in our town. Everyone knew who everyone else was, and there was little or no abuse because people KNEW if you really needed it or not. Take that same program and turn it into a government run agency and you've got all sorts of people working the system, because it's no longer from one person to another. The abusers don't get caught, and the people who once donated their time and effort find other places to invest their time because they figure their taxes take care of it. When you start turning people into numbers, that's where the waste and corruption comes in. If we cut all of these tax funded programs, Americans would step in.

And if we wouldn't? Then our country doesn't deserve to survive anyway.

Here's an interesting article that shows that people less keen on government and taxes (conservative) do a lot more charitable giving than people on the opposite side (liberal).

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/17032146.html
 

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Okay, I puked and am feeling a little better. The more I learn about politics and govt., the more disillusioned I get. I was taught that charity begins at home. Seems to me that this shit has got to stop. How much of the fed budget is going towards paying down our national debt - 20%, 30%? Get rid of the debt first and we'd be able to help others much more without even feeling it - not that every country now receiving our help should continue to do so.

Quoted from mscelina's link:

For 40 years, U.S. foreign aid has been judged by its intentions, not its results. Foreign aid programs have been perpetuated and expanded not because they have succeeded, but because giving foreign aid still seems like a good idea. But foreign aid has rarely done anything that countries could not have done for themselves. And it has often encouraged the recipient governments' worst tendencies--helping to underwrite programs and policies that have starved thousands of people and derailed struggling economies.

In agriculture, in economic planning, in food assistance, U.S. foreign aid has routinely failed to benefit the foreign poor. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) has dotted the countryside with "white elephants": idle cement plants, near-empty convention centers, abandoned roads, and--perhaps the biggest white elephant of them all--a growing phalanx of corrupt, meddling, and overpaid bureaucrats.
 

maestrowork

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I think our society has somehow acquired the mindset that "if the government doesn't take care of it, nobody will." In my opinion, that couldn't be further from the truth. Americans are amazingly, amazingly generous. Just think about the efforts after Katrina and 9/11 - particularly Katrina. Who helped more effectively... private citizens or the government? The government failed utterly, but I'm in California and every church I know was flying people out there.

It's just not enough. There are still people down there without homes. Can private charities rebuild all their homes, fix the infrastructure, and provide assistance for them until they can stand on their own feet again? Can we totally depend on generous people to "do the right thing"? How many people, you know, if they don't have to pay taxes, would spend the same amount on charities? And which charities? Which groups would be left behind?

If the government couldn't even do it, what makes us think that churches and private non-profits could do it? I've seen first-hand how difficult it is, especially during economic hard times, to find private funding. For one thing, people give to pet causes. They may flock to give to Katrina victims, but there are, for example, homeless people on the street without anything. Some of these organizations are on the verge of collapsing if not for the sliver of federal and state funding they receive each year.
 
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rugcat

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I don't think wanting a democratic government in there is a NEOCON belief. Are neocons, in your opinion, the only people who believe in democracy?
They are the ones who believe that our own western system of democracy, developed over centuries, can be imposed on other places from without, regardless of their own particular culture, history, and specific situation. One size fits all.

But it's all a charade anyway -- they don't care about democracy. They care only about a government which supports US aims. They would far prefer a "friendly" dictator, always, than a left wing, democratically elected government who opposes our actions.

The Saudis are our friends. Hugo Chavez is our enemy. We helped to topple left wing democracies in Iran and Chile. We supported the dictators who took their place.
 

Christine N.

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Because we started it -- right or wrong, we can't just bail and leave the country in chaos and destruction. We bombed their villages. We need to help them rebuild. That's the morally right thing to do.


That's a fair point, and I understand it, but what I don't understand is the attitude of some people - that it's okay to be helping those in Iraq, but if we help our own people, we're enabling people to be lazy. I'm not saying it's true, I'm saying it's the attitude some people in the country have.

I hope we'll be okay. Looking at it now, we're stretched pretty thing. I just wonder at what point will we be hurting ourselves so severely in order to 'do the right thing' for someone else that we can't recover? We DID survive the Great Depression, and what got us out of it was the economic boom of industry through WWII, along with FDR's New Deal. We're already in a war which is sapping our resources, and the New Deal has been beaten to death. How far do we let it go before we just can't do it any longer?

So far I'm okay, except for the hit I took last quarter on my LOSAP through the fire dept. My hubby's took an even bigger hit. Fortunately we're not so desperate we need the money yet, so we can let it build back up again.
 
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maestrowork

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My investments took a huge loss from 2000-2003. Before everything went south again last year, my investments were up 50% from 2003. That's only four years.

So yeah, I'm optimistic. Maybe naively so, but I'd rather live that way than in fear. I'm in this for the long haul.
 

ricetalks

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and I would like honest answers. So far this election season, we've heard so much about the economy, and how unfair it is that Obama wants to tax the upper echelon of earners a little more tax, in order to be able to tax the rest of us a little less. We've heard "why is is my problem?" from those who think he's wrong to do so, how unfair it is that those who earn more should pay more.

But those same people, who support McCain on the tax issue, many believe the Iraq war was not a mistake. I've heard the whole "why should we abandon the country, we've got to leave them in a stable government, etc..."

My question is...why? Why is it OUR problem? Beyond the whole terrorist thing. Why is it our problem to spend billions helping a country halfway around the world, but not our problem when it comes to helping our own citizens? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested, because it seems to be a mindset with some. They are separate issues but intertwine, yet many don't seem to see them the same way at all. Now we're the "world's police" and the people who give the most when it comes to foreign crises, but we can't be bothered to lift up our own? Why is that?

Because, unfortunately, one has nothing to do with the other.

You can bet your bottom dollar that if Iraq was the world's largest supplier of lima beans, the U.S. wouldn't be there.

Even in the first Gulf war, Saddam Hussian told the U.S. of his intentions to settle his long standing border disute with Kuwait with troops 2 or 3 weeks before he invaded that country. At that time Iraq regarded the U.S. as its allie. The transcripts of these conversations between the U.S. Secretary of State and Saddam Hussian were re-printed in Time magazine after the first Gulf war. The U.S. could have simply stated that they would not have approved of such an incursion into a foreign country and there would be reprecussions. But they didn't. They stated, "The U.S. takes no position with regard to your border disutes with Kuwait." Even after they were told he was going to send troops.

The question is why didn't the Secretary of State simply tell Saddam Hussian that there would be military reprecusisons if he invaded Kuwait when they had the opportunity?

Iraq invading Kuwait was no surprise contrary to the impressions that were left with the public. It becomes the U.S.'s problem because they have an interest in the oil there. ANd they have been meddling in that area for a long time. In short, the U.S. has made it their problem. This isn't about right or wrong.
 

Christine N.

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Sounds to me like we're just a nation of busybodies, except when it comes to our own, then we can't be bothered.

I agree, there's a lot of 'oil politics' going on there - but at some point we as a nation have to say enough is enough and go hermit on the rest of the world. I'm pretty sure we could be completely self-sufficient if motivated enough. We'll be friends with Canada...maybe Europe too...and tell the rest of 'em to sod off. While that sounds harsh, I just think we should focus here rather than anywhere but here.
 

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The progressive income tax was instituted by that well know socialist Teddy Roosevelt. Take it up with him.

"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar�s worth of service rendered�not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective�a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."

-- Teddy Roosevelt, 1910
It's a great quote...until you follow through on the logic of the position:

Does every dollar the government receives represent a dollar's worth of service the Feds have provided, particularly to the individual that gave that dollar?

But again, I'm all for the Death Tax. Completely different animal.