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#401 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
Posts: 41,232
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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Quote:
![]() And like it was said before, if Palin was asked stupid questions this MIGHT be comparable, but she wasn't... |
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#402 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
Posts: 41,232
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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Quote:
![]() So don't give me this ultimate goal crap... |
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#403 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Orange County and all over the goddamn place
Posts: 42,555
Local Time: 06:21 AM
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How else do you propose the program is administered? Volunteers? People who work deserve a salary. Do you work for free?
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#404 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
ALL ACCESS Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Berlin
Posts: 6,745
Local Time: 02:21 PM
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Quote:
However, when you change the taxing structure one effect will almost always be that income is shifted. Some are left with higher taxes, the others with lower. This way, the distribution of income is changed. It's a perfectly normal process, even for the US. And Biden was right, the tax reforms during the Bush area were exactly the same. Only this time, the middle class was deteriorating as they didn't profit from lower taxes while the high income earners did. Today, the Gini-coefficient, a measure to evaluate the income distribution in a society, is .43. The higher the coefficient, ranging from 0 to 1, the higher the inequality. Among developed countries the US has the highest Gini-coefficient. Far from being socialistic, we don't litterally take the money from the rich and give it to the poor. However, we have a progressive tax system. That works after the oh so marxistic motto of "From each according to his ability to each according to his need". (Though the conservative government under Kohl did a heckuva job making this tax system more unfair back in the early 90s.) The rich are a higher taxed than those with lower incomes. We support those with low to very low incomes with our social systems. The intention behind it is to keep the income distribution a little more equal. |
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#405 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
ALL ACCESS Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Berlin
Posts: 6,745
Local Time: 02:21 PM
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#406 | |
Refugee
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 1,256
Local Time: 09:21 AM
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Quote:
What are all those poor AM radio stations going to do when they have to balance their 100% right-wing programming with an opposing view? It would be worth having it back just to see them wrestle with that. ![]() |
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#407 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
ALL ACCESS Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Berlin
Posts: 6,745
Local Time: 02:21 PM
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Quote:
Sweden's top income tax rate is 60%, which is even lower than that of Denmark at 64%. I agree, there is not necessarily a need for more welfare programs. Those currently exisiting, however, are generally pretty weak and need drastic reforms. |
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#408 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
Posts: 41,232
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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That's why Rush and Oscar are the only people talking about it... they fear losing their choir.
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#409 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
FOB Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Lovetown
Posts: 8,343
Local Time: 09:21 AM
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How much of this fear of "redistribution" has to do with Republicans slyly playing the race card in order carry middle America? I'm not saying it's all about race, but there's a lot of precedent for it.
Enter: The Southern Strategy. Quote:
I strongly believe that so much of what the Republican party has "stood for" over the last two decades is rooted in cultural division, not the least of which involves racial issues. For a long time, I thought it was primarily Bush/Rove who drove immense wedges between the "cultures" of the United States with their claims of "values" and "faith." However, I'm 3/4 through Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope," and it looks like Reagan was at it then, too. He writes about how many people were aghast and put off by the social turmoil of the 60s and 70s. Enter Reagan--a simple-appearing guy who played simple cowboys in movies back in the 50s when time was simple and things were simply better (emphasis on the simple!). The calm voice of Reagan conjured up images and feelings of a time well before we had so much emphasis on freedoms and civil liberties, not to mention racial rights and equality. But it's interesting to see that the strategy of subversively drawing on these issues dates to even before Regan. It drives me crazy to listen to people like Sarah Palin--this woman who's apparently so religious she believes people and dinosaurs roamed the earth together--to talk about religious values in the same speech that demonizes the notion of sharing wealth. What can be more "Christian" than sharing what you have with those who don't? In reality, what she's doing is furthering the wedge between middle America and the coasts, and there's no doubt that there are racial undertones in there, if only minimally. Think about it---the people McCain & Palin are making this "he'll take your hard-earned money and give it others" argument to at their rallies and in commercials are essentially middle-class people who won't even come close to the $250K income level for a tax increase under Obama. Yet they're playing on the misguided notion of "he's going to take your hard-earned money and give it to people who don't want to work as hard as you do." With the universal image of welfare recipients being primarily black, I dare you to tell me that there's not a racial undertone in that argument.
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#410 |
Blue Crack Distributor
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Seattle
Posts: 64,498
Local Time: 06:21 AM
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For your Monday afternoon enjoyment and amusement, I give you this electoral map. (Fear not - it's non-partisan!)
Op-Art - The Electoral Map - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com My personal favorite is Alabama. ![]() |
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#411 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 34,032
Local Time: 09:21 AM
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Quote:
many Americans believe that if you're poor it's your own damn fault. |
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#412 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
ALL ACCESS Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Berlin
Posts: 6,745
Local Time: 02:21 PM
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I see. Well, we are still illusional and believe in the good of the people.
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#413 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 34,032
Local Time: 09:21 AM
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#414 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 30,343
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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One of my favorite sections of Stephen Colbert's book was when he extended the metaphor of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps with ladder climbing and all. Fantastic.
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#415 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 28,459
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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I saw this on some tv show, they played the 911 tape. He's a maverick too, I guess. Tying up 911 lines for something like that is a serious thing.
Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008 McCain's Brother Calls 911 to Gripe About Traffic By AP/GILLIAN GAYNAIR (WASHINGTON) — The brother of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said Friday he'll withdraw from campaign activities after calling 911 to complain about traffic. He also apologized for making the call. Joe McCain, who lives in Alexandria, Va., told Washington radio station WTOP he was returning from a campaign event in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18 when he got stuck in traffic on Interstate 495 at the Wilson Bridge. His account of the timing differed from the police, who said the call was made at 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 21. Frustrated because of the traffic, he called 911 to find out what was going on. The operator asked him to "state your emergency." "Well, it's not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic's coming the other way?" Joe McCain said. The operator asked him if he was calling 911 to complain about traffic. McCain then uttered an expletive and hung up the phone. McCain told WTOP that he thought his cell phone was on mute. "I did not mean to swear at the officers themselves," McCain said. If he were in their situation, "it would have really frosted me, too, and I absolutely understand their reaction." After hanging up with 911, McCain said he called Alexandria police to ask them about the traffic on the bridge and got a similar reaction. "I feel terrible about having hurt the campaign over this incident," he said. "I won't be doing any more campaigning because of that." McCain said he's going to write a note of apology to the 911 operator and to the Alexandria police. Joe McCain said he hasn't spoken to his brother about the incident. "He's not going to be happy about it, I'm sure," he said. McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said: "Joe McCain recognizes his mistake and has apologized. We are moving on." McCain's brother has been in the news on other occasions recently. Speaking at an event in early October in support of his brother, he called two Democratic-leaning areas in Northern Virginia "communist country." "I've lived here for at least 10 years and before that about every third duty I was in either Arlington or Alexandria, up in communist country," Joe McCain, a Navy veteran, said at an event in Loudoun County, Va. Joe McCain then apologized, but the remark reportedly drew laughter at the event. About a week later, the candidate's brother sent an e-mail blasting the campaign's "counter-productive" strategy. "Let John McCain be John McCain," Joe McCain wrote in the e-mail. "Make ads that show John not as crank and curmudgeon but as a great leader for his time." McCain's brother was sharply critical of unidentified top campaign officials who "so tightly 'control the message'" that they are preventing reporters from speaking with those, like himself, who know the candidate best. |
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#416 |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: between my head and heart
Posts: 41,232
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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Maybe insanity runs in the family
![]() It's apparent the temper does... |
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#417 |
Resident Photo Buff
Forum Moderator Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Somewhere in middle America
Posts: 13,685
Local Time: 07:21 AM
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John McCain is a lot of things, but "insane" is stretching it. Willing to go to great lengths to win, sure.
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#418 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 28,459
Local Time: 08:21 AM
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I think some of his behavior, actual and alleged..let's just say stretches the bounds of sane/rational behavior. Especially now as a man running for President.
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#419 | |
Forum Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 7,471
Local Time: 02:21 PM
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Quote:
McCain himself is on record demonstrating his understanding that differences over where to cut taxes in a progressive taxation system (a system both the Democratic and Republican parties support) aren't debates about 'socialism vs. capitalism', nor about 'the Swedish model vs. the American model': McCain is also well aware that the average American couldn't produce so much as a paragraph on what socialism is, what its characteristic ideological features are, how it differs from communism and social democracy as well as capitalism, etc., if his or her life depended on it. What his campaign does recognize is that the word itself--like "terrorist"--immediately evokes a visceral fear response in most Americans, particularly those of us over 35 who grew up with Cold War rhetoric about 'godless communists', 'bears in the woods', 'duck and cover' and so on being drummed into our heads at school, on TV, and often at home. It automatically conjures up associations of totalitarianism, militancy and extreme deprivation, never mind rational debate about corporate tax policies during a recession. In the context of US campaign politics, it has an immediate chilling effect on reasoned dialogue, and that's exactly why you see this rhetoric being hauled out at this late and desperate stage of the game. |
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#420 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
FOB Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Lovetown
Posts: 8,343
Local Time: 09:21 AM
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Yolland, you are my hero.
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