Another Step Closer to Socialism
by Big Dog on Jul 22, 2007 at 16:24 Uncategorized
A recent FT/Harris poll shows that many in the world would like to see rich people taxed more and the government cap the salaries of company executives. The people from the richest countries said that they would like the government to sock it to the rich. Of course, those who are not rich tend to get more in the way of government programs so, of course they want to tax the rich. How on Earth could they survive without the redistribution of income? Studies show they pay far less than they consume and that the rich consume far less than they pay so the only way to even things out is to tax the rich to death. One of the problems though, is that people in government have a funny idea of what constitutes rich and people who are well off but in no way rich get taken to the cleaners by the “shire reeve.”
The idea of redistributing wealth for unnecessary items (and a huge part of what the government spends is unnecessary) is just socialism. Each according to his means and redistribution of property so that everyone is the same. All members of Congress are guilty of wasting taxpayer money, there is no doubt about that. The Democrats however, are the ones who live their lives to tax the wealthy and then pass that money out among the serfs who have become indentured to the left. This has been going on for some time and even limp wristed panty waists like Martin O’Malley of Baltimore are getting in on the act with progressive taxes and other economically disastrous schemes designed to give those who do not know how to manage money more of it to give away.
As if it is not bad enough that those surveyed have been subjected to government stupidity for so long that they think it is good to screw the rich, now they are saying they want the government to decide how private businesses should run. The government does not belong sticking its nose in the business of business. It is up to private companies as to how much they pay their employees including those at the very top who receive a lot of money. I happen to think some of the sums are obscene but it is none of my business unless I hold stock in those companies because the stockholder is who the company answers to. Government should not decide how much a CEO or any other employee gets paid (including the other end with regard to the minimum wage).
I think it is obscene that men get paid millions of dollars to hit, throw, and catch a ball but that is up to the people who own the team to decide. I do not go to any baseball games because I do not want to pay a fortune for entertainment so some spoiled ballplayer can earn more in a year than I will in a lifetime, but that is MY choice. It is not the government’s to tell me what to support or to tell private companies how much they may pay their employees. When the government gets mixed up in telling private businesses how to run, we are one step closer to the Socialism the ACLU and Left would love to see take over this country.
There is a problem in the world and it is not the fact that some people are rich. The problem is that so many people have been enticed to feed at the teat of government that we have entire classes of people who have no ability to take care of themselves and they have no desire or motivation to do so. Europe has been this way for a while as Socialism becomes more and more pronounced and people pay more in taxes to feed the insatiable appetite of those who have become addicted to hand outs from their friendly elected officials.
The US is well on the way there thanks to past Democratic administrations that fostered the environment of welfare and bred classes of people unable to fend for or take care of themselves. Hurricane Katrina brought this ugly truth to light when people stood in knee deep water looking around for the government to come swooping in to save them instead of getting the hell out of the water. People did not have the ability to get out of town because they figured the government would care for them. They were let down when their Mayor felt the same way. He figured he did not have to get people out with the 500 buses because the federal government would swoop in and bring the Greyhound buses he demanded. A total failure of the welfare class by those who allowed it to fester to the boil it is today.
We need fewer taxes and we need government to let business run without interference. This is how an economy will grow and how people can become wealthier. It is time to scrap the government and start fresh, a do over, if you will.
We can change government by getting rid of every incumbent in 2008. Vote them all out of office and start over.
Tags: Featured, Political Commentary
It’s a good article the old everyone must pay their fair share. Sounds like the left wing play book.
I truly hate to have to point this out, Big Dog. But the Republican Congress that went down to defeat in November was pretty darn good at handing out government largesse too. All those damn earmarks.
I don’t know what to make of this poll. It used to be that the men and women who rose to the highest levels of the corporate world were admired and respected. They were role models people wanted to emulate, aspired to become.
So, now the little people just want to tax them to death. Yet, by doing so, they remove the opportunity for everyone else to ever achieve that status ever again. That’s just plain dumb.
Penalizing the most valuable, the most talented, the most creative, the most innovative, the most intelligent individuals in the world because of who they are is not just unfair, it’s dangerous. It robs the future of the next, newest, best things, because it kills man’s drive to excel.
PS-Didn’t wealth redistribution already fail? I thought that’s what happened in the USSR. They all had the same amount ….. of nothing. The workers pretended to work and the Soviets pretended to pay them.
I was just wondering, do you think that military spending is something more than a giant (largest component of the Federal budget) wealth transfer from US taxpayers to defense contractors (Blackwater, KBR, Boeing, etc.)?
What about the prescription drug plan which explicitly ties the hands of the government and says that they (unlike the VA, by the way) cannot negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies? By definition, that’s a wealth transfer from taxpayers to Pharmaceutical companies and the REPUBLICAN Congress & Administration understated the program costs – on purpose or thru incompetence – by at least $300 billion dollars. How does that compare with the amount of money spent on ‘welfare’?
Corporate welfare seems like the same sort of wealth redistribution to me. Except this is wealth redistribution upwards, to people who already have money. I think this is the difference between liberals and conservatives: Conservatives want to redistribute their tax money to people who are already wealthy (Paris Hilton-inheritance tax, anyone?) whereas liberals think tax money should be spend on programs that serve people who have less of it, including middle class people.
Your Katrina statement is predictably ignorant. Bush ran his election in 2004 promising to keep us safe and even created a brand new behemoth of a bureaucracy (DHS) to do so. The first real test, Katrina, was like a slow motion attack on the American ‘homeland’ and it took Bush 3 days to cut short his vacation and another 2 days to actually get supplies to the Gulf Coast.
Isn’t it contradictory to on one had promise that ONLY Republicans can protect us yet to simultaneously be saying that we shouldn’t expect anything from the government we pay for? If I pay taxes for homeland security, I expect them to deliver, not to dawdle around while a Republican crony & horse judge (!) with no Emergency Management experience tries in vain to get a handle on the situation.
On one hand, you’re saying only Republicans can protect us and on the other you’re saying that government cannot protect us and we shouldn’t expect anything. Which is it, BD?
Billy Troll, where to start. First of all, having worked for YEARS in emergency response with FEMA I am familiar with the doctrine. FEMA is not a first responder organization and needs 72 hours to ramp up and get first arriving units on the scene. They provide resources and coordinate. Local jurisdictions are supposed to have contingency plans and the one in NO was pathetic. It stated that 135,000 people would be stranded so they basically did what they said, pathetic as it was.
Having been involved as an evaluator in more than a few FEMA drills I know what good plans look like and I know what bad ones look like. NO had a bad plan and their failure was a direct result of poor local leadership. People there did not know how to take care of themselves. Florida is hit a hell of a lot more times than NO and FEMA does not show up instantly. Some folks are still waiting to rebuild from years ago. Hurricanes are natural disasters and leave a lot of ruin in their wake.
The Constitution specifically calls for military spending. If you are aware of other companies that produce military equipment the DOD would like to hear from you.
The Rx drug plan is something that we should not be spending money on. It is a form of socialized medicine. However, given the clamor for such a thing they got what was available and it has been good for the people who receive it. The cost of drugs is greatly influenced by litigation. When I was in school (some years ago) the drug companies spent 19 out 0f every 20 dollars on litigation. The rest goes to research and development. Given how much they spend on a new drug’s development and the small amount of time they have to recoup costs, they have to charge a lot per pill to make back what they spent. After a period of time they lose the patent and others can make the drug as a generic so the need to recoup the R&D costs in short order.
Are drug companies perfect? No, but they are in business to make money not give things away. Dick Morris has a good chapter in Outrage that discusses the bad things drug companies do.
People keep talking about corporate welfare but your politicians are the ones giving in (FROM BOTH PARTIES). There are as many Democrats involved in drug companies as there are Republicans. All politicians give breaks for campaign donations. Don’t blame the companies for asking, blame the politicians for selling their offices.
Look at the stats from the government and you can see that spending on social programs is higher than on defense. One of the two is authorized by our Constitution.
Patsy,
I, in no way, excuse anyone from either party. I have been calling for the defeat of incumbents for a long time and I have pointed out on a number of occasions, the PORK from both sides of the aisle.
They all need to go…
BJ, do you ever stay on topic? Big Dog wrote this column about the poll results just released which showed that the majority of folks want to tax the rich at much higher levels. You are all over the place, changing the subject, twisting everything around, trying to apply your weird sense of reality to every column this man writes. You’re very annoying in this regard.
So, with regard to the attitudes of the common man, the unwealthy, average citizen and the poor; what is your opinion regarding this column? Never mind about the rest of the crap you just wrote.
What do you think about class envy and what rights do the wealthy have to retain the assets they’ve earned?
That is the salient issue of the results of this poll.
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