War on Poverty and government efficiency

[tater]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Nope. Not when they keep getting richer and everyone gets poorer.

They do not take money from the poor. Money is not finite.

The poor now are well off compared to the poor during the depression, for example. And they were better off than the poor 100 years before that. Standards of living are so high now that you need to lock people to an old lifestyle if you wish to make the "poor get poorer" argument. Prove that the poor life shorter lives than just after WW2, for example. Prove they have less stuff, smaller homes, less mobility, less access to entertainment and information.

They have more of ALL of those things. Finding a decent metric to compare is very difficult. When I was a kid we were in HS before I had a microwave in the house. We had what would be a small TV now (27"? 30-something? CRT). We had a 2d, tiny B&W TV at some point. 2 american cars, one of them really cheap (station car). My dad was president of a publishing house based in NYC. The average income now in the US household has better "stuff" than I had as a kid. More of it, too. And likely more square footage per constant dollar income as well. All that needs to weight the numbers or they are meaningless.

So you might be right about the poor getting poorer, but constant dollars ins't enough of a weighting, there are other, more complex factors. That goes for corps as well. Also

Originally Posted by Armistead

No making you understand the difference between tax code and regulation.
If you could write laws to make yourself rich, you would, wouldn't you...

Yeah, because regulations are horse-traded around til they protect some companies, often at the expense of others. The bottom line is that no money belongs to the government, it is all taken from others. Setting a fair rate to take is reasonable, but it is worth discussing what is fair. Using the tax code etc to change the balance of income distribution is wrong, IMO, government has no business doing that. I don't care in the least what % controls what % in a deregulated world. Not at all. In the regulated world it's a different story since like the taxes, the regs are unfair.

I'm in favor of flat taxes I think. Lower rates, no progressive rate increases with income, and zero loopholes.

Originally Posted by Armistead

Do you think most americans are that lazy and want welfare....

Yes. Most want to "soak the rich." Most want their SS and Medicare with only increases, no matter the insanity of the broken ponzi scheme. They will end up like France, protesting the retirement age jumping from young, to slightly less young given the chance.