Facebook Doodlings - those with "excess" should pay more? - Granite Grok

Facebook Doodlings – those with “excess” should pay more?

Adapted from a Facebook thread

‘Grok friend Robert Jursik had a link where Michele Bachmann suggested that everyone should pay taxes (almost 50% pay no Federal income taxes); I have written many times that this would be a good idea – ALL should pay for the Government we have with no exceptions.

Immediately, there was blowback from a Liberal with a snarky line of "how dare the poor waste the little money they have on foolish things like food and housing…and need to eat".  Bob correctly pointed out that 300 million people paying a small amount in taxes produces better revenue than 70 or 80 million paying more than 40% of whatever they earn and that:

we’re in a circumstance now where we have an entire class of Americans who are only too happy to keep voting for those politicians who will promise them all kinds of benefits and entitlements, knowing full well they’ll never have to foot the bill for them. That’s an outrage. And in the same way, you have entire tax brackets that are coughing up at least 45% of their income to pay for welfare services and entitlements they’ll never use – basically getting screwed over to pay for somebody else’s public dole. Our Michele is quite right: the answer here is not to bleed those brackets even more. The answer is to tell those entitlement classes to get off the sofa and start pulling the wagon for a change.

Well, Bob was right.  If you examine the revenues for both NY and CA, you can see that they plummeted during the beginning of the recession.  Why?  Their state level income taxes were very skewed; using a Progressive rule of thumb, they highly taxed the rich in their states and not much at all on others.  Well, weighting that skew SO much meant that when the rich were no longer rich as the recession deepened, neither were the State coffers – a lesson that Progressive Obama would be wise to learn (50 labs of Democracy and all that). Anyways, what Bob said didn’t set well with the Lib and he challenged that 40% taxation number. Of COURSE, I chimed in on the topics of that skewness, those who have "excess" ("cover your utilities, housing, food and medical care?") should pay more, who should be able to decided when someone, as Obama stated, has enough ("excess" was the actual word), and that times have changed since the Declaration of Independence was written:

Right now, the top 1% of all income earners pay more than the bottom 95% in income taxes. <redacted>, from your accusatory posts for Robert, it seems that you are just fine with "free riders" on the system. frankly, IF we get the chance to look back, we will see that separating the receivers of Govt largesse from helping to pay for that largesse will be one of our biggest mistakes. Why? If one pays nothing for something, it is not as valued as having to have worked for it. What we are generating a social class that is selfish – "Govt, give me more and what NEXT are you going to give me?" Doubt me? Just look at Greece where former largesse recipients are rioting in the streets because the Govt can no longer afford to give them ANYTHING – the money is gone.

So, you have the hubris to decide who has "excess" and who doesn’t? <Redacted>, you get to decide upon whom "coerced charity" will be enforced? This is my main problem with Progressives / Liberals: they have little regard for the Law of Private Property. They have no clue the message they send to others: that THEY and THEY alone are reasonable and moral, and thus, should have the power to take from others – their ends justifies their means. How nice….

Review the Declaration – …

…our Founders put great stock in the Right to Private Property; they started a war over it. Liberals, oft not willing to put their own hands into their own pockets, have all redefined charity from being a voluntary act of individual charity to one of being merely a govt program, having outsourced their individual responsibility to a faceless bureaucracy.

‎"…those that have an excess…" – always the Alinsky demonization simply because some have been more successful, more productive, and more willing to do the hard work. Or, <Redacted>, are you one of those that believes that anyone that is "rich" has stolen the money from everyone else?

As to that last question, the answer, thankfully, was no – but I have had a number of Progressives say yes.  But he did complain that even with hard work, the "reward" doesn’t always come to those hard workers:

No, you are bending words that I did not say. The fatal flaw with Liberalism is that Liberals believe that people deserve something – when in fact, they are not entitled. Nor, does hard work automatically result in material success – and Libs seem to be put off by that as well.

And so what if I or anyone else has "excess"? If you take that line of reasoning to where it seems to be going, all of us should give up pretty much everything because YOU say we don’t need it. And why should YOU decide, if indeed there is excess, that YOU or the Govt has the right to take that excess away?

Actually, in the REAL terms of the Declaration or Constitution, nothing has changed. While most people see them as merely the foundational doctrines of our government, they actually are an astute observation of human nature. Thus, the Founders attempted to create a government knowing both the failure and success of human nature such as to limit the overreach of Govt. In that respect, nothing has changed – human nature is still human nature. Or tell me, what about the Declaration is too old-fashioned for you or out of date?
 
Freedom is the ability to make our own choices for ourselves and our families. Bluntly put, <Redacted>, you are advocating for tyranny, as you wish to remove that freedom of choice (as money is Private Property earned by time, skill, and effort of an individual) that money allows. Seriously, how does call forcibly taking from one to give to another, supporting the ideal of an individual’s freedom?

Sidebar: I believe in the negative liberties as set forth in the Bill of Rights that state what the Federal Government cannot do (with cannot = negative).  I do NOT believe in the positive rights in the terms that Progressives, notably FDR and Obama, that citizens are OWED things guaranteed by the Federal Government (where OWED = positive).  The problem is that in order to supply the positive Right, Govt must decrease the Freedom of others from whom things must be taken to supply those Positive Rights.

My question as to how the Declaration, simply given the passage of time, was rendered moot was never answered.  Apparently, simply stating that "it was a long time ago" is a sufficiently and logically rich answer so as to be self-evident.  I must really be simple minded – should that mean that Progressive philosophy should also be abandoned because its genesis was a long time ago too?

And then the "Christian card" got thrown:

"I’ll never understand how so many people who claim to be Christian, Evangelical, etc., whole heartedly endorse abandoning those without…I think I read a book about how abandoning those without is wrong. I think it a Bible or something."

We on the Right have heard this lame attack ad infinitium – they never seem to learn that the straightforward answer is that letting Govt tax more simply to give to others is NOT a Christian doctrine:

Your statement of "whole heartedly endorse abandoning those without." makes what I wrote completely correct. You have completely ignored what I wrote "Liberals, oft not willing to put their own hands into their own pockets, have all redefined charity from being a voluntary act of individual charity to one of being merely a govt program, having outsourced their individual responsibility to a faceless bureaucracy." In other words, it is time for we, as individuals, to care for each other instead of outsourcing that responsibility to Govt. HOW is that abandoning "those without?". Being self responsible is more charitable than sloughing it off with "hey, my taxes, DEMANDED by Govt, will take care of the needy".

Freedom or tyranny: Conservatives say I should have the freedom to do charity on my own terms (or not). Donald, with his written words concerning "excess" is telling us that those who HAVE excess should not be allowed that freedom. Or have I misquoted you, Donald? And I do NOT mean that question to be read in a snarky manner! I’m willing to lose the debate if I am debating the wrong ideas or ideas taken wrongly.

A response as to how I had misquoted him went unanswered

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