Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnydaJibba
(Post 124888)
Wow, have we really not discussed politics in almost 5 months?
I have a question that I'm sure you SMRT guys can answer.
Let's discuss this "redistribution of wealth." I don't understand it at all. The way the Repubs explain it, he will take MY money and straight up give it to somebody else who doesn't make as much as me. The way I understand this part of Obamas tax plan is that people making more than 250k will be taxed at a higher rate. Will that money then be used to fund programs designed to help lower income people? Or am I going to get taxed higher and then that money will be given to people making less? What am I missing here?
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A lot has been made of nothing IMO, simply because of the phrase "spread the wealth around a little". Fundamentally, both parties want to redistribute money around to save the economy... the difference is in how they want to do it.
The "standard" Republican method is via tax cuts to the rich. The idea is that by saving the big businesses money, they have more to spend in improving their business, which in turn creates more jobs, which in turn puts money into the hands of the middle class, who in turn are supposed to buy more stuff and therefore make the big businesses more successful, and thus upward-spiral the economy into better days. This is basically what they mean by "trickle down economics", in that you make policy changes to a few at the top of the pyramid that eventually make it down to everyone.
The Democrat method has the same goals, but focuses on the middle class first. The idea is you cut the middle classes taxes so they have money to spend in the economy that eventually makes its way into the hands of the big businesses. But in order to pay for gov't services, taxes have to be raised on the rich... but IMO, the top 1% can afford the cost much more easily than the rest of us... afterall, paying say 20% more in taxes when you make $50M/year is the difference between getting both a Porsche and a Ferrari or having to pick one, whereas 20% more taxes when you make $50k/year is the difference in making your mortgage payment or not.
And IMO, there are several other problems with McCain's plan:
1st, trickle-down doesn't work so well. It was trickle-down policies that got us into the whole housing meltdown (de-regulation of the industry was supposed to allow them to regulate themselves and choose their own risk, but we see how well that worked out). Plus, when you give a big cut to the top, they just pocket half of it for themselves, then trickle only 50% of the savings down to the next guy so takes his half then passes it along... so a $4B tax cut to ExxonMobile ends up doing what for the middle class, saving us $0.03/gal? Big whoop.
2nd if we're cutting taxes to the rich, how do we fund the insane costs of the gov't? Republicans used to be able to suggest tax cuts because they used to also operate on a platform of less and cheaper gov't, but that's not the case with today's Republicans that want to fund a $1 trillion war and a $1 trillion economy bailout (which the Republicans support even though it's far more socialist than Obama's tax plan, figure that one out). If we're cutting taxes to the rich to spur the economy, how do we fund the gov't properly? McCain's said little more than "we'll make it work because American is awesome!".
IMO, the Democrat plan is far more realistic, well thought out, and will have a better over-all effect on the economy. Cutting taxes to the middle class puts money directly in the hands of the people that need it the most when the economy sours. The bailout gets funded by the people that are directly benefiting from the bailout (rich bankers) who are the people that aren't going to be in the poor-house over having to pay more taxes.
It seems to me, we're in for hard times regardless of the plan used... it just seems fair that those that benefited the most at the top during the boom should be the people that step up the most to help the nation recover during the bust. The middle class are going to have a hard enough time with unemployment, inflation, etc... taxing the rich has less of a burden on less people.
