Duluth tax rally gets rowdy
April 17, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
More than 50 protesters on the steps of Duluth’s Judge Gerald Heaney Federal Building on Tuesday afternoon called on Congress to adopt the Buffett Rule, while an earlier gathering at the Rainbow Senior Center turned into more of a verbal confrontation between left and right.
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Confiscate all the wealth of the 400 richest people in the world and it won’t quite pay for this year’s deficit.
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/buffett-349130-obama-tax.html#
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But raising taxes on people earning over $1,000,000 would *lessen* the deficit.
Just like raising fees and cutting services “lessens” the deficit.
See?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“Buffett rule” tax on the wealthy would rake in just $47 billion over the next 11 years, according to an estimate by Congress’ official tax analysts obtained by The Associated Press.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/buffett-rule_n_1367591.html
4 billion/year is NOTHING!!! See?
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I disagree that it is nothing! It is something – POLITICAL HYPE FROM THE GUY WHO PROMISED “HOPE” WITH A “Y” — WHICH SPELLS “”"HYPE” — NOTHING BUT POLITICAL HYPE.
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We are not talking about a B as in billion problem. It’s a T as in Trillion mess. And its getting worse every year. Yes, tax the rich….maybe we should raise taxes on them. But it would be like bailing out the Titanic with a beer mug.
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Voting out the Marxist-in-Chief will do more to reduce HIS $6 trillion deficit than any little drop in the bucket, class warfare tax hike on the wealthy producers of this nation.
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What?
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Viune, Clinton did NAFTA and said goodbye American jobs! Remremember?
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Fastone, then the Democrats should have done something about it when they held the Senate, House, and Whitehouse. Fact is the did not even with a super majority in the Senate.
It’s so lame to blame when they had all the power and didn’t get the job done.
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I actually think it will raise 0 or negative new revenue but for the sake of argument let’s use the static model and say it rasise $4 billion/year. Compared to the $1.5 thousand billion/year deficit and the $5 thousand billion that has been added to the debt since Obama has been president, 4 billion is a rounding error.
Simply not economically significant. Nothing but a gimmic to impress the bubbas.
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More like a few days of the deficit.
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Bill Whittle does it better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWak_eZIJ0
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Animals on the left – when one of the occupy knuckle dragging goons threatened to punch out a 62 and an 82 year old woman for disagreeing, it is clear – occupy low life’s have declared war on civilization and civilized behavior. And the proof is, a child abductor with a rap sheet heads the leadership of this anti-American mob.
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People see their income vs those who have larger, I doubt the understand the magnitude of the deficit. How about cutting future pay of all those PUBLIC EMPLOYEES who get nearly free medical care, etc. How do they feel about the fact that the only reason they have these great deals is that POLITICIANS from both sides gave taxpayer dollars away to get votes drummed up by the union officials. $100 K pension for a librarian#$%$#?
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The tax rate on dividends is 15 %..The buffet rule is a joke, we’re not talking about the income tax rate. Dividends rates should be low, as it’s money people invest, and usually money people already paid an income tax on. What a great way to stifle investment. Even if they had the 60 votes in the senate to pass the buffet rule, you think they would..I doubt it..this is just more class war-fare.
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Dividends are not income. They are an ROI (PROFIT), and are above and beyond the initial money invested (which is subject to income tax). Capital Gains Tax should be higher, it applies almost strictly to the wealthy; those with limited income don’t have significant investments that work for them. Why should dividends get a tax break that a majority of the country misses out on???
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Liberals are something else. I guess they didn’t notice that Obama in his 2013 budget is proposing six TRILLION in increased spending over the next ten years. Six TRILLION dollars. Do numbers like that mean anything to liberals? Increasing the tax rate on rich people won’t make a bit of difference whatsoever when Obama wants to spend that kind of money, which of course we don’t have and can’t possibly come up with. It’s not even a left/right or Democrat/Republican thing. It’s pure fiscal insanity.
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“I can prophecy that your grandchildren in America will live under socialism…Our firm conviction is that sooner or later Capitalism will give way to Socialism. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.” – Nikita Krushchev, July 1957
“The United States will eventually fly the Communist red flag…The American people will hoist it themselves.” – Nikita Krushchev, July 19, 1962
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Oh my god — the head of the Soviet Politburo made comments in accord with the central premise of communism?!? This totally changes my mind!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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How about the 50 percent of taxpayers vs the 50 percent who pay nothing? You only hear about the 1 percent. If you take all the wealth from the 1 percent we would still be in trouble. Yes, you can raise taxes on the 1 percent. That doesn’t fix the mess we are in.
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Nobody pays nothing, john. That argument illustrates the naivety of the modern right-wing. Everybody has to pay taxes. You conservatives just chose one out of hundreds of different taxes, the federal income tax, and say that only 50% pay that therefor 50% of people don’t pay taxes. When that ignores medicare taxes, it ignores social security taxes, it ignores sales tax, it ignores property tax, it ignores utility taxes, it ignores the state income tax…
To me, it sounds like a very IGNORE-ant argument.
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Credibility? That’s funny coming from someone who made up everything he just said. Nobody in this thread has said you can’t increase taxes on the “rich,” whoever they are. But doing so would be nothing more than a gimmick, an empty gesture that wouldn’t accomplish anything except to allow opportunistic politicians to blow some wind. And nobody on this thread has said taxes should be increased on those earning less than $30,000. Credibility indeed.
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I’m not arguing you can’t raise income taxes on the rich. I’m arguing it is a meaningless gesture. It will raise a pathetically small amount of money compared to what we’re spending.
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Stand at the corner of Mesaba and Central Entrance. What do you see?? Block after block of new government housing.Really nice government housing. All new streets….not one pothole. All made possible by big government.
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one thing I’ve never understood is how a rich guy can steal money from the poor and broke. help me understand how the poor that you claim have no money can be robbed.
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ive never understood how conservatives think asking the rich to pay more in taxes is class warfare but vice versa when the rich benefit through govt policies at the expense of the poor that isnt class warfare? I dont suggest paying more in taxes im just trying to point out that despite what capitalists try to tell you we are a zero sum economy. For the most part if someone makes more money its because someone else correspondingly loses money. The whole rising waters lifts all ships theory works somewhat except because of the way capitalism works the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (relative to each other so to speak). So despite the fact that poor people in america have more comforts than the poor in 3rd world countries the gap between rich and poor squeezes out whatever middle class we have left and the upward mobility rate declines as well making it harder to break out of poverty.
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And I’m guessing roughly 71% of them have no idea what it is or what impact it would have.
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That is an absolute lie, most people oppose redistribution of wealth !
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92% Favor Strict Limits on Government To Protect the Individual
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/april_2012/92_favor_strict_limits_on_government_to_protect_the_individual
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Are you blind? Can’t you read?
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Lol Tom. Still bitter about Oberstar getting beat? LET IT GO!
Also, I 100% disagree with that statistic. What’s the sample size and population? How was the question actually asked? Don’t be so ignorant, Tom
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Tom – I found a statistic that you may find interesting: 100% of the people on this forum can’t stand reading your dribble! It’s true, because I just wrote it! (I took a page out of your book)
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Tax revenues have increased by nearly 500% since 1980. Unfortunately, spending has gone up over 600% in that same time frame.
Inflation has climbed by roughly 280%.
And for those who want to blame the military: Armed forces expenditures in 1980 were just over $300 billion. In 2012, the military budget was $530 billion…..not even double 1980 figures, and less than 15% of the 2012 federal spending. Not bad considering national defense is one of the few things the federal government is supposed to do.
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In a nutshell, we don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Despite the additional government programs, we have significantly more citizens living in poverty. Throwing more and more money at the problem is insanity–doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
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umm ok you just contradict yourself in your own statement…we dont have a revenue problem yet have significantly more people living in poverty? That would mean we have significantly less tax revenue. Unless your claiming that the rich are making so much more money now that their tax revenues are offsetting the decrease in tax revenues from the added people living in poverty. That being said we do have a spending problem but we also have a revenue problem. That problem will not be solved by taxing the rich however it will be solved by creating jobs that lift the poor into tax paying jobs. I believe the government is needed to jumpstart certain industries that have serious financial hurdles to entry (alternative energy investment is an example). They need economies of scale to be a profitable venture (for example the military sells alot to other countries because the cost of just building for our own country is way to prohibitive. And that is the dilemma we face our government is the solution and the problem i know it doesnt make much sense at first glance but its true. I just dont have any faith that the government will make the right decisions in the first place.
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If Obama wins again, it will just prove that some of the people CAN be fooled, ALL of the time! How do you like your HOPE & CHANGE now???
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It should be called “HYPE and change!”
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While I do agree that the rich shouldn’t pay a smaller percentage in federal taxes than those of more moderate means, I do want to point out (as others have) that we could jack up the federal tax rates on the wealthy a whole lot and it wouldn’t reduce our deficit by much…..so while there’s a worthy “moral” and/or “feel good” reason to raise their tax rates….it truly won’t put much of a dent in our deficit. So to those advocating “tax the rich” in this group……what’s your next step to solve our current debt/deficit problem ? I’d love to hear your replies…..because there is only one group who you can tax to solve this problem once you’ve raised the tax rates on the rich…..as someone pointed out far to many people in our country pay NO federal income tax at all….not one red cent (which I think is wrong….you should have at least a small vested interest in tax policy), so it comes down to the vaunted “middle class” that the “tax the rich” crowd seems to idolize and support, until their light comes on and they realize we’ll have to raise middle class taxes too if we truly want to raise enough money to feed our current spending levels.
The “rich” are a convenient target when you wish to scream about raising taxes, it’s a great sound bite, but falls apart if you think pragmatically about the issue. That being said, I do think the “rich” should pay more income taxes, but I’m equally aware it’s not even going to come close to solving our budget deficit/debt problems.
One more think, there was a quote in the article by “Peder Nelson” of Duluth who stated “It’s time for these tax dodgers to pay what they owe,”. I would assert that Mr Nelson perhaps doesn’t understand how things work. Basically, once you fill out your tax form at the end of the year, you end up paying what the form says you owe at the bottom. If you pay less, you’re a tax dodger, if you pay more you’re probably not the brightest light bulb, if you pay the amount due, you’ve fulfilled your obligation and are NOT a tax dodger. So, assuming Mr Pederson isn’t a tax dodger by using his own definition if the term…..he must be paying more than the IRS tells him he owes. Good for him !
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Why do you think the “rich” should pay more?
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Barry, how about rich Democrats too that live off of dividends? You know like Buffett, Dayton, Gore, Edwards, and more!
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Yes, all of those people will have to pay more when taxes are increased. They’re pushing for more taxes against their own interests because it’s the right thing to do.
The deficit is huge. It’s not going to be fixed with cuts alone. You also need to raise taxes.
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Oh, how noble. And the fact that not a single one of them is voluntarily paying what they think is “fair” should answer the question of their sincerity. Nothing is stopping them or anyone else from writing a check to the Treasury Department if they feel they aren’t paying enough taxes.
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Here’s an article from the Star Tribune Jan. 31, 2012 that mathematically explains how taxing the rich (millionaires and up) only pays the US government’s spending for 1 and a half years….
Republicans, Democrats, the Tea Party and the Occupy movements — Americans from 1 to 99 seem to have their own favorite plan on how to tackle taxes and federal spending. Assuming there’s room for one more plan, I’ve borrowed bits and pieces from the current debate, but — urged on by the political
commentariat and citizen-pundits alike — I’ve gone big and bold.
First, the philosophy behind my policy, drawn from careful consideration of the debate to date: For any plan to work, we need a federal tax policy that’s simple, fair and — this part is key– to the maximum extent possible, involves someone else’s money. With that principle in mind, like Willie Sutton, that early “corporate raider,” we go where the money is. Our national treasure: America’s billionaires.
Under my plan, billionaires aren’t just going to pay more, they’re going to pay it all — a 100 percent tax rate. And not just on what they make in a year. We’re going to take it all — 100 percent of their entire lifetime net worth.
We’re going to simplify that U.S. tax code at the same time. The IRS will be replaced — by the September issue of the Forbes 400. Let’s get started. The Obama administration has requested $3.7 trillion in federal spending for 2012. Conveniently, that’s a bit above $10 billion a day. Fittingly, Bill Gates leads us off, with his $59 billion. Microsoft’s founder could pay from the moment we rang in 2012 to almost midnight Jan. 6.
Up next, Warren Buffet. The Sage of Omaha’s $39 billion gets us to the end of Jan. 10. Larry Ellison — $33 billion — gets us through the weekend. Koch brothers David and Charles — $50 billion combined — cover
the workweek. Then come four Walton Wal-Mart heirs — sons and daughters of Sam, bringing us eight days federal spending combined. George Soros, friend of President Obama, is next; his $22 billion will cover two full days and a bit more. Then comes Sheldon Anderson, Friend of Newt, with his $21.5 billion. Another two days and change.
We’ve burned through Forbes’ Top 10 billionaires — a total of nearly $310 billion.
It’s Jan. 31.
Forbes’ No. 11 to 99 — folks like Google’s Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — would get us through February and March, with nearly $600 billion.
Nos. 100 to 200 — a collective $260 billion — get us past Tax Day and almost to the end of April.
But by the second half of the Forbes 400, we’re scraping the bottom of the billionaire barrel. All 200 remaining billionaires batched together barely cover a month of federal spending. By mid-May, the federal burn rate reaches 10 billionaires per day. Then, somewhere on the afternoon of May 26, we’ve run through our last billionaire. Fittingly, it’s Washington’s own Dan Snyder, owner of the Redskins.
Altogether, the lifetime earnings of the Forbes 400 have paid for more than $1.4 trillion in federal spending. In other words, their lifetime take has covered the federal deficit — for one year.
But enough celebrating. We’re still $2,219,999,999,999.99 short if we want to keep the federal government running until New Year’s 2013.
So on to the millionaires. We’ve got more of them — but we need more, too: After all, it takes 1,000 millionaires to equal one billionaire. In federal budget terms, that’s 10,000 millionaires a day.
Trouble is, millionaires are fiscal twigs in the federal fireplace. Mitt Romney’s $20 million for 2010? That’s three minutes of federal spending. Romney’s entire $190 million to $220 million fortune? A bit over one half-hour. Newt Gingrich’s $3.1 million 2010 take? Gone in 30 seconds.
Barack Obama’s book royalties plus presidential salary ($1.7 million)? The federal government will spend that in 14 seconds. Hey, Steve Forbes, come back here. Thanks for compiling the federal contributor list — and for your net worth of $430 million.
That’s more than an hour of federal spending!
In order to pick up the pace, let’s take the IRS data that tells us that in 2009, 236,000 Americans made $1 million or more. All told, at our 100 percent rate, that’s $610 billion — another two months of federal spending.
But there are still five months left to fund.
Let’s move from the people who earn $1 million a year to the people who have more than a million in net worth. They’re millionaires too, right?
After we’ve taken away all of that wealth and fed it to the U.S. Treasury, what’s the takeaway from all of this?
For one thing, $3.7 trillion is an enormous amount of money — far more than our mortal minds can comprehend. It’s $6.9 million in federal spending per second, every second of every minute, every hour of every day, including weekends, every day all year.
But back to the budget. It’s 2013, and not a billionaire in sight. Wait a minute: Where’s that 99 percent? Please step forward.
Your turn.
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Why do you think people don’t get this? We are on the edge of a perfectly predictable disaster and they just ignore it.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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What amuses me is that the liberal contingent here looks at lower taxes as Americans giving money to the rich. That is only correct if you believe that wealth is owned by the government; that is, the fruits of one’s labor are not their own, but that of the state.
BS.
Tax cuts allow people to keep their money. It is that simple.
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Who, exactly, do you think builds buildings, factories, pays payrolls, purchases raw goods and manufactures consumables, etc.? The 99%? You need to stimulate the investment, not take the monies for investment to create jobs. It is not government’s job to create jobs (believe it or not afscme), it is the job of government to enable the people to create jobs.
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who exactly does create jobs and build factorys yes? Its not the rich that build it per se, its paid for by future earnings based on increased demand for their product from we the consumer. So yes i voted thumbs up to earlier post about tax cuts letting you keep your own money but the rich keeping more money doesnt necessarily make them put their OWN money into their business. They would only do that if their is increased demand for their product which will only happen if the unemployment and poverty numbers go down and median wages go up. I dont see that happening anytime soon however. So to your point its the 99% who do create the jobs through their demand. Supply side economics doesnt work if a car dealership owner gets a tax cut and decides to buy more cars for his lot he will not sell any more cars that year than he would if he didnt get the tax cut.
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Class warfare, the meat and potatoes of the current administration and Democratic leadership.
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No, it pretty much sums up why you’re a liar.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Debra Tayloy, I would expect no less from you as a government employee. Different day, same blather form the government bullies school of brainwashing. We all saw your involvement in the anti Govornor Scott Walker mayhem and you don’t live in WI.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Blah blah blah blah…Some old bird droppings, another day.
Magpie and the Democrat have enslaved millions of people in poverty through the lefts failed war on poverty of the 1960′s.
Democrats, DFL, leftists do NOT support polices that create employment for ALL people.
The left, DFL, has created a quagmire of self-service jobs, wages, benefits, and travel schemes such as the latest GSA scandal, all at the expense of the rest of society. At the same time they have created victims of poverty and tell them they are there to help them. The cycle keeps repeating and poverty keeps increasing, and the government union folk keep getting richer, on the backs of fewer tax paying people.
The radical left has created a nightmare of unsustainable government union retirement rip-off schemes that have led to a proliferation of higher taxes, utility fees, government service fees and more.
The people have awakened and our fight is just beginning.
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There it is again: Magnumpi saying tax cuts equates to giving people money. So very telling.
News flash, libs: Money belongs to those who earn it. Not the government. Wrap your heads around that premise before spouting off about fiscal policy. Lest you be confused with Communists.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Winner, when will the Occupy gangs go after the real one percenters, rich government union folk and their multi-million dollar retirements?
Come on Occupy, why are you not calling out all of the rich?
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So, if I a big wheel in a company sends a bunch of jobs overseas, does that qualify as “earning” money? How about when they benefit from subsidies?
It isn’t like Mitt Romney (or the “I earned all this money!” person of your choice, by and large) was out cutting railroad ties.
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Typical reply from a big government conservative…keep kissing butts of the rich WinnerWinner. We know you right wingers won’t be happy until the rich are living in castles on the hill again like the Olde English times.
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did all the big investment bank ceos and risk managers “earn” their multi million bonuses for bankrupting their own firms? yes we deserve to keep what we earn unfortunately some people earn way more than they should and others earn way less than they should.
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More than they should? Who are you to determine how much money anybody else can make? Or is that the ultimate goal for you people?
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how about when you bankrupt your company who dont get a bonus on the way out for starters….
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Reading these comments just confirms why I don’t vote either Democrat or Republican. When will America finally wake up and see that a 2-party system is forever flawed?
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I’m still waiting to hear from liberals what their definition of “rich” is. At what point are we obliged, according to you people, to demonize someone for their success? Is there a specific number, an amount of income above which someone is supposed to be reviled for working hard and becoming successful? Just curious, of course, since you never explain your hatred of people who have things that you don’t have. Or is it just petty envy? At the other end of the spectrum, is there a specific income below which one shouldn’t have to pay any taxes at all?
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Though they’ll never say it openly, the answer is “more than me”.
It’s all envy.
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as kind of a quasi liberal but not democrat voter i will posit this to your question. I have no idea lol where some arbitrarily rich line would be. I dont envy anyone let alone a rich person it only eats at the soul. Jealousy on the other hand is a good thing it serves as a motivation to become what you are jealous of. Envy might be evident in some possibly because they see themselves as not being able to become rich and thus want the rich to fall down to their levels (due to declining upward mobility rate). However even envy helped democracy to come to fruition according to bertrand russell. On the other hand i think u mean no “federal” taxes for the poor and i would say the line on the lower level could be pretty easily fixed to whatever the minimum wage is multiplied by 40 hours a week multiplied by 54 weeks. $7.25 x 40= 290 x 54=$15,660 i dunno just a thought
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Dan H, I too would like to hear some opionions from those of the more liberal persuasion as to what they would define as “rich”. I think we’ll find that “rich” is a floating standard and relative to the income/wealth of the person giving the definitation. To solve our federal budget problems, I think you’ll find that to have any substantive effect on the deficit at current levels, you’ll have to significantly raise taxes on people with incomes way less that those who most would consider “rich”. Thats the real flaw in logic with all this clamor to “tax the rich”. Although I do understand the logic behind tax breaks for the wealthy who disproportionatly are the job creators in our economy…..it’s still hard to defend on a stictly moral/common sense level. Fact is it just flat out souunds bad and as we know most people aren’t economics majors and many likely don’t understand the nuance that makes it even defensible…..whether you agree with it or not.
Fact it there are no where near enough “rich” people to tax that would even come close to balancing our budget…..so they will eventually have to come after the “middle class” in a significant way if we keep up our current spending habits. And many if not most in the middle class are struggling now to pay their own way.
Let’s face it, a 5% increase/decrease of an income tax rate has a lot more actual lifestyle effect on someone with a $50,000 than it does on someone with a $1,000,000 income since the person with the larger income should at least in theory have more marginal discretionary income.
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This is the quintessential pigeon-holing question. It would be like if I asked you exactly how many people you’d like to kick off welfare. It’s a lose-lose, no matter what I answer. Needless to say, I’m going to give it a shot anyway…
The logic goes like this. You are rich if you depend on profits earned at the expense of others. You can’t argue that American businessmen profit from poverty in the 3rd world. Companies like FoxConn in China pay their workers 50 cents to make something that sells for 50 dollars in the USA. It’s the science of exploitation, and it’s bad capitalism… Yet, that’s what the right-wing is defending. IDEALLY, companies would just pay their workers more, at home and abroad. Then there would be no need for government intervention. However, corporate shareholders demand at least 8% return on their shareholdings (i.e. free money for them), and so their profits come before fair wages for the workers who actually make the products. Therefore, if you depend on corporate shareholdings for your standard of living, you are depending on, and as such perpetuating, the poverty of others.
The reason your question is a pigeon hole is because it assumes that I WANT higher taxes for the rich. I don’t. I want higher wages for workers. But companies don’t want that, and the right-wing defends what companies want. So the right wing essentially wants to lower wages, while at the same time slashing social safety programs. And there’s not supposed to be any problem with that?
Anyway, that’s the logic of my left-wing “persuasion”. I just hope that you actually can understand that. Chances are, you’re just going to thumbs down this and continue to assume that I just want to tax everybody richer than me, despite the fact that I have clearly explained otherwise.
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Kissing butts? Hardly. I merely don’t see a problem with allowing people to keep their property. I’m not entitled to the fruits of someone else’s labor.
As for “sending jobs overseas”: You can thank the world’s highest corporate tax combined with the world’s most onerous regulations and the world’s most litigious society. I believe in paying people based on their work ethic, skill set and performance, not their nationality. Standing in one spot on an assembly line pushing a button every 30 seconds isn’t worth $65,000 a year. Answering a telephone in a call center isn’t a $35,000 a year job. When half of India can do your job, you’re no longer special and should be paid as such.
Mostly, though, you’re ignorant on the entire matter. Foreign companies have insourced jobs that employ 5.6 million Americans–more than the total number of outsourced, low-skill, low-paying jobs that you lament in the manufacturing and service sectors. These “insourced” jobs pay, on average, 33% higher than do jobs at American firms. But pay no attention to the giant hole in your argument, MD. We’d rather have those $10 an hour assembly line jobs, right?
The liberal Eurotrash wannabes on this board are always complaining about how we should be more like Germany. Ok, fine. Just realize that their manufacturing sector is focused on highly-skilled labor and specialized production–not the mindless assembly-line grunt work that all you DFL apologists seem to nostalgically pine for. In order to get there, the racket of Big Education needs to start directing more kids to trade schools instead of herding the masses of high school grads to four year colleges and tens of thousands of dollars in often worthless education and debt. That is the only way to revive American manufacturing–increase drastically the skill of the manufacturing labor pool.
(Question: Why do universities offer degrees for job sectors that do not pay enough to adequately cover the loan payments for the tuition charged? Why does any logical person choose to pursue said degree? Last I heard, charging far more for a product than it is actually worth is called price gouging.)
Anyhow, good luck with that. Americans have become, by and large, lazy, self-absorbed and complacent.
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why do universities offer degrees for job sectors that do not pay enough to cover loan payments…well i find it funny that people say why dont you just get a degree in a high paying field lol two points to this misnomer. First id say 90 percent of all degrees offered would fall into your category that doesnt mean we dont need them it just means tuition (with interest) is way too high for the majority of people. Second most people i know do research before they decide on a major and if we all decide that one field is going to need workers then we all pick the same major and all graduate at the same time meaning their is now too many people in that field instead of too few. Do you see what im getting at here? if we all become doctors and lawyers and engineers we will not have anyone doing all the multitude of careers and professions that are needed to make daily life function to the degree that it does. Not to mention wages are based on how many people can do your job so the fact that you want everyone to pick a major that makes you money would inevitably lead to those jobs not making money.
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You ask…..”Why do universities offer degrees for job sectors that do not pay enough to cover loan payments?” So they can take your money….They need students to provide revenue. They could care less if you graduate with 80-100 grand loan. You want to blame the 1 percent? How about a campus filled with a bunch of high paid administators or professors. Do you think they want it known that most of the degrees they offer are not going to pay a decent wage?
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And yet, when we liberals do scrutinize high paid administrators and professors with sayings like “chop from the top”, conservatives like you defend them and say they deserve their high salaries. You can’t use the liberal argument that many university employees are paid too high to make a conservative point.
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Levi–There is no connection between government taxation/spending and poverty. Yet The left argues that increasing social welfare program spending will better the lot of the downtrodden. Well, 80 years into this entitlement experiment it couldn’t be much worse. Poverty has increased.
As for letting people keep their money via lower taxes: It is their money. Let them do what they please with it. It all ends up back in the economy in some fashion: Investments, spending, loan-backing capital, etc. Unless someone is shoe boxing said money under a bed, money never sleeps.
As for CEOs and corporate executives: They earn every penny in most cases. The average CEO works over 60 hours per week for most of their career, earning advanced degrees, taking on additional assignments, performing at the highest levels, taking career risks and going outside the scope of their job description; note most of what I’ve listed is expressly prohibited by the average union labor contract. However, speaking of contracts, CEOs and most corporate executives also negotiate contracts–and the bonuses that lie therein–with the elected Board of Directors. Want to be angry with those bonuses? Blame the Board and the shareholders that elected them.
That said, it is none of your d*mned business how much someone else makes, nor should it be. If you want pay equality, move to Cuba. If you want to limit CEO pay, buy some stock and vote your mind. But don’t pontificate about certain people making too much money–especially when they’ve put in FAR more work than the average person could even DREAM of.
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ok well youve argued that no one is ever overpaid relatively well but have failed in persuading me on the idea of many people being underpaid. How come wages lag so far beyond price increases and how come when the company lays someone off and the others do that persons work they dont get the extra pay from the increased productivity per worker? They are being underpaid which to me implies that others are benefiting from them being underpaid (through lower prices to consumers generally but can also be the owners realize larger profits and managers receive bonuses at the expense of a worker who has to work harder for same pay). And i feel it is my business what others make when they receive public assistance i would want to know that so people who dont need help arent getting any of my tax money.
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90% of degrees? Hardly. Accounting, finance, management, economics, five different fields of engineering, nursing/medical, biotech, law enforcement, therapy, marketing…..just to name a few. And as far as doctors and engineers are concerned, there is a current shortage.
But let’s move on to good paying jobs at the far cheaper two year schools: Welding, masonry, construction, firefighting, plumbing, electrician, HVAC, nursing, trucking, paralegal, mechanic, culinary arts….to name some middle to upper-middle class jobs.
Remember: Not everyone can be a graphic artist or a marine biologist when they grow up; yet that is exactly the line of BS that our youth is fed by most counselors and academic advisors. It is borderline criminal.
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How about eliminating the Earned Income Credit. I don’t have a problem with the poor not paying taxes but why the hell should anyone get back more then they pay in? Once that happens then lets talk about a flat tax across the board on all income. Until then its just more democrat BS.
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1. Tax the churches and the not-for-profits.
2. Reduce spending.
3. Limit social welfare programs to a specified time-limit for able-bodied people.
4. Man-up and eliminate fluff programs.
5. Review military spending and reduce as needed.
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