I need some facts concerning poverty and the Bush tax cut

[OklaRancher]

I belong to a Methodist Church in a rural area with a small congretion of 30 or so. This past Sunday the Pastor started his sermon by saying how much good the Bush tax cut could have done if it had been used to alleviate poverty.

[jimthewiz]

The idea that the tax cut only helped the rich is complete falsehood."

You are right, and even the low income filers that paid no income tax got a $600 "refund".

refund = free money.

[Cloverfarm]

Former UMC member here. Wow, you go to a big church :) Our rural UMC got down to about two families. Anyway ... $600 is real money to us, about six weeks worth of groceries. But, since we are farmers we didn't see it.

The real burden for us is state and local taxes ... state income taxes, and property and inventory taxes. Restructuring state and local taxes would be a bigger boon to rural areas than whether or not folks got the Bush tax rebate.

Finally, I agree with the folks that said maybe you'd better put poverty discussions on the back burner and ask the pastor -- who exactly does he say Jesus is? Does he have orthodox views or not? If not, I'd go someplace else.

Hope it all works out. I honestly don't know how long the UMC can continue like it is. I'm afraid it's a major split waiting to happen.

Ann

[RBroadfoot]

Here's a fact, Rev. Jack.

You're proposing a confiscatory tax scheme not unlike those in place in Western Europe for the past generation. It's not a coincidence that Western Europe has had double digit unemployment rates for the past generation.

Following the rundown of Clinton recession of 2000-2001, the 9/11 attacks posed the most significant threat to the US economy since the Civil War. Bush's tax cuts were the classic prescription to invigorate the economy.

Do you want to alleviate poverty or do you really want more of it? Governments have a great track record of perpetuating poverty; free markets have a great track record at growing economies. Why bet on a losing pony?

[visualops]

They keep playing a commercial on my satellite radio (one of those "public service" ads) about the poor kids who are forced to eat ketchup soup (?!) because there's not enough money for anything else. Never mind the fact that I can buy 2 cans of tuna for the price of a bottle of ketchup, given the numbers of shelters and soup kitchens and food stamps and free food at DSS and other places, how anyone can even suggest that someone would "have" to eat ketchup soup for dinner is just ridiculous. And sadly, I'm sure some bleeding hearts believe that tripe.

[jefferson02130]

It seems like two issues have gotten mixed up in this discussion. The first is that all the evidence I have seen supports: (1) Poverty increased significantly since 2000;(2) more families in poverty than ever before work and work hard, that is, the working poor, and (3) the gap between rich and poor, looking at either income or wealth, is greater today than 4-5 years ago. The facts support no other claims.

The second issue in discussion is the role of government, families, and individuals. Here we get murky. Giving money to people does not end poverty, unless of course it is a huge amount of money. Shifts in poverty have more to do with the larger economic picture than particular policies. The one significant exception is social security, which has helped keep millions out of poverty. Indeed, since our government became concerned about poverty, the only significant reduction of poverty has been among the elderly.
Policies and programs (private and public)can be matched much better to actual needs.

[Raycpa]

The first is that all the evidence I have seen supports: (1) Poverty increased significantly since 2000

Define poverty. To call our poor, poor is a crock. The poorest poor in our country is rich by both average world standards and by historical standards. There is a whole lot of really poor folks who would give there right arm to change places with the poor in our country. In fact those who are poor in our country would be considered wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of folks who were wealthy in the 1800's in our country,

[Raycpa]

The one significant exception is social security, which has helped keep millions out of poverty.

This is total crap. SS takes from the poor and gives them back their own money at a terrible return on investment.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Jeez, talk about touchy. Southern Baptist refers only to the identity of the organization.

[Paperdoll]

I know, BT, but I couldn't resist reacting to your tagline.

[Reactionary]

Perhaps the altruist will live in sackcloth and ashes before spewing about the need to tax the labor of others.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps, like most altruists, talking a big game is a lot more rewarding than living the real thing. After all, there's nothing like condeming your fellow man to make yourself feel perfectly wonderful.

[groanup]

This ought to keep you busy a while:

http://www.freedomkeys.com/gap.htm

[AliasVoid]

Higher taxes and increased regulation, and more government intrusion into private lives, tends to create one kind of civilization, a bureaucracy. When a society is heavily ruled by its government, then everyone is poor, excepting their elite rulers. That’s Marxism, and it is still taught in our colleges. Practically, it means that everyone has to stand in line and wait, sometimes for hours, to buy toilet paper, excepting the nomenklatura.

Your pastor is a leftist; it is quite possible that he has lost his faith in God. He believes that government should take the place of God in important human activities. Maybe you should confront him on his faith; maybe you can help guide him back to God.

The Bush tax cuts (there were two of them) brought immediate relief to the poor and the middle class; its indirect effect, one very successful, was to flood the economy with money. And these tax cuts were very helpful during the 9/11 years in building a prosperous economy.

There are people who felt no relief at all from such wonderful tax cuts. They are an entire class of people who work in some capacity for the government, mostly taking care of those people who received these huge tax cuts. That includes college professors, high school teachers, elementary school teachers, government unions, welfare administrators. You find a lot of them in the media, as television anchors, columnists, journalists.

But W. is winning any way. Isn’t he? I bet that W’s faith is deeper, stronger, and in every way more real than is your pastor’s. Guide him back to God.

[Aarchaeus]

Meme: George W's tax cuts only benefited the very wealthy.

Fact: The average $20,000 per year wage earner pays 28% less in taxes in 2004 than he did in 2001. (A $90,000 pays 15% less.)

Source: Aon Consulting: Retirement Ratio Study 2004.

See http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2004/11/meme-fighting-on-taxes.html

[Intolerant in NJ]

For one thing, the Bush tax cuts kept enough money circulating in the hands of the public that the Clinton recession, which started in late 1999, turned out to be only a mild downturn before the economy started to pick up again, saving and then returning jobs which allowed millions to continue to support themselves and their families; thus was poverty short-circuited by the Bush tax cuts......

[FreeKeys]

the gap between rich and poor, looking at either income or wealth, is greater today than 4-5 years ago.

Even if that were true, SO WHAT???? Are you one of those people who sees a fat person next to a thin person and automatically assumes the fat person stole food from the thin person?

CLICK ON THE GRAPH TO SEE A LARGER VERSION OF IT

  "Never mind the low wages and harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism.  They were all that the national economies of the time could afford.  Capitalism did not create poverty -- it inherited it.  Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive.  As proof -- the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century." -- Ayn Rand

And check out the chart on THIS page.  Also see: "The Sweatshop Scam" HERE.

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|  THE FIXED QUANTITY OF WEALTH FALLACY  |  The fixed quantity of resources fallacy  |
|  THE FIXED QUANTITY OF RESOURCES FALLACY  |

---

As Robert A. Heinlein said, "Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty."

In a modern open-market capitalist society, entrepreneurs get rich and the poor get better off as a result -- OF COURSE they're not going to get as rich as fast (duh). So, of course the gap thereby gets wider -- but the top AND BOTTOM of the gap both rise to levels much higher than before. The gap is widening?? Well, hooray for everyone’s sake! ESPECIALLY the poor!

If the rich weren’t free to "get ever richer," developing or investing in ever-increasing productivity, the poor would NEVER have any chance to improve their conditions at all, let alone to obtain their ever-increasing access to the latest tools of that expanding productivity, making every hour of their labor ever-more valuable. And YOU wouldn't EVER have the chance to read this or anything else brought to you by advanced technology. 

Freedom incents the creators to empower YOU and as many other people in the world as possible. There's little an entrepreneur likes better than a bunch of ever-richer loyal customers. Remember, the wealth you see around you didn’t always exist; it was and is CREATED wherever the right CONDITIONS OF FREEDOM (including the rule of natural law evenly applied, with the rigorous protection of individual rights including property rights and respect for contracts, effective prosecution of the perpetrators of force and fraud, and the ease of engaging in trade without the interference or "permissions" of politicians and bureaucrats) are established and guaranteed._

Now recognize the true nature and scope of evil and wherein it really lies. And don't be too limp a wimp to to call viciousness viciousness even if all your friends and neighbors fawn like groupies over any mantle of global "compassion" in which the evil appears to be cloaked.

"Wealth is based on productivity, and productivity is expandable.  In fact, productivity is fabulously expandable." -- P.J. O'Rourke in Eat the Rich

-- from THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR

[Socrates1]

Defuse his false premise. He cleverly frames the issuse as an "either-or" situtation which it is not.

The reality is that it would only be a very small incremental increase in addition to existing programs that have NOT solved the problem for 40 years, vs economic incentive that apparently HAS accomplished its stated purpose; now, and in the past.

Perhaps a more correct description, but you lose the moral high ground. This is the universal Liberal "setup". The Left always wants to debate how to "fairly" divide the pie.

You need to reframe the issue. He has structured his proposition so that he can't lose, even if you "win".

No matter what rationale or argument you provide, in the end you are the one giving poverty the lower priority. He tried to frame his position is as petty greed vs noble charity.

You lose.

You can restate the issue as incentive vs charity. Charity is noble, but doesn't solve the problem that caused the poverty.

As part of the overall economic incentive, integrate the Biblical adage about "giving a man a fish" vs "teaching a man to fish". Charity eases the pain of poverty, but doesn't cure it, and demeans the recipient (i.e. we need to give you money since the labor market considers you worthless).

Illustrate how your position contributes to the cure, vs numbing the pain.

If the economy benefits show how those in poverty get direct or indirect benefit.

Growth creates more jobs. To fill those new jobs, demand for labor increases, the labor pool must increase and unemployed/poverty pool decreases. Without the growth, only choice is to transfer wealth. Use the Clinton years if you must. Welfare reform, strong economy....

You win, with the superior morally and economic solution.

It's not a matter of what you debate, rather a natter how you debate.

[KoRn]

ZOT!

[ntnychik]

PING

[asgardshill]

Why was the person who started this thread zotted?