Posted on 08/03/2011 7:10:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If there were a contest for the most misleading words used in politics, “poverty” should be one of the leading contenders for that title.
Each of us may have his own idea of what poverty means — especially those of us who grew up in poverty. But what poverty means politically and in the media is whatever the people who collect statistics choose to define as poverty.
This is not just a question of semantics. The whole future of the welfare state depends on how poverty is defined. “The poor” are the human shields behind whom advocates of ever bigger spending for ever bigger government advance toward their goal.
If poverty meant what most people think of as poverty — people “ill-clad, ill-housed, and ill-nourished,” in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase — there would not be nearly enough people in poverty today to justify the vastly expanded powers and runaway spending of the federal government.
Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has for years examined what “the poor” of today actually have — and the economic facts completely undermine the political rhetoric.
Official data cited by Rector show that 80 percent of “poor” households have air conditioning today, which less than half the population of America had in 1970. Nearly three-quarters of households in poverty own a motor vehicle, and nearly one-third own more than one motor vehicle.
Virtually everyone living in “poverty,” as defined by the government, has color television, and most have cable or satellite TV. More than three-quarters have either a VCR or a DVD player, and nearly nine-tenths have a microwave oven.
As for being “ill-housed,” the average poor American has more living space than the general population — not just the poor population — of London, Paris, and other cities in Europe.
Various attempts have been made over the years to depict Americans in poverty as “ill-fed,” but the “hunger in America” campaigns that have enjoyed such political and media popularity have usually used some pretty creative methods and definitions.
Actual studies of “the poor” have found their intake of the necessary nutrients to be no less than that of others. In fact, obesity is slightly more prevalent among low-income people.
The real triumph of words over reality, however, is in expensive government programs for “the elderly,” including Medicare. The image often invoked is the person who is both ill and elderly, and who has to choose between food and medications.
It is great political theater. But, the most fundamental reality is that the average wealth of the elderly is some multiple of the average wealth owned by people in the other age brackets.
Why should the average taxpayer be subsidizing people who have much more wealth than they do?
If we are concerned about those particular elderly people who are in fact poor — as we are about other people who are genuinely poor, whatever their age might be — then we can simply confine our help to those who are poor by some reasonable means test. It would cost a fraction of what it costs to subsidize everybody who reaches a certain age.
But the political Left hates means tests. If government programs were confined to people who were genuinely poor in some meaningful sense, that would shrink the welfare state to a fraction of its current size. The Left would lose its human shields.
It is certainly true that the elderly are more likely to have more medical problems and larger medical expenses. But old age is not some unforeseeable misfortune. It is not only foreseeable but inevitable for those who do not die young.
It is one thing to keep people from suffering from unforeseeable things beyond their control. But it is something else to simply subsidize their necessities so that they can spend their money on other things and leave a larger estate to be passed on to their heirs.
People who say they want a government program because “I don’t want to be a burden to my children” apparently think it is all right to be a burden to other people’s children.
Among the runaway spending behind our current national-debt problems is the extravagant luxury of buying political rhetoric.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
As there are unequal benefits to the use of the Commons, those who benefit most from their use should pay more for their upkeep. Anything else is exploitation of the natural wealth belonging to us all.
Skip to chapter II...Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons.
Wow. Do all the fruits of our labor belong to the government, which decides how much each of us must pay? We already have a graduated tax system with the top 1% paying 38% of all income taxes and 47% paying none. Do you think those 47% should pay some taxes on their income?
Over the years the welfare state and its redistributive tax system has created a wealth gap and a fairness gap. Here are some other quotes from Hardin:
In sharp contrast to privatism, commonism privatizes the gain but commonizes the losses.
If the world is one great commons, in which all food is shared equally, then we are lost. Those who breed faster will replace the rest. Sharing the food from national territories is operationally equivalent to sharing territory; in both cases a commons is established, and tragedy is the ultimate result.
To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.
I find Hardin's world view skewed to say the least. Consider the following:
An alternative to the commons need not be perfectly just to be preferable. With real estate and other material goods, the alternative we have chosen is the institution of private property coupled with legal inheritance. Is this system perfectly just? As a genetically trained biologist I deny that it is. It seems to me that, if there are to be differences in individual inheritance, legal possession should be perfectly correlated with biological inheritance-that those who are biologically more fit to be the custodians of property and power should legally inherit more. But genetic recombination continually makes a mockery of the doctrine of "like father, like son" implicit in our laws of legal inheritance. An idiot can inherit millions, and a trust fund can keep his estate intact. We must admit that our legal system of private property plus inheritance is unjust -- but we put up with it because we are not convinced, at the moment, that anyone has invented a better system. The alternative of the commons is too horrifying to contemplate. Injustice is preferable to total ruin.
The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. "Freedom is the recognition of necessity" -- and it is the role of education to reveal to all the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.
SS is not the only sustainability issue we face.
I have made mine...but before my wife and I point our Out Island 42 S-SE, I would like to not feel like I'm leaving a third world country behind. But as long as we(the country)keep kissing up to China...we will never be safe here. China is buying this country while the greedy cheer and rush to sell them our proverbial soul.
That would seem to line up well with the faux conservative view of welfare moms and their offspring don't you think? It has certainly been broached as a subject here more then a few times. Sounds harsh huh?
No but the Gulf of Mexico belongs as much or more to me as it does to BP oil. If I treated our joint property as they do I would be jailed and all my wealth taken from me. Other examples abound.
You can talk about income tax all you want to. The truth is that the wealthiest peoples income usually come from capital gains taxed at about 15%. So actually, the wealthiest pay less taxes on their income then a salaried or hourly worker.
I owned two companies. A good accountant helped me pay less income taxes to the IRS then my employees did. Generous tax write offs allowed me to show no profit if that was what I wanted. I could gross a million dollars and determine whether I wanted to post a gain or loss for the year depending on which write offs I could use.. There were write off benefits if you could show a loss. I am not “very” wealthy. But I know many who are. If they are smart they pay only enough taxes to keep the eyeball of the IRS from turning their way. Such people really don’t know what a paycheck is.
And you're not poor simply because your neighbor has a nicer car than yours.
Harsh and against the Constitution. It certainly doesn't represent the conservative world view. Involuntary birth control is not something any conservative I know would advocate.
BP paid the USG to lease the area and corporate taxes on the oil it found and sold. BP also paid the costs of the clean-up. It was a business transaction. I don't see how you enter into the discussion except as a citizen of this country. There are other drilling activities going on in the Gulf of Mexico outside US territorial limits and economic zone. The idea that you seem to believe that the Gulf of Mexico belongs to you is bizarre. I gather you are an environmentalist. Do you believe in manmade global warming?
LOL. You are starting to show your true colors. Do you realize that more than 50% of Americans own stocks either directly or thru their pension funds and mutual funds. They receive capital gains as well. Do you want to increase the capital gains rates or tax them as regular income? Do you think that will increase tax revenue and investment? You seem to believe in this class envy/warfare spewed by the Left.
I owned two companies. A good accountant helped me pay less income taxes to the IRS then my employees did. Generous tax write offs allowed me to show no profit if that was what I wanted. I could gross a million dollars and determine whether I wanted to post a gain or loss for the year depending on which write offs I could use.. There were write off benefits if you could show a loss.
I have a hard time figuring out what your point is. If you own the companies, it is your capital that is at risk. You are providing the jobs. The tax system is a policy mechanism to encourage entrepreneurs to create businesses and jobs. Without your investment and willing to take risk, the government would not receive tax revenue from either you or your business but also from your employees. There is nothing wrong with that.
I have also owned a business as well as rental properties. I have no problem taking off things like business expenses and depreciation. You may view them as generous. I don't. If you want to go to a fair tax or a flat tax system, fine, but it must be understood that a tax system is not an end unto itself. A "fair" system may hurt economic activities that benefit the society. For example, if you eliminate charitable contributions as a tax deduction, would that impact the amount of charitable giving?
Your response reminded me of Obama when he was asked by Maria Bartiromo, I believe, why he wanted to raise the capital gains tax when it has been shown that the lower the rate, the more revenue the government received. Candidate Obama's response was it wasn't about the revenue but about fairness. The underlying assumption is that the government decides how much you can keep of the fruits of your labor and the government knows best how to spend it.
Here is part of the transcript of the March 2008 interview with Obama. It shows how illiterate he is when it comes to business and what his Marxist objectives are. It portends what Candidate Obama will do when he becomes President. Nothing he is trying to do now should come as any surprise.
BARTIROMO: How do you plan to change the tax code when it comes to capital gains? How high will that 15 percent rate go?
Sen. OBAMA: Well, you know, I haven't given a firm number. Here's my belief, that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that existed in the past that distorted sound economics. And I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was the 28 percent. I would--and my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that. I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15 percent. If it--and if it, you know--when I talk to people like Warren Buffet or others and I ask them, you know, what's--how much of a difference is it going to be if it's 20 or 25 percent, they say, look, if it's within that range then it's not going to distort, I think, economic decision making.
On the other hand, what it will also do is first of all help out the federal treasury, which is running a credit card up with the bank of China and other countries. What it will also do, I think, is allow us to make investments in basic scientific research, in infrastructure, in broadband lines, in green energy and will allow us to give us--give some relief to middle class and working class families who have been driving this economy as consumers but have been doing it through credit cards and home equity loans. They're not going to be able to do that. And if we want the economy to continue to go strong, then we've got to make sure that they're getting a little relief as well.
BARTIROMO: But it's not just the Warren Buffets of the world who own stocks, so...
Sen. OBAMA: Of course not.
BARTIROMO: ...let's hypothetically say that...
Sen. OBAMA: Right.
BARTIROMO: ...cap gains tax goes from 15 percent to 25 percent.
Sen. OBAMA: Right.
BARTIROMO: You're impacting a lot of people.
Sen. OBAMA: Right.
BARTIROMO: A hundred million Americans own stocks today.
Sen. OBAMA: Absolutely.
BARTIROMO: So it's not just the rich.
Sen. OBAMA: No, no, no, absolutely. And that's why I think that it may be, for example, that you could structure something in which people with certain incomes were exempted from this increase and it would stay at 15. The broader principle that I'm interested in is just making sure that we've got a tax code that is fair for all Americans. And I think it is not unreasonable to say--you know, I know that we'll get some arguments from some folks on this, but it's not unreasonable to say that those of us in the upper brackets have benefited disproportionately from a globalized economy; that those benefits have been compounded by the Bush tax cuts and that for us to roll back some of those tax cuts and to put this economy on a more stable fiscal footing and to make investments in the American people so that they can afford a decent life, that that is actually good long term for our economy and also good for investors and Wall Street.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.