Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

"I Am The 50.5%" (The Makers vs. The Takers)
The Boston Herald ^ | February 25, 2012 | Michael Graham

Posted on 02/24/2012 8:10:32 AM PST by suspects

I am the 50.5 percent.

I am, according to the Heritage Foundation, part of the lucky half of Americans who pay federal income taxes, so that the other half (technically the remaining 49.5 percent) can pay nothing.

Half of us are paying the whole bill. Somehow that doesn’t seem fair. Folks like Elizabeth Warren and President Barack Obama agree. They think we should pay more.

We’re used to that, we 50.5 percenters. Every time a new “stimulus” is announced, every time a new government program to solve all our problems is rolled out, we know that a) the problems aren’t going anywhere; and b) we’ll be stuck paying the check.

And every time there’s talk of a tax “cut” or a “rebate,” we assume it will be set up so that, somehow, the people who actually pay in get left out.

But what can you do, right? If you’re a 50.5 percenter you just get up, go to work, try to take care of your family and hope that someone, somewhere in Washington or on Beacon Hill is getting your back.

They’re not.

Why should they? We’re barely half of the population. Politicians count votes — not pay stubs.

Back in the evil days of Ronald Reagan, a mere 15 percent of the population didn’t pay taxes (or in the case of children, were claimed as a dependent by a taxpayer). Back then, we had lower rates and more payers. More people in the ship of state together, sharing in the rowing. We working taxpayers mattered.

Today, thanks to the “food stamp president,” as Newt Gingrich calls him, the number of non-payers is 300 percent bigger, and a record number of Americans, one in five, now receives some level of federal government assistance.

And no, my overpaid friends in...

(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: jobs; obama; taxes; welfare

1 posted on 02/24/2012 8:10:41 AM PST by suspects
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: suspects

Reagan started this ball rolling on dropping people from the tax roles. One of The Gipper’s very few bad calls.


2 posted on 02/24/2012 8:25:53 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: suspects

Perfect class warfare signs to hold up at rally’s.


3 posted on 02/24/2012 8:25:53 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (Most Conservative in the Primary, the Republican Nominee in the General.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: suspects

You’ll know if the tipping point has been reached if Obama wins. If it has there is no going back because when a majority can vote themselves more of a minorities money that is exactly what they will do in perpetuity until it all comes crashing down.


4 posted on 02/24/2012 8:30:33 AM PST by jwalsh07
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: suspects

Well maybe if the 50.5% would stop voting liberal Democrat - but they’re not going to do that.

So smile while you pay your taxes. You voted for it. :)


5 posted on 02/24/2012 8:44:18 AM PST by Tzimisce (Never forget that the American Revolution began when the British tried to disarm the colonists.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: suspects

VOTE NEWT GINGRICH.....yes.


6 posted on 02/24/2012 8:53:56 AM PST by annieokie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: suspects

All the RICH Progressives constantly harp on how they are against the rich. And they’re going to punish the rich (themselves) by imposing an INCOME tax.

Thirty years ago I worked for William Herbert Hunt and Nelson Bunker Hunt, at that time both billionaires at #’s 5 & 3 on the Forbes list of world’s wealthiest men. My salary was $31,200/year. On several years I paid more INCOME taxes than the Hunt brothers did, even though they were billionaires, and I was worth what I took home each week. This was because there were years when their businesses lost money, i.e. no income no taxee.

I am not a punish the rich guy. But if I were, I would not use an INCOME tax to do so. The taxpayer group most associated with INCOME are the wage earners, not the wealthy 1%. The wealthy are DEFINED by wealth, i.e. assets/net worth. So if I were to punish the wealthy with a tax, it would be a tax on ASSETS or NET WORTH, not INCOME.

Either the leaders proposing income taxes on the wealthy are themselves remarkably stupid, or they actually intend to raise taxes on the working middle class rather than the wealthy (themselves).


7 posted on 02/24/2012 9:00:17 AM PST by LucianOfSamasota (Tanstaafl - its not just for breakfast anymore...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Buckeye McFrog

” - - - Reagan started this ball rolling on dropping people from the tax roles. One of The Gipper’s very few bad calls.”

A bad call is still a bad call. Who made the bad call is irrelevant.

Repeal the Reagan Millstone!


8 posted on 02/24/2012 9:02:08 AM PST by Graewoulf (( obama"care" violates the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Law, AND is illegal by the U.S. Constitution.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Tzimisce

“..if the 50.5 % would stop voting liberal Democrat..”

So true!!! Well said ... if they would wise up the problem would be solved. Many of these are social justice catholics CINO’s who keep pulling the Democrat lever like dutiful sheeple. It is so frustrating!!


9 posted on 02/24/2012 9:02:08 AM PST by stonehouse01 (Equal rights for unborn women)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: stonehouse01

That’s 50.5% of “households”. Which means that the number of individuals who are actually paying U.S. federal tax is much smaller. Those who are contributing have to pay for their own families and for the other 50% of households who pay no federal tax. The government is trying to squeeze more and more from fewer and fewer, without doing anything to cut spending. America cannot survive another 5 years of this fiscal insanity.


10 posted on 02/24/2012 10:30:31 AM PST by littleharbour
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: littleharbour

“America cannot survive another 5 years of this fiscal insanity”..

You are so right - we are sooooo screwed, especially if we get Obama again. The death throes of the economy will just be a slower form of torture if we get a RINO.

The current economic paradigm is unsustainable!! Call me paranoid, I suspect the communist/democrats in power have planned this deliberately. There is no other explanation for not approving the Keystone pipeline other than deliberate malicious intent to keep us jobless and at the mercy of the middle eastern Islams.


11 posted on 02/24/2012 11:29:36 AM PST by stonehouse01 (Equal rights for unborn women)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: suspects

And we get this nice notice in the mail yesterday: If we are on any kind of public assistance program, we can get a FREE CELL PHONE with 250 minutes per month....did I mention that it is FREE? Add a few dollars and the number of minutes balloons to 1000. Now, who do you think is paying for this largess?

Every politician should have to answer that question, then be subjected to a, figuratively at least, old time “tarring and feathering.”


12 posted on 02/24/2012 4:12:23 PM PST by jennings2004 (57 states? Kansas or Texas? American geography is so complicated....:)))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jennings2004

We keep redefining poverty. Roof overhead, non-dirt floor, heat/airconditioning, auto, cellphone, etc. That’s not poverty that’s luxury. We need to correct the meaning of poverty and define it back to reality. We don’t have a poverty problem in America. We have a reality problem.


13 posted on 02/25/2012 8:02:27 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: nutmeg

bookmark


14 posted on 02/25/2012 12:45:06 PM PST by nutmeg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: stonehouse01

It’s a fools paradise.

We’re creating fake money to pay the 99ers, welfare, food stamps, housing, electric car rebates, cell phones, energy assistance, “earned” income credits, and who knows what else.

All these bogus bucks create demand for stuff I buy every day raising my cost of living.


15 posted on 02/25/2012 12:50:23 PM PST by nascarnation (DEFEAT BARAQ 2012 DEPORT BARAQ 2013)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson