Why People Believe Obama Won the Debate

[saunterelle]

I have to admit I'm on the fence with this one. You make some good points and I agree there is a huge disparity in taxes paid by the CEO vs. janitor. But the fact that the CEO is still taking home over $100,000 while the janitor is struggling justifies the disparity in my mind. Also, if the taxes that the CEO pays go toward things like making college more affordable for everyone, it seems like it would increase the potential for America to stay competitive in the modern world.

I don't believe Obama is evil for taking more in taxes from the rich and helping the poor. I think he's simply looking out for those who are less fortunate. Seems to me the Republican mentality of letting people struggle and suffer (while cutting mental health services and keeping higher education expensive) is much more exclusionary and evil.

[maxsawdust]

I don't see where anyone on this forum said he was "evil" for taking more taxes.

It is however a SOCIALIST IDEAOLOGY.

He's a Socialist, you still refuse to acknowledge that fact though ..huh?


So in your mind because a person CHOSE in his life to become a janitor instead of pushing and trying like hell for more. Justifies in your mind the MANDATORY NEED for gov't in the form of TAXES that REDISTRIBUTE ANOTHER PERSONS HARD EARNED MONEY to "help" this person out? Absolutely absurd, at the very best.

So hand outs basically is what you are talking about. Funny it just smells like socialism, I mean if it walks like a duck.......


Like Bolverk stated :

The CEO only earns 7.42 times the money the janitor earns. However, he pays 15.57 times the amount of federal tax of what the janitor pays in federal taxes and 25.02 times the state tax of what the janitor pays in state taxes. All total the CEO pays 17.16 times the income taxes the janitor pays. So please, tell me how he is not paying his fair share if he only earns 7.42 times the money the janitor earns.



THIS IS CURRENTLY MORE THAN "FAIR"..

[bolverk]

I did say he was evil for doing it. The class warfare in this country that is perpetuated by the Democrat party is evil. Our tax code is wrong, no matter how it is looked at, and it needs to be replaced by something more equitable. However, it won't be, because Democrats love to use it to get elected.

[bolverk]

And, for the record, mental health services were not cut by Republicans saunterelle. I have looked into this quite extensively. In fact, during the time the cuts were made there were Democrat majorities in office, plain and simple. Majorities of 65% in both houses. It began in 1957 and continued until the final cuts were implemented according to law in 1968, the first year Reagan became governor. So, it was actually done during Democrat majorities, not Republican.

Here are your breakdowns:
1957-1958, 53.79% Democrat Majority in the House, 51% majority in the Senate
1959-1960, 64.95% Democrat Majority in the House, 65% majority in the Senate
1961-1962, 60.18% Democrat Majority in the House, 63% majority in the Senate
1963-1964, 59.54% Democrat Majority in the House, 63% majority in the Senate
1965-1966, 67.82% Democrat Majority in the House, 68% majority in the Senate
1967-1968, 56.91% Democrat Majority in the House, 64% majority in the Senate

As you can see, when changes to the mental health laws began the Democrats had a narrow majority. But, as they proceeded with the new laws, the Democrats had the ability to stop the process at any time, because they had a clear majority. However, the problems we encounter with the issue of mental health have nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats, it is another false issue. The courts have not followed the new laws as they are written, and often give the mentally ill more power then law intended. The laws were changed to curtail the abuses of the past, where people would get someone declared mentally unfit and then steal their property.

So, suanterelle, I must smite you for perpetuating an old political myth that is simply not true.

[subdjoe]

" But the fact that the CEO is still taking home over $100,000 while the janitor is struggling justifies the disparity in my mind."

So, how much, in your mind, can the CEO make before he isn't paying the extortionate taxes? $70K? $50K? $30K? How much do you make and how much do you pay in taxes? Do you turn over everything above and beyond the bare minimum you need for existance to the government and request that it "go toward things like making college more affordable for everyone"? Or do you, like that evil, greedy CEO in the example, want to keep more than that bare minimum?

The equality in our system does not mean that everyone earns the same no matter what they do. It is equality before the bar of justice and equality of opportunity. It is up to the individual to take advantage of those opportunities.

[saunterelle]

I believe, along the same lines as Obama, that more taxes should be paid by people making over $250,000. People in this bracket can still live very comfortably while giving more to help the less fortunate.

[subdjoe]

That's nice. Now, answer my question.

ADDED:

Actually, you DON'T agree with Barry-boy. In the example given you favored taking money from the CEO making considerably less than the magic $250K and dropping his wage down to the level of the janitor making $24K.

And, who decides what is "comfortable" as far as lifestyle? You seem to be saying that the State gets to control everything in our lives.

[The New Guy]

okay, i'm back in town and happy to chime in on this one:

santurella, it's obvious you don't earn over $250k because if you did i can almost GUARANTEE you would have a VERY different opinion on this.

i also don't earn $250k but someday i would like to. through hard work i plan to get there eventually. when i do i don't want to have most of it "taken" to help others who DIDN'T work hard to get it.

your ideas (and obama's) are absolutely communist. it didn't work for the USSR or any of it's satellite eastern bloc nations. it doesn't work in n. korean or cuba and it won't EVER work here. communist nations are not and have never been "competitive" with the one exception of china b/c they have actually implemented some free market reform.

i also suspect that you (as well as mink and most other libs) have never travelled beyond the bay area and certainly not overseas to any countries who live or have lived under socialist/communists regimes. if you did you would NEVER, EVER, EVER allow yourself to consider the same life for us here.

do some real research. investigate what happens when the "wealthy" are overtaxed and the "less fortunate" are given handouts. you will find that the hard working "wealthy" stop working so hard and learn to take the handouts themselves and everything goes to shit.

here are a few excerpts from a great speech that was never delivered:

***
To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was "fortunate." The dictionary says that fortunate means "having derived good from an unexpected place." There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street instead of education and personal responsibility.

If the Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of "fortune" or "luck," then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit, aren't we?

This "success equals luck" idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as "people who have won life's lottery." He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky; all they did was buy the right lottery ticket. What an insult this is to the man or woman who works that 60 hour week to provide for a family.

It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."

That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He's there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other - victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, "Look! He did this to me!" than it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S.O.B.! You did this to me!"

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.

***
The rich basically serve two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks home each week to the un-rich.

***
Envy is a powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns. Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: "The rich will pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it.'

***
You have heard, no doubt, that in America the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our government's own numbers show that many of the poor actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor ... there's an explanation -- a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor.

***
The average person in this country described as "poor" has a higher standard of living than the average European. Not the average "poor" European, the average European.


***
Don't bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it -- to take their money by force for your own needs -- then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.
***
Don't look in other people's pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs. What your earn is yours. Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone.

***
Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers. Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don't see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.

you can find the rest of the speech here: boortz.com/more/commencement.html

i eagerly await your rebuttals re: the "less fortunates."

[subdjoe]

TNG, for the most part I can agree with that post. But I do believe that there is a bit of luck involved too. Being in the right place at the right time, for example. Maybe even just the way you phrase something in an interview that catches the interest of the person. You might be saying the same thing as last 10 people, but you used a slightly different word.

Of course, luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

[Mink]

Oct 9, 2008 13:54:32 GMT -5 jgaffney said:

On another note, did anyone pay attention to the "applause-o-meter" that was run acoss the bottom of the screen? Where was the input data coming from?

Did you notice, early in the debate, when Obama started rolling out the liberal trope, "the failed economic policies of George W. Bush", the applause-o-meter took a dive?

Maybe the folks with their fingers on the input buttons realize that Bush is not on the ballot this year.

CNN is the only channel that had a meter that I know of. They explained how people do not want to hear negatives, but are focused more on their plans. I do believe the people pushing the buttons were "undecided" voters.