[quote=The Truth][quote=CA renter]
That’s right, you DIDN’T build that (and I was saying this long before Warren/Obama started saying it). Without all of the social, legal, physical, and military, etc. infrastructure provided by the government, it would be far, far more difficult to make money.[/quote]
BUT the government only gets the money to build that infrastructure thanks to the work of private citizens and companies. We DID do that. Without funding provided by the privately employed, the government has nothing. I am not saying that there should be no government, but that the ‘government’ doesn’t do this out of some grand benevolence with money it earns, but rather money it seized from private individuals and companies.
[quote=CA renter]As for the net, per capita benefit of govt services going to the rich vs the poor, I just stated above why that’s the case. Joe Sixpack, the lowly worker/welfare recipient, is not reaping nearly the same monetary benefit as someone who makes huge sums as a result of our military operations, infrastructure, intellectual property protection, well-regarded financial markets (because of our regulations, not in spite of them), etc.
You’re also wrong about your taxes necessarily going to someone who pays a lower tax rate. You can have someone who pays a rather high tax rate (say 40%) and another who pays a much lower tax rate (say 10%), but the second person might be getting far fewer benefits, per dollar paid, than the one who pays the higher rate. You can pay a 10% rate (or whatever random lower rate), but use very few govt-provided goods and services. The person paying a 40% rate might be a much heavier burden on the govt. [/quote]
Again, you are just making it up – saying what you feel or want it to be. ‘Might be this, could be that…’ You don’t get it: if someone is having a higher portion of their wages confiscated by taxes (and a higher overall dollar amount), they on average are shouldering a higher burden of the government. The fact is, there are over 66 million on some type of welfare program and another 21 million employed by the government. This is supported by 109 privately employed people. This is not sustainable. It’s a picture of our Social Security system on a grand scale.
The PA Dept of Welfare released a study that a single mother of two is generally better off taking a job paying $29K/year than one paying $69K/year thanks to to entitlements that more than make up for the $40K gap. We have something seriously wrong in this country and the entitlement society.
You also seem to be fond of bashing people/entities like Steve Jobs or Walmart. Do you have any idea how much worth has been created for people across the economic spectrum by Jobs or Walmart? But no, you wouldn’t think about that.[/quote]
I’m not making anything up. The way to determine whether or not someone is a net beneficiary of or net contributor to the government is to evaluate what they put in vs. what they get out. What you seem to ignore is the tremendous amount of “corporate welfare” we provide, with a huge portion of our military expenditures, not to mention research dollars, benefiting corporations, not Joe Sixpack (though we’re willing to let J6 die for the benefit of those corporations). You aren’t naive enough to believe that we fight wars in order to vanquish the “bad guys” who do mean things, are you? It is, and has always been, a fight to control natural resources and further enrich the few who have wealth and power. That is the ONLY reason we go to war.
As for the single mother of two, do you think she is choosing to take the $29K job instead of the $69K job? Again, if income and wealth were better distributed (with labor receiving a greater share of the surplus value that THEY create), she would not have to be on welfare in the first place.
Do you know how many decent paying jobs Walmart has destroyed (usually small mom & pop stores where the owners could make a modest, but decent living)?
As for Apple, I have a difficult time idolizing someone who does this:
