Obama Wins

The problem is most people cannot afford many of the necessities of life in the United States anymore. The people who work for minimum wage (for Romney's gain no less) cannot afford the basics. These jobs still need to be filled, otherwise Romney would not make money. So his answer is that these people should get better jobs, but he himself is unwilling to pay better wages.

The reason 47% of Americans don't pay income tax is they cannot afford the basic necessities of life on their wage, so taxing them would harm them more. The reason the rest pay tax is that they can afford that extra vacation home on the coast, or a third car for Sunday drives. These people should pay more taxes so the people who work under them, the people who make them money can still have a decent living and put food on their table.

Social assistance is necessary because wages have not kept up to inflation. Romney and his Ilk have never had to worry where their next meal might come from. He was born a millionaire. He doesn't have a clue what it is like to earn minimum wage. He thinks everyone can just get a good job. That cannot happen. If everyone made a decent wage, he would not make close to what he does now.

A very small percentage of that 47% is on welfare. The rest are seniors, the disabled and those who make below the poverty line. Romney has made it very clear in his America these people should starve as some sort of incentive to get a better job. Problem is business is sitting on record amounts of capital and not creating more jobs. They are hoarding because they know about the coming recession part two.

There will always be people on minimum wage. You can either ensure mechanisms are in place to ensure these people can enjoy a decent amount of quality of life, or you can pay them a decent wage and see business profits shrink.

Romney is choosing the other path, let these people starve, let them suffer, who cares if they are on the street. Maximize his own profits, and these people can scrape by on the scraps he and his kind drop for them. Kind of like life in the industrial revolution.

Lumping everyone who doesn't make what is considered above poverty in with lazy slobs does an injustice to everyone who worked hard, and still works to make America what it is. The gas jockeys, the factory workers and the waitresses.

I'll leave you with this. 30 years ago a man could work a low paying factory job and raise a family with his wife staying at home. Now, because wages have only gone up a small amount, and cost of living has gone up a great amount that same man in the same job needs his wife to work as well to have the same house, car and family. The American dream has been eroded by greed, and unless the wealthy take a pay cut to give a wage someone can support a family on, they can expect it to be taken in the form of taxes so the people who actually physically do the work that keeps the country going are able to continue to do so.

If the rich continue getting richer as has been the trend for the last 30 years, how long do you honestly think it will be before America resembles China? Where there is a class that gets everything because they were born with money and power, and the rest are there to make them wealthier. Sure the odd person can crawl out of the muck and get wealthy if he is extremely lucky and hard working, but America wasn't designed for that. Anyone who works hard should get a decent life. Not just those in the right place at the right time with the right parents.

oh yeah and remember when obama signed acta but said he was against sopa? Yeah i like that too

But that is where you are wrong. First, socialist and communist are two entirely different things. I am a supporter of socialism, and live in a country where it functions quite successfully. Yes the rich are good for the economy. They do create jobs. The problem is when we decide they do not need to pay taxes. After WW2 the tax rate on the wealthy was MUCH higher than today, and that lead to the largest growth the country ever saw in wealth for EVERYONE (except those making enough money for their families to live off for generations.)

The problem with your thinking is that you do not see the long term picture. In every example we have throughout history, the larger the gap is between the wealthy and non-wealthy, the less successful the country becomes. Unless something is done by government to reduce the gap, it will grow exponentially.

Having the wealthy pay a larger share of taxes helps ensure this gap remains small. I agree that the money could go to better uses in most cases, and the US needs a MASSIVE decrease in government spending to deal with the deficit. However Romney is going to take all the profit from the cuts to services, and give them to the wealthy in the form of tax cuts. He has already said as much. This will only increase the wealth gap, which has never bode well for any society. This has been tried time and time again and only leads to government deficits and larger income gaps.

When people accumulate money, it is a bad thing for the rest of us. If they choose not to spend it (which they are doing in record numbers at the moment, even with the lowest tax rates since before WW2) we do not have as much money in circulation. This means less money can go around to people who are trying to work for it. This would normally lead to deflation, which would be great, however since the money still exists, and is counted as part of the economy, prices do not fall. They remain high as businesses that Americans rely on use Monopolist practices to ensure profits remain high (gas price collusion for example)

Essentially the problem comes down to greed in the U.S. Everyone wants profits for the least cost to themselves.

For example, the military budget in the U.S. It has increased to a size that is almost laughable as a percentage of GDP. But when this massive force is unleashed, say as it was in Iraq, the main benefactors (oil companies, Lockheed etc.) saw a decrease in the taxes they paid. That means the U.S. military grossly increased the size of the government expenses, yet there was no mechanism in place to pay for it. That is why the U.S. is bankrupt. Poor planning.

You have to say "we want to spend this money here, so we have to raise taxes here." It's common sense. Instead the U.S. has said "we want to spend money here, but we won't do anything to pay for it other than borrow money."

Basically it comes down to this. Washington is no longer designed for the people. It is used as a form of wealth generation for the rich, instead of the classic Robin Hood model of government that had allowed the U.S. to flourish in the postwar era (higher taxes on the rich have always lead to the most successful years in the U.S. for GDP growth.) The wealthy pay for lobbyists, who have politicians rewrite rules and increase their own wealth. That is why trillions are hidden in offshore accounts with no consequences. That is why Romney pays less tax (based on percentage) than the average American household. That is why the 1% of Americans who have the most wealth continue to see it grow, while the rest of the country fights over a smaller and smaller share.

We can agree on a lot, and Obama does not have all the answers by a long shot, but Romney simply wants to increase his wealth. That is what his whole life has been about up to this point and his candid remarks show that's exactly his plan for those who have the most money. Increasing the gap between wealthy and non-wealthy only leads to a lower quality of life, and that fact has been proven in every example ever seen in history where a majority of wealth stays in the hands of a few.

I hardly ever use the term communist, but some of the ideas you were using I know from communism.

I agree that we need huge spending cuts.

The military isn't our big problem in the US, it's entitlements. The way things are going, unless we fix the problems entitlements will eat up the entire budget by 2045. Non wartime military spending has traditionally been around 4% of GDP, and is unquestionably a responsibility of government.

Also war spending doesn't explain our deficits. Borrowing for "stimulus" is largely to blame. Entitlements are also to blame.

The rich very much do pay taxes. They nearly pay all of the taxes. Even people who fall into the lower tax brackets often actually pay no income tax.

Tax brackets after WWII were much different than today. They had a lot more brackets which went to much higher amounts in real dollars. If you compared our highest tax bracket to the equilivant bracket in real dollars it wouldn't be nearly as far off as it appears. Also during WWII women entered the workforce, and afterward the men returned to the workforce, so it's not surprising to see an increase. Besides the world wide economy would be seeing men return to work. Regulations also weren't anything like they are now. It's just not good evidence for increasing taxes as a way to improve our economy now.

Also tax revenues as a percent of GDP have always remained pretty constant no matter how high taxes are raised, so it really does little to bring in more revenue.

This is now a global market. Raising taxes will work even less now.

Funny thing is if redistribution of income would work, then the borrowing would have also worked. For that matter just printing money would work.

Also Romney has said he wants a 20% tax cut across the board. That policy actually wouldn't affect the income he makes.

Your understanding of money supply is off. Wealthy people not spending their money won't constrict the money supply unless they hide it under their mattress, or burn it. Even then it will take time to even be noticed in the economy, and when it is noticed (by prices going down), then the FED can just loosen the money supply. It wouldn't be a big deal. However what really happens is they invest it in new companies. These companies hire people, and more wealth is created.

Most importantly your characterization of Romney is way off. He's like the nicest guy in the world. He is constantly doing charatable acts to help people, but he doesn't talk about it. Some of the stories are starting to come out now. He has also worked for free quite a bit. He worked as Governor for free, as CEO of the Olympics for free, and when Bain & Company (mother company of Bain Capital) had financial problems he worked as CEO for free to fix their problems. That's 9 years working for nothing.

As I understand it, when Bain Capital was founded it legally entirely belonged to Mitt Romney. He held all the ownership because that was the easiest way to get it started. Nobody cared though because everyone fully trusted him. If all he cared about was money he could have really screwed everyone else over.

Romney's rich because he basically invented a new way to do business. In the process he's probably created thousands and thousands of times more wealth than he has.

The whole key to making capitalism work is allowing people to accumulate capital that can then be used to create new jobs, and innovations. Redistributing wealth won't lead to innovation.


Anyway I look forward to the possibility of having a president that has actually taken economics classes, and even better actually knows how to run a successful business.