Kevin, first off, you're taking what I said about a specific idea (everyone pays the exact same dollar amount) and twisting it into a completely different argument. and yeah, i'm a bit of an economics nerd, so i do know how it works now.
Generally, i either disagree with or find irrelevant most everything you said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Marx
Take everything out of it and just suppose for a moment that we all are really equal at birth and then move forward.
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For me, that part of what you're saying dies right there. Obviously we aren't aren't anything remotely resembling equal at birth, so we're looking at an ivory tower discussion. I prefer to save those for when i'm really baked and in one of those 'in a perfect world...' moods.
The january/march/september thing is nonsense. We figure these things on an annual basis.
The people you're referring to (the poor, mostly) contribute next to nothing
because they have next to nothing. You know the saying 'you cant squeeze blood from a rock'? There ya go. Blaming the poor for the current state of our economy is not only far right-wing class warfare at it's finest, but it's factually inaccurate. I'm pretty sure destitute, poorly educated people weren't running Citi, BofA, Chase etc when they were creating and pushing mortgage products that were destined to drive us to the brink of a second Great Depression. In fact, i'm certain it was very wealthy, very amoral people running that show.
Stop handing out voting as a privilege? Are you fucking shitting me? You're basically talking about going back to feudalism. I'll pass.
That said, i do agree that current spending is not sustainable. The military budget needs to come down drastically, but in an orderly fashion. Cutting the DoD budget in half overnight would be economically disastrous. Also, did you know we spend $50 Billion (with a B) per year on the stupid,
corporate-profit motivated, utterly fucking pointless War on (some) Drugs??
Here's the immediate problem: history has shown time and again that austerity in tough economic times ALWAYS leads to disaster. Fortunately, we currently have a once in a lifetime opportunity to borrow money for virtually nothing (adjusted for inflation, it's actually free money) so we can continue to stimulate an economy that desperately needs it.