hmmm...how 'bout this one vic...

[newgirl2708]

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign the read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed--just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
OR IS IT.........REDISTRIBUTION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S WEALTH IS A GREAT IDEA

[trippedoutgirl]

I think what you did was great. More of use might want to try this. We all have a right to do with our money as we please. I'am sure the homeless person was in much need. The person working could have been in just as much need. It will be hard to know where to really put this money, but for now we will have to wait and see how things work out.

[hopsing94]

Where has Obamas flag been? Another little thing he has had to do to win. I'm sure it is killing him to have that on his plane.
  The last 8 years haven't been bad at all. The last two years have though. hmmm wonder why. Oh yeah the dems took over congress.
  What is wrong with the millionaire anyway. On his way up he worked his *** off to get there and i'm sure he paid alot of taxes to get there. I'm sure he did have some loopholes to pay less taxes. Don't think for a second that your democrat buddies have passed on paying a few taxes. Sounds like alot of jealousy out there. Hell just turn on your tv and watch the commercials there are companies out there telling you how to get out of paying back taxes and they are not all millionaires that they are helping.
  Wait a minute if there was a loophole for you would you take it. McCain wants to double the amount you can deduct as a middle class person. Hmmm sounds pretty good.

[flmagi]

Great post , Lovepat.  My computer has been down and I've missed alot, so I'm trying to catch up on everything.

[allaboutmary]

Wow Lovepat that was a great post.  It really does explain it all.

Newgirl......I appreciate what your saying.  Oh by the way .....the gardener was very happy with his pay and didn't mind at all paying the taxes either.  He was just upset that the millionaire had a loop hole to get out of paying any taxes.   I should probably name this gardener. lol

[newgirl2708]

I said:

"I would never stiff the waiter"

I would demonstrate this every chance I get however, as I believe most Obama supporters don't understand this concept.

With that said, people are going to take that last sentence personally. There are about, oh I will say, 10 people here on the forum that have done research and are abreast of the issues and have educated themselves on both sides and have come to their decisions. Wonderful, that's the way it should be, even if we don't agree, we've exercised our rights. That is the system I am very proud of. No matter what party affiliation. I will support your choice till my last breath, even if I don't agree with you. I believe in your rights.
In my community, where I live however, I can't find 10 people who have picked up a book or newspaper or logged onto a computer to do any type of research to come to their decision. It's as though they are children who have made a mess of their lives, do to poor choices and now need a 'daddy' to come fix it. He has the answer they've all been waiting to hear. 'I will fix your mess. We'll get all these other people who haven't made a mess come and help you clean yours...After all, they've got time, as they've no mess to clean up"

What I do find 'humorous' is Obamas' redistribution theroy and saying "I call it, just being neighborly" to me, that's humorous.

The gardener, waiter and myself are no one elses responsibility.

We have made our own choices in what livelihoods we've made. It's the gardeners problem he didn't negotiate a better deal with the millionaire, not the millionaire's. (let me say, i do understand the point you were trying to make). In other words, I refuse to hold the millionaire and his accountant responsible for the gardeners poor negotiating skills and or life choices.

I like Obama, I like McCain. I don't want either one as President. Should I not vote? Like you, this is what I have to choose from. I have chosen the one that I think reflects closest to what I want.

Sidebar Lovepat:
I think you're taking the context of the e-mail 'literally' while I'm taking it 'metaphorically'

This is newgirl and I approve this political message.

God Bless you and God Bless the United States of America.

[lovepat906]

Here's something interesting. I just heard Bill O'Reilly predict on 60 minutes that, if elected, Barack Obama will  provide  cautious centrist leadership.

[lovepat906]

To create our best society those of us who are blessed to have had responsible and loving parents, good teachers and a dose of good fortune have the responsibility to use our considerable resources and innovative minds to provide an infrastructure of education and opportunity for those who aren't so lucky.  We all know direct handouts weaken and embitter the recipients of no-strings-attached charity.  But that's not what the real American Dream's promise is.

Our real dream is based on a mutual promise to give everyone an honest chance at a decent life.  But our pursuit of the common good has been lost in a chorus of "tough luck-it's your own damn fault" social and economic policies.  I am not proposing we bailout irresponsible behavior of anyone, rich or poor.  Everyone should be responsible to clean up his or her own messes.  But the self-serving belief that wealth is a sign of virtue and that financial struggles are proof of laziness is obscenely wrong.  What kind of a society have we created?  For me what I see is a society that has parachutes and bailout plans for the rich and well connected while everyone else gets pushed out of the airplane and told to roll when they hit the ground.  This is not the best we can do.  We need wisdom, morality, fairness and dignity rather than slogans, selfishness, self-righteousness and nastiness.   To get it we're going to have to vote for it, from the President to your City Council candidates.

When I look at the example of some of our best presidents, I am inspired.  Inspired by their belief that the best society is one in which those with the most advantages and resources help strengthen the means to rise up the opportunities of all.  For me that's a renaissance of practical-idealism.  Isn't our best society one in which the most citizens are empowered to do their best and be their best?  It's time we vote for the American Dream.

Amen.lovepat
AMEN

[lovepat906]

I was reminded of that when I read Dean Calbreath's column in the San Diego Union Tribune titled "Spreading the Wealth." Calbreath reminds us that Jefferson and Madison were insistent that significant financial inequality not become life-as-usual in America.  They were escaping a smothering aristocracy in Europe and England and they knew that if the wealthy interests controlled the government, the banks, and the land a new aristocracy would pass laws to insulate themselves from competition and protect their wealth and their children's wealth in a thousand different ways that would cripple opportunity for the rest of us.  Neither Jefferson nor Madison were socialists but as Calbreath reminds us, Jefferson proposed "taxes could be used to reduce enormous inequality," and Madison proposed policies to limit "extreme wealth" and promote a broad middle class.  Calbreath also points out that none other than Abraham Lincoln instituted America's first income tax.  It only taxed the more prosperous.  And Teddy Roosevelt proposed a graduated income tax and inheritance tax.  The motivation of these great presidents was not to punish the hard working, inventive risk-takers and reward the slackers; rather it was to use the taxes raised to create a civil society where the infrastructure of universal education, roads, bridges, and later power, water, and communication would reinforce the force of liberty for all of us to pursue our own dreams.

Our great presidents were trying to create a society that presented the greatest opportunity for happiness and least avoidable suffering possible.  They realized that liberty is not simply an absence of laws and regulations, but rather it is a system of laws and regulations that promotes the common good for us.

Today, those who believe that the opportunities for a well-educated suburban high school student whose parents can help him pay for college, buy a car or a down payment on the his first home and the opportunities for a fatherless inner city girl attending a violence-drenched high school are anywhere near the same are simply ignoring another inconvenient truth.  And any self-made millionaire that thinks they achieved their wealth and advantage solely through their own hard work is as deluded as Donald Trump.

to be continued...

[lovepat906]

This about nails my reasons for voting for Obama. Only wishI could express myself as well:
October 30, 2008 by Will Marre

This election has the promise to be truly future changing.  But only if the winner seeks a dramatic new course from the wrong-headed assumptions both parties have been operating under for a very long time.  Our nation is the first in human history founded on the ideals of a government designed to constantly promote life and liberty so that all our citizens could pursue genuine happiness.  This is the root of the real American Dream.

I was raised on a ranch where the ideals of rugged individualism and personal responsibility were emphasized.  Those principles are the engine of a strong productive society.  But it's not all there is to it.  As I've spent the past three decades helping leaders and organizations link fundamental values to their decisions it has become clear to me that the questions of the purpose of life and society must be answered or our unbridled individualism will degrade into selfishness and yes, greed.

The idea that our society exists only to enable its strongest individuals to amass power and wealth is a new spin on history's oldest story.  It's always told by the people in power.  The higher ideal our founders fought for is a society in which our common responsibility is to help people we aren't related to, don't even know, or more importantly the unborn next generation.  It was based on the inspired belief that the best society is one in which all of us help ensure that the most people have a full opportunity to achieve security, dignity and contentment.  This is the vision that inspires me.

I believe that the American Dream has little to do with money.  The dream is not so much materialistic as it is spiritual.  By that I mean the promise of America is the promise of an equal chance to make something of our lives.  The freedom and responsibility to give our gifts and express our most noble desires.  If that sounds corny, maybe it's because we've become so cynical.  That's a shame.  Our founders were anything but cynical.  They were perhaps the greatest group of practical-idealists in history.

to be continued...

[VicUser]

Mary, For you first question please see my post at 7:15 yesterday.

Second question, I think we have some real problems and we have two choices. I think they both are offering change, just different types of change. I think each one has their good points, both have their bad. I am looking beyond my pocketbook and looking what do I think is better for the country. There are a lot of questions not answered by both candidates, I have read both of their websites and listened to them both speak as much as I can. Sometimes it nauseated me to do so but I wanted to hear the real message from both and believe I have read between the lines, something I don’t think most people have done.

Obama is telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. So when he is President he will have a lot to live up to. We’ll see if the press continues to report the negative that they have the past 8 years or if they start the spin machine up again and blow smoke up our rears again.

I am saying very plainly, we the citizens of this great country need to change our buying habits if we want jobs to come back. We also need to stop being a throwaway society, remember soda, aka pop, bottles that you had to return that required fewer natural resources to refill? When we hire work done such as landscaping or buy farm products we need to make sure that the work was done by Americans, or people that are in our country legally. In our IRA’s and 401k’s we need to expect a good rate of return, but be willing to give up a little if the company makes its products here. We need to be willing to make do more with less, like our parents and grandparents did in the 30’s and 40’s and use those dollars to buy things MADE IN AMERICA, by AMERICAIN COMPANIES, by AMERICAN WORKEERS.

[allaboutmary]

You can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.   Nothing changes if nothing changes.  This is not working.

Vic,  I guess the real question here is ......Do you think this country is headed in the right direction ?   It sure sounds like you do and if you do , then I totally understand you voting for McCain.

[allaboutmary]

Vic,  Can you explain how you think trickle down is working ?  It's been 8 years, where is it working ?

[VicUser]

Well I think that saying trickle down doesn't work is an opinion, not the truth, so I guess we are at a draw.

[lovepat906]

As long as you don't characterize " opinion" as truth- I can accept that.

[VicUser]

That is a matter of opinion.

[lovepat906]

The point is- Obama was NOT talking about "redistributing the wealth". That is a false characterization. He was talking about graduated  income taxes. We can debate the percentages and who makes out better, but graduated income tax is not socialism. And thus the story of stiffing the waiter misses the point.

[VicUser]

We do have a graduated income tax scale right now, depending how you look at it from 4% to 35%, the actual tax rate depends on many factors, but no doubt the lower income pays less percentage wise and total dollar wise. I doubt that too many people that make good money think they should pay no taxes, but what Obama wants to do goes way beyond that. I know this can be debated, but by his own words and printed items Obama is making it very unclear where the middle class ends and the upper class begins.

[lovepat906]

More on "spreading the wealth":

Here's Teddy Roosevelt- a McCain hero:
“The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government,” Roosevelt declared in 1907. “Not only should he recognize this obligation in the way he leads his daily life and in the way he earns and spends his money, but it should also be recognized by the way in which he pays for the protection the State gives him.”

"That’s why Roosevelt supported a graduated inheritance tax as well as the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed the federal government to collect personal income taxes. But let’s be clear: Roosevelt was no socialist. Indeed, progressive taxation was often put forth as an alternative to socialism. In a time of growing economic inequality and labor unrest, supporters said, only a tax on the rich would stave off revolution.

And McCain wasn’t a socialist, either, when he advocated progressive taxation back in 2000. “I don’t think Bill Gates needs a tax cut. I think you and your parents do,” McCain said, during his battle with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination. Mocking Bush’s calls for across-the-board tax relief, McCain underlined just who would be relieved: the rich. “We give the millionaire a $2,000 refund,” McCain explained. “Governor Bush gives him $50,000.”

Fast-forward to this year’s campaign, and we find a very new McCain. Rather than rejecting Bush’s tax cuts, like Roosevelt would, McCain wants to make them permanent. Even more, McCain and his backers now deride anyone who disagrees with them as a “tax-and-spend liberal,” or, yes, as a socialist.

At a rally earlier this month in Wisconsin, one McCain supporter condemned Obama and House speaker Nancy Pelosi as “hooligans.” He went on to grumble that “socialists are taking over our country.” McCain nodded appreciatively, and later said that the speaker was right.

He isn’t. Teddy the Rough Rider knew that, a century ago, insisting that well-to-do Americans should pay more than the rest of us. And John McCain knew it, too, until he rode roughshod over Roosevelt’s memory. If you demand progressive taxation in 1907, you get your face carved onto Mount Rushmore. But if you advocate the same thing in 2008, you’re an enemy of hard-working plumbers. Go figure."


• Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of “Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century.”

[VicUser]

Well yes I have, the family that adds a new pool to their house hires workers in the US to do the job. The family that has landscaping done hires workers in the US to have it done. The family that hires decorators to custom paint walls and pictures on the walls hires workers in the US to have it done. The family that adds on to their house or builds a new one hires US workers to have it done.  Most of the time the people that have any of the above done are the upper income or at least the upper middle class people, taking money away from in the form of higher taxes  to “redistribute” the wealth will reduce the amount of jobs created and will make more people dependant on the Gov’t for handouts.

BTW, sometime the people that have the above done are the recipients of inheritance, so higher death taxes will also result in less money for people to create jobs.  Remember the old adage “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time”? Which do you think Obama’s redistribution of wealth supports? If I am penalized for working harder by higher taxes why try, if I don’t try and don’t make more then how will I be able to have things done that creates jobs?

Same goes with small and big business, if the stock holders can get a better return on their investment (ROI)by the company having work done offshore because of tax rates, where do you think they are going? In your IRA or 401k are you looking for the best ROI, most people are, and the company can get better labor rates and tax treatment offshore where are they going to go?  When you go to the store and to can get a product made by company A that is made offshore for ½ the price of the one form company B, what are you going to do? So who is greedy? Who is sending jobs from our neighborhoods?

[lovepat906]

I think it would be a really nasty thing to stiff a hard working wait person for any reason-
not the least bit humorous in my book. If you " look forward" to it it speaks volumes.
IF you  research the commentary made by Obama, and consider it in context- it had nothing to do with wealth redistribution- yet another " twist" of the facts. Sen. Obama was expressing support for progressive taxation- which has been supported by such notables as: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt (hero of and oft quoted by McCain) and,,,,, drum roll>>>>>>> Sen.John McCain.

[allaboutmary]

By the way, has anyone noticed that in the past 8 years,  the middle class's income has gone down and the rich have gotten 400% richer ?   Where are all the jobs that Bush's tax cuts created ?........anyone seen them.....?

[allaboutmary]

Ok here's the democrat's version. lol
This multi millionaire hires a gardener. He agrees to pay him $300 a week.  Payday comes and he is paid only $250 after taxes.  The gardener sees the millionaires accountant on his way into the house and asks......how much did Mr. Millionaire pay in taxes.  The accountant says .....Oh I'm a great accountant ......I found loopholes so Mr. Millionaire is not paying any taxes again this year.

[newgirl2708]

This is such a popular e-mail in my area, the ten I sent it to replied "I've already seen this one"....I thought most of you fine computer people have already seen it too. I thought maybe one or two had not, such as myself, so I posted it.  

Let me reiterate what I said before..I did not write/do this. Sorry for the confusion.

However, I would never stiff the waiter, but would soooo do this in a heartbeat and look forward to it should my opportunity arrise...which I believe it will after Tuesday.

[newgirl2708]

just seen this...people think i did this...it was sent to me in an e-mail...thought i was late on the roster...but when i didn't see it...i thought it was cute...

am i right wing? or does it strike a cord with you dems?

i was really waiting to hear...'that's not what we mean by redistribution...' you republicans take everything out of context...that's what i expecting...but hmmm...didn't get the argument i was looking for...

guess you can't argue the truth...www dot the truth *******....hmmm....