Oy. Might as well paint "liberal" on my forehead and run through an NRA meeting, but here goes...
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Originally posted by apechild
Hold on. The tax cuts resulted in the middle and lower class paying an even lower proportion of taxes that they did previously. In other words, they received a disproportionately large tax cut, which helped them much more than it helped the rich.
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When we're dealing with the scale of inequality that we're dealing with in this country, looking at proportions and "fairness" is a misleadingly simple way of looking at a complex system that tends to reward those at the top disproportionately more than those at the bottom.
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Besides, since when has it been the job of the federal government to redistribute wealth? Do you want the IRS taking money from the most productive and handing it out to the least productive?
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No, I want the government to level the playing field and meet the basic needs of all of its citizens before allowing the fabulously wealthy who reached that level of wealth through inheritance, dishonest/unethical behavior *koff* Ken Lay *koff*, gaming the system (who do you think gets first crack at good-looking IPOs?), or just pure luck to prosper even more. I'm sure there are a lot of economic arguments I'm not privy to that would support this kind of inequality, but I know there are some that say such inequality is bad for the society as a whole, and just ethically it seems wrong.
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If we take away, or even reduce the incentive to work and succeed, what do you think will happen to the economy then?
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We'll look more like Scandinavia? People would stop buying shit they don't need? What?
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Originally posted by UstwoWhile I agree with some of what you say, MORE unemployment benefits is not a good solution
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I don't know - I think the people who would have abused the system in the first place would abuse it anyhow, regardless of the increased benefit, and increasing/extending the benefits might actually help those who were genuinely trying to get back to work. It's not as though you could live for any extended period of time on unemployment benefits anyhow, but it might make the difference between solvency and bankruptcy for people who really just need a little more time to find a good job. I just don't think that increasing benefits is that much more incentive for abuse than what's currently in place.