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Well, my community college is looking for money. Maybe we can get some of Harvard's and Yale's. You ivy league alumni guys that donate won't mind, right? Your schools have plenty of dough. Then there's the hospital --- maybe that rich one in California with a lot of private donations can give some dough to the hospitals that are dealing with all of these illegal people with no insurance. And how much did George Clooney and Tom Cruise make on their last movie. Maybe those guys on the D List would like some. Hey, are you in business for yourself? Maybe we can take some of your profits and give them to the corner grocery store that's been operating at a loss for the last 5 years. Say, that's a nice bike. I hear you have 2 of them. Hey kids, who needs a bike? This guy has two bikes.
I submit that the OP, as millions of others, take Ronald Reagan's comments out of context or to unintended conclusions, such is the hazard of people in high office making overly generalized remarks and bumper sticker slogans.
First, we need a definition of 'redistribution of wealth' (ROW) so we have a frame of reference. I'll take a quick superficial stab at it:
IMO, ROW is to take farmland away from farmers and give it away in small plots to other citizens, as in the old communist model. Property ownership is sacred here, save for eminent domain for the public good (which still should be subject to due process reviews). No candidate is proposing such a ROW but that is what the term means to me and to others, and to use that term is to walk a slippery slope.
IMO, ROW is NOT smartly crafted tax policies that benefit the NATION as a WHOLE. If a tax policy benefits a CLASS of people at the expense of another class, or provides little or no tangible benefit to the NATION, than it is ROW. But if the benefit is to the NATION as a single whole, then it is decent tax policy and is NOT ROW.
IMO, ROW does not refer to ENDING the disastrous Bush tax cuts or cutting the outrageous farm subsidies like the ludicrous ethanol giveaway, all of which were done to please voter blocs in 2001 in order to support GOP victories in the 2002 mid-term and 2004 national elections. When Bush and the GOP congress passed these cuts and subsidies, they WERE a massive ROW from the working/middle class to the wealthy. BTW, the average subsidy to farmers is now at $1M/year, making farmers the highest paid group of workers in the nation. A few of the cuts were valid, like ending double taxation of dividends, but the wholesale cuts and huge subsidies were and are a financial disaster to our nation's finances. The Bush tax cuts and farm subsidies WERE a huge ROW and need to be rolled back to about where they were in 2000, when we had a balanced budget, things were going fine, and we were working off the national debt.
IMO, there should be no major tax cuts for anyone until we balance the budget, pay our national debt, and cover ALL our costs. This should make me a huge conservative, so what do we call debt-mongers like Bush?
IMO, we'll never come to much of an agreement on vague terms like Reagan used about "productive" people and such.
IMO, anyone who works is productive, and they ALL should have health care, strong defense, safe neighborhoods, great schools, and enjoy the blessings of liberty.
The wealthy may pay a greater percentage of their income as taxes, but they would NOT trade their position in life to be a welfare client. It may seem unfair, but it is a cost that has to be paid. I don't see any of them beating down the door to leave here for other countries. They'll get by just fine if tax rates are restored to prior levels.
To digress down racial lines, there is more than a smidgen of racism in people who cling to "beliefs" that those who aren't productive don't deserve or shouldn't get anything. I lived over 30 years in VA, where I am fully aware that local VA politicians conspired and actually made sure that black kids got very inferior educations, if any at all past grade school. It happened in MANY states, not just VA. Now there are tons of people in middle age or in retirement who were systematically and purposefully EXCLUDED from being "productive" citizens, are marginally productive at best, and probably will never come close to meeting the expectations of bigots who demand that everyone be a "productive" person in order to benefit from our society. How do we fix that? How do we make it fair for those people? IMO, about all we can do, MUST do, is provide health care to all, fix Society Security - and make damned sure that the abuses of the past don't happen again.
There are un-productive deadbeats all over, of all races and genders, but to let ancient racial prejudices keep us from having sound tax policies, a strong fiscal posture and a bright future is one of the greatest calamities we could ever inflict upon ourselves.
Shame on any political party that perpetuates the old status quo or way of thinking.
Lets put it into context.
I have a household earning of 140k me and my wife work. We have one 2 yr old. To many democrats and Obama I would be considered rich to the person who makes 27k or 50k. I have health insurance via my company, I pay my local property taxes of 5500 a year, then I have my federal taxes, my ss taxes, my unemployment tax, my gas tax, sales tax, telephone taxes, state taxes and the list goes on. I have a government that over spendings as they look to raise my taxes. I have Obama who wants healthcare for everyone and to start a Global Poverty Tax, Probably even a Global Warming tax or Carbon tax. Which is more spending and more programs. Point is soon I will be working 5 months a year to support my governments habits and promises never to deliver and to support more socialism. Give me MY money back and let me choose how to use it and I would suggest we do that it the person making 27K and 50K too.
Lets put it into context.
I have a household earning of 140k me and my wife work. We have one 2 yr old. To many democrats and Obama I would be considered rich to the person who makes 27k or 50k. I have health insurance via my company, I pay my local property taxes of 5500 a year, then I have my federal taxes, my ss taxes, my unemployment tax, my gas tax, sales tax, telephone taxes, state taxes and the list goes on. I have a government that over spendings as they look to raise my taxes. I have Obama who wants healthcare for everyone and to start a Global Poverty Tax, Probably even a Global Warming tax or Carbon tax. Which is more spending and more programs. Point is soon I will be working 5 months a year to support my governments habits and promises never to deliver and to support more socialism. Give me MY money back and let me choose how to use it and I would suggest we do that it the person making 27K and 50K too.
Obama and Congress all know none of us can afford one single more tax. It's likely the idea of letting the tax cuts lapse for the wealthy wont happen because of inflation and the rest of the present shaky economic situation.
nationalpriorities.org has a database that breaks down "your federal tax dollar" to show us exactly where our 2007 federal taxes went - several interesting configurations - Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go? | National Priorities Project (http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2008 - broken link)
This is cool but it's for 2005 - National Priorities Project: Income Tax Chart (http://www.nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/interactivetaxchart/taxchart.html - broken link)
But they're more clever. They do it through crushing the dollar, thus transfering wealth from responsible middle class savers to corporate entities as well as debt serfs.
...and they say they cut taxes :rolleyes;
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