Oh man. One of my friends just told me Obama's budget plan is "socialism"!

[rockymountaindem]

Time to unload on this dude. This should be fun :)

[saltpoint]

1. If President Obama's agenda is "socialism," perhaps we should have more

of it rather than less of it, and sooner would be better than later.

[Arkana]

2. Tell him, "Get used to it, comrade!"

[Pirate Smile]

3. Did you see this on Swampland:

Progressivism
Posted by Joe Klein

At the heart of the progressive movement, one hundred years ago, was the notion of taxation on a sliding scale, according to income--the belief that the more wealthy you are, the more you should pay as a percentage of your income. The progressive income tax was launched, via constitutional amendment, by Woodrow Wilson in 1913. It remains one of the clearest fault lines between the left and the right.

Starting with Ronald Reagan, who belatedly embraced the notion of "supply side" economics (aka "voodoo economics," according to his vice president George H.W. Bush), there has been a conservative assault on the notion of progressive taxation. The intellectual underpinning of this movement, provided by Arthur Laffer, was the undoubtedly true statement that if you tax people too much, if they don't have enough to spend, the economy falters--and also, more dubiously, that the higher the marginal tax rates, the less incentive people have to create wealth (although that is undoubtedly true at the extreme margin, as the Soviet experiment showed). But how much taxation is too much? Bill Clinton demonstrated in the 1990s that rates of near 40% for the very wealthy and 25% for capital gains was not too much. Barack Obama has now returned to that benchmark (lower for capital gains--20%), and surpassed it slightly--limiting the value of tax deductions for those with incomes of over $250,000. And, like Clinton, Obama proposes to vastly expand the support for workers at the bottom end of the income scale.

David Leonhardt, the New York Times' excellent economic analyst, has the details here:

Before becoming Mr. Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners.

Mr. Obama's budget reflects that sensibility. Budget experts were still sorting through the details on Thursday, but it appeared that various tax cuts and credits aimed at the middle class and the poor would increase the take-home pay of the median household by roughly $800.

The tax increases on the top 1 percent, meanwhile, will most likely cost them $100,000 a year.

Over the coming weeks you will hear this described as a form of radicalism. It is not. It is liberalism--and more: it is purest bright line available to divide liberals from conservatives in American politics. Let the screeching begin.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/27/progressivism/

[dkf]

9. I have no problem with people paying more if they make more and paying less if they make less.

But what about people who never pay and instead receive?

That is what drives the Right nuts more than anything.

[scarletwoman]

11. What people never pay? Other than mega-corporations that hide their profits offshore?

EVERY worker pays FICA and Medicare taxes. The Earned Income Credit for low income people is a refund on THOSE taxes.

Furthermore, EVERYONE pays sales taxes, excise taxes, license fees, etc. No one pays NO taxes.

sw

[dkf]

12. Well if they never expect to get social security or medicare then I

can see them getting reimbursed for it. Does the rebate get taken away from their social security amount?

[scarletwoman]

16. Huh? Social Security is an insurance program. The EIC means that low income people are being given

a reduced rate for paying into it. And, no, it doesn't get subtracted from their benefits when they retire. Social Security is NOT a personal account. The money we pay in now is paying for the benefits of the current retirees, not our own benefits.

sw

[dkf]

18. But the amount you pay in determines your benefits, does it not?

Therefore it would make sense that if it were a true rebate, the amount would be reduced.

If it doesn't get reduced then how is that a rebate?

To me they're just playing with the concepts so people feel better about it.

[scarletwoman]

19. I never used the word rebate. I said it was a refund. I don't know off the top of my head

what percentage of your wage FICA is figured on, but let's say it's 30%. What the EIC does is basically reduce that rate to, let's say, 20%.

Your benefits are calculated on your lifetime EARNINGS, not what you've paid in. The EIC doesn't change the amount of your lifetime earnings, therefore it doesn't change your benefit amount.

sw

[dkf]

20. All I am saying is that over a lifetime, a person ought to have

contributed more than they have taken from the Government. If they get it back in Social Security, that isn't a contribution in terms of taxes.

[scarletwoman]

21. Nobody is "taking" anything from the government by collecting Social Security benefits.

Any more than they are "taking" anything from the government by driving on the interstate highway system. WE are the government. We as a society agree to pay a stake in the government in order that we as a society benefit as a whole.

I honestly don't get where you're coming from. The government is US. We contribute our money to the government in order to enable it to "promote the general welfare" of all of us.

sw

[dkf]

23. I'm talking strictly cash payments to or from the Government.

And since social security and medicare payments are done in expectation of future benefits, I don't count those as payments to the Government.

The point is we do receive services from the Government and there should be some payment for them.

Unless you are a net tax payer, you aren't contributing to your country.

Why isn't paying taxes considered patriotic? I never did get that.

[scarletwoman]

26. We're talking about people who earn so little that they don't OWE income taxes.

Do you think people ENJOY trying to raise a family on a $5.00 an hour job?

Instead of worrying about some poor single mother getting a break through the EIC, get mad at the big guys who figure out all kinds of ways to avoid paying their fair share.

Or go join the republicans, they love to blame the poor, too.

sw

[Bandit]

4. He says that as if it was a Bad thing

:shrug:

[Jeep789]

5. Dang, I wish they would make up their mind

I just read in another post that he was a radical Communist. lol

On edit: I was going to fix "minds" but decided I had it right.

[Thickasabrick]

6. As long as there are more poor people than rich people that vote -

socialism it is. We have those assholes outnumbered and the public is finally waking up. Yeehaw comrades!!!!

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

7. Ask him to define "socialism"

and watch his head explode.

[kestrel91316]

8. Tell the dude: The Constitution DEMANDS a degree of socialism -

read the Preamble - there's that part about promoting "the general welfare", and it doesn't say it's optional.

[alfredo]

10. People keep saying socialism as if it was a bad thing. In the right amount and

place, it can be a good thing.

[LWolf]

13. Your friend obviously needs to be educated about socialism, lol. nt

[acmavm]

14. Tell him that we have to become a socialist nation because for capitalism

to be an effective and socially just system, it requires that all citizens play fair, be honest, and not hurt the weakest amongst us. That is totally impossible because the republican party is nothing but a bunch of lying thugs who would steal the fillings out of our mouths if the could.

[Deja Q]

15. With 90% of jobs coming from the private sector, as President Obama had said...

Please tell your friend to stop drinking the kool-aide... oh yeah!!

[Window]

17. LOL! Michael Eric Dyson just said on CSpan, that they called Obama a socialist,

a terrorist and a marxist...now they call him Mr. President.

This is on Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union thingy. I believe Steel (RNC) and Sharpton will be on at 4 pm.

[Mollis]

22. My dad has been spouting that for months.

Says he's "afraid" for the country and we are all going to turn into facists. :eyes:

[alfredo]

24. Why not try socialism now that free market capitalism has failed?

[HughMoran]

25. I'm just cutting freeptards out of my life

They can go pound sand for all I care.

They have no power and I refuse to give them any.