Gotta love people who don't understand economics, Rich people don't hide their money in their mattress, they invest it.  Those investments, create jobs.  When you tax the rich people, less money is being invested, and you give that money to our government, which time and time again, has proven they will waste the vast majority.

Seriously, Obama's stimulus plans calls for hundreds of millions of dollars for condems.  That pretty much says what his plan is going to do to all of us in the long run.

How do investments create jobs?  Would GE, Ford, Chrisler, Microsoft, Apple, etc... ever have gotten to where they are without money from investors?  People just don't pull the money out of nowhere, they develop business plans, find investors to fund them, etc...  Even the McDonalds Franchises, often they are investments by rich people in order to make more money.  What is the entire purpose of publicly traded stocks?  The initial stock offerings are to raise capital.  Nursing homes?  Without the rich people to build them in an attempt to make more money, they wouldn't exist.  Right there, those are nursing jobs, nurses aids, dietary, medical records, maintenance, food services, etc...

Why are we losing jobs by the thousands?  Because our idiotic government, decided everybody should be able to own a home even if they couldn't afford it.  They strongly encouraged banks to give out loans to those that didn't qualify under previous standards, and then as Mortgage rates changed, those unqualified home owners couldn't pay their mortgages, and without that money, the credit market dried up.  Billions and billions of investor dollars lost due to the government meddling in the housing market.  As banks collapsed because of it, those rich people lost an awful lot of money, and no longer have it available to invest in other areas, so they are unable to stem the tide.

Taxes can be used as a tool to direct investment into a stalling economy.  An prime example is a tax break on capital gains for money directly invested in business, while increasing capital gains taxes for interest earned on money tucked away in savings.

Democrats don't necessarily rob from the middle class to pay poor people.  Welfare underwent a massive restructuring under the Clinton Administration which greatly limits the amounts and length that welfare is paid.  Although we still have welfare, it doesn't account for a huge part of the federal budget.

Believe it or not, both parties can have some good ideas at times.  Unfortunately neither party is willing to address the fact that our tax structure is outdated, expensive, and does not work to achieve our goals.

A combination of a value added tax and sales taxes can fully fund all government programs, thus eliminating income taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and possibly property taxes (though I doubt they'll ever let go of that one).  No one could cheat on their taxes, everyone would pay an equal rate, foreign corporations would pay the same in taxes as domestic corporations, and even the IRS would be disbanded.

It's all so simple it makes my head spin, but we can't seem to get it through our thick heads to elect only those politicians who promise to revamp the tax system, and to only re-elect those politicians who follow through with that promise.

Not trying to hijack this thread, but in all of this, I don't know how the Osama plan is going to help anything besides the fat, lazy person that wants to sit on the couch all day. I am middle class and I won't get sh!T from this new plan. I don't really want or need anything, but I don't want my taxes to skyrocket just so those lazy pukes can keep laying around.

I am very fearful where we are heading right now. President Osama has way too many flaming liberals on his side and can pretty much force anything through that he wants to.

Hopefully I am wrong and this crap helps, but I really think we are in for a long period of suffering in this country.

To get to the topic at hand, anyone who wants to know why this economy is so bad should go back to the Clinton years and investigate exactly who forced the banks to lend money to people who couldn't afford it. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not President Bush's children, but unfortunately President Clinton's illegitimate children who turned our economy upside down.

But Obama wants to cut taxes.

So Larry...brand new id but not Mike James...you ARE a Socialist?

REgards,

Luckylefty
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Open the door...see what's possible...and just walk right on through...that's how easy success feels..