A Political Discussion

[migtig]

Not about political parties. I want to share a conversation and get your input/feedback.

------

Why does a thief steal? To get food for himself and his family. Maybe he wants drugs and cannot afford them. Maybe he wants fancy electronics. He (the thief) makes no bones about it. You have money and he has a gun aimed at you and he takes your money. He does not pretend he is stealing from you for your own good. He will use his money for his own benefit, not yours. It is a crime, you and the theif both know it. Even he is ging to call it that if someone steals from him what he stole from you.


But the government takes our money and says it will spend it better than we can. It says it is doing it for our own good, whether we approve or not. And it never admits what it does is a crime. It does not wait for our permission before it decided what to buy with our money either.

[MarieB]

This made me think about a recent conversation I had with someone about California's income tax increase. I was shocked (maybe I shouldn't have been) that the initiative actually made the increase retroactive to be beginning of 2012. Now that is stealing from those who did not vote for it

[PsyOps (Premo)]

Taxes are not just a means to collect money to run the government and abused for pet projects and wasteful spending; it’s a tool to pin one social class against another. Our constitution allows the government to collect taxes to run the government. At what point does it become theft; that our taxes are no longer used to run government, they are abused by politicians that aim to use it for their own selfish goals?

[FreedomFan]

Originally Posted by migtig

Not about political parties. I want to share a conversation and get your input/feedback.

------

Why does a thief steal? To get food for himself and his family. Maybe he wants drugs and cannot afford them. Maybe he wants fancy electronics. He (the thief) makes no bones about it. You have money and he has a gun aimed at you and he takes your money. He does not pretend he is stealing from you for your own good. He will use his money for his own benefit, not yours. It is a crime, you and the theif both know it. Even he is ging to call it that if someone steals from him what he stole from you.


But the government takes our money and says it will spend it better than we can. It says it is doing it for our own good, whether we approve or not. And it never admits what it does is a crime. It does not wait for our permission before it decided what to buy with our money either.

Right on, brother or sister.

Taxation is based on the premise that the goobermint has a higher claim on our income than we do. Social contract my ass.

If a thief robs you and steals $100 from your wallet, is it any better if he says, "Don't worry, I will drop $20 by the orphanage on my way home." That's government taxation.

If stealing 100% of the output from a human being is called slavery, at what percentage is it no longer slavery?

[tommyjo]

There are 435 members of Congress, 100 Senators and 1 President. THEY can't agree on a budget. How in the hell do you expect over 300 million people to agree?

The terms "confiscate" and "govt thinks it can spend money better than the individual can" are always thrown out on this site.

The income tax has been around since, what 1916 or 1917. That is almost 100 years. Yet you want to post that taxes are taken illegally?

You think the individual has better money sense? That's a crock. Do you see what people spend their money on? Have you seen any of the multitude of studies showing how woefully unprepared US citizens are for retirement? What was the root cause of the last recession? No it wasn't the election of Barack Obama...it was the housing industry and people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford...or people using their homes as an ATM.

Is the govt a great steward of money? No...but your assertion that the individual is a great steward of their own money is just dumb and ignorant of every fact/study that proves otherwise.

Regarding govt spending. What do you think a road costs? What do you think a smart bomb costs? What does it cost Medicare for end of life care, new knees/hips or doctor visits? What does it cost to provide benefits to federal employees, members of the military? What does it cost to inspect dams, bridges, airplanes, etc. What does it cost to educate a kid? What does it cost to catch a thief? What does it cost to regulate a bank or a whole economy? It certainly isn't free.

The people have no concept of budgeting...no concept of economics...no concept of the debt or deficit and how they relate to GDP. (This is proven every day on this site)

Yet, you think the people are qualified to vote on govt spending/revenue issues?

We have real, actual problems in this country. We are spending too much money and not bringing in enough to cover the promises that have been made to ALL citizens.

We have to decide how to fix Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We have to decide how much defense do we really need (we spend more on defense that the next 17 largest countries combined.)

...you want a new Thomas Johnson bridge, you'll want new knees in your 70s...you'll want your kid to get unemployment payments if they lose their job in a future recession...you want the bad guys of the world to stay away from our shores...you want cars that are safe...you want food that is safe to eat. You want the pride that comes along when the US or a US company discovers or creates something fabulous.

But you don't want to pay one cent towards any of it?

If you actually want to understand the issues we face, turn off Fox News, turn off Glen Beck, ingore Rush Limbaugh...turn off MSNBC and stop reading the Huffington Post.

Read the reports from the CBO, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve...browse Economists View, Economist Club or any of the vast array of wonderful non-politcal economics based websites that are readily available...

[PsyOps (Premo)]

Originally Posted by tommyjo

There are 435 members of Congress, 100 Senators and 1 President. THEY can't agree on a budget. How in the hell do you expect over 300 million people to agree?

The terms "confiscate" and "govt thinks it can spend money better than the individual can" are always thrown out on this site.

The income tax has been around since, what 1916 or 1917. That is almost 100 years. Yet you want to post that taxes are taken illegally?

You think the individual has better money sense? That's a crock. Do you see what people spend their money on? Have you seen any of the multitude of studies showing how woefully unprepared US citizens are for retirement? What was the root cause of the last recession? No it wasn't the election of Barack Obama...it was the housing industry and people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford...or people using their homes as an ATM.

Is the govt a great steward of money? No...but your assertion that the individual is a great steward of their own money is just dumb and ignorant of every fact/study that proves otherwise.

The thing you fail to understand is, the money I spend is MY money. The money the government spends is OUR money. The government has a far larger responsibility to be good stewards with other peoples’ money than any individual has with their own.

[FreedomFan]

Regarding govt spending. What do you think a road costs? What do you think a smart bomb costs?

Regarding those costs ... where do you think that money comes from?

[FreedomFan]

The income tax has been around since, what 1916 or 1917. That is almost 100 years. Yet you want to post that taxes are taken illegally?

16th Amendment is unconstitutional.

[kwillia]

The concept of collecting taxes for the betterment of society as a whole in the form of infrastructure makes sense. However, we stopped doing that decades ago. We lost our way when our government was allowed to rob the coffers that were earmarked for specific things to pay for promises they made without having the means to fund them. Let me put it in simple terms...

Let's say I own a dump truck. Bought it brand new and shiny. I work that truck and because I know that at some point 10 years down the line that truck will need an engine overhaul to the tune of 10k plus, I earmark a fund that I put money into year after year in order to cover the expense I know will eventually come. As the years go by and I see that sizable pot of money, I may be tempted to treat myself to a worldly vacation or buy a motorcycle with it... but that would be fiscally irresponsible.

Had we left the original system of collect and earmark in place we would have the money to pay for infrastructure upkeep. Same thing for the money they took from us to "save in a safe place for our future retirement".

We need to get back to a blanced budget. We are expected to do it with our personal finances... why can't we expect it from our government?

[ylexot]

Originally Posted by FreedomFan

16th Amendment is unconstitutional.

As an amendment to the Constitution, it is impossible for it to bee unconstitutional. It is, by definition, constitutional. It may be a bad amendment worthy of repeal, but it is not unconstitutional.