James Carville: 55% of voters think Obama is a Socialist

[IllgetyouHackman]

My dad works in Manufacturing, up 40% from June '09, I look at that as a good thing.

 

[IllgetyouHackman]

At a time like this, those who have more should be giving more. Were I in that top 1%, I'd happily pay 3/4 of my income until the economy is back on track and the budget balanced. For that matter, I'd sign over half my net worth if it went to fixing infrastructure.

Now, assuming all the 1% did that (and similar ratios for those in the next fifteen percent) someone calculate what effect that would have -- I'm going to grab some breakfast.

As long as they name a bridge or two after you right? But yeah totally agree I don't understand the excess.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

My dad works in Manufacturing, up 40% from June '09, I look at that as a good thing.

What this coming election is to me is the people who CAUSED the economic face plant against the people who are trying to fix it.

 

[levenshulme31]

Obama promised his stimulus plan would "put the country back to work with shovel ready jobs". When are you going to hold him accountable for the failure of his policies to create jobs or economic growth. These things will happen if we start to do the right things. For example tax breaks to every company that has moved jobs overseas that brings them back to the USA. Tax breaks for companies that buy closed down plants and reopen them and hire people to work in them. These are only two examples of where we should be going and aren't.

So what you mean is that Obama isn't being socialist enough.

I do wish you would make your mind up.

Or do you, as appears to be the case for the ignorant 55%, want your government to behave in a socialist manner in its dealings with corporate interests but dictatorial in dealing with individual interests?

looks to me like most Americans wouldn't know a socialist if he came to their house with a pizza and insisted on sharing it with everyone..

 

[altlover85]

Nice, levenshulme31!

 

[01solara]

So what you mean is that Obama isn't being socialist enough.

I do wish you would make your mind up.

Or do you, as appears to be the case for the ignorant 55%, want your government to behave in a socialist manner in its dealings with corporate interests but dictatorial in dealing with individual interests?

looks to me like most Americans wouldn't know a socialist if he came to their house with a pizza and insisted on sharing it with everyone..

Letting people use their own money to invest in jobs instead of giving it to the government is not socialism. Socialism is taking their money away to spend it in the way that government thinks best. Example the failed Obama stimulus package that was supposed to "create jobs" when it didn't work as planned they created a new "saved Job" category. What I suggest is the opposite of socialism. I want people to be able to invest money and not have the results confiscated by the government. This stimulates real job growth not temporary "census" type jobs. We need to enact policies that motivate the private sector to invest their capital in job creation. The taxes paid by the people employed will put money in the treasury as opposed to unemployment benefits which do exactly the opposite. Most of the millions of people that have lost their jobs want to work. We need to open the way for them to do so.

 

[laikaNYC]

So what you mean is that Obama isn't being socialist enough.

I do wish you would make your mind up.

Or do you, as appears to be the case for the ignorant 55%, want your government to behave in a socialist manner in its dealings with corporate interests but dictatorial in dealing with individual interests?

looks to me like most Americans wouldn't know a socialist if he came to their house with a pizza and insisted on sharing it with everyone..

I think coming to your house with a stolen pizza and THEN sharing it would be more accurate.

 

[bankside]

(If 90% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the people but they only pay 28% of the taxes... that's pretty lop-sided.)

Except it isn't a "wealth tax," it is an "income tax."

I get that people want there to be a wealth tax, but the reality is - and rightly so - is that people get to keep what they have if they save carefully, and if that piles up into a gigantic amount of wealth, good for them. The only exceptions we have are property tax and inheritance tax, and I'm not so fond of them either.

They've already paid more than their fair share of taxes on income, on sales, etc.

Perhaps if we had a poll tax, then 1% of people wouldn't control 90% of wealth, because people would start demanding a fairer income instead of utterly failing to question whether super wealthy people are actually earning their incomes. Paying higher taxes just provides cover for rich people to demand outrageous salaries and get them, to demand outrageous returns on investments and get them, and to demand privileged access to government services and get it.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Except it isn't a "wealth tax," it is an "income tax."

They've already paid more than their fair share of taxes on income, on sales, etc.
Ok YOU don't even believe that.

 

[Kulindahr]

As long as they name a bridge or two after you right? But yeah totally agree I don't understand the excess.

If they're going to name a bridge after me, I get to approve the design!

I think coming to your house with a stolen pizza and THEN sharing it would be more accurate.

Score!

How did conservative Christians ever forget that Christ was a radical socialist, and Christianity is perhaps the second most socialist religion after Islam?

Except Christ was far more a libertarian than a socialist. Laika puts his finger on the difference: nowhere did Christ advocate forcing everyone to contribute to helping others.

I have fundie acquaintances who eagerly agree with that. Then when I point out that nowhere did Christ advocate forcing everyone to conform to 'evangelical' morals, they get all bristly.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

The poll tax has in fact been tried, during the Thatcher years in the UK. Immediately after she instituted it, London was crippled by riots. Many poorer residents were financially ruined; some of them quite literally went to jail because they couldn't afford to pay it.

Her poll tax directly fueled her downfall.

And of course, that's not at all what I was talking about anyway.

Just another conservative trying to change the subject.

EVerone should pay their fair share. Claiming that the richest 1% does that is just plain wrong.

 

[bankside]

The rich don't have an under-taxation problem, they have an over-income problem. The rest of us pay them too much in the first place, and then tax them a bit more to make ourselves feel better. We're gullible consumers of the services they have to offer, and we're getting ripped off.

I'm not sure quite how anyone can read that as "conservatism."

If 55% of people think Obama is a socialist, there are probably 55% of people who think he is conservativist, and probably 55% of people who think he is a corporatist, and yet another 55% who would agree that he is clearly also an autarkist, because none of you know what those words mean.

 

[MercuryJones]

nowhere did Christ advocate forcing everyone to contribute to helping others.

But on the subject of paying taxes..

They came and said to Him, "Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?

"Shall we pay or shall we not pay?" But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at."

They brought one. And He said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" And they said to Him, "Caesar's."

And Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were amazed at Him.

 

[BostonPirate]

But on the subject of paying taxes..

you mean..... christians are supposed to forsake money? eeeek.

what if you just don't liek the guy who is on the bill? cause I am very very fond of say.... Mr Franklin, miuch more than say.... Mr washington. I think I just need more hundreds and I will be a good christian....hehe.

ok..... it was a bad joke- everybody groan.....

It is easy for people to firget what exactly old JC said about things because he like his counterpart, mohamed, said so many contadictory things.

pay tax, but don't use money. give all your money to the poor but make sure you give ten percent of what you own to the church... just a few on the point of money.

it seems to me we will never really know what jesus said because he was too busy DOING things...lol. all that stuff was said and written by other imaginative people. as a christian I glean what all parties agree he did in a general way, and I try to consider that an example. but the exact words? we have no idea. they have been made up by people who wanted to use the name of Jesus to control the masses.

I do not believe in one bit of marxism or Nietsche, but they seem to have gotten it right on the topic of christianity as an organized religion.

bluntly... Gandhi was a batter christian than most popes or pastors or whatever ones church calls their leadership.

If I had to place Jesus on the political spectrum, I would have to place him squarely as a socialist.... so if that's the bench Obama is sitting on, he is in good company.

 

[CoolBlue71]

Fellow lefties, he has a point.

They should have done reconciliation months ago.

Reconciliation on the healthcare bill in the Senate? …It was a game.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yeah well. Every side tries to claim Christ, just like they all try to disavow Hitler.
Anarcho-collectivists for Jesus!

Except any claim that says He advocated the use of force, or dismantling of authority, doesn't stick. So anarchism doesn't cut it any more than socialism. The only time He used force was to defend His Dad's house.

 

[Kulindahr]

Do you really think that people would be charitable enough to keep everything going if government stopped providing services?

Define "everything".

If 55% of people think Obama is a socialist, there are probably 55% of people who think he is conservativist, and probably 55% of people who think he is a corporatist, and yet another 55% who would agree that he is clearly also an autarkist, because none of you know what those words mean.

Don't you mean "because 55% of you don't know what those words mean"?

 

[BostonPirate]

I submit to you that they are undertaxed.

Our marginal tax rate for the top income earners is among the lowest in the industrialized world, and much much less than it was during our own history. I trust that you have seen the chart that I posted?

I find it insane that George Bush lowered taxes during wartime. That, also, had never been tried, and it caused our national debt to spiral upwards.

Indeed...up above there is a source that the top payed 94 percent of their income during ww2. When the nation was at war, every citizen was taxed every spare dollar to fund the movement. That meant that going to work everyday was helping to fight the enemy. it was acceptable to the americans of his era....the greatest generation".

Americans are not willing to make the sacrifice at home that we see our armed forces make on the front line.

so war puts us in complete financial ruin just like it did to the soviet union... which BTW caused its collapse.

 

[bankside]

Actually, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Chasing people's rising incomes with rising taxes is foolhardy. You have to address the underlying problem of income distribution. Who is paying these billionaires so fucking much? Are they (we) stupid?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

 

[BostonPirate]

^ Thanks, Boston.

Did you notice that the marginal tax rate went up during WW One, as well?

It just makes you realize the insanity of George W Bush's "experiment".

he split the cost of the wars into a separate funding bill. that made the bodget look reasonable.

then he added a HUGE spending bill year after year that funded the wars and it didn't include any taxes to pay for it.

He got the cash for the war yet got to show on paper a budget that looked reasonable.

he got away with it because his party was the majority in congress and they passed it through as he wished. If the Dems tried to hold up the vote for the war funding because it didn't include a way to pay for it, they were charges with being anti military and uncaring to the needs of the soldiers.

it was a travesty that occured because the repubs held both branches.

the same guys that funded that war to the cost of trillions are now making hay over the dems stimulus package that went to the actual country and infrastructure.