Poll on Taxes

[babe]

Of course the fair tax is essentially an expanded luxury tax... because I certainly don't notice if the price of fruit loops goes up 20%. And I think most of the people in congress like their luxuries... but a man can dream can't he

Yep. In the eyes of "concentrated capital" elitists, groceries for the poor are "luxuries".

And medical care for "useless eaters" just doesn't make sense.

These are the folks who broke their "contract" with America, the hard-won benefits and pay that could support a middle class, and downsized and outsourced and imported the junk to milk us at higher prices than the rest of the world can or will pay.

noble, high-minded elitists who speak with moral authority about how planet earth has been polluted, but fail to mention it's their own pollution from their own operations or that their current overseas operations are putting out more pollution than ever. . . . and how we should do with less, and who are with some fancy new terms turning planet earth into "the King's Forest", moving people off the land and turning it back into Lordly hunting safari reserves only the very wealthy can enjoy.

The unions have sold out, and supported all of these policies that are essentially anti-human and anti-human-rights.

I don't like pollution, and I believe recycling is absolutely necessary for almost all of our waste materials, but a government that views its people as "the problem" while sycophantically lionizing the elitists doesn't deserve popular support. Still, we love our nation and we want to believe it serves us well.

Well, then, get active about making sure it does.

 

[babe]

I agree that Social Security shouldn't be funding other projects.
.....
I say if you want a true retirement plan, start one. But that isn't what Social Security is intended to be.

I already responded to this once. But this was such a good response I've been thinking about it. I cut out some of the good comments in the middle just because more or less they're not the subject of this response.

I believe I said something about how social security money should be kept separate from the government funds and treated more like an investment account in the name of the contributors, with separate welfare allocations coming from the Fed budget to take care of orphans, the disabled, and others who need help.

I think a lot of Americans share Salty's view that there is a "spirit" in the ideas which have been more or less behind social security and the government relief programs. We are a people who want to do the right thing for those in need. We do a lot supporting private charities in addition to our government programs.

I want to focus on investment in infrastructure projects generally beneficial to almost all of us in some way.

At present we use tax revenues/deficit spending on a lot of things including a little infrastructure. The gov does the project. Owns it when it's done. Makes the plan, hires the contractors, maintains the thing afterwards. Sometimes there is a revenue stream that comes back into the gov accounts when it's done.

Here's why I would put such projects on the books for the social security administration.

They would not be investing in private enterprises or speculating in Wall Street, or just letting Congress spend the money on whatever. They would be fiduciaries that would be held accountable for the money, and motivated to do the best thing with it. Less susceptible to lobbyists, special interests, political cronyists and such.

They would do the projects in the name of the fund contributors, who therefore would be the owners and operators of the projects, and the beneficiaries of the revenues generated.

This is not a "capitalist" sort of venture, and would be more like a collective or cooperative enterprise, but it has a lot of the motive for results that more often proves successful.

A "capitalist" with his neck on the block, with everything at stake in the results of a project, is willing to take risks for the expected gains. Forces some clarity of thought. These guys don't get swayed in their decisions by hucksters clamoring for some irrelevant interest. . . .

A social security administration operated on a fiduciary basis, and chartered to undertake infrastructure projects with sound prospects for a return on the investment, would be removed from the lobbyist's circuit. They would make better decisions.

So let's say we got to vote on the head of such an administration. What would we be looking at. . . . a political agenda or a return on our investment?

And here's the biggest plus. People would be as interested in investing in that as in the stock market. And unlike the the stock market, THEY would be the "insiders".

I bet people would want to invest in that. And I bet we would get a lot of good infrastructure built.

 

[SaltyDawg]

I agree that Social Security shouldn't be funding other projects.
.....
I say if you want a true retirement plan, start one. But that isn't what Social Security is intended to be.

I already responded to this once. But this was such a good response I've been thinking about it. I cut out some of the good comments in the middle just because more or less they're not the subject of this response.

I believe I said something about how social security money should be kept separate from the government funds and treated more like an investment account in the name of the contributors, with separate welfare allocations coming from the Fed budget to take care of orphans, the disabled, and others who need help.

I think a lot of Americans share Salty's view that there is a "spirit" in the ideas which have been more or less behind social security and the government relief programs. We are a people who want to do the right thing for those in need. We do a lot supporting private charities in addition to our government programs.

I want to focus on investment in infrastructure projects generally beneficial to almost all of us in some way.

At present we use tax revenues/deficit spending on a lot of things including a little infrastructure. The gov does the project. Owns it when it's done. Makes the plan, hires the contractors, maintains the thing afterwards. Sometimes there is a revenue stream that comes back into the gov accounts when it's done.

Here's why I would put such projects on the books for the social security administration.

They would not be investing in private enterprises or speculating in Wall Street, or just letting Congress spend the money on whatever. They would be fiduciaries that would be held accountable for the money, and motivated to do the best thing with it. Less susceptible to lobbyists, special interests, political cronyists and such.

They would do the projects in the name of the fund contributors, who therefore would be the owners and operators of the projects, and the beneficiaries of the revenues generated.

This is not a "capitalist" sort of venture, and would be more like a collective or cooperative enterprise, but it has a lot of the motive for results that more often proves successful.

A "capitalist" with his neck on the block, with everything at stake in the results of a project, is willing to take risks for the expected gains. Forces some clarity of thought. These guys don't get swayed in their decisions by hucksters clamoring for some irrelevant interest. . . .

A social security administration operated on a fiduciary basis, and chartered to undertake infrastructure projects with sound prospects for a return on the investment, would be removed from the lobbyist's circuit. They would make better decisions.

So let's say we got to vote on the head of such an administration. What would we be looking at. . . . a political agenda or a return on our investment?

And here's the biggest plus. People would be as interested in investing in that as in the stock market. And unlike the the stock market, THEY would be the "insiders".

I bet people would want to invest in that. And I bet we would get a lot of good infrastructure built.

I don't understand where the money would come from for all of the projects. Would we stop sending checks out for Social Security?

Anyway, I also don't see how that would somehow keep lobbyists and corruption out.

Someone would have to be in charge. Even if everything is voted on, someone has to decide what makes it to the ballot. And that person will have lobbyists and special interest groups all over him. There would still be lots of corruption.