A rebuttal
Two people on my friends' list have responded negatively to the following quote from Barack Obama earlier on this evening :-
"For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own."
-- B. Obama
Having grown up in Canada, been on welfare in high school, reliant on single-payer health care throughout my youth (and only getting my first medical bill at the ripe old age of 22 when I first moved to Seattle), and being granted my partially government-subsidized university diploma, I must say that in these respects, Canada is indeed better than the US. A bit of a social safety net *is* a good thing. Statistically, good, smart people do end up down on their luck from time to time, or being born to poor parents, unable to afford some major medical crisis or continuing education. Then they find themselves swallowed in debt, through no fault of their own, and end up in a downward spiral, either committing suicide, becoming homeless, going bankrupt, or spending the rest of their lives trying to pay off an insurmountable debt. You may respond, "well, that's life", or "life was never meant to be fair", but that kind of policy does hurt the economy because that's one less motivated individual in the workforce.
Proportionally, the rich generally don't spend as much of their income, and $100 000 to a rich man is much, much less than a man scraping by on near minimum-wage living month-to-month, so it seems reasonable for the rich to be taxed at a higher percentage. The market is a statistical phenomenon: it fails in the singular case. Spreading the pot around a bit to help out the disadvantaged is not only economically reasonable and feasible, it's humane. Yes, the US government fails time and time again implementing big government-funded programs, but that does not mean that they are a bad idea in principle.
"For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own."
-- B. Obama
Having grown up in Canada, been on welfare in high school, reliant on single-payer health care throughout my youth (and only getting my first medical bill at the ripe old age of 22 when I first moved to Seattle), and being granted my partially government-subsidized university diploma, I must say that in these respects, Canada is indeed better than the US. A bit of a social safety net *is* a good thing. Statistically, good, smart people do end up down on their luck from time to time, or being born to poor parents, unable to afford some major medical crisis or continuing education. Then they find themselves swallowed in debt, through no fault of their own, and end up in a downward spiral, either committing suicide, becoming homeless, going bankrupt, or spending the rest of their lives trying to pay off an insurmountable debt. You may respond, "well, that's life", or "life was never meant to be fair", but that kind of policy does hurt the economy because that's one less motivated individual in the workforce.
Proportionally, the rich generally don't spend as much of their income, and $100 000 to a rich man is much, much less than a man scraping by on near minimum-wage living month-to-month, so it seems reasonable for the rich to be taxed at a higher percentage. The market is a statistical phenomenon: it fails in the singular case. Spreading the pot around a bit to help out the disadvantaged is not only economically reasonable and feasible, it's humane. Yes, the US government fails time and time again implementing big government-funded programs, but that does not mean that they are a bad idea in principle.