Welcome to the club. After 31 years as a Democrat I left, too- the "Working Man's Party" had become the party of the non-working man, the chronic freeloader, the no-hack and the "strategically helpless".

I listen to the current crop of Democratic presidential contenders, and I can only shake my head in disbelief and disgust.

Ah, Rosemary. You sound like my students. "Another beautiful theory slain by an ugly fact." Life has a way, for some of us, of getting up close and personal and making us look reality in it's gruesome face. Sorry it was so hard on you, but I personally think owning up to reality is better than the alternatives.

As a vet who had to put up with lots of crap in the '60's from smug, self-satisfied creeps who knew little or nothing of the real world, I say hang in there. It gets better.

You don't have to be a Republican. I'm certainly not, but you can refuse to vote for those (parties and candidates) who refuse to engage reality. In the long run, I think reality usually wins, but it can be painful for all involved.

Also, as a former small businessman, good on you and Dean. Small businessmen are the real capitalists and the drivers of our freedom. I'm willing to bet you don't make 200 times as much as any employees you may have. Why? Because as a small business you're more close to reality than large corporations are and have to act appropriately. Try to remember that when you get big. ;->

Best of all in your future.

Rosemary,

Great piece! You know, there are some of us "liberal" democrats that are Pro-life. The most sacred thing we have is life regardless of how many "cells" have divided, regardless of what created that life....it is still life.

Tim the Soldier

I began to notice quite a while ago that leftist types, liberal Democrats, etc. were very good at sighing in compassion and indignation about groups and classes and masses, but that a single individual --unless they fit neatly into those groups and classes and masses-- was not only unimportant to them, but actually kind of annoying and inconvenient. And I began to see that what drove the whole worldview was an addiction to appearing to be righteous. I un-enrolled myself from the Democratic party last month. Still can't see myself being a Republican --they're too friendly with theocrats-- but I know I can hardly stand to listen to a Democrat open her mouth anymore.

Uh, so you left the democratic party because someone told you you should get over your child's death?

Speaking as someone who's wife has had 3 miscarriages, and who held his premature baby as she died in my arms, I can't figure out what you're talking about.

Absolutely none of my democratic friends told me it was a useless lump of cells, and all of them were quite pained and saddened by the events of my life.

As to late term abortion, when my daughter was born prematurely, we were very, very close to a procedure that would likely have been illegal under the current legislation.

It's absolutely surreal to hear your explanation Rosemary. It sounds like you need different friends, rather than a different party.

Democrats aren't monsters - as much as you're trying to make us out to be. And to characterize things this way is truly tragic.

Remember, this is our country too.

I gather it is highly entertaining to create a portrait of your enemy as you perceive him, then throw darts. Where are these cruel, non-existent democrats you pillory? I have never met one.

In any case -- far-right abortion activists have managed to turn doctors into "clumps of cells" with high-powered rifles. I don't associate their activities with your principled anti-abortion stance; they are utterly separate. I am glad that you believe the life of the mother is a legitimate reason for such a late-term abortion. The farther right of your party and the anti-abortion movement does not believe so; they believe that only God can make that decision.

I have never met a single person who ever said that he would stop trying to earn more money, because the government would simply tax it away. As a country with one of the lowest top tax rates in the world (and a _dramatically_ lower one for investment income), there is simply no disincentive to work hard and make more money. Worst case, taxed at the very top rates in this country, you still pocket most of what you make. This "disincentive" argument is simply disingenous; please present a single example of a person anywhere who has decided _not_ to earn more money because of taxation. I submit that this person will be somewhat irrational.

Taxation is divided into that which affects low, medium, and high income persons. Social security tax is overwhelming placed upon low income earners. Income tax is mostly paid by the middle class. Investment income taxes are paid by very high income earners. Note that a high income earner gains the same tax credit from profits overseas as he does with an investment that actually goes into the American economy. What rationale can there be for this? Somewhat higher taxes levied against the very wealthy during the first Bush Presidency and Clinton simply did not have any negative effect on the economy whatsoever. GHWBush understood that the _conservative_ principle of a relatively balanced budget was an important component of long term economic stability. He understand that we must guard against the dramatic instabilities that can result when debt spirals out of control.

And note the following: There is very little left in the Republican Party that can be termed "conservative". They have thrown fiscal responsibility out the window, principles of non-intervention in foreign affairs out of the window, bulked up our federal government, imposed federal controls over educational systems, and tightened secrecy with terrifying intensity. These are not conservative principles. I think that you will find ample support for certain traditional conservative principles, even amongst many liberals. Do not mistake the ruling party for conservatives. They are a different animal entirely, and we will not fully understand the effects for many years to come.

JC,

Who said you were monsters? I think that what Rosemary is pointing out is that when reality and Democratic Party orthodoxy collide, the Democrats stick with orthodoxy, and this has, in turn, made the Democratic Party not really the party of the common man (or woman).

There isn't, in the end, much difference between my views and the views of President Kennedy - yet I am, without a doubt, a conservative Republican...how did that happen? Once you explain that, you understand why the Democrats went from being the majority party in the country to being the minority.

I like how my wife, a lifelong Democrat until 1996, is accused of making up mythical Democrats who supposedly don't exist. I also like how Ross Judsen portrays my wife as portraying people as "the enemy" when in fact she very much wanted not to see people like Ross as "the enemy," as she made so very clear. Such two-dimensional charicatures tell me a lot about why my wife switched parties, to be blunt.

But perhaps having so many pro-life women in my family and among my close friends explains my view--even though I remain pro-choice.

I'm also bedazzled by someone who describes having an experience of a medical procedure "close to" the procedure recently outlawed--one in which you take a 6, 7 month old fetus, remove everything from the womb except the skull, pierce the skull, then suck out its brains--and then act as if the "procedure" is somehow acceptable because his wife went through something "close to it." What the hell does "close to it" mean? What is "closer" to such a procedure than allowing the child's head to come out of the womb unpierced?

The vast majority of women oppose this kind of late-term abortion. So what exactly are you on about? And why must you pillory my wife and her experiences so you can generalize and demean her experiences and feelings thereby?

Let me point out one additional thing: One of the biggest financial barriers to creating a small business, and especially in the early growth phase of a new company, is the spiralling cost of health care. My company's health care costs have increased by almost 30% in the past three years. Why, as a small business owner, should you be providing health care for your employees? Shouldn't you simply be focused on your business? Other entities should be providing health care, not businesses. And believe me, when a company is providing health insurance, it's providing health care. That company's bills are going to go up if employees claim a lot. As a small business owner, you are _intensely_ vulnerable to this, when you have a small number of employees.

I can't think of anything else that is quite as _anti-business_ as the health care system in this country. Except, perhaps, the _doubling_ of the social security tax to 15.8%, when all you've done is commit the crime of working for yourself. Ludicrous!

I don't find the solution to the problem to be the reduction of tax burdens overall. Those overall reductions matter little to a self-employed person paying 15.8%. I'd solve it by lifting the income cap on social security. That's right -- no write-off after 80k. You pay it on all the income you earn. That lets me drop the overall rate. And I'll go one more -- stop exempting investment income from it. But, if I'm ceasing the exemption for investment income, I want the result to be revenue-neutral, so I'll drop the overall rate until it brings in the same amount of money as before. And instantly -- we got self-employed people paying around 1/4 of what they were paying before in social security taxes. You want to talk about job creation? How's another 10% in the pocket of the small businessman sound? Pretty good, I think.

It'll never happen under this administration. Your little business is, well, a joke to them. They don't care if you succeed. As a small business owner, you are lumped in with the rest of the salary workers, and what's worse, you are even TAXED HIGHER, for having the temerity to try to employ yourself. They don't want you to start a business. They want you to be employed by one of theirs.

Ah, very interesting Ross. And Democrats are doing what, exactly, to fix that cripplingly cruel double-taxation? As a former small business owner who gave up in part because of that cruel tax burden, and as a former Democrat, I'd really like to know.

One of the reasons I voted for Bush--one of the main reasons--was his support of partially privatizing Social Security. Just so I could keep some of that hideously unfair tax burden for myself and my family, my children and grandchildren--and to alleviate this unfair burden on those kids! And I was horrified to watch my former party act as if this was an effort to "destroy Social Security." What a hideously destructive lie, about the most cripplingly dishonest tax in the country!

Bush has done more for small business since elected than Clinton did in his entire 8 years--which is one reason why I voted for him, even though my business collapsed, in part due to the tax burden we dealt with under Clinton.

You do a great job of demonizing my wife and her positions--and thank you very fucking much for that. Now why don't you justify for me, a former small business owner, why I shouldn't think that the Democrats had it in for me, and apparently still do if I should ever try for a third time to start up my own business? At least he wants to cut me a break if I want to try.

I'd like to try once again to be self-employed, I really would. I wish to HELL I could. But that "self-employment" (i.e "social 'security'" tax) is still my #1 fear--and to hell with the Dems who act as if there's something wrong with trying to reform that particular problem.

I too was raised in a "yellow dog" Democrat family, union activists as well. I walked picket lines and campaigned for JFK before I could vote.

Little by little the Dems lost their way, and the middle class. Since 1980 the Democrats have defined themselves with class warfare, single-issue shrillness and negativity that negates the good they accomplished. That they have managed to do this with a mostly sympathetic media is amazing in of itself.

Not a single Democrat candidate speaks to me or my concerns. They only seek to limit my choices in favor of a predetermined outcome or selected class. That's not democracy.

I live in the Sillyville Hills, aka Berkeley, where no measure is too extreme to stamp out any sort of individualism in favor of group think and preferred behavior. The Free Speech Movement and the Left has become what it detested most in the 50's and 60's: The Man.

Ross, you're typical of why I left the Democratic party back in 1988. Wether you intend it or not you come off as arrogant, unfeeling and elitist. "Where", you ask, "are these cruel, non-existent democrats you pillory?" Try looking in the mirror bub.

I never had the chance to hold my daughter Mary in my arms, my wife miscarried at 5 months. Imagine how we both felt when telling friends, good loyal Democratic friends, what had happened, and to hear them say, "well it's not like you had a chance to get attached to her. After all she wasn't really a baby, just a fetus." Or best of all - "just think of it as a natural abortion - that should make it easier to deal with."

No, You and yours are just the epitomy of warmth and tenderness, right? Give me a break Ross.

"I always say that I didn't leave the Democratic Party - they left me. I believe that. I also believe that I would willing walk back into the party if they stopped trying to divide people. If they stopped making out everyone that disagrees with them to be evil and racist. If they tried harder to empower people rather than treat them like children. You don't empower people by giving them things, you empower them by encouraging them to do for themselves. Stop punishing people for succeeding!"

As long as you got over that, "easily manipulated by rhetoric" thing.

Yeah, yeah shep. Because there's no truth behind the rhetoric, right?

Let me give you a hint: when rhetoric resonates with someone who's had second thoughts, there's a reason for it.

You're responding to someone who was once one of yours, and left. And all you're doing is savaging her. Is there any wonder why your side--formerly my side--is floundering so badly?

"I have never met a single person who ever said that he would stop trying to earn more money, because the government would simply tax it away."

Even worse, many rich Americans say, "I should be taxed more, the country needs it and I can afford it". They know that they made their fortunes by way of a good deal of chance as well as the hard work of those struggling beneath them. It makes no sense to them to be grossly over-reward for luck and the hard work of others, better to reinvest some of that good fortune into the future prosperity of others through progressive taxation. Then again, they're actually rich, not angry wannabe's.

Rosemary,

I do hope that you dumped every single one of those liberals friends that told you that the baby was just a bunch of tissue. It is better to avoid being around people who have no moral compass and are so utterly lacking in compassion or values. There are liberals out there that don't think that way.

Savaging? Dean, you are truly mad.

Yes, good rhetoric always has an element of truth. That's how it works. Doesn't mean you can't learn for yourself.

Dean, if you refer to my labeling your wife "principled" as demonizing her, I don't know what I can say. I respect her positions on ethical and moral issues; you would probably find that I agree with many of them.

Your position vis-a-vis social security is that the Democrats haven't attempted to overhaul the system; at least the Republicans are trying to do something.

Don't make the mistake of assuming that the ruling parties have the answers; you and I can have answers too. My answer to the social security problem is outlined in my comment; drop the upper limit, stop exempting investment income, and keep it revenue-neutral by dropping the rate until it is so.

This results in dramatically lower taxes on poor and low income individuals; instead of paying a full 15.8% (which they pay; just because an employer is paying it on their behalf doesn't mean they don't pay it), they'll be paying a small part that. That's a HUGE TAX CUT for low wage earners, and particularly for the middle class. Yes, it levies higher taxes against the very wealthiest. I don't have a problem with that.

The Republicans don't have a plan. There is no lockbox; there is no fund; there is no account. Social Security is pay-as-you-go. If you divert 2% of the current payments into the system to a privatized system, you need to find that _same exact_ amount of money elsewhere, and continue to put it into the system, because it's needed to pay current commitments. Simply declaring that 15% of the money going into Social Security is going into private retirement accounts doesn't change the current payouts, so the money will simply have to come from the general fund.

Sadly, the government's ability to play with these kinds of numbers is becoming extremely limited, due to the massive runup in deficits. Fixing social security is not a priority for this administration; they're running up the national credit card to fix the middle east.

One more thing -- it's called Social Security, not Social Maybe. If Joe Average screws up his investment strategy or retires at the wrong part of a business cycle, it can be pretty bad news. A small, guaranteed supplement in this case is required. And that is exactly what our current system provides. It's not about "return on investment". Rich people can already invest plenty. We need to focus attention on dropping the rate for this last-resort insurance program, for poor folks, so they have some money left over to save for their own retirement, in exactly the manner you prefer: Private investment.

Mark,

I get a real kick out of conservative Republicans who say that their views are similar to John F. Kennedy's. Here's a Kennedy quote for you: "My father always told me that all businessmen wre sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now."

People love to compare Bush tax cuts with Kennedy's tax cuts. But when Kennedy was president, the top rates were more like 70%, not 35%.

Now, I would accept that Dean Esmay's views might be similar to some of Kennedy's, but I just can't swallow that with your views.

JC, you've now met one, or at least read a post from one.

I am not willing to work harder to make more money than I do know, knowing that I get less that half of any extra I make. It takes a lot more work to make more money, and while it may be working it to me to take a job and make $10,000 more than I do now, which is what it would appear based on the salary increae, the tax on that extra 10,000 makes it an extra $6,000 or so and I'm not willing to put in the extra hours and deal with the extra stress for around $6,000 more. So there you go. You can call me irrational for thinking so, but it comes down to how much is my time and stress levels worth. At the level I'm at, it's not worth taking on more for the money that I could get. I'm comfortable where I'm at.
(If you think my numbers are wrong because I don't pay 40% of my income in takes, look closer. The income in the final bracket that I would fit into is taxed at arund 30% plus Social Security etc. Makes that $10,000 raise seem a lot less tempting.)

I think that I pay too much in taxes because I don't support the majority of what the taxes are spent on. If it cost 30% of my income to support the programs that I think should be supported, then I would not think it is too much. It doesn't and I do.

To Robert Modean: Do you know what my position on abortion is?

I didn't think so.

Feel free to argue something substantive.

I challenge you to find a single "elitist" concept, in anything I've written here.

Ross--your "reform" of Social Security strikes me as a very mean-spirited and selfish answer: my neighbor has more than me, so let's fuck him over and take it from him!

No thank you. I lack your sense of envy and entitlement. Part of why I left the party, I suppose.

And as for your characterizations: it was you who suggested she was talking about non-existent phantoms, rather than people she actually knew. Or people I've known--known in real life--thank you very much.

With high social security taxes and the burden of property taxes, income tax, car license fees, communications fees, sales taxes and on and on, it is the poor and lower-middle income workers who are really getting socked.

Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven." That tells me that Jesus believed the wealthy focused too much on their own needs and not enough on the needs of the poor.

Dean,

I think what you are referring to is technically called a "stratified" tax. And the "fucking" he is given will be in proportion to the amount he has. Somebody will get the prison treatment, while others will only get a litte pinch on the ass. BTW, if he has so so much more than me, how did I get to be his neighbor?

Rosemary,

You wouldn't begrudge workers the ability to collectively bargain would ya? Just curious. I contend that one of the major factors in the stability of our economy and middle-class was that the labor unions enabled blue-collar workers to earn a damn good living and bolstering our huge middle class numbers.

Tim the Soldier

Hey Rosemary:

I just wanted to compliment you on your persistence and your independence. I have a hard time thinking of you as a conservative OR a liberal -- just a person.

It sounds like we both became disillusioned with the Democratic party and liberalism in general for a similar reason: betrayal. You felt betrayed when people wouldn't acknowledge your miscarriage as a tragic loss of life. And exactly how rude and insensitive is THAT? I thought Pro-Choice was about CHOICE, and you chose to value the life of your child -- they should have supported you, not dismissed your loss. I felt similarly betrayed by Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and his signature of the Defense of Marriage Act. When I claimed that Clinton had betrayed liberals by turning his back on the dignity and civil rights gay and lesbian Americans, liberals who for years had paid lip service to gay rights got smug and defensive. "It was the best he could do," they'd say. "Why would you want to get married, anyway?" they'd ask, the wedding rings glinting on their fingers. "What homosexual would support the military anyway?" they asked, casually dismissing the emotional suffering, humiliation and financial hardship of hard-working, dedicated servicemembers betrayed and turned away by their own government, the government they offered their lives to protect, FOR NO GOOD REASON.

Where we diverge in our paths, Rosemary, is in how we define ourselves. You can be something other than just a liberal or just a conservative. You can live without throwing your eggs in either basket. You can be an American citizen without contributing to the vulgar professional wrestling match that American politics has become. You can simply *be*.

In closing, I think there's nothing wrong with success. However, we must be watchful that "success" is not built unjustly on the backs of others, that large corporations don't make their money at the expense of underpaid, unprotected labor, or at the expense of the environment, or at the expense of the law. Profit without principles quickly becomes theft. Any right unsaddled by responsibility (read: Halliburton, Enron, Dow-Corning, Wal-Mart, etc.) is quickly abused.

Ross,
You mistate the anti-abortion movements position, at least the mainstream of it anyways, I would think. If one is forced by circumstance to choose between two people's lives then such a choice is moral, even if horrible.

Well, Ross, Social Security is, in fact, Social Maybe, because everyone admits it is unsustainable in its current form. The Democrats' position is to demonize even the discussion of trying anything new on that subject and in most others, although you do helpfully suggest raising the SS tax on high income earners. Other than that, as usual, the answer is to attack all alternatives.

I too am a former liberal, still am one in many respects. But the Left has abandoned its liberal principles in favor of antique Marxist classism and postmodern relativism. Its former constituencies of the downtrodden have morphed into cynically opportunistic interest groups: unions, government workers, trial lawyers, Big Education and the identity politics hucksters. The Left is no longer liberal, but reactionary. It cares about rhetoric and appearances, not results. It opposes change, particularly intellectual change, and particularly change in the areas its policies have so patently failed: education, the welfare state and Social Security, to name a few. And it hasn't reexamined its own premises in at least 30 years. It has become lazy, narcissistic and ossified. When criticism is proferred, it savagely turns on its own. As I think someone recently said, the Right is looking for recruits, the Left is looking for heretics.

These are some of the reasons educated, thinking, achieving people like me have deserted the Democratic Party in droves. There are many of us out here who are not Christians, not hardhearted capitalist exploitationists, not imperialist warmongers---and most inexplicably to current Leftist doctrinarians, not stupid, not ignorant and not evil---who have left the Left. We don't like a lot of what we see on the Right either, but there is more growth, more vitality and self examination coming from that direction these days, and none of the nihilistic derangement that has possessed the Left.

"No thank you. I lack your sense of envy and entitlement."

Or, to look at it another way (sorry) a sense of social responsibility and the common good.

Or, to look at it another way (sorry) a sense of social responsibility and the common good.

I have a deep sense of social responsibility and the common good. It just doesn't, apparently, include the mean-spiritedness and envy that drives your sense of same.

"I have a deep sense of social responsibility and the common good. It just doesn't, apparently, include the mean-spiritedness and envy that drives your sense of same."

Doin' just fine, Dean. Am I envious on behalf of the poor folks who are going to get my tax money? Does that make me mean-spirited? Just keep telling yourself what you want to believe. You make a perfect neocon.

--Even worse, many rich Americans say, "I should be taxed more, the country needs it and I can afford it". --

Fine. There is no law, rule or regulation that stops any one from voluntarily paying more in taxes. If these rich Americans really feel that they need to be taxed more, there is nothing that is stopping them from doing so, except themselves. They should back up their opinions with action and send in their extra check to the IRS, who will gladly accept it without a bit of hesitation.

Dean, if you knew me at all you'd know that a "sense of entitlement and envy" is simply not a part of my personality. In my opinion nobody's entitled to a damn thing...except that I don't want old folks without income to die of starvation. That's why I'm in favor of social security.

In my opinion it's Republicans who have the sense of entitlement, when it comes to social security. SS is a form of insurance -- if you never need it, why should you ever receive it? In other words, means testing.

Do you get to go to your car insurance company when you turn in your drivers license and ask for all your money back because you never had an accident? No. If you buy home insurance, should you get it back when you sell your house? No.

Social Security is an _insurance_ program. You pay into it so you can collect out of it, on the chance that you're destitute or severely in need when you're older. If you're not, tough shit. No cash. When we treat it as something else, rates rise, and we all lose.

I don't want old folks to lose their homes, either. But that's what reverse mortgages are for, very exactly.

I also don't want a young single mother struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table to have to hand 15.8% of her paycheck to rich members of an older generation that by and large don't need it.

freetotem: Social Security can last; we just need to rework its financials a bit. Remove the income cap, means test, that kind of thing. It'll be fine. I am more interested in mechanisms that drop the rate; this will enable low income people to have real savings of their own, instead of whatever the government tells them they are allowed to have.

"Here's a Kennedy quote for you: "My father always told me that all businessmen wre sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now."

Ummm Joel...

JFK's dad (Joseph P. Kennedy) was calling the kettle black, here.
A more corrupt businessman and all-round son of a bitch than JPK you'll never find. Unrepentent racist and anti-semite, Nazi sympathizer.
This statement you quoted was made by a man who made his money rum-running during Prohibition, in cahoots with the mob. Definitely a son of a bitch.

"In my opinion it's Republicans who have the sense of entitlement, when it comes to social security. SS is a form of insurance -- if you never need it, why should you ever receive it? In other words, means testing."

Ross, to the Democrats eternal shame, Ted Kennedy has demagogued this issue and provides as big an impediment to making SS and Medicare what they should be, part a social safety net, as any Republican.

Jim,

Didn't take long to bring a Kennedy hater out of the wordwork, huh? I grew up in Oklahoma among a slew of rabid Kennedy haters, so I just laugh at your venom. Down, boy, down.

Tim:
You wouldn't begrudge workers the ability to collectively bargain would ya? Just curious. I contend that one of the major factors in the stability of our economy and middle-class was that the labor unions enabled blue-collar workers to earn a damn good living and bolstering our huge middle class numbers.

No, not at all. If it wasn't for that my Dad would never have gotten to be successful. And he was. I have problems with some unions but not with the idea of unions.

JC:

Did you read my post entirely? It wasn't simple lack of compassion that drove me away. It was many different things. I listed a few. They in their entirety were an awakening for me.

I was a blind partisan. I never FAIRLY looked at the Republicans or any other belief system because I blindly accepted my party's take on them. I grew up. I looked at all positions with the blinders off and re-evaluated after some major soul searching.

I did not WANT to be a Republican. God help me - I did not. I'm not 100% a Republican now either.

Ross:
I have never met a single person who ever said that he would stop trying to earn more money, because the government would simply tax it away... This "disincentive" argument is simply disingenous; please present a single example of a person anywhere who has decided _not_ to earn more money because of taxation. I submit that this person will be somewhat irrational.

Where did I say that, any of that exactly? I said that being rich is pilloried by the Left and it is...Tax cuts for the rich is a favorite mantra of evil that is screeched about by Democrats as bad things.

High tax rates for success seems punitive. Why aren't we treated equally? Why are successful people punished for success? Why do liberals think that is fair?

Rosemary, I don't mean to put words in your mouth, and as I read what you've written, you do not make the disincentive argument directly. You make it indirectly, referring to "punishment" and "penalties" in the form of taxation; one can presume that if faced with punishment or penalties, there is a disincentive. I think it is your wording.

But let's set that aside.

You say that being "Rich" is being pilloried by the Left. How do you define rich? I would say incomes in excess of 200k, and net worth in excess of 250k.

If you feel taxation on the rich is unfair, what do you feel _would_ be a fair rate? What makes a taxation system fair? What would you change, given a revenue-neutral constraint?

Flat rate taxation seems like such a simple answer, but it would dramatically raise taxes on the poor and middle class and dramatically lower taxes on the rich, if we stay revenue-neutral.

When I am in favor of tax cuts for the poor, but not the rich, what does that make me?

When the offering plate is passed at Church, do poor struggling families put in the same amount as a well-to-do member of the community? Do we expect them to? Should we expect them both to tithe at 10%?

Fixed taxation, versus ratio taxation, versus progressive taxation is the debate. I favor a reduction in fixed (poll tax, license fees, communications fees) and ratio taxation (social security and sales taxes), and an increase in progressive taxation (income and to a lesser extent investment taxes).

Frankly I think the Democratic Party is finished due not so much to the stridency of the left side of the Isle but due to the its success.

Let me elaborate:

In terms of the broad social issues the Democratic (read liberal) party has basically won:

Discrimination against Women
Discrimination against Blacks and other minorities
The social safety net

Food Stamps
Social Security

We could go on for quite a while here.

Most of the ideas were basic things denied to the masses and useful for the country.
Some were good ideas that haven't gone well (re- the great society)
Some are good ideas that need tweaking (Welfare)
Some were good ideas that were excellent for their time and need a major overhaul (Social Security)
And some were good ideas that were necessary for their time but are no longer (Affirmative action)

What's more the mindset of the country has changed to the point where some of these programs that were once controversial are now just not in the thought process of the American mind. Two simple examples:

The concept of not paying a woman the same money for the same job with the same seniority.

The concept of separate but equal accommodation.

It is highly unlikely that a child born today would be taught this. CAVIET There is 290 million people in the us. Assuming that 1/100 of one percent .01% are loony (a reasonable number) that is still 29,000 people. 29,000 loony people can make a lot of noise, particularly when they can chat to each other on the net.

Giants of the Democratic Party such as O'Neil Roosevelt and Rayburn were responsible for much of this stuff and for the party's almost unchallenged 40-year rule in the house where all spending comes from.

The problem is when great leaders lead, many times lesser leaders follow. And those lesser leaders wanting to make their name in the same way as their predecessors found that they couldn't mainly because the big battles were already won and the small skirmishes though important didn't make one remembered, so they went from championing programs that made life easy for middle America to programs that shock them.

So instead of Brown trying to integrate schools we have separate graduations based on Race.

Instead of equal pay laws and treatment laws we have draconian behavior codes for employees.

Instead of Freedom of speech on campus we have speech codes

Instead of judging people by the content of their character we have quotas

Instead of school safety we have non-competitive sports.

Instead of a equal chance it we have equal results

Instead of protecting people from injustice we protect them from offense.

Instead of giving freedom of religion we remove the freedom of the state to acknowledge it.

Instead of preserving the right of people to live different we impose cultural norms by fiat.

Worst of all instead of celebrating our historic ability to progress for the better we see time and time again the condemnation of our country in academia, in culture and in a phobia of our national symbols.
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These are all things done in the name of being "liberal" and "progressive? Unlike the Teddy Roosevelt or Lafollette these "progressive" reforms are not to protect an oppressed minority from oppression but to impose a new norms on the alter of inclusiveness.

The Democratic Party has reached the point where their main fundraising is from either narrow groups with radical (and sometimes conflicting) agendas and people of great individual wealth who wish to impose their own Utopia on the "ignorant" masses.

The Democratic Party was founded as a party of the people.

It was on the wrong side of history when it chooses a slaveholding aristocracy over the masses.

It was on the wrong side of history when it choose separate but equal over Brown (only Lyndon Johnson's leadership self serving though it was turned the tables)

It is now on the side on an elite again, but unlike the previous two times it doesn't have the causes of the masses in other issues to carry it home.

Ross:

You say that being "Rich" is being pilloried by the Left. How do you define rich? I would say incomes in excess of 200k, and net worth in excess of 250k.

Well then how would you classify me? My wife and I had combined earnings last year of 23k, and a net worth in excess of 250k (none of it inherited). We owe much of our net worth to a "tax cut for the rich," the relief from the tax on inflation which enabled us to recover the value of our previous home and reinvest it.

John Kusch:

Please explain what Dow-Corning is guilty of.

Triticale: I take it that you pulled your capital out of your home and put it into some kind of investment, and that you did not push the capital back into a primary residence. Capital gains on homes are, of course, not subject to gains tax on the first (what is it?) $500,000 or so...maybe a bit more these days.

Which part of Bush's tax cuts helped you out?

You were already paying 20% long term cap gains before the tax cut. Since you have placed your income at 23k, you did not make the $140,000 or so you needed to before you would see much in the way of tax cuts. Was much of your earning in the form of dividends paid? It can't have been.

Let's say you pulled out $250,000 from your house. Bush's tax cuts altered your tax balance by about ($12,000). So yes, you saved some money with Bush's plan. I hardly think that this difference, around 5%, is "enabling" or "disabling" in this case.

But, let's say you have a buddy. He's not yet pulled his money out of the stock market, and he's made $250,000 in dividend income this year. That's a very healthy amount! It is the exact same amount you are declaring as income. Of course, he probably has some pretty vast stock reserves to generate such an income, and he'll be able to tap into those some day.

Bush's tax cut saves your friend a touch over $40,000 in taxes he would have otherwise paid. Of course your friend doesn't really care about money. :)

So which part of the tax cut helped you out? I would also appreciate an explanation of "tax on inflation".

Triticale; two additional points:

1. Long term cap gains are now 15% if you sold after May 2003. So that is down from the 20% it was before.

2. The new gains rate doesn't apply to tax-deferred retirement accounts.

Ross:

I actually do favor a flat tax. It won't hurt the poor because the poor only pay payroll tax - which is fair because they will be collecting Soc. Security. I don't think that anyone who is planning on collecting SS when they retire should be exempt.

The fact is that a single person that earns 68K a year is hit with 30%. The 141K bracket pays 35% That is a bit steep. The 300K bracket pays the top rate.

If a couple/single earn 200K a year they are paying 70K in federal taxes. Plus, payroll tax and any other misc tax.

But if everyone pays a flat tax - minus a healthy personal deduction and child deduction, that would be fair. Steve Forbes had a flat tax plan that was really reasonable. I am paraphrasing it but basically a family of 4 would not pay taxes on anything lower than 36K. Everything above that was at 17%.

The poor don't get screwed and wealthy people keep more money and toss it back into the economy.
Plus, it eliminates IRS hassles and people getting in trouble.

I don't think the tax system causes disincentive. I think it causes people to lie, cheat and hide their money.

I think entitlements cause disincentive. I think that too many public handouts keep people down.

John:

Thank you.

I agree with all that you have said. Completely.

"I have never met a single person who ever said that he would stop trying to earn more money, because the government would simply tax it away."

I simply have to put my $.02 on that one. I have 50 years of life experience - four in the U.S., two in France, one in Britain, one in Sweden, and 42 in Canada. I have met literally hundreds of people who decided to work less because of taxation. Most of them were fellow telecom workers who refused overtime because half or more of the extra money would be lost to taxation. In Sweden I met literally dozens of people who had passed up higher or professional education because the small amount of extra after-tax income it brought wasn't considered to be worth the effort. France, contrary to popular belief, has lots of hard workers - when they can get paid under the table, that is.

Now that data comes from my own personal first-hand experience, but there are lots of corroborating news stories. Compulsory overtime in auto assembly plants has been an irritation in U.S. labor relations, but in Canada it was a strike issue in the early 1990s. Many of the supposed "doctor shortages" in Canadian provinces are also related to this phenomenon, where many doctors decide that it's not not worth working full-time because of steeply "progressive" taxes.

Rosemary, a flat tax of 17% sounds nice, but it just doesn't really work.

1. 17%, back in 1996, resulted in a revenue reduction of around $49 Billion. That figure is much higher today.

2. Being revenue-neutral required that the rate be pushed up to around 21%, or higher.

3. All proposed flat tax plans eliminated exemptions for mortgage interest. This means you no longer get your house deduction. It would have a severe downward impact on house prices. Studies that say this is not so generally rely on "reduced interest rates" that would result from the flat tax to prop up house prices. Interest rates are already at historical lows, so that isn't going to happen.

4. Flat tax plans also eliminate exemptions for health insurance, medical plans, and require the employee to pay the entire 15.8% social security tax. None of those can be written off by the employer any more. A family of four with a single wage earner making 40k, is looking at yearly health insurance benefits of at least $4,000 that are now taxable (+$600), and SS payments that are really high (can't remember the starting exemption for this).

When you start adding all that up, it really isn't all that great of a deal any more. You're paying pretty much what you were paying before; in fact, you're paying somewhat more. So where does your extra money go?

Dramatic reductions in taxes for billionaires. Above 200k in income, the average tax cut is around 100k! Note that this is an average, not a median; a 200k earner obviously doesn't save that much.

So...sure, I would love to be paying 17%, if all things were equal. But they're not. My mortgage deduction amounts to close to 20% of my income...add that to the 21% revenue neutral version, flat tax I have to pay on benefits (like health insurance) from work, a doubling of my social security tax, and I'm the same or worse off than before.

In any case, the surplus that we might once have used to screw around with taxation ideas like this is gone. Conceptually flat tax is a nice idea, but in practice it just amounts to shifting the burden to the middle class and to the poor.

Chris: Your examples are reasonable when you consider that the top rate in Scandinavian countries is very high (70% or more?).

What we're talking about is whether a shift in top tax rate from 35% to 38% creates a disincentive. I don't think it does.

I think you'd have to look long and hard in America to find someone who doesn't think that earning another dollar is a good idea.

That was true before Reagan, after him, through Clinton, and it still holds true today.

I (ouch!) agree with Ross (arrgh) for once (yikes).

I hope this isn't a precedent. :)

Seriously, I think that most Middle-Americans would vote against a flat tax if they sat down and figured out how much more the middle and lower income brackets would have to pay to make up for the cuts that the upper 20% would get.

I don't think making the upper 20% pay a bit more is bad. I think it's bad when certain politicians abuse the idea, and rant about "tax cuts for the rich," and/or advance ideas that are based on soaking the rich.

But, I also think that confiscatory policies are a bad idea; even Lennon thought so forty years ago (Tax Man), although it took a major increase in income to change his mind. Heh...

I, for one, have refused opportunities to make extra income solely because I did not want to deal with the tax hassles.

So Ross, you can now say you know someone. You can quote me on that too. In fact, I've turned away work MORE than once simply for that reason.

So has my wife, come to think of it--remember Boorstein, honey, and how you said that with the extra taxes you'd have to pay, it wouldn't be worth working for him?

Yes indeedy, Ross, now you can say you know TWO people who've decided to turn away work simply because of the taxes.

People do INDEED avoid working harder because of taxes. They also work harder to evade taxes when you tax them more heavily. They also, just as importantly, look for higher profit margins--venture capital, in particular, is vulnerable to saying, "We have to make X amount of profit or we won't make enough after taxes to justify it."

Onerous taxation on the wealthy does indeed hurt productivity. There's no rationally questioning it.

So has my wife, come to think of it--remember Boorstein, honey, and how you said that with the extra taxes you'd have to pay, it wouldn't be worth working for him?

Oh, yeah that's right. That is why I turned down that job. I forgot all about that.

Actually that's 3 people just in this group then, as I posetd above I have turned down promotions for the same reason.

You over simplify the problem to say that people wouldn't turn down an extra buck. If I offered you a dollar to take out my trash, you might do it(depeding on how hard you thought it would be and how much the dollar was worth to you). If I said I would give you 60 cents and give the government 40 cents if you take out my trash, are you ust as kilely to still take the job? What if it were 80/20 or 30/70? You don't just get extra money for free, it takes extra work. There is a limit as to how hard people are willing to work for a specific level of compensation.

With the very wealthy it can create worse problems, they are often risking large amounts of income and we want them to, that is where a lot of the money for new business and new research and products come from. If you make it more expensive, you reduce the incentive for them to take such risks.

It's not a black an white issue like people seem to want to make it. It is a variable calculation. A more progressive tax system is a disincentive, now you can argue that at the rate of progression we currently have that the disincentive is not very strong, and you would be right in some cases and wrong in others. It is a factor, and one that people seem to want to ignore. That is why lowering taxes in the past has, many times, lead to an increase in revinue. Lowered taxes raised the incentive for people to work harder and/or take bigger risks resulting in and overall rise in productivity which created more taxable revenue and thus better tax revenue. This is also not a black and white thing, there is a level of progressive taxation that doesn't create a strong enough disincentive to prevent enough revenue to make up for the lower taxes(ok I could probably have written that better). Both points are valid and have evidence in the past. The argument really is are we at that level?

Progressive taxaition is not fair, but fairness is not what the government seeks with a number of it's programs. Wealth redistribution is a goal for many in this country, and it should exist in some form. There should be sytems to help people who have fallen into hard times, something to help people back on their feet. Many of us would argue, however, that the systems in this country which started with that purpose have now gone too far. So far we have focused on the disincentive to work for the middle, upper middle, and wealthy income classes. There also exists such a disincentive for the poor, I have known several people that are content to run unemployment to the max available and others who remain on welfare because it is easier that doing a job they don't want to do. When I was struggling and working on fast food while looking for another job in my profession I met a lot of peple who quit because they didn't make much more owrking full time than they were making on welfare. That is a bad thing. These are people who can work, but who don't because it's not worth it to them.

The answer is not to have a completely flat tax or to eliminate welfare. Rather it is to adjust the values to maximize productivity while still collecting the tax revenue needed to fund the government. The tax system is unfair and really there isn't anything wrong with that. Life is unfair and and unfair tax is used to somewhat compensate for that. I don't mind paying a larger share because I am more successful, but when the share grows too large, I am less inclined to be so successful.

The problem that I have with the Democrats curent position is that they seem to refuse to acknowledge this side of things. Instead they insist that tax cuts are evil(with the possible exception of cuts that affect only the poor). The turth is that tax cuts can be good at times and bad at times, it depends on where taxes are and what the economy is doing.

Hey Rose,

Great story. It always makes me laugh when I recall Mom and Dad harassing you for poisoning my mind and not allowing me to be a good Democrat.

The Democratic Party has been very very good to us through Dad. So I see why they were very supportive of the Dems.

I don't necessarily believe that you left the Democratic party or that they left you. We were just born into the Democratic Party, and it took us time to find our own way.

Jerry

Welcome Rosemary. I hope that if you ever decide that the Republican Party doesn't represent you, you'll leave it too. As a Republican, I think you did the right thing, If it had been the other way, I think you'd have been mistaken but still done the right thing. If you change from anything to anything because you thought about it, you'd be right. I hope you can be a Republican foe life, but if we leave you, leave us. Welcome.

Dean and Rosemary, congratulations on your rare personal honesty. I am sure we would disagree on many things, but your honesty is truly refreshing.

Ross, get a life, man!