From: harp@netcom.com (Gregory O. Harp)
Subject: Re: Does Bush hate Xmas or What ?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 06:24:47 GMT

dnm9@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (David Neal Messina) writes:

>In article <1992Dec12.223948.25318@netcom.com> harp@netcom.com (Gregory O. Harp) writes:

>>The problem is that the growth of the 80s was centered primarily on
>>the already well-off.  The 80s were an age of gluttony which we will
>>probably never see again.

>The growth was not centered around only the well-off.  Read the thread
>on the REAGAN-BUSH RETROSPECTIVE.  

I haven't seen this thread.  Is it hidden under another Subject: line
or have I simply missed it.  I'm reading this in
alt.current-events.somalia, BTW.  Is the thread in another group
(presumably alt.politics.bush, which I see in the Newsgroups: line)?

Also, I stand by my original statement.  Very few people who were
living close to the poverty level in 1980 were better off in 1989.
Many middle-class folks dropped to the povery level.  Many also got
rich.  _Most_ middle-class families have just been tightening their
belts and going on with life for the last 15 years or so.

The majority of those who benefitted during the 80s were those who had
money to invest in the various markets.  That's mostly the upper
middle and upper class.

>By the way, how do you
>differentiate between a healthy, robust economy and gluttony?  Why is
>making money associated with a cardinal sin?

Making money isn't.  Making lots of money at the expense of others is.
Put aside those who earned money selling drugs and contraband.  You
have left the liquidators, the inside traders, the dishonest S&L
executives, etc., etc.

I have only met four of five millionaires in my life, but never have
I met an honest one.  I'm sure there are honest ones out there, but
they appear (to me) to be in the minority.  Why has cheating on one's
taxes become such an acceptable crime?  

Also, I don't consider an economy that allows the rich to get richer
while the poor get poorer healthy _or_ robust.

>>Actually, the top earners have a lot of money "socked away" from the
>>tax breaks of the 80s.  If they don't pull a seven digit income after
>>taxes anymore I'm not going to shed a tear.  They won't be out on the
>>street, either, and they'll never starve.

>Again, why are the wealthy less entitled to personal property and
>prosperity than everyone else?  At what point does one become too wealthy,
>so that one suddenly shouldn't be the beneficiary of his own
>labor?  

They're entitled.  They're also entitled to pay a fair share of taxes.
It's not like they government will be taking everything over a
particular cap sum of a person's income.  They'll simply be taking
more from the wealthy than they did before.

To qualify this, let me explain my own personal situation.  I'm not
poor -- in the last year I've earned about $90K.  I'm young and
single, so I have very few expenses.  I'm self-employed so I pay the
full 15% FICA in addition to approximately 15% income tax.  I file a
perfectly accurate and legal tax form every year, and I am required to
send in an estimated tax payment four times a year (since I have no
employer to withhold my taxes for me).

In other words, this is not a grudge.  I don't sit around and giggle
that "the rich are finally going to get theirs".  I'm simply saying
that the 80s was a decade of the rich taking care of their own, and
that's over now.

>>Alot of people will, in fact, work for the government.  Now is a time
>>when we're desperately in need of a lot of civil servants.  Our police
>>forces are anemically under-staffed, as are our schools.  We need
>>programs to help keep kids off the streets and out of gangs.  Those
>>programs will need people to staff them.

>As of May 1991, there were 3.5 million people employed by the federal
>government. (World Almanac) This figure does not include those merely
>on the payroll, this is direct employment.  Estimating the country's
>population at 275 million, that comes to roughly one person in eighty.
>Isn't that more than enough?  I agree with you on cops, but they
>aren't usually employed by the federal government.  

Actually, I intended to include _all_ governmental employees in my
above statement, not just those who are employed at the federal level.
The federal government can (and probably will) affect the state and
local government's employment of civil servants with various funding
and regulations.

>Our schools, are.
>if anything, dramatically over-staffed.  Not with teachers, whom, I
>believe, often have difficulty finding a job, but administrators, who
>add little, if not detract, from the quality of education.  

I agree that there are far too many school administrators.  However
there are far too few teachers and most of them are underpaid, which
does little to attract new and better ones.  When I was a high school
student (during the 80s) some folks complained about the 1:30 to 1:35
teacher-student ratio.  Now I find that I was actually fortunate
compared to some schools.

>And on the
>call for programs, programs, programs, the idea is not new.  The
>number of programs of this sort have grown, but so have the numbers of
>kids on the streets and in gangs.  A program won't replace a family.
>I'm not saying that all programs are ineffectual, rather that most
>are.  

Yes, but _some_ programs work.  The point is that we have to figure
out what works and apply it to more kids.  It's relatively well known
that most gang members are in them because there's nothing else to do.
It's also about the only available source of income for them.

>Read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind.

I'll at least keep an eye out for it. 
-- 
-----------------Greg-Harp----------------harp@netcom.com------------------
  "I think I've reached that point / Where every word that you write /
  Of every blood dark sea / And every soul black night / And every dream
  you dream me in / And every perfect free from sin / And burning eyes /
  And hearts on fire / Are just the same old song" -- The Cure