From: jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: tx.politics,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Clinton Policies (was: Re: Legalized Theft)
Date: 14 Sep 92 03:01:46 GMT
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Distribution: usa
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Austin, Republic of Texas

In article <18vp51INNq4j@agate.berkeley.edu> lazarus@ocf.berkeley.edu (Andrew J. Lazarus) writes:
>This is N O T a measurement taken "per dollar earned". You (finally)
>admit that and somehow think this is a great victory for you.
>It is per dollar paid, or, in simpler, less deceptive English, the rich
>person paid 240 times as much as the poor one. A per capita statistic,
>not  per dollar earned.

Andy, when I first posted the figure I was very clear on the point that
I was very UNCLEAR what the figure meant exactly.  You seem to have a
problem with this.  You see, this is how life works - we say things that
are inexact, then we find the inaccuracies and we fix them.  Then we
find the few remaining inaccuracies and fix them, too.

Do I think it is wrong that the rich paid 240 times more "per-capita"
than the poor?  Yes.  The poor have the same rights under the Constitution
as the rich.  But, since there are "more" of them, they have one very
powerful right - the right to vote for bread and circuses.  It was said
hundreds of years ago that a democracy cannot work.  Democracies fail
because the poor rapidly discover that they can vote themselves largess
from the public treasury and force the "wealthy" to pay for it.

>>Oh - I found this in there too:  In 1977 60% of the public had an income
>>between $15K and $50K.  By the end of Carter's term, that was down to
>>58.6%.  The "super rich" - they rose from 21.1% to a whopping 21.6%.
>>THAT is an example of "The poor got poorer."  Under Reagan, not only did
>>the rich get richer (from 21.6% to 29%), but the poor got richer, too
>>(from 19.9% to 18.0%).
>
>Probably you are misunderstanding the figures. For example, are these
>also in constant dollars? I may or may not have time to investigate it.
>Instead lets look at another concession of yours disguised as a
>victory.

Yes, they are in constant dollars (1989 dollars, to be exact).  It was in
the figure I posted.

>Ooops. You couldn't refute this at all. Let me remind people that the
>97/3 figure was obtained by crediting the top 15% of taxpayers (who pay
>half of the tax) with the amount of tax paid by the top half of the
>population. A complete nonsense number.

I didn't have to refute it.  I instead pointed out that the top 50% of
the taxpayers paid 95% of the taxes.  I've noticed that you didn't refute
THAT figure.

>(1) Usually conservatives don't view exemptions like the blind's as a
>handout. By that definition the mortgage interest deduction, adjustments
>for moving, health expense deductions, etc. all become handouts.
>That's funny, I thought you conservative guys decried the attitude that
>all the money belongs to the government and any special thing on taxes
>is a handout. (2) Your previous statements about EIC was simply wrong as
>matters of fact. You left out that one must have dependents and that it
>is means tested. Incidentally, the tax figures I posted were corrected
>for EIC.

The credit for the blind is a handout.  The credit for home mortgage
interest is not a handout.  The earned income credit is handout.

1). The credit for being blind has nothing to do with how much income
    you earn.  No one is paying extra income tax because you gave them
    this money.
2). The home mortage interest deduction is not a handout because you
    are paying money to a corporation that will in turn pay taxes on
    that income.  Not giving a credit for home mortgage interest (or
    medical expenses, or moving expenses, or ...) would be tantamount
    to taxing the money twice - once when I earn it, and again when
    the doctor, banker, moving person, etc. earns it.
3). The earned income credit is a handout because it is money for
    nothing.  The person receiving the credit didn't earn the money.
    They got it because a politician thought they could get more
    votes by giving the poor bread and circuses.

Not everything that looks like a credit is a credit.  With the home
mortgage deduction, all the government is doing is giving me back some
of the money it stole from me in the first place.  Actually, it doesn't
give me back that much money because I have a low interest loan with a
small loan balance - something about not buying more house than I can
use and not rushing into debt.  You know, good old conservative spending
habits ...

>Actually, this is sometimes tedious, but I want you to know I'm on to
>you. I hope I can make the rest of the net see of you what Mary McCarthy
>said of Lillian Hellman: "Every word she says is a lie, including 'and'
>and 'the'".

No, you are onto the dream of every good liberal.  We are simply arguing
past each other.  You think it is OK that the rich are taxed so hard.
But stop and think for a moment - do you expect the poor to give you a
job as a mathemetics professor?  If I knew that Joe Bob Willy could
create a ton of jobs if I gave him a wad of money, I'd give him every
spare dime I've got.  Why?  Because only the RICH hire people.

What you don't get is that I don't care if the rich pay only $1 in taxes
more than the poor.  Frankly, given the number of people that the rich
employ, and the good that the rich do for the economy, the rich should
pay NO taxes.  Because I have a secret - if you give a rich man a big wad
of money, he WILL create a ton of jobs.  And those jobs will include
mathematics professors that have been pushed away from the public trough.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                   | "The US Government has the Midas Muffler
Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151            |  touch: everything they touch turns to
UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh |  shit."
Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org      |                  -- Jay Maynard