Debate: Did Obama really say successful people didn't do it on their own?
Side: Yes, he is an idiot

LaterHe may very well have mentioned that later, but the subject of the debate was, specifically, the import of the quoted passage.Ignoring inconsistency, and that indeed, the other side of this argument is the rejection of taxes in general and speach addresses that as well, I'll simply lay out what the speach was about again.I do not believe that I have displayed any inconsistency. I should like to know to which of my statements you refer.The conservatives are going to continue to use the defecit as an excuse to cut programs and distract. Well, you want to cut the defecit? This will, whether it's used to help the poor and middle class or not.I am not one of these conservatives, and it is fallacious to suppose that, in rejecting Mr. Obama's sentiments, I am implicitly endorsing theirs. Now, is the issue at hand the welfare of the poor, the distribution of wealth and the merit of a particular tax measure; or the deficit? I neither mentioned nor alluded to the deficit in either of my arguments. So, is this money to be used in providing these fabled food stamps, or will it merely service American national debt?Meanwhile, you don't need to cut programs that do help the poor and middle class. These are called austerity measures in Europe, and they don't work as we see.If austerity measures do not work, then one should never 'need' to exercise them. If this is so, then the use of the deficit as an excuse for their implementation results from a lack of understanding, and not from the financial situation of the nation.I submit that if the United States were to stop borrowing money that it cannot pay back, the argument would be moot. But so long as the American economy is built upon such uncertain foundations, then no measure that you may care to implement, can do anything but forestall the eventual consequences.And one certainly does not repair an economy by allowing a government to cannibalize parts of it.Those tax cuts which were advertised necessary to boost the economy obviously did not work.Which is not a sufficient reason to suppose that a tax increase will.The US, managed almost miraculously, to go from the strongest the world had ever seen to the second worst in US history all while these job-creating tax cuts were in place.As I said, without terminating the reliance of the United States upon borrowed moneys, attempts to repair its economy, by alteration of the system of taxation that its government operates, shall prove largely futile.I argue I trust government to put in place jobs programs, fix infrastructure, hire more teachers, etc so long as the conservatives who only want to cut more taxes for the rich, cut any program for the poor, and put cameras in women's vaginas get kicked out of office.But if they are powerful enough to have these austerity measures implemented, even with a democrat as president, how on Earth do you contrive to achieve this?And at any rate your policy here is dictated by your political affiliations; not informed by economic understandings. You are conforming to the democratic stereotype, even as you condemn the conservative one. These factions are more concerned with the destruction of the other than with the proper exercise of office.I believe that I have advised you before, to quit your allegiance to the Democrats; an allegiance which you seem to hold by principle, rather than by meditation. The endless feud that exists between them and the Republicans has presently seized this frankly unimportant tax measure as its current pet topic, whilst largely ignoring the more pressing issues of the Nation's broken and corrupt political system, and its ill founded and ill managed financial system. It is delusional to think, that the situation can possibly be improved in the long term, whilst such egregious faults exist within the twin pillars that support the greater edifice, of American society.Though I will agree that contemporary Republicanism would make Jefferson weep, were he alive.And jobs plans have been proposed over and over while the republicans complaining about this speach are busy making lawas about abortion and filibustering any attempt to create jobs.Governments cannot create permanent jobs except within the civil service, neither of which contribute one extra bean to the wealth of the nation. The government should use the money it has, by wise economy and retrenchment of its unnecessary costs, to create opportunities, as you say. It should not take more money out of the private sector, to inflate the public sector; for such a policy would merely divert blood from what is already a struggling organ.Perhaps its too American-specific a speach for you to have understood the context.Once more, the passage that we are actually discussing was a general comment upon the necessity of public services for the advancement of private individuals. While the said services are certainly necessary, I do not know whether Mr. Obama had intended to suggest that it is a matter of personal debt to society that motivates the tax increase that you have mentioned, but if he did then he is wrong.I am of the opinion that an economy cannot operate upon principles that are so ambiguous and ill reasoned as personal obligations to society. Rather, let it be plainly stated by the government that in order for public services to continue, taxes shall have to be levied. Let them decide amongst themselves what proportion of the nation's wealth they should control, and let them engineer a system of taxation that fairly achieves this end. However, and this is perhaps the most important financial point that your argument does not consider (and I did, in my own defence, previously illustrate it for you); if taxes upon the majority of the nation's wealth (id est, the 85% held by the top 15%), are not generally applied, then as the wealth of that elite fluctuates, so too shall the revenue of the government. Therefore, measures which redistribute wealth to the poor shall detract from the governments revenues, and will eventually become necessary for the subsistence of those who are poor. Thus, a government which practices this Robin Hood policy of taxing the rich, to give to the poor, shall be propping up the poor with one hand, and digging away from its own foundation with the other. Both will fall. It is for reasons such as those above that I am convinced, that before considering an increase in taxes to service a deficit, a government should attempt retrenchment of all costs that will not be intolerably injurious to the poor. In stead of taxing the rich more, one should tax the poor less, and the mendicant not at all. If the government were to enforce a decent minimum wage, and not levy taxes upon those who earn below a certain threshold, they would do much to combat poverty. To prevent a subsequent rise in unemployment, it might behove the government to provide tax breaks, that are dependent upon the number of employees that a person has, and the wages of those employees.I am persuaded that the most effective means of combating poverty is not to primitively shove money at it, but to make it easier for those who have money, to employ people who need it for a decent wage.