Pucker up, buttercup.
The president's presumption, obviously, is that all of your money belongs to the government first, and that when you get a deduction for medical expenses or mortgage interest, it's really because the government "spent" that money on those deductions.
Unfortunately, that's not how things work. My money is still, at the end of the day, my money.
He gave examples such as the mortgage deduction and other "itemized" deductions that most "middle-class" Americans don't participate in.
On a related note, we get nowhere with class warfare. I know the president is speaking to a constituency when he talks about "the wealthiest Americans," but the fact is that the top 1% of wage earners pay something like 40 percent of all tax revenues. Oddly, those same folks still get 1 vote each. The president's assertion that the poorest in America have no voice in Washington is ludicrous - of course they do, but their voices in Washington are the lobbyists from non-profit groups like United Way and others.
Update: Turns out that most of the people in each income group turn over frequently - the top income folks weren't necessarily there when things were measured 10 years ago. Check out this blog.
We've got to reign in spending, that's the only way to fix things. And not by pushing it all down to the states, either (Medicaid). If we don't reduce the size of state, local and federal governments, we stand to end up like Greece, Portugal or, gasp, even maybe Wisconsin.
The president's presumption, obviously, is that all of your money belongs to the government first, and that when you get a deduction for medical expenses or mortgage interest, it's really because the government "spent" that money on those deductions.
Unfortunately, that's not how things work. My money is still, at the end of the day, my money.
He gave examples such as the mortgage deduction and other "itemized" deductions that most "middle-class" Americans don't participate in.
On a related note, we get nowhere with class warfare. I know the president is speaking to a constituency when he talks about "the wealthiest Americans," but the fact is that the top 1% of wage earners pay something like 40 percent of all tax revenues. Oddly, those same folks still get 1 vote each. The president's assertion that the poorest in America have no voice in Washington is ludicrous - of course they do, but their voices in Washington are the lobbyists from non-profit groups like United Way and others.
Update: Turns out that most of the people in each income group turn over frequently - the top income folks weren't necessarily there when things were measured 10 years ago. Check out this blog.
We've got to reign in spending, that's the only way to fix things. And not by pushing it all down to the states, either (Medicaid). If we don't reduce the size of state, local and federal governments, we stand to end up like Greece, Portugal or, gasp, even maybe Wisconsin.
