PA budget

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Everybody else got laid off, let the state workers go.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Originally Posted by Flint

Why is this a statement with no explanation? Why "should" a person who has worked hard and made smart decisions in order to provide for their family be punished for their hard work and sacrifices?

Let's use the family analogy that repubicans are so fond of these days. Your family has four members in it. Do you each pay the same amount for your food, clothing, utilities, etc.? No. You pay much more than your children do. Why? because you make much more than they do. Are you being punished for your hard work?

Wealth people "should" pay more taxes because they've benefitted from government services, which have allowed them to attain wealth, because a strong middle class will make a strong America, and because everybody needs to feel some pain, not just those whose jobs are being eliminated and those whose services are being cut.

Originally Posted by Flint

If you set up the system: "the harder you work, the less you can keep" what would happen?

You'd have a system that gives incentive to reinvest capital. Workers would be paid more, businesses would become more efficient, prices would be kept lower, products and services would be better. Think the 1950s.

[Spexxvet]

Current repubican policy reminds me of the christian church in the middle ages. Keep the commoners ignorant, hungry, poor, and scrared, and take care of the Titled, who will protect the church's interests.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Two wrongs don't make a right.

But one reality makes a reality.

Kids think they should get every toy in the store. Parents have to tell them, "Money doesn't grow on trees." Be a parent, not a kid. If kids ran the world, we would be doomed. Parents are here for a reason. Don't be a kid. It makes it harder on us parents to keep society intact.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Let's use the family analogy that repubicans are so fond of these days. Your family has four members in it. Do you each pay the same amount for your food, clothing, utilities, etc.? No. You pay much more than your children do. Why? because you make much more than they do. Are you being punished for your hard work?

I chose to have children, they are my responsibility. And, I am teaching them to grow up and be self sufficient. The money that I earn in order to support my family is not being coerced from me when I support my own children (as it is when the government takes over the redistribution of MY earnings). This isn't an anlogy, this is a reality. I live this.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Flint

redistribution of MY earnings

It's not "redistribution of my earnings". It's investing in our national community. For example: nobody wants to be driving behind a care in disrepair and run over something that falls off it, or have another care in disrepair collide with you because it's brakes don't work. So we have standards for cars, and a department of transportation or motor vehicles to manage that. And we don't want to wait in long lines when we get our cars inspected.

When you reduce government/taxes, something gives, whether it be your children's education, police or firefighter coverage, or the safety of the car in front of you or behind you.

How do you make a second-rate nation out of a first-rate nation? Reduce government spending. Name a country that has gone through an austerity program and come out better for it.