[quote name='mykevermin']^ RvB, I remember when you used to be the "rightie" on these boards. Whenever I see you post something unequivocally reviling the GOP, I wonder if that's a reflection of your changing ideals, or the entire party diving off the crazy cliff.
Magus makes a fine point, but we don't even need to go that far to show the double taxation argument is insipid.
The double taxation argument is that it's unfair to tax because it was already taxed (via payroll tax) as a salary.
Such an argument shows that the Republicans truly only care about benefits for the ultra wealthy. The Bush-era tax cuts were defended like society's future was at stake by the party who never saw a tax cut they didn't like - until a payroll tax cut was proposed by Obama (and was framed as "not a tax cut" by the right). Capital gains tax rates are defended as unfair and "double taxation" because they stem from invested salaries (already subject to payroll taxes) - which is both inaccurate (as Magus and others show) but also incomplete.
If "double taxation" was a concern, why don't they rail against sales taxes? Why don't they rail against luxury taxes, or sin taxes? You buy a case of beer, that has a lot of built-in taxes on it, with money you got from a paycheck, and was therefore already subject to a payroll tax. Why should you be taxed again? Same logic applies to a double-deuce of "Natty Lite" (or craft beer if you're dmaul, he wouldn't be caught dead with such a thing) as it would investments with Bain Capital, yes?
So the "double taxation" argument (or the "contextual" argument as BigT might make it) is incomplete and selective in favor of benefiting a specific group of individuals, the ultra wealthy (1%, 0.1%, whathaveyou). It does not consider that there are many occasions where routine expenditures by average Americans meet the same criteria of 'double taxation' as investments, and assumes that the average American is too stupid (or too disinterested) to discover that they are subject to an arbitrarily-applied set of rules in order to continue rigging the game in favor of those who have already won. The Centurion Card-carrying mother
ers.[/QUOTE]
I'd like to think it's a little bit of both. I have had some fundamental changes in my ideals over the last year or so. Why? Because the Republicans have shown us one thing and one thing only over the last few years, they care about the rich and no one else. They're concerned with the rich staying rich and little else.
I used to believe in a system, a system the Republicans celebrated for fairness, in which any person could get ahead if they just worked hard enough. That system doesn't exist. The rich hoard their money like Scrooge McDuck and only let their chosen few into their "club." The middle class in this country is evaporating and it seems to be business as usual in Washington, particularly for the Republicans. Who is taking the brunt of the economic meltdown? The middle class and poor, not the rich. Are the rich having their only home foreclosed on? They
might have a pinch in their pocket but nothing that's hurting them as much as this economic crisis is hurting the middle class. Where are all the foreclosures happening? The mansions of the Hamptons or the suburbs of Florida, Las Vegas, etc.
Of course, the inevitable retort is going to be, those people being foreclosed on should have never taken that mortgage on in the first place, they obviously couldn't afford it. To that I say bullshit, complete and utter bullshit. These are people who
could afford their mortgage until the owners of their company decided it was time to "tighten the belt" and laid off their entire division or that James with 20 years of experience was being paid too much whereas Joseph who just started gets paid less; So? too bad James, you're expendable, we don't care if you have a family of 4 and a mortgage, we need our stock price to go up 2 % because our board and stockholders need to make up the losses they've taken on their other holdings.
I know, I know; but this is just class warfare bullshit. I used to think that too anytime someone brought up class inequality. The simple fact is that if it is class warfare, its the rich that are embargoing the poor not the poor taking shots at the rich. Just look at the bailout. The banks were given tax money, our
ing money, with the express intention of those banks using that money to refinance mortgages, make new loans, to just plain get the
ing economy going again. What did they do? Paid out million dollar bonuses, used it to pay off their debts, and generally did anything
except what the government intended them to do with it. The result? The banks all suddenly turned the ship around while the rest of the economy continued to stall.
The mortgage crisis. Yeah, I still have more to say on that. Everyone wants to talk about small percentages? Sure, I'll give you small percentages. Small percentages is exactly those people the Republicans like to point out as taking on mortgages they couldn't afford. The rest of them were made up of the middle class people I pointed out above and people who were downright swindled. People who were aggressively sold on mortgages, tricked into believing that their adjustable rate mortgage would never go up, that by not having to show proof of their income the bank was just doing them a favor, etc. The bank's approach in signing those risky mortgages? What do we care, we'll just sell the mortgage on the secondary market, if it fails it isn't our problem. The broker that sold it doesn't care, he already got his bonus in the form of an incentive to sell a higher interest rate to the buyer (or more typically, he just flat out lied to them about the actual interest rate they qualified for) But still, the banker thinks, these mortgages look like shit, how do we sell it on the secondary market? Same thing Food Lion does with expired steaks, grind it up with some better stuff and no one will be able to pick it out. Hide those shitty mortgages inside other mortgages to make the overall package look good. If nothing else, they can always insure themselves against loss through AIG, right?
So, then what happened this summer. A few individuals decided they had enough of the rich sitting in their ivory towers ignoring the plight of those "below" them so they put it right in their face by occupying Wall Street. A movement vilified by the right when it came just a short time after the right's own version, the tea party. Ahh, the tea party... Anyone remember that statistic that the majority of those associating with the tea party were pulling social security and Medicaid. Good times. Don't take me wrong, I don't have a problem with social security
or Medicaid but rather when you're rallying against a government charging too high of taxes and too many handout while that same government sustains you, you just look like an idiot.
Now, that all brings me to the Republicans response to the current situation in America. Let's put up 2 guys who are well established in the 1% themselves. Bachmann may have been a complete nutjob but at least she was one of the few nominees who could maintain a straight face if talking about the plights of the middle class. You know why Heidi Fleiss stuck to the west coast? Because Newt Gingrich already had the market cornered in Washington. This is a guy who, after being effectively kicked out of office went on to form a "consulting firm" that did little more than sell the political favors that Newt had built up in his time in Washington. The cause didn't matter, as long as the money was there, Newt would "consult" for you. Good ol' boys club doesn't even begin to describe it. Mitt Romney... you almost had us, you really did. What with your
somewhat moderate tendencies in Massachusetts as Governor including overseeing the passage of healthcare reform in Massachusetts. Then, then we learned the truth. You're the guy that bought James and Jospeh's company, sucked all the assets you could from it, laid them off, and made a $20 million dollar payday along the way. Well at least you paid your fair share of taxes on that $20 million, oh wait...
That, that long wall of text is sadly the most succinct way I can put it when I say, "
the Republican Party."
I think of myself as a very hard worker, and I pay almost nothing. But to say that we need to tax the rich more, when they're already a lion's share of the tax revenue, and criticize a guy for trying to pay less in tax to keep more of his income (legally) seems like bad policy to me. Like I said to Camoor, I don't foresee any argument that is going to change our respective positions on that though. 
