>In first instances, yes. Not on the long term. A basic example. Lets say you have a taxable income of $40.000 and the taxes drop 1%, you'll have an extra of $400 annually. Meanwhile the rich with an income of 1.000.000 will have an extra of $10.000, so the gap widens with $9.600.
>I could not say it more plainly,
>

Like I said, basic math.

>But even worse. The salaries of employees are kept down to higher to profits of companies or just to stay compatitive (salary decrease of pilots at united airlines). Certainly you know the wallmart example. So if the employers see a possibility to lower the annual rise of your salary, they migth do it. So your benefit of your extra income is gone within one or two years.

That is some strange logic, predicated on the assumption that all corporations are evil, and guided only by the desire for profit. Wal-Mart may be that way, but to claim that they will lower or freeze wages because of a tax cut is unbelievable.

>But even more disasterous, you totally seem to ignore: Your government does get as much money, so they have to cut on services, security, health care and infrastructure.

You are assuming again. Tax cuts have to be balanced by reductions in spending, and there are lots of areas the government can cut without impacting the quality of life of its citizens.

>Why do you think new- orleans was such a disaster? Because of the hurricane ? Not directly...

Ummm...what news do you watch? NO didn't turn into a disaster because a hurricane missed it.

Regardless, that mess was not the result of lowered government spending. It was the result of improper government spending (among a host of other issues, most attributable to poor state and local policies).

>>As a conservative, it is my believe that taxes - and government spending - should be held to an absolute minimum.
>
>Then don't cry out loud when the government does not help you when you're struck with illness, or dikes break, you're fired and can't get a new job inmediately, A hurricane causes you to be without power for weeks, your wife gets sick and you have to take care of her, but could not afford to do so.
>

You misinterpret what I said. Conservatives are generally not the heartless bastiges that you seem to think we are. I have no problem paying my fair share of taxes. Police, fire depts, roads, all that has to be paid for somehow. That's just common sense. But there is a point at which taxation becomes too much, and we crossed it a long time ago.

>A striking example was that when I visited the US for the first time, I had unconfortable experience that when I was about to buy something and pay it, the taxes were on top of the price as mentioned in the store. Something that is always included in the consumers price up here, unless you go to a gross market for companies, which also will display the price without taxes.

Your VAT is therefore hidden from you. Not good, in my view.

>>If you add up federal income tax, Social Security, sales taxes, property taxes (pretty high here in Texas) and all of the other sneaky ways that government puts its hands in the middle class pocket, its too much.
>
>We call that an egocentric greedy society, and in some ways it is ingnorance. In the long term, Joe average does not notice much, but the government does have more money to take care of its citizens.

Here you go with the generalizing again. "We" or "I"? Do you really think that Joe Average doesn't notice? I must be an exception, then. Do you really think that all that money is being used to take care of our citizens? That assumes a benevolence that not even your government can claim.

>>So what. I don't believe that has any bearing on the arguement. Plus, as a middle-class citizen, I benefit very little from these so-called "quality of life" benefits you talk about. Nor does anyone in my extended family.
>
>So, what does it say about you when you know it does apply to the 40 million people without health insurance ?

Higher taxes do not, in and of themselves, magically take care of everyone. That's my point. You can trot out all the ills in the US and it still does not change the basic fact that if taxes go down, people will have more money in their pocket.

I don't have a good answer for the uninsured. I wish I did, because one of my brothers is in a bad way. But for all the money I pay a year in Medicare, he can't get the help he needs.

You act as if we are ignorant of problems like this. We aren't, but you don't change the policies of a nation the size of ours overnight. Personally I am very leary of universal health care, because of the amount of fraud and waste in the Medicare program that's already costing us millions.

>If you mean solcialism as implemented in communism, you're dead wrong. That is not the case in europe. In some eastern european countries there still might be something tiny left of that (vanishing quickly), but not in western europe.

No, I mean socialist in terms of the degree to which your governments are involved with your daily lives. Socialism as defined by Gerhardt Schroeder: "our unique European model of social participation and our embrace of the welfare state".

>>Don't try to twist words. Liberal is liberal, conservative is conservative. Liberal is not conservative, regardless of what side of the ocean you are on.
>
>You're wrong. Liberal at your side of the ocean has an entirely different meaning up here. I'm not twisting words up here. In effect liberals up here are considered as conservatives as well. If we have you political idealogical system implemented in holland, we only would have one political party: Librals. I'm not sure for the UK, where they have the conservatives and another (one which name escaped me for this moment).

See, you're generalizing again. To say that everyone in Holland defines themselves as "liberal" implies a politically impossible scenario.

>>Because of the manner in which you say it. Because you accuse people who don't support your manner of thinking as being idiots. Because you continually denounce and degrade us as childish and ignorant of the world outside our borders. You do it repeatedly. And, frankly, I'm pretty sick of it.
>
>So your standpoint and argument changes, depending on how people talk to you. Interesting...
>BTW, I treat people like idiots when they are not willing to think outside of their mindset. I'm open to any different viewpoints or suggestions. I'll almost always deepen myself in such topics and try to speak intelligently about it. If the other ones dismiss this as dumb bashing, don't expect me lower myself to this level, and I'll not be afraid to tell you that.

My arguement with you is in part over your blatant disrespect for people with opinions other than your own, as shown by your "I'd vote" statement regarding Republicans, made to John Harvey after he agreed to tone down his own rhetoric. Proof of which you quoted in your post. That comment was NOT worthy of anyone that claims to be as open-minded as you do in the paragraph above.

>Hyper inflation, geeezz, war, revolutions? You must have reading an old book and prove you have no clue of what europe has been doing for the last 50 years. http://www.ricksteves.com/about/pressroom/activism/eurodream.htm
>
>If you really want to intelligently talk about this, then you better know your facts. You don't show to know much about europe. Maybe that is what is characterizing you: Not willing to look outside your mindset. BTW, our inflation is controlled nowerdays, each EU nation is not allowed to have an inflation above 3% or some action will be taken.
>

No. I know plenty about what Europe has been doing in the last 50 years. My issue is that you have repeatedly offered Europe up as an unconditional role model for us poor, ignorant Americans to aspire to. My posts to you have been an attempt to (a) demonstrate that Europe has a history of failed politics, (b) illustrate that what you think works there may not work here, and (c) that I don't think your system of government (choose a country) works very well either. Here's an article you might find interesting:
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18719/article_detail.asp. I'll warn you now that it's from a conservative magazine, but you've already claimed that studying the opposition is a good thing.

>And if you really want to talk history you better might deepen yourself in the matter. There is much to say on how and why those continents developped the way they did. It is not as you like to think black and white. There are all kinds of issues involved. If you really do know this, you would talk way more intelligently about this issue.

If you don't think I can talk intelligently about history and why I disagree with your public statements then there is no point in our continuing this. I have made my case, let the others following this thread interpret things as they will.