>Re Brandon, I sincerely doubt his "love and devotion" to Obama define his existence.
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>Am I then to infer that you agree with Brandon that I hate Obama? You can't have it both ways. I asked him to provide one example of a policy of Obama's that he disagreed with but he was either unwilling or unable to do so. As I have told you on many occassions, I do not hate Obama, I do not know him. I merely disagree with his policies. So, are you saying that if I disagree with Obama's policies that I must, therefore hate him but if Brandon agrees with his policies that Brandon does not love him? Quite a double standard we have here.
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>I am not for big government, just a responsible safety net.
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>I believe in a responsible safety net but I call 99 weeks of unemployment compensation irresponsible. I believe that it prolongs unemployment. Back when I was working my way through school as a bartender, I broke both my legs. It made it more than a little difficult to tend bar, so I was on welfare and food stamps for 6 months. Then I went back to work and finished school and started paying more than enough taxes to repay the welfare I had received. That is what a safety net is for - it is not meant to be a way of life.
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>I am not for relentless taxation, just a fair system where everyone pays their fair share.
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>I agree with that too. However, what we consider fair may be quite different. The key word here is everyone. Everyone should have some skin in the game. Around 50% of all Americans pay no income tax at all. This non-partisan site has figures for 2008 and earlier:
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>http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
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>In 2011, the top 10% of the earners paid 70% of Federal Income taxes:
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>http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/top10-percent-income-earners
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>I would say that this is indeed unfair. As you said, everyone should pay their fair share.

Since, according to this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth , the top 10% own 70% of the wealth I wonder why you regard the tax structure as unfair?

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>As a nation we are locked into a Robin Hood in reverse strategy. Why should anyone complain? The strategy of helping the rich get richer has been working so well so far (eyeroll).
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>Can you back this up with any supporting data? I don't know about you, but no welfare recipient ever hired me to write custom software for them. Keep villifying and punishing the job creators and watch more and more businesses move off shore.
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>Whatever happened to fairness?
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>See my comments above.
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>That's all I want. I don't want to punish the rich. I just think they should pay their fair share.
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>Sounds to me like you do want to punish the rich. I think they should pay their fair share too. Right now they are paying more than their fair share. BTW, Mike, if you would like to pay more taxes, there is nothing preventing you from writing a check to the IRS. They will cash it and be happy to misuse it. There is also nothing that prevents Warren Buffet from doing the same....
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>Offloading it onto the least able, now that's objectionable.
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>Are you talking about the 50% of people who paid no taxes? Please tell me what we are offloading onto them and back it up with data, please.