>>Dorris, it's undeniable that the US was doing better when tax rates on higher incomes were higher. It's an association and you can't say for sure which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Maybe times were so amazingly good and prosperous that disposable incomes remained marvelous almost independent of tax, especially since keeping up with the Jonses is easier when everybody is on the same wicket (English term). Of course these figures come from before the parasitic types began shaving enormous sums from the economy in exchange for nothing of value to anybody else and insisting that the Founding Fathers wanted the rich to pay less tax and continuing guzzling long after their bellies were stuffed.
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>Actually, according to testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Human Resources, in the 'average' year (and no, I don't know what they're calling an 'average' year - do your own Google-fu) about 1/2 of AFDC caseload leaves the welfare system and most families that get off the rolls do it within a year.
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>So, the parasitic types aren't 'sucking at the teat' for that long. What really shot the US economy in the foot were two VERY expensive wars, then the unregulated (by Republican insistance, even if signed by Clinton iirc) banks shot us in the other foot with barely secured mortgages that had been sold and resold and resold.

I'm pretty sure that by "parasitic types," John did not mean the poor. Read his last sentence again. I think he's referring to the rich and specifically to the part of the rich that makes their money by churning money around.

Tamar