You’re right, rich people do care about poor people. After all, if there weren’t poor people, who would they get to do the gardening, cleaning, driving, etc?

Zooey. When you tax the ‘rich’ people to the point they can’t hire a gardener, a cleaning service, or driver’s, who is going to employ those people? you? the government?

When you take away the incentives for people to produce – who’s going to bother? When people stop producing, where will the government get it’s revenues to do all the high minded things you want government to do?

I understand if you resent people that make alot of money. But, if people can’t afford better education or a better standard of living, does it really make sense to blame the people that provide the opportunity for the income that they do have?

Some have tried the avenue of attacking wealth to promote equality. It was the Soviet Union. If you want to bring the standard of living down so low that no one makes any more than anyone else – give it your best shot.

Rich people will figure out some other way. The people that will be the most impacted and that will resent your good intetions the most, will be resulting unemployed poor that you believe you so compassionately champion today.

In theory, I appreciate your sentiment. In reality, your class envy is naive and dangerous to the continued relative high standard living of today’s U.S. poor.

B.I.T.C.H. means Boys I’m Taking Control Here

good one! worth a repeat!

You’re right, rich people do care about poor people. After all, if there weren’t poor people, who would they get to do the gardening, cleaning, driving, etc?

The poor just better not be wanting a decent education for their children, or expect to climb very far up the social or economic ladder.

Your passionate and convicted. I’m obviously not going to convince you, but my main argument is that some (I suggest most) republicans think that not only is less government better for rich people, but it’s better for poor people too.

The idea may not be true, but that’s what Republicans sincerely believe. So, I would disagree that republicans don’t give a damn about poor people or are out to ’screw the poor’. We just disagree with the premise that government is going to make it better for most in the long run. I concede that government is able to narrow the wealth gap, but only by bringing the collective standard of living down. It’s just what I believe.

I could offer the Soviet Union as an example. I could offer pre market reform China as an example. I could try to convince you that government doesn’t really produce anything and that it is actually business that is the engine to prosperity, but I know I’m not going to convince you.

But, please consider, that although I understand that my ideas may be wrong, I don’t believe them out of disregard for the poor.

Let’s look at the words he chose to use, shall we? Notice that he only apologized for expressing the sentiments aloud. There’s nothing whatsoever in his apology to suggest that he sees anything inappropriate about the sentiments themselves.

What I DID say is that REPUBLICAN government is not the answer to anything. Unless of course, you’re in the top 1% of income. In that case, it’s heaven.

I’m arguing in favor of a government that is NOT corrupt. I’m arguing for courts that are fair, not partisan. I’m arguing for legislators who haven’t been purchased by lobbyists. I’m advocating a balance between labor and management. Balance is key.

I never said that the Democrats would bring all that. I don’t believe they can in their current incarnation, either. Any more than Republicans can.

If it were up to me, if I were Queen, I’d wipe the slate clean – and start over. Scrap the IRS. Scrap the tax code. Scrap the current welfare system. Scrap the government bureaucracy. Start over. Build it again – from the ground up. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Progressive, surely.

Furthermore, you are arguing all around my statement. You never do directly rebut what I’ve said, i.e., that Republicans for the last 20 years have been all about the haves and the have mores.

Holding up the poor in the third world as an example of how wonderfully well the poor are doing here in America is comparing apples and dog crap. Yeah, maybe they’re both sort of rounded, but that’s it.

That study you cited is, again, from an extreme rightwing source, and has been thoroughly debunked as a load of garbage. Holding up the fact that a family owns a color tv has nothing at all to do with whether or not they can pay their bills today. I own a color tv, but it happens to be 24 years old. My 24 year old color tv doesn’t mean I’m well off. However, when I’m compared to a Guatamalan laborer, I live like a king.

That said, backup, when you apply AMERICAN standards – in other words, you compare Americans to Americans, things shake out a whole lot differently. The fact that people here in this nation go hungry or die from lack of medical care is our national shame. And Republican rule has only made it worse. The rich have gotten richer – and the poor have gotten poorer. The middle class is being squeezed inevitably into poverty by the borrow and spend and steal rule of the Republican elite. Just look at the statistics on inflation, gasoline prices, stagnant wages and foreclosures. None of those things affect the elite any more than a flea bite affects an elephant. But when you’re living on the edge, from paycheck to paycheck – as the majority of working Americans are these days, $5 for a gallon of milk and $4 a gallon for gasoline takes a HUGE bite out of the budget. Your kid needs his appendix out, and if you don’t have insurance, well, you’re screwed.

I don’t buy that garbage either, about conservatives giving more to charity, etc. etc. etc. If progressives ruled the world – we wouldn’t NEED charity.

That’s the difference. I don’t expect you to get it. You’re still invested in your mythical Republican. Good luck with that.

Next time, try rebutting my arguments DIRECTLY – instead of throwing up a load of rightwing hooey.

There is a role for government and the Bush administration has had failures in its leadership of some of those appropriate governmental roles.

If our poor fare better than the poor of more socialist countries, couldn’t we chalk that up to more burdensome government?

It is possible that government isn’t the panacea that many progressives believe it to be.

46 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only six percent of poor households are overcrowded; two thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

97 percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.

62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

89 percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

As a group, America’s poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100-percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, super-nourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and ten pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjE3NTA4Yjc0NjQxMDA4ZjhlZjczMWM0YWNlM2JhOTg=

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16638810/

If those that favor less government (relatively) did it because they didn’t care about the poor, why is the U.S. on the top of the list of charitable nations?

If you believe in less government, it’s not because you don’t care about the poor. That’s fallicy that liberals would like to prepetuate.

Most people that believe in less government really believe that less government is the best environment for everyone, especially the poor.

– Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

– Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

– Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

– In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

– People who reject the idea that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html

All that crap about “small government,” “fiscal responsiblity” etc. etc. etc. and ad nauseum is just doublespeak from a bunch of wealthy, corrupt, power-hungry and evil men who want it all. Literally. They want to own and rule the world – screw the poor. Screw the huddled masses. They’re sheep for the shearing and fodder for the cannons.

Leftside Annie. Let me try to counter in general terms.

Most would consider the U.S. as having less government than most of the developed world. And lower tax rates. If you take Europe as an example, the average person there pays much more in taxes and doesn’t get any appreciable better standard of living.

As far as the ’screw the poor’ sentiment, I would differ only by saying that although you may feel the U.S. doesn’t support the poor, our poor have a much better standard of living than most of the poor of other countries. The U.S. also has a reputation as being the world’s most charitable country. And I could google for it, but I believe there are some stats that show those that claim to be republican are at least as personally charitable as those claiming to be progressive or liberal.

I think your belief that government can solve the world’s ills is admirable. I only believe that it doesn’t work in practise as well as it does in theory.

Governments in general seem to be much less efficient, by nature, than the marketplace.

It’s bullsh*t. There hasn’t ever been a Republican Party the way you describe it – not since Goldwater, have they even come close. That Republican Party is a myth. It doesn’t exist. On the contrary, since that crook Richard Nixon, the Republican Party has been the party of the elites, the wealthy, the powerful, the “haves and the have-mores” who are trying their damndest to take this country back to the so-called “Gilded Age” of the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s.

The Republicans are pining for the age of the Robber Barons, backup, where the rich were kings and the poor were slaves. No income tax, no Social Security, no help for the poor – if the poor were poor and hungry, that was just tough ol’ titty, wasn’t it? If they died, well, too damn bad. The poor were too lazy to make their fortunes, were they not?

Spare me your myth of the modern-day Republican Party. It doesn’t exist. It has never existed.

All that crap about “small government,” “fiscal responsiblity” etc. etc. etc. and ad nauseum is just doublespeak from a bunch of wealthy, corrupt, power-hungry and evil men who want it all. Literally. They want to own and rule the world – screw the poor. Screw the huddled masses. They’re sheep for the shearing and fodder for the cannons.

I believe in a better world. And Republicans have no part in it.

I’ll give you that today’s Democrats aren’t much better. But they ARE better in that at least they make some effort to care for the poor, the young and elderly, to feed the hungry, to make sure that the working people of this world have *some* rights and protections against those who would exploit them.

So spare me your pious Republican BS. It’s a fairy tale. That’s all.