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I can see you take issue with Christianity, but it would seem that you have a religion of your own regarding economics.Unless the middle class and lower vote out Republicans who write tax laws that allow such anti/American anti-union oligarchs to benefit their financial empires.
We can’t do that until white Christian nationalists, the evangelicals, quit applying their irrational supernatural metaphysical ‘truths’ to our secular system of government in the voting booth. If they ever start voting middle class self-interest instead of faith based belief in Reagan’s trickle down economics we will resolve 90 percent of our problems.
I have no issue with Christians at all. My mom was a Christian. Joe Biden is a Christian and great American. I am a rational theist as were our first four presidents, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. Economics is science - it needs rational humans to get it right. We don’t have that now. We have the wealthiest writing tax laws entirely because white Christian nationalistic Republicans vote faith-based culture wars instead of self-economic interest.I can see you take issue with Christianity
If you're one of the many (like me) who thinks that much of America's Christian population has sold its soul to a con man
Biden is trying to get law abiding citizens to vote for him. Their religion has nothing to do with it. Biden is a Catholic.Which means, Biden is the con man once he tries to get an Evangelical to vote for him. True?
Which version.To me, only God is great.
If you're one of the many (like me) who thinks that much of America's Christian population has sold its soul to a con man, here's a really interesting interview -- and one really fascinating point.
Tim Alberta is a devout Christian who has been so troubled by this that he has written a book on the topic. The interview is almost 36 minutes, but there is one moment where I think he makes a very interesting (and even fair, kind of) point. This doesn't absolve the obvious dishonesty and rank hypocrisy that we see, but at least it explains it in a way:
At 11:46: "For a lot of these people who are panicked, who are just stricken with fear about the culture changing so quickly and the country turning on Christianity, and that their faith is in the crosshairs and one day they're going to be persecuted for their faith in this country -- a lot of folks believe that -- they think the barbarians are at the gates, and so they need a barbarian to defend them. To protect them.
"And so, they look at Trump, and the behavior and the rhetoric, and in some sense, because he is not bound by biblical teachings, not bound by biblical virtues, he is free to fight for them in ways that no good Christian ever would".
Holy crap, that's interesting. MAGA followers by and large and not very good at articulating their reasoning, and he does a very good job here. Again, it doesn't explain away many of the behaviors, but at least there is some reasoning here to grab on to.
Rational humans understand that wealth envy is not rational and is the basis for most of the "tax the rich" rhetoric. It is not in our economic self-interest to tax the rich more anymore than it is in our interest to tax more in general.I have no issue with Christians at all. My mom was a Christian. Joe Biden is a Christian and great American. I am a rational theist as were our first four presidents, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. Economics is science - it needs rational humans to get it right. We don’t have that now. We have the wealthiest writing tax laws entirely because white Christian nationalistic Republicans vote faith-based culture wars instead of self-economic interest.
From my perspective, the Biblical one. As for which Biblical interpretation, I prefer the Calvinist viewpoint for the most part.Which version.
I disagree, and I disagree because its an inaccurate statement.Biden is trying to get law abiding citizens to vote for him. Their religion has nothing to do with it. Biden is a Catholic.
Biden is a pro-choice Christian as every American Christian should be when they live in the United States of America, the bastion of religious freedom in the world.
That's an interesting timeline to use. Big government as we know it didn't really start until the late 1800s. So, from 1787 to about 1890, there were 2 major wars that did cost a lot for their time, but they didn't involve permanent tax increases. Both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War did involve taxes to fund them, but they went away shortly thereafter. The federal government overall had very little administrative overhead up until Progressives started to dramatically grow government. That's the real reason why debt started becoming a problem.
World War I was extremely costly and was wholly unnecessary for our involvement. World War II was even more expensive, but the New Deal was more costly in the long run. Wars have a beginning and end. Bureaucracy doesn't tend to ever end. Once you create an agency, ending it is nearly impossible. Now that public sector unions exist, this is even harder to do.
I'm not a Reagan fan, but his problem wasn't tax cuts. It was big government. Had we not engaged in the arms race and trimmed down various parts of government, that debt wouldn't have been amassed.
Reagan's successors made similar mistakes, but again, that's because of spending. No amount of taxation of the rich is going to pay for the kinds of debts we have now, even if you could tax them 100%. And frankly, you'll be lucky to get anymore than about 20%, because the rich essentially write tax policy and can easily offshore money. Just ask the Brits how high taxation worked out for them in the 70s.
The income tax was initially promoted as a tax that only the top 1% would pay. It didn't take long for that to change, and part of the reason for that is because the growth in government made it impossible to fund everything from just taxing that small portion of the population.Actually, it was kind of different in that back in those days, the government was funded by tariffs, excises, and taxes on things like alcohol. The income tax seemed like a more equitable way to raise revenues because it was.
I would disagree on WWI. The German Empire were sinking American ships in the hope of starving out the allies before they starved themselves. Navigation of the Seas is a principle of international relations.
Here's the thing about the New Deal. In the long run, it made the country richer, because it redistributed wealth. Before the new deal, 70% of the population lived below the poverty line. By the end of the 1960's it fell to 22% and today it's at 9.8%. Why, because in addition to the poverty relief programs in the New Deal, there was also the empowerment of unions and a middle class.
Would it have, though? Defense spending under Reagan never got over 5% of GDP. It wasn't a spending problem, it was a taxation problem. The Laffer Curve was a laugh, Trickle Down didn't, and supply side really was "voodoo economics". The trick the right has pulled is that it's convinced average working people that the rich ARE better than them somehow and deserve to have an inordinate amount of the wealth in this country.
It worked out fine, until Milk-Snatcher Thatcher decided those poor kids didn't deserve anything. Then you had a series of Tory governments rolling back the progress that was made. the UK isn't really a good comparison, because until the 1950's, their entire economy was based on looting their empire of riches.
Another one who doesn't know my politics.Better think again. I am agnostic. I used to be a Democrat. I voted for Trump. You need to rethink that post of yours. Like: Liberal men pretending to be women competing in women's sports...Then, there's the Liberal fighting RACISM by allowing racially exclusive hiring standards (DIE)...Seems like a litany of hypocritical contradictions WOKE liberal democrat cultist are willing to accept. But you object to that behavior ONLY when your political opponents do it. But not your own cult of weirdos. Explain.
You sound like a moron. You get that, right? In normal, educated company, you would not be lobbing zingers. You would be embarrassing yourself as being low IQ.
Good. Anything that realizes men are superior to women is correct.From my perspective, the Biblical one. As for which Biblical interpretation, I prefer the Calvinist viewpoint for the most part.
The income tax was initially promoted as a tax that only the top 1% would pay. It didn't take long for that to change, and part of the reason for that is because the growth in government made it impossible to fund everything from just taxing that small portion of the population.
So, while some may have argued it was more equitable than tariffs, the actual implementation for it in the beginning was not equitable in any way. It only became more equitable when the tax was spread among the total populace.
It is true that Germany had been attacking our ships, but we were supplying their enemies. If we had been supplying both sides, things might have turned out differently.
You assume that wealth redistribution advanced our standard of living while the evidence leans more towards things like advances in technology and the natural distribution of wealth that comes from productivity. As much as people try to credit unions, a lot of changes happened because Henry Ford voluntarily set certain labor standards that other companies felt pressure to mimic to attract employees and reap the benefits of more productivity.
Wealth envy really does seem to be the basis of your logic on taxes. Just because I choose not to support taxing somebody more because they have more doesn't mean I think they are better than me or you. Wealth results from many positive qualities, but I don't assume that wealth makes someone better than someone else. There are definitely people out there that have ill-gotten wealth through collusion with government, but that isn't the majority of the rich. It also depends on how you define rich.
Thatcher helped modernize the UK's economy, they would be far poorer today had it not been for her.
Well, this is where it gets weird.I have no issue with Christians at all. My mom was a Christian. Joe Biden is a Christian and great American. I am a rational theist as were our first four presidents, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. Economics is science - it needs rational humans to get it right. We don’t have that now. We have the wealthiest writing tax laws entirely because white Christian nationalistic Republicans vote faith-based culture wars instead of self-economic interest.
