Debate.

To argue from a difficult standpoint, being a non-Christian myself, and to make points that Omega will no doubt exceed in this matter, Christ did not say "render unto Caesar what is yours, his, and everybody else's"

Perhaps Day believes, as many do, that tax cuts will lead to increased personal investments and spending, both of which can generate revenues for others. Perhaps tax cuts will allow more people to have the capital to begin their own business, which, if successful, will employ more people, thus getting them off the dole.
Or perhaps they will result in less demands for salary increases (due to less stress on personal incomes), thus allowing companies, schools, and other organizations more funds to hire more employees as revenues grow. Thus getting still more people off the dole.
Perhaps with more able bodied people off the dole, a greater proportion of funds for the dole can be used to assist non-able people on the dole (like my girlfriend) to make producers out of themselves (thus getting THEM off the dole as well, as my gf dreams of being) rather than stifling them because they just don't have the funds to help

I would bet, as an reputed associate of fishermen, that Jesus would have known that a man who knows how to fish, and does so, will be better off than a man who does not or can not, and is simply given a fish by a friend.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

• Give money to the government to spend on other people and the government will almost certainly mismanage it. In Canada, there is a growing scandal over job grants given to those who shouldn't receive any.
  
• By putting "Faith" back into the centre of National life, true Christians (and other people from other religions) would be more compelled to practice their faith, and of course, help the less fortunate in their struggles. Almost every religion would have something involving helping the less fortunate.
  

What Goar is trying to say is the following:

• Day's Government can easily be associated with Ontario's Government which is strongly conservative. While trumpeting Tax Cuts, this Government has gone after the poor and made life a lot more difficult for these unfortunate people.
  
• How many people WILL give back their money to complete strangers? Most people believe that if they give homeless people money, they'd rather spend it on their drug/alcohol/smoking/crime habit.
  
• Can Individuals and Church organizations really afford to pay for the education, housing, and health of the less unfortunate? If not, then who will give them the money to do so? Will the Upper Class be really compelled to help the less fortunate? Goar believes it is the government who should get that responsibility for these people.
  

(Side note: Some governments believe that there are charitable organizations that exist which are VERY corrupt.)

My opinion is that on the matter of Day's proposed Flat Tax, she is right. If the Tax incentive discounts are still maintained once the Flat Tax goes into effect, the Lower Class would, in effect, pay more tax out of every dollar they earn compared to the richest person. This is an absolute boon for the upper class. Now, if either the Tax incentives were given to everyone or completely stripped away, then things WOULD be fair. I'm not sure if Goar would be satisfied then.

First: Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and you'll feed him for life. I know.

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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."

Mmmmmm... fish...

*/HomerSpeak*

This girl's whole argument is based upon the idea that tax cuts hurt the poor. She treats it like it's completely obvious. Not bloody likely. Again, look at the eighties. Massive tax cuts, and everyone (well, not everyone, but you know what I mean; all classes) benefited. Not to mention doubled revenues for the government. Sure, the wealthy have more obvious benefits from tax cuts: they're the ones paying all the taxes. This reporter apparently knows nothing about supply-side economics.

Tahna:

"Most people believe that if they give homeless people money, they'd rather spend it on their drug/alcohol/smoking/crime habit."

Which is why it's a good idea to give to a (well-researched) charity, instead of directly to the people.

First:

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at with that "Give unto Caesar" thing. Sorry.

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"To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

Carol Goar is NOT a guy. Look at the top of the page.

As a Canadian, I wonder how well Day will do in the next election. It should prove...interesting.

Then again, there's an old saying / curse: "May you live in interesting times."

And second, By what reasoning am *I* supposed to give some of my hard earned money to some bum? Since when do they have a right to it?

Socialism blows. All it means is that everyone gets the same no matter how hard they work, if they work at all.

We hate the rich, but they pay 90% of the taxes already.

Say I suddenly had an income of a billion dollars. Even under the most lenient possible circumstances, I'd have to give away some 1/3 to the Feds. And have no control over it.

Now, sure, that would leave me with 600 million dollars, more than I could ever possibly hope to waste unless I tried REALLY hard... but that other 400 million dollars? It's gone. I can't use it to build a new set of factories, promote state-of-the-art R&D, expand my business, build gigantic models of starships to decorate my mansion, or anything. Therefore, many people who MIGHT have been gainfully employed by my excesses will not be.

Now, I could trust that the government will do something worthwhile with my taxed money, such as build and launch a Europa Ocean probe, or finish the WWII Memorial ahead of schedule... but... honestly, do YOU trust them that much? The guys who bombed other countries as a diversion during the Impeachment hearings?

So.

(BTW, if I ever DO become disgustingly wealthy, I WILL be spending large amounts of money to have starship models custom-built for me... something amateur modelers might want to keep in mind, just in case)

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

There is a rather widspread opinion that Reaganomics/Thatchernomics were diastrous for the poor. And, I might add that Reagan certainly didn't work wonders on the national debt.

You need not have experienced something to know about it. In fact, you're almost better not to have experienced it and go by pure numbers. More objectivity.

As for Reaganomics helping the poor, you may be interested to know that during the eighties, more lower class families jumped to the upper class than stayed in the lower class. This isn't even counting the ones that just got to the middle class. The poor certainly were helped.

And Reagan had little to do with the debt. Every budget he sent to the House was pronounced DOA. The Dems controlled spending. Revenues doubled, and military spending as a percentage of revenues went up like four percent. So where'd the rest of the money go? Pork-barrel spending on the part of the Democratic congress. Reagan actually made at least one deal with the Dems in which he would agree to raise taxes a bit if they'd cut spending by twice as much. They lied. Which is part of the reason H.W. Bush was so dumb to do the exact same thing and cause the recession we had.

Frank:

But can you set up a system where everyone is forced to work WELL?

One thing that everyone needs to realize is that whenever the government takes over ANYTHING, it will instantly turn to dust. Medicine, schools, anything.

That's the understanding that economic reality lags years behind the time at which the policies were made.

The economy of the 80's was largely driven by 70's policies.
Likewise, the economy of the 90's (boom) was largely driven by 80's policies.

Now, I don't know about you, but I made $15,000 last year playing the market, with an initial investment of $7000, so I, as a middle-class person with a poor income ($17,000 a year) don't see that as a problem with economic policy that should be done away with. In fact, with the money I had to pay in income taxes (for which I see no return) I might have made another $6000, which would be enough to let me move out of my roomat home and into a small apartment.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi