Republican AND Christian...? How?

Statement one by you makes no sense. No idea why you claimed that about the Waltons.

Citizens United is a USSC decision, not one by a party. There is no reason why, as much as the uber rich get attacked, they should not try to influence politics. I blame it on income taxes. The FAIR tax would put a fast end to all of that.

http://fairtax.org/


do you intend to give Tip O'Neill any credit for hiking taxes during Reagan or is he chopped liver?

Reagan came to office to try to stop so much defense spending. But the only tool he could use was "defense spending." Reagan used the tool to put the Soviets out of business. When he did that, spending came back down on defense.

So far, in merely 6 years, Obama has raised the national debt from about 10 trillion to over 18 trillion and he is not done yet. I expect him to almost double the national debt.

The economy was in decline when Bush took over. But near his end when it went into decline, the fault was with FNMA and Freddie Mac. It makes no sense to blame Bush for the fall in the economy given it was the cause he told and told democrats it was and they refused to act to prevent FNMA from ruining the economy.

 

Can you please provide the Biblical passage in which Jesus taught that a flat tax rate is fair?

On a more serious note: http://www.ibtimes.com/consumer-spe...h-american-families-spend-housing-education-0
A "poor" family with an annual income of about $17.5K spends more than they bring in just to feed and house themselves.
An "average" family with an annual income of about $63.5K has enough money to meet their basic requirements and save a small percentage of their income.
A "wealthy" family with an annual income of around $250K easily covers all expenses with the ability to save a larger percentage of their income.

Given this, do you believe someone with an annual income in the millions of dollars, who lives extravagently and still has half (or more) of their income left over should be taxed the same as someone who can't even purchase basic necessities?

 

The fact that you don't know about this issue does not mean it makes no sense.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...t-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

BS. http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...99a372-3783-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

The point I was refuting was your portrayal of Reagan as a tax slasher, which isn't entirely true. I didn't say the tax hikes weren't necessary, they were! To answer your question: sure, Tip O'Neill deserves some credit for that.

BS. The Soviet Union's defense spending did not rise or fall in response to American military expenditures. Revised estimates by the Central Intelligence Agency indicate that Soviet expenditures on defense remained more or less constant throughout the 1980s. Neither the military buildup under Jimmy Carter and Reagan nor SDI had any real impact on gross spending levels in the USSR.
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm

Will you then worship him the way you worship Reagan, since Reagan tripled the national debt?

Bipartisan deregulation of financial institutions had everything to do with it. So which political party is pushing further deregulation?

 

Almost as lazy as someone who can't be bothered to make his point (assuming there is one) decipherable.

 

Actually it is so easy to understand. For those not lazy.

 

Thank you for responding. You've assumed too many things about me.
Let me clarify.
Some people are born to obscenely rich parents. There is nothing they can do to make their family poor. They should literally do nothing ever that adds to their personal wealth except inherit money from their parents and possibly run the enterprises that created the wealth. One such son can do that. The rest should only live idly or fund charities or business ventures, with no desire to increase their net worth ever.
Some people are born to very rich parents. The goal of most very rich people is to become obscenely rich. That is greed and the word applies to everyone from this level up who does anything with additional net worth as a goal. Unfortunately, Children of the very rich-especially in America-want to become richer than their parents just like poor kids do. They can do it very easily by investing their huge allowances as wisely as their parents. Collecting dividends and living off the interest should be enough. Everything above that is greed.
Some people are born to rich parents. Rich is a vulnerable position. A rich person whose net worth has not increased in the past 60 years is probably no longer rich. He has dropped to comfortable. If you grow up watching your parents struggling to stay rich you get obsessed with that yourself and never stop in your efforts to get richer. Those people are the most dangerous.
Some people were born to wealthy parents. Good wealthy people make no additional efforts to get rich. Their children are in an excellent position to do good. They have a head start in getting wealthy themselves (private schools, great health care, rich friends) but might stumble and end up merely comfortable. That's good enough.
Some people are born to comfortable parents. Those people tend to do no better. they might keep a family business going for one more generation or try to dominate their locality. Such people can do some good through politics, but making people richer than themselves unhappy for personal reasons is always a temptation. A lot of them get into politics or crime.
Most people are born to solvent parents. They work hard, pay their bills, get small luxuries at times and hope to raise children who become rich. These people suffer the most in America these days. They can't endow a church or charity. They can't pay employees much more than the minimum wage. All they can do is tread water because every small tax increase, every new regulation, every economic slump hurts them but they never qualify for any form of relief. They can't buy bulk so the Walmarts ruin their business. They can't pay a good manager enough to keep him. If they work for others they might never get promoted because someone who had enough money to study management gets the job instead.
These are the people Obama just noticed this year.
Up til now he cared only for the poor,and he changed the definition so more people (47%) would qualify. Nothing he's done has made any of the obscenely rich, very rich, rich or wealthy poorer, but anything he does will hit all the other categories hard.
Jesus told the rich man that "if he wanted to be perfect" he should sell his goods and give to the poor, then follow Jesus.
Who wants to be perfect?
Also, he didn't say pass a law that will impoverish others.
How much does a person deserve to earn for talking on tv 5 days a week?
I don't know but $1 billion or 10 times as much as your closest competitor is a little too much and everyone knows it, including the few who made the billion.

 

I have long studied Roman history and knew that when Jesus said to pay Caesar his due in taxes, it is 10 percent. Jesus did not name the percentage.

I refer you to Gibbons fine work on Rome.

The poor family can do what Oprah Winfrey did and become rich. But whining and taking handouts is not how to get well off. You act as if Poverty is a right. While one may suppose so, when they are on the dole, it makes it my business.

I believe in the FAIR TAX.

http://www.moneycrashers.com/fair-tax-act-explained-pros-cons/

 

See post 228 for what you commented to.
Walmart pays an average $2,000 per month. While this is not a huge wage, it beats the Democrats minimum wage.

Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove described this week’s report as “inaccurate and misleading,” referring to its use of extrapolated data and adding that public assistance program eligibility requirements vary from state to state.

“More than 99 percent of our associates earn above minimum wage,” he said. “In fact, the average hourly wage for our associates, both full and part-time, is an average of $11.83 per hour.”

He said the company had no internal figures to share on the number of workers receiving public assistance.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...t-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

Reagan's deficits were caused by the broken deal with Tip O'neil who you agree played a major part in the deficits.
While I made no claims as to Soviet spending, Gorbachev himself states that SDI was a major factor in the fall of the Soviet Union. But more than that, Reagan on a speaking tour of the then Soviet Union spoke to the people including students about freedom. They believed him. Gorbachev stated he never intended to collapse the Soviet union yet I grant him credit for being outfoxed by Reagan.

I find it interesting how much credit Democrats love to lavish praise on Clinton and Obama but find only fault with Reagan.
If I handed you ten trillion dollars and you doubled it to 20 trillion dollars, do you deserve more credit or less over the guy that raised it by a mere 2 trillion dollars?

Tell you what. Look at Clinton's spending in his final year. Then ask why today it is going to be 4 trillion for Obama when it never exceeded 2 trillion for Bush. If you are confused ...

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/...olLdGt2qZCLlUtXNHQoQ8v16pVrZLn6s2oaAkd98P8HAQ

 

As I am engaged in equally interesting conversations eleswhere, and have a life outside of this forum, I admit to not reading the above thesis in it's entirety...
That being said, I have no problem with individuals (even the "uber rich") attempting to grow their wealth. I think it is natural to do so.
What I do have a problem with is individuals who take advantage of the less fortunate in order to advance their position, and then villifying the less fortunate simply for being less fortunate.
For example, someone who relies on the taxpayer to supplement their business's payroll budget while keeping a disproportionate amount of the business's profits for themselves - then using a percentage of these ill-gotten funds to buy legislation that ensures the cycle continues - while vilifying their workers for being on taxpayer-funded subsidies.

 

So Jesus saying that you should pay taxes equates to Jesus's endorsement of tax code for all societies to come? That's an interesting assumption.

I take it you are not "poor", but probably not "uber rich" either... Is the only thing preventing you from being "uber rich" lazinesse?
Do you know much the government give to corporate subsidies on an annual basis, in comparison to the amount spent on welfare programs?

In 2012, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 per year paid just $36 towards the food stamps program. That's just ten cents a day!
And when it comes to funding the rest of America's social safety net programs, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 a year pays just over six dollars a year. But Republicans think that's still too high a price to pay to help the neediest and most vulnerable Americans. How does that fit in with the teachings of Christ?

Simply put, the American taxpayer isn't paying much for social safety net programs like food stamps and Medicare, but we are paying a lot for the billions of dollars the U.S. government gives to corporate America each year.

The average American family pays a staggering $6,000 a year in subsidies to Republican-friendly big business - and that's just the average family. A family making more than $50,000 a year - say $70,000 a year - pays even more to pad the wallets of corporate America.

So where does some of that $6,000 that you and I are paying every year actually go?
For starters, $870 of it goes to direct subsidies and grants for corporations. This includes money for subsidies to Big Oil companies that record billions of profits. Compare that to the $36 you and I pay for food stamps a year.

An additional $870 goes to corporate tax subsidies. The Tax Foundation has found that the "special tax provisions" of corporations cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year, or roughly $870 per family.

But in reality, that number is much higher. Citizens for Tax Justice found that the U.S. Treasury lost $181 billion in corporate tax subsidies, which means the average American family could be out as much as $1,600 per year.

Finally, of the $6,000 in corporate subsidies that the average American family pays each year, $1,231 of it goes to making up for revenue losses from corporate tax havens. This money goes to recouping losses from giant transnational corporations like Apple and GE that hide their money overseas to boost profits and avoid paying taxes to help the American economy.

The bottom-line here is that American families are paying $6,000 or more per year to subsidize giant transnational corporations that are already making billions and billions of dollars in profit each year. In the past decade alone, corporations have doubled their profits.

Then why would you ever vote for a political party that enables the "uber rich" to pay less, in return for campaign contributions?

 

Sure, if you take the average wage of all Walmart employees, they average out pretty well... but this does not mean that the executive management aren't receiving a disproportionate amount of that.

Actually, I agreed he played a major part in the tax raises that occurred under Reagan.

You're going to have to make up your mind whether Reagan's spending is what led to the fall of the Soviet Union (as was claimed earlier), or whether it was a social desire for America's version of freedom within the population of that nation.

That's a hasty generalization fallacy. I never said Reagan didn't accomplish anything worthwhile, but I have to argue with anyone that pretends Reagan walked on water and ignores his shortcomings and mistakes.

Please illustrate how this is relevant, considering Reagan didn't do this.

You keep pretending that spending is the only factor that contributes to the deficit, as if income has nothing to do with balancing a checkbook...
If you are confused: http://www.businessinsider.com/whos-responsible-for-budget-deficit-2012-8

 

You assume only Republicans do this, and that that disqualifies their faith in Jesus Christ as God's son and Messiah being valid?
If you have $50 billion the only reason to desire $60 billion is because someone else has $60 billion and you want to die richer than him.
It's not hard to support taxes that will cut you to $49 billion and him to $57 billion.
My wife actually wants taxes raised for rich people just so they will die a little closer to her status.
The big problem is that upward mobility starts only at the wealthy level. A few people start poor but suddenly jump to the mountaintop by getting a breakthrough in entertainment.
Those people know they don't deserve much more than a factory worker. If they're Christian or religious or have a conscience that bothers them.
So why do they have to spend the money on making others poorer including people where they started?

 

There is clearly a significant difference between
a) believing that Jesus Christ is God's Son and Messiah,
b) believing that Jesus Christ is God's Son and Messian, and following his teachings.

 

The Roman government used that money to engage in imperialism and to conquer much of the known world. Jesus as Prince of Peace did not approve.

 

So does the US, Russia, China and UK currently.
So did Germany, Italy, Japan, Turkey, Libya and Iraq in the 20th Century
So did Spain, France, Egypt and Austria in the 19th century.
So did Sweden and the Netherlands in the 18th century.
So did Portugal in the 17th century.
You get the idea.
So none of their citizens should have paid taxes either?
In what other countries are churches not taxed?

 

Materialist antichrist Ayn Rand is the goddess of so many of the Republican far right. She even wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness to praise greediness.


By contrast, Jesus said to give what you have to the poor.


Ayn Rand and her ideas are the precise opposite of what Jesus taught and practiced. Therefore, any Republican who subscribes to her crazed ideas cannot be a true Christian.

- - - Updated - - -

Would Jesus approve of using tax dollars to engage in wars of conquest?

 

No. Would he endorse taxes to fund an "artist" featuring himself on a cross in a bottle of urine?

 

What about everyone else?

"Universal messages" birthed within one religion... Without giving equal time to others.

The framers of the First Amendment were clearly opposed to the idea of a religion developing the type of governmental authority that the Church of England had in their country of birth. Giving preferential treatment to a single religion directly contradicts the First Amendment.

I don't know what gives you the impression that protestants are not welcome in the Democratic party. You can be a christian without forcing others to abide by your beliefs.

And which specific flavor of christianity should be legislated? Should we bring back prohibition because consumption of alcohol contradicts the religious beliefs of some christian groups? Should we make the consumption of meat illegal to align with the doctrine of Seventh Day Adventists? Should we bring back slavery because it is not condemned by the Bible?
How many of your beliefs do you feel justified in forcing onto others while claiming you support freedom?

I don't care what the TEA in tealiban stands for.

What a crock. Anyone who receives the benefits you mention is villified as a moocher by republican politicians.
If Republicans are so keen to ensure retired folks are taken care of, explain why one of the first things republican congress did was attack Social Security. While you're at it, explain how attacking the education system prevents widespread poverty for future generations.

So the government should enforce some religious doctrines, but not others?

Do you seriously believe that the primary cause of poverty is a lack of hard work?

 

Would he endorse using tax dollars to have American soldiers pour urine on prisoners in Abu Ghraib ?

 

In 1791 the possible nominees for national religion were Anglican, Baptist, Congregational or Catholic. None would be accepted in enough states to become a Constitutional Amendment. In some states Catholics were not allowed to vote, but hypothetically one could be elected President even if that law never changed.
In 2005 the Supreme Court brilliantly navigated through 2 cases about the 10 Commandments, preserving one but rejecting the other. If the Koran's top declarations were posted somewhere on public grounds and someone were to challenge it in court the same precedents would decide the results.
Democrats in Boston and elsewhere are so intertwined with Catholicism I assumed they were synonyms until age 17. Some voters still think that. Evangelicals were driven out when abortion on demand became a Democratic article of faith. That should have driven out real Catholics too, but it didn't. As anti-abortionists took the majority of the Republican Party pro-abortionists were forced into the Democratic Party.
The only thing Anti-American about slavery was the racism. No matter how desperate a poor white man became he could not become a slave. That was a greater restriction on freedom than slavery because slaves could find a way to purchase their freedom. A clever banker could have made a fortune if he dared.
Most Americans believe that Welfare, Unemployment, Disability and Social Security checks are high enough, so you don't need to take more money from taxpayers than you already do. A smaller percentage think those checks are too high and would prefer to pay less taxes.
Don't you know that many people both collect those checks and pay taxes? People on Social Security own houses and boats and cars and collect pensions and dividends and inherit money and pay as much as they get.
Many people on Unemployment and Welfare also have jobs and pay payroll taxes.
Everyone pays sales taxes, plus, tobacco taxes, liquor taxes and meals taxes. The poorer you are the more those little nuisance taxes bother you.
There are real moochers. I know several. Some live more comfortably than I do with no intention of joining the workforce. some belong in prison for crimes and lying to get benefits. Some are following all the rules but they are all disobeying the Biblical command,"If any would not work, neither should he eat."
Even if you think the poor should be made comfortable, the US Constitution places that in the hands of the states, because the states know best what their citizens really need.
The federal government should not be involved.
This is how Congress works.
The most radical Congressman (right and left) from the most radical district proposes a monstrous law.
His fellow radicals nip off the most jagged edge.
The mainstream of his wing adjust the bill into 1000 pages of gobbledygook to hide both the radical core of the bill and their dilutions of the radical core.
The moderates of that party further dilute the bill, adding exemptions to protect their favored interests and gain support from the other side.
The crossover Congressman are then bribed to support the bill,each adding their special rider.
The other side tells every possible lie about the bill, some of which is true, but no one is sure because no one understands it any more.
The committee makes more changes, cutting off every remaining element of the radical wing.
Reluctantly, the majority votes for it, apologizing to their constituents with varying degrees of credibility.
The President signs it, heartbroken because he knows it's all trash.
The biggest recent problem is that Nancy Pelosi (the most radical person from the most radical district) became Speaker. That never happened before.
It proves that science law about an equal and opposite reaction, but they underestimated the power of the radical right.
Don't worry. It won't last.
Democrats will retake the Senate in 2016 (narrowly) and Republicans will hold the House until someone sane becomes the House Democratic leader.
In between we should have stalemate and that's the best anyone can hope for.

 

Are you familiar with the term "Gish Gallop"?
In order to respond to the above thesis, I'd have to isolate each of your many statements that are debateable. Pick a point or two to be addressed.

 

I was responding to your gish gallop in the previous post.
Start by proving the last point wrong.
Nancy Pelosi is the most radical liberal Congresswoman from the most radical district in the country.
You can name the most radical Republican and his district but the fact is John Boehner has only a handful of Republican Congressmen on his left, proving the Republican leadership in both houses of Congress are much closer to the center that the Democratic leadership.
The Democrats have created a right-wing monster to oppose them, but only by being possessed by their own demons.