General

@zoglinemusic: in your post, you said you thought lowering taxes and switching to a flat rate may work. I'm saying that it really wouldn't, because if the % is low enough to not affect poor people, the government will go even more bankrupt. If the flat rate is high enough to sustain our economy, it'll destroy the poor people.

@zoglinemusic: flat tax wouldn't work because it hurts people in lower incomes. 20% for a person living paycheck to paycheck is a lot more daunting than 20% for a person making 500k.

This is the 21st century, not the gilded age. Automation will put almost everyone on welfare eventually.

Feel the Bern!
Can't Stump the Trump!
im fine with either, just not Hillary, I've heard nothing good about her beside her being the first female president if voted.

@zcrimsyn: I don't think anyone of any consequence has that misconception. I think you're the one misunderstanding the issue.

You see - you're approaching this from the wrong angle. You're starting with a problem and trying to explain how it wasn't intentional and how welfare would help. But the issue with all of this has never been about charity, understanding the less fortunate/disabled, etc. The problem starts with money. People have their salary. A salary consists of money. Money, which is not the root of all evil, is basically an attempt at standardizing whatever we have on hand to 'barter' with. As such, money essentially represents the value of the product of our 'work.'

Salary, then, is an approximation of the work we do over a period of time. The issue here is that we're not a heartless society and there are some people who, in a world without charity, would die without said charity. This is where the complications you're referencing arise. There are a lot of differing opinions on where this charity should come from. For example, plenty of people think charity is their personal responsibility and they want to handle this on their own through their own means. Other people would rather such charity be accomplished by the government out of the pool of money they contribute via their taxes. In general, tho, this whole thing is thousands of times more complicated that I'm making it sound.

The problem, however, is that at any step of the way this welfare money represents directly the product of someone elses hard work. In essence, then, when this money is dispersed by the government what we have is a third party confiscating the product of someone elses hard work at the point of a gun (the government will force you to pay these taxes. They will approach you carrying a gun and they will do this under the threat of placing you in prison) and then redistributing that product (money which represents the hard work of the person who created it) based around their own dictates.

In general this is okay. People like to whine about it - but admittedly the situation is so complex that most people would rather just let someone else handle it for them. The issue that you're referring to, though, is that this sort of money will always remain tainted and it will always, on some level, represent a product that was not legitimately earned or created. When you go the next step and have this money dispersed as welfare to a disabled or poor person - there is a dilemma. Whereas previously the money had represented the product of hard work...there is now a disconnect. That money still represents the product of someone's hard work - but it is NOT the product of any work done by this new person. This is obvious...but it's something you truly need to consider when dealing with this subject. Remember the path we've taken: that money now received as welfare originally started as a product which had been created through the hard work of one person. At some point the product of that persons hardwork had been confiscated from them at the point of a gun and under the threat of prison. From there that product was pooled according to the dictates of people who neither earned nor owned it...and it was finally given away to someone unrelated from the beginning.

Now...I'm not trying to say anything here is fundamentally wrong, whether morally or legally...or that I could come up with a better system...but I am trying to explain why the handling of this money is a very contentious issue that a lot of people feel vert strongly about. I 100% agree that there are plenty of people who need assistance from the government. I 100% agree that many of these people have absolutely no other option and that their situation is conceivably a matter of life/death. The problem, though, is that the government is not dispersing something they created...and they're not dispersing something they own or deserve. Literally the only claim to this money that the government can make is that they stole it fair and square. As such...the issue becomes 'I'm disabled...I need to get the government to go crack some baseball bats and get some money for me.' The money was never the governments. What we're stuck with, then, is that on some level we've all agreed that welfare should exist, if only because we each know that if we suddenly come down with a case of a car accident and break our back - we won't have enough of our own money to handle things...we'll have to get some of someone elses money.

It's a really messy situation no matter how you approach it and no matter how charitable, greedy or dishonest you are. Again...I'm not trying to say the system is broke. I'm not trying to say it works. I'm not trying to judge it whatsoever. I'm just trying to explain to you why it can be a very contentious and emotional issue. Most people over simplify the issue to such a degree that they convince themselves that they should be politicians. Those people are wrong. In general...the clearer you can see this issue...the more biased and wrong you are. There is no right or wrong, no black or white...about the best you can hope to take home from it all is an appreciation that everyone has a right to feel the way they feel.

i am excited for that wall to be built

@bubaloo: See that's the misconception that most Republicans have. You believe that the low class and middle class choose not to work and are lazy bums that spend there welfare on drugs and other things like that. Sure there are some bad apples but there are bad apples in every political party. You can't blame the whole system bc some people take advantage of certain systems. Also you claim that these low class and mid class population do not "work" as hard as the upper class. Which is also wrong.

In fact most of the upper class population sit all day in office, or are just born into a wealthy family. Most of the lower class and mid class population do the dirty work for your upper class. So in a way the lower and mid class are the hard workers in this country. These "jobs" that you claim immigrants are taking are the dirty work that no rich person or upper class would even want to do. Hardly any of the lower and mid class population are stealing your jobs bc even with working "hard" it's still impossible due to how expensive everything is for the lower and mid class.

I have been through school and it's still very hard to get a job in my field. I am still having to work from the bottom and dealing with debt from school that hasn't paid off. So it's pure B.S. how you can blame the lower and mid class population as lazy bums that do not try hard. A lot of the population tries hard. They just don't get anything bc the conservatives want to take everything that is helpful away, and only the wealthy population can afford to go through that route. I personally think that it's fine to tax the rich harder than the lower class. You can afford to lose it and it won't be as big of a deal as taxing the lower class harder. If I was rich I would still support being taxed more since it's going to a good cause despite the few that take advantage of the programs.

@aznseal: Totally agree. I'm not a fan of paying for something that isn't relevant to my own life. Why work hard if you're only going to be giving your money away to people who now have less incentive to put in the effort into their own lives. Bernie's system will only teach the people that it is ok to work less because you'll always be covered; it kills the basic principles of capitalism.

I totally agree that our economy needs some major improvement, but I don't agree that taxing the rich more is the only way to solve those problems.

@bubaloo: I'm for "fair" taxing. In my future profession, I will be paying 40% in taxes. With Bernie's tax plan, I will be paying an additional 8.2% for universal healthcare ALONE. That's not including his plans for "free college". Not only am I paying 8.2% more for someone else's healthcare, universal healthcare will lower my personal income. So i'm getting my salary lowered AND I have to pay more. To put it in perspective, 8.2% of 200k is like 16k. I will have to pay for SOMEONE ELSE to go to university for every year I work. I think that's horsepoop. Right now the extremely wealthy (0.001%s, etc) pay less % tax than the upper-middle class because all of their assets are not as taxable. Their official salary is lower and they keep assets off-shores or in the form of other investments. If we can tax their assets fairly, the burden wouldn't be put on the middle-class as much.

As I said before; our economy sucks. If we need higher taxes, then so be it. But make it higher taxes for everyone, not just the middle class. I can get behind marginal tax increases if it's fair and if it ends up helping our country. I can't behind it if it benefits the hella wealthy even more, while simultaneously screwing my career.

@bubaloo: I know that both parties are corrupted but the lesser of the two evils are the Democrats in my opinion. I understand the whole ordeal with Benghazi and how one can think Hillary is corrupted and needs to be in prison. However, when you think of our past president George W. Bush who had thousands of deaths during his term with a war that really shouldn't have had happen no one thinks twice about it. In fact everyone applauds him for doing so. Personally I think what Bush had done was just as bad as what happened during Benghazi. So why are people not upset at Bush and his wrong doings? Bush did not do anything but gave us major debt and let the terrorists escape. He shouldn't even been in office those both terms but somehow cheated the system to get in as well. Both parties are messed up though and I don't really like any of the a candidates running. I think we need better people than the ones we have running right now. I just hope that we get anyone in office besides Trump. Trump will just ruin the country even worse than it is now.

@aznseal:

So I take it you're and advocate of a more progressive tax system? The main issue with that is that you have to keep in mind that wealthier people have more assets and responsibilities than the American middle class. They do pay a lot compared to the normal people, but just because the dent on their share isn't as significant as those on the rest of us, we can't completely blame them for all of our problems. They made their money, let them maintain and keep it.
@zcrimsyn:

You're forgetting to look at the fiery hell on the other side of the fence known as Benghazi. Or you can challenge American principles entirely (America is the definition of capitalism), and choose the Democratic socialist.

You have to keep in mind that the people who trash Trump probably know nothing about the candidate they claim to "support". Most of them are just riding the wave of social media. Don't get me wrong, I am not accusing you of being such an individual, just pointing out to you that this year's election is essentially a double edged sword as long as Hillary and Trump are our main candidates.

Seriously though who ever votes for this guy is an idiot. I mean why do you want someone as president who makes fun of people who have disabilities, talks massive trash to others, allows harsh removals from his rallies just because certain people do not agree with him, and admits crazy statements like all Mexicans are rapers, drug addicts, and murders. I mean he even said that he will not lose any votes from his supporters even if he shot someone. Idk about you but no way I would want someone like that in office regardless of his political affiliation. No doubt we will get into another unnecessary war and possibly even WWIII with him in office. Another video posted below explains on how gullible and insane his supporters are.

http://bgr.com/2016/03/03/trump-hitler-quotes-viral-video/

@zoglinemusic: No,our economy sucks because the extremely wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes while the professionals pay almost 50%. If everyone paid their share, we'd all end up paying less.

nobody's winning this election

Donald trump is the reincarnation of Donald Duck therefore he is one crazy lunie

#MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain

kinda want to see Trump win for a bit and watch it go down here in Aus
then i'll watch as we get screwed over as well :c

if hillary ends up beating out bernie for the democrats i'm gonna vote for trump. hillary is awful. the jokes that people make about "hurdur i'm moving to canada if trump becomes president" is how i feel about hillary. she makes me sick and is very possibly going to win the election just because "it's about time we have a woman as president."

anyone that votes liberal is a cuck.

@aznseal UAB tingz

I'm going against the grain here. Out of all the candidates, I think Trump will benefit me the most. It's easy to see why people my age (early 20s) join the Bernie Sanders hype train but I think it's stupid. He wants universal healthcare via a single-payer system AND he wants to raise taxes? I'm currently slaving away my 20s in medical school and I don't want to see my future being increasingly controlled by people who have ZERO knowledge on medicine. The tax raises I can stomach because our economy is going to poops and increased taxes are inevitable. What I can NOT get behind is my taxes being increased, my workload as a physician increasing, AND the huge pay cut universal healthcare will bring. It's ridiculous.

I'm not a big fan of Trump, but what amazes me is the Democrats who think Clinton or Bernie would actually make a good president.

@alwaysthere: Yes at least someone is speaking my language in this place!

I want Trump to win so I can literally watch liberals commit seppuku.

Voting for a Republican is like eating a cyanide sandwich.

https://www.facebook.com/MauriceWEvans/videos/977451602321558/
(4:14 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpO_RTSNmQ
(21:53 minutes but funnier and has more legitimate points)

If you still vote for him after these videos, idk what to tell you

There is such a high possibility that he'll be the next President it's not even funny.

I'm not so confident in Trump's presidential abilities especially since the thing he's supposed to be good at, which is business, has been unremarkable. For all the wealth he's inherited, he should have much much more money than he has now. He's actually been quite the failure lol.

@zoneflare4: Why single out NAFTA?

@mrsatan: Trump wants to start wars with China bc they are "taking our jobs!" He wants to ban all Muslims that want to come into the U.S. bc of security reasons. Which is pathetic and unnecessary. Plenty of other ways to go about security. Guarantee that if we get Trump as our president another unnecessary war will happen just like George W Bush started. Possibly even WWIII. I don't really like anyone running this year but would take any Democrat over a Republican. I would definitely take any other Democrat or Republican over Trump.
Oh and here you go.

http://i.imgur.com/ES32lAX.png

Considering you may actually be serious, that's your decision, however I'm just going to point out, the decision of voting for trump may as well be as not voting at all, since the idea of him becoming president would be the end.

Are you serious?

Rating:8/8.

@andreaverilia but im totally a US citizen, if thats what you're asking.

@zcrimsyn Godwin's Law struck sooner than expected, just shows the petty desperation by liberals who think Reductio ad Hitlerum works on Trump.

As long as he gets rid of NAFTA.

You must be legal to vote, kid.

@enoch129: First they ignored him, then they laughed at him, now they're attacking him....you know what's next?

Haha... please be joking.