Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[Redeye]

Ahh, but he said 33% of those working - so I would exclude retired people, etc.  There's lots who don't pay income tax to be sure, but I think 1/3 of the working population is probably a very, very generous estimate.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/04/30/18087141.html

There's the link to oen of many article which references this.  Also note, that it is 2009, AND that 45% of US adults pay no income tax. 

The intuitive part, was as Mr. Ruhl stated... stay at home mothers, injured, unemployed, low income earners, etc.  Also, with many medium earners, the tax burden is significantly lowered, or negated, by a number of factors, including child tax credits, RRSP credits, spousal benefit, etc.

 

[Bass ackwards]

I remember reading the article BG45 has linked to when it first appeared. My original impression was that it referred largely to people who, at the end of April, did not owe anything to the government. This is reinforced by this quote from the article:

after a U.S. study found 69 million Americans, or 45% of households, will end up owing Washington no income tax this year.

Throughout the year, roughly a third of my gross income goes to taxes but I usually get a few hundred back at the end of the year. Could this be what they're referring to ? Twenty thousand odd bucks of what I made last year were immediately siphoned off to Ottawa, but I didn't wind up owing anything, so I didn't "pay" taxes last year.
 
Maybe I'm just being cynical about the press and their penchant for spinning things, but my take was that li'l ole middle class me was the culprit in this article.

 

[Redeye]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/04/30/18087141.html

There's the link to oen of many article which references this.  Also note, that it is 2009, AND that 45% of US adults pay no income tax. 

The intuitive part, was as Mr. Ruhl stated... stay at home mothers, injured, unemployed, low income earners, etc.  Also, with many medium earners, the tax burden is significantly lowered, or negated, by a number of factors, including child tax credits, RRSP credits, spousal benefit, etc.

Interesting article, thanks for the link.  I still dispute the use of "workers" as the descriptor as I suspect it's 33% of filers of tax returns who may or may not be working.  In any case, they still will pay things like sales taxes, gas and other excise taxes, etc.  And it's still essentially a meaningless number.

As far as the US system goes, well, that's a whole other nightmarish matter.

 

[a_majoor]

The nanny state running amok Alert readers should recognize the milk issue as also having taken place in Ontario:

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/17/obamas-war-on-fun

Obama's War on Fun
The president breathes new life into the Nanny State

Gene Healy | May 17, 2011

Editor's Note: This column is reprinted with permission of the Washington Examiner. Click here to read it at that site.

It's a high-pressure job, the presidency. Think about how badly the bin Laden raid could have gone. The worst case scenario—Navy SEALs trapped in a firefight with Pakistani forces—could have made Black Hawk Down look like a cakewalk.

Yet the night after he gave the "go" order, President Obama hit the White House Correspondents' Dinner and had to grin his way through canned laugh lines working over "the Donald."

Stressful! You couldn't blame the guy if he wanted to take the edge off with a smoke. Alas, he quit a year ago. It was "a personal challenge for him," the first lady explained recently, and she never "poked and prodded."

Of course not. It's obnoxious to hector your loved ones. "Poking and prodding" is what good government does to perfect strangers. And that's what the Obama administration has been doing, with unusual zeal, for the past 2 1/2 years.

You're not a real president until you fight a metaphorical "war" on a social problem. So, to LBJ's "War on Poverty" and Reagan's "War on Drugs," add Obama's "War on Fun." Like the "War on Terror," it's being fought on many fronts:

Smoking: Last fall, the killjoy crusaders at Obama's Food and Drug Administration released proposed "graphic warning labels" on cigarettes, including "one showing a toe tag on a corpse" and another where "a mother blows smoke on her baby." In December, a federal court rebuffed the administration's plan to squelch "e-cigarettes," which allow smokers to ingest nicotine vapor without carcinogens or secondhand smoke. But the president's lifestyle cops stand ready to regulate menthols, because, like clove cigarettes (banned in 2009), they taste good, so people might like them.

Alcohol: Similar logic drove the FDA's November ban on caffeinated malt liquors. Capitalizing on a minor moral panic over "Four Loko," which packs less punch than the ever-popular Red Bull and vodka, the agency threatened four companies with "seizure of the products" on the dubious grounds that caffeine becomes an "unsafe food additive" when combined with alcohol.

Poker: Last month, the Department of Justice shut down five major online poker sites, seizing their domain names, issuing arrest warrants for executives and seeking billions of dollars in asset forfeiture. One defendant faces jail time of up to 65 years for helping people play cards over the Internet.

Food: A year ago, Obama's FDA announced its plan to "adjust the American palate to a less salty diet," ratcheting down the amount of sodium allowed in processed foods. It's "a 10-year program," an agency source said, designed to change "embedded tastes in a whole generation of people." But even "real food" aficionados who shun Cheetos aren't safe from the reformers' zeal. On April 20, FDA agents and federal marshals carried out a 5 a.m. raid on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, the culmination of a yearlong sting operation aimed at wiping out the scourge of unpasteurized milk. "It is the FDA's position that raw milk should never be consumed," an agency spokeswoman insisted.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that "of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." Rulers who just want to exploit us may relax once their greed's sated.

But "those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience," Lewis said.

On the whole, I prefer House Speaker John Boehner's attitude. When Fox News' Chris Wallace asked the Ohio Republican, "Why don't you stop smoking?" Boehner replied, "It's a legal product. I choose to smoke. Leave me alone."

Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and author of The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power (Cato 2008). He is a columnist at the Washington Examiner, where this article originally appeared. Click here to read it at that site.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

So, I'm guessing this makes, unquestionably, Ontario's McGuinty government Obama Lite? 

 

[a_majoor]

So, I'm guessing this makes, unquestionably, Ontario's McGuinty government Obama Lite? 

Or just plain stupid and officious.  >

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Or just plain stupid and officious.  >

I would'nt say 'Or' I would say 'plus'.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Isn't bashing Mr. Obama just for the sake of bashing Mr. Obama getting old?

Wake me up when there's a good reason to bash......................

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Isn't bashing Mr. Obama just for the sake of bashing Mr. Obama getting old?

Wake me up when there's a good reason to bash......................

Wakey, wakey.  M..c..G..U..I..N..T..Y

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Now HIM I can bash,.......I don't think Mr. Obama would get away with the fibs Mr. McGuinty has told.

 

[a_majoor]

Confiscate higher GPA's and redistribute them to deserving students. Priceless:

http://exposingleftists.com/archives/153

 

[observor 69]

Matt Gurney: Tim Hudak the pretender wants Ontario back on the chain gang

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/27/matt-gurney-tim-hudak-the-pretender-wants-ontario-back-on-the-chain-gang/

 

[Jed]

Thank you for sharing this demonstration of the overwhelming, borderline mental illness stupidity of the American Right.  What's next?

No, Thank you for sharing your true feelings and the complete block that you have maintained when it comes to logic that does not fit the world you have made for yourself.

 

[Gimpy]

No, Thank you for sharing your true feelings and the complete block that you have maintained when it comes to logic that does not fit the world you have made for yourself.

I'm not sure if you misquoted or something else, but the quote you posted doesn't exist in this thread. What was it in reference to?

Edit: Nevermind, appears to be a deleted post.

 

[mariomike]

Matt Gurney: Tim Hudak the pretender wants Ontario back on the chain gang

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/27/matt-gurney-tim-hudak-the-pretender-wants-ontario-back-on-the-chain-gang/

I think only Sheriff Joe runs one of those, and it is voluntary:
"Chain gangs were reintroduced by a few states during the "get tough on crime" 1990s, with Alabama being the first state to revive them in 1995. The experiment ended after about one year in all states except Arizona, where in Maricopa County inmates can still volunteer for a chain gang to earn credit toward a high school diploma or avoid disciplinary lockdowns for rule infractions.":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gang

Nice old song on the subject by Sam Cooke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmZdvVnMXCc

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Matt Gurney: Tim Hudak the pretender wants Ontario back on the chain gang

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/27/matt-gurney-tim-hudak-the-pretender-wants-ontario-back-on-the-chain-gang/

I kinda like the idea. Ever seen how clean and manicured the roads and highways in Georgia are? Yup, chain gangs. If our sensibilities can't stand the sight of criminals being made to work, there is lots of stuff they can do indoors. Enough of the free rides. And no voting while they are incarcerated either.

Hudak may not have though the whole thing through, but I think the idea has some merit.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I kinda like the idea. Ever seen how clean and manicured the roads and highways in Georgia are? Yup, chain gangs. If our sensibilities can't stand the sight of criminals being made to work, there is lots of stuff they can do indoors. Enough of the free rides. And no voting while they are incarcerated either.

Hudak may not have though the whole thing through, but I think the idea has some merit.

As long as folks know there is no money savings doing this,......in fact the whole thing becomes quite pricey when you factor in various security things that must happen.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

As long as folks know there is no money savings doing this,......in fact the whole thing becomes quite pricey when you factor in various security things that must happen.

So what have they got inside Bruce? Satellite TV, computers, reading rooms and movies? Do they really have to do anything or can they just sit around sleeping and shooting the shit with each other?

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Well you can't compare where I'm at to a regular setting.     Mind you they must 'earn' the right to stay here.

All they really have is cable television in the Ontario system.........now I haven't worked in the Federal system however I'm told all those things, and more, are available.

Remember neither side ever wants the public to know that jail time isn't all that bad, in fact the 'Con Code' forbids it. Hard to play on the legal system and the public's sympathies if the truth be revealed.