Quote from: Joelene9 on October 11, 2011, 05:45:00 AM
We have a welfare system that's badly flawed. We got people that are working here illegally, getting paid lower untaxed wages under the table in cash, applying and getting welfare benefits I see about every time I go to the grocer. These people come in from mainly from Mexico and San Salvador. They also get free medical. I have to pay taxes, my medical and food on my savings. I had to forgo the needed roofing job on my house just to get a doctor's appointment and pay for the therapist.
The welfare food program is 3 tiered. First there is the chit that pays for stuff such as baby formula and baby food. The clerk at the register initials the chit, put the chit through the scanner, gets the required amount of formula out of the lockup display, scans the items to ok the sale. Then they bring out the government issue debit card that will pay for any approved UPC code foodstuff listed to a certain amount. Then they pay cash they earned under the table for detergent and soda pop. It takes a while to process this stuff through the checkout and I am in the 15 items or less express lane?
Joelene
After the Republican Great Depression, FDR put this nation back to work, in part by raising taxes on income above $3 to $4 million a year (in today's dollars) to 91 percent, and corporate taxes to over 50% of profits.
Every billion dollars (a half-week in Iraq) invested in infrastructure in America created 47,000 good-paying jobs as Americans built America.
Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they're still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).
Regan to cover his tax cuts doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined. Reagan's tax cut greatly diminished expenditures on infrastructure (bridges, roads, hospital, colleges, etc.)
When Reagan dropped the top income tax rate from over 70% down to under 30%, all hell broke loose. With the legal and social restraint to unlimited selfishness removed, "the good of the nation" was replaced by "greed is good" as the primary paradigm.
From other articles by Thom Hartmann published at
commondreams.org Since Bush has been president:
over 5 million people have slipped into poverty;
nearly 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance;
median household income has gone down by nearly $1,300;
three million manufacturing jobs have been lost;
three million American workers have lost their pensions;
home foreclosures are now the highest on record;
the personal savings rate is below zero - which hasn't happened since the great depression;
the real earnings of college graduates have gone down by about 5% in the last few years;
entry level wages for male and female high school graduates have fallen by over 3%;
wages and salaries are now at the lowest share of GDP since 1929.
Before Reagan years there were only about 1 million illegal aliens in our work force, when he left office 3 million, and today 12 million. During that same period union membership has dropped from 25% to 7%. Cheap labor increases corporate profits. Before Reagan the enforcement of laws against hiring illegals served as a barrier to their entry.
http://www.skeptically.org/wto/id19.html
