I have no way of verifying that one way or the other.

Haplo, can you explain why it makes sense to describe Obama’s tax plan as “welfare”?

… because it was “welfare”?

fafaroo:
You’ll have to find someone else to argue with vis a vie the stimulus checks. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with that one. (So much for conservatives being in lockstep…)

Assuming there is a market for said boats, which would include a public interested in boats who are able to pay for them something above cost. As the income disparity increases (viz. the last decade or so) and as more disposable income is gobbled up by increasing costs for health care, education, transportation, etc., the less likely it is that such markets will develop.

See, I took Econ 101 too, but unlike you, apparently, I stayed awake beyond the first ten minutes.

Will it take a full-blown depression to shake the blind faith of the supply-side cultists, or will not even that be enough?

That’s a good point. I got a tax refund this year plus a stimulus check. So how is the stimulus check not “welfare”?

Translation: I’m pro tax cut unless a Democrat’s doing it?

2) Mathematically, this is impossible, as not that many Americans pay taxes.

I would assume he means 95% of taxpayers, then.

Tell me, then, in what sorts of ways ARE we allowed to criticize Obama?

How about for actions that you HAVEN’T supported Republicans doing for the past 8 years? That seems like a good starter.

The more boats they build, the lower the prices (Supply & Demand 101). And if you get the bright idea to increase taxes, they’ll just:

A) pass those costs on to the boat-buying public.
B) move their corporate headquarters to Dubai where there’s a lower tax threshold.

What’s the point of that if nobody but the boatmakers can afford the boats they build?

Jay Tea:
Kind of like the people who broke into McCain’s South Carolina office and spray-painted “Republican Equals Slavery” on the walls?

The difference being that nobody in the Obama campaign is encouraging such hooliganism, even implicitly, whereas the McCain campaign is in full fever-whipping mode with its talk about “palling around with terrorists” “welfare” “socialism” “real America” and “the pro-America parts of the country”. Here’s hoping the coming vote consigns you and your false-equivalencing brethren to the dustbin of electoral history, along with the politics of hate and fear being practiced by McCain.

fafaroo:
So practically everyone in America pays some form of federal tax, whether it’s on their income on their expenditures in the form of excise taxes.

And what our right-wing friends always conveniently forget is that federal income taxes are not the only governmental burden on taxpayers. As federal revenues decreased due to the republican tax-cuts, other forms of revenue collection at the state and local level increased to make up for revenue shortfalls, and such methods – user fees, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. tend to be flat levies and therefore effectively regressive. An income tax break for lower and middle-income people is simply redressing the imbalance. It has nothing to do with socialism or welfare.

Jay tea again:
I’m opposing him because of so much of what he has done, and so much of what he has not done. The man has ZERO record of achieving anything.

One thing he has achieved is the articulation of coherent and consistent foreign and domestic policies, which is apparently beyond the abilities of John McCain, despite all his years in Washington.

Might I bring your attention to this phrase:

radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property”

Which is part of:

“The word, however, is used with a great variety of meaning, . . . even by economists and learned critics. The general tendency is to regard as socialistic any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor, . . . radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property”

Websters revised unabridged dictionary cites Encyclopedia Britannica as the source for this definition.

Reasonable people may agree to disagree. I don’t think we are really too far apart here.

Your original point I believe is that McCain is stirring up resentment by exaggerating and being as inaccurate as Reagan was describing our welfare system in the 80’s.

I think perhaps this is because of the use of the word welfare. The term welfare has become attached to most any kind of government bailout these days. We have corporate welfare, agricultural welfare, oil companies, Wall street etc.

At the same time the public face of welfare is probably a single black mother raising multiple children by multiple fathers. Well that is an ugly picture. How accurate? I don’t know but given the metrics used by the census department we could get a composite picture if we wanted to. But if you design a system to pass public subsidies to people who have made poor life choices through the mechanism of income taxes the the comparison is a natural one to make and your are hardly a racist for bringing it up.

Jay Tea, it can only be called welfare if one’s goal is not to accurately describe it, but rather to deliberately mischaracterize it in an inflammatory way.

What Obama’s plan calls for is a refundable tax credit. The argument that many people who are eligible for this tax credit do not actually pay federal taxes is a misleading, if not out right wrong.

Congressional Budget Office figures show that even those in the lowest-earning fifth of households pay an effective federal tax rate, on average, of 4.3 percent of their income, despite benefiting from existing federal refundable tax credits to a major degree. This group had average income of $15,900 in 2005, the most recent year for which CBO has done the calculations. But despite receiving “a federal check” through the income tax system that boosted income by an average of 6.5 percent (this shows up as a negative tax rate in the CBO tables), they still paid an average of $600 in federal taxes. That’s true even after subtracting the effects of refundable tax credit “welfare.”

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_welfare.html

So practically everyone in America pays some form of federal tax, whether it’s on their income on their expenditures in the form of excise taxes. So Obama’s plan for a $500 tax credit is not taking money from people who pay taxes and giving it to people who don’t. To suggest that it does this is flat out wrong.

To call it welfare is worse than wrong, it’s an attempt to characterize it in a particular way to create divisions and resentment. There is no other reason to call it welfare because it isn’t welfare. The question here is whether the intention is to create divisions between economic classes or between races. Given the GOPs long history of associating both poverty and welfare with people of color, the conclusion is obvious.

But even more so, if refundable tax credits to people who don’t pay federal income taxes, are in and of themselves “welfare,” why aren’t conservatives calling John McCain’s health care plan “welfare”? McCain’s health care plan includes refundable credits that will be worth the same to everyone regardless of how much they pay in taxes. In other words, McCain’s $5k tax credit will go to those who don’t pay any federal income tax at the end of the year.

Jay Tea, is John McCain’s health care plan a form of welfare? If not, why not?

Even under your source’s definition, Obama isn’t proposing socialist policies. Robert Owen founded New Harmony, a commune where all property was managed by a central authority. Obama hasn’t proposed anything of that sort. If you shift the meaning of “socialism” to “any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor,” then good Lord, in Ireland the Catholic Church’s works for the poor are “socialistic.”

This reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s complaint in “Mere Christianity” about how a perfectly good word, “gentleman,” had been denuded of its original meaning (a landed owner of property who derived income therefrom and need not labor for his living) to make it one of a hundred synonyms for “nice.” If by “socialist” you mean “income redistributivist,” use the correct, accurate, precise term and you will avoid a great deal of confusion over your meaning.

1. Shouldn’t we let boatmakers keep more of their money so they can build more boats?

2. A Rising Tide is a serious problem as a result of Global Warming. By supporting a rising tide, Barack Obama is turning his back on all the poor and middle class folks who live and work at sea level.

Unless we’re talking about Bill Ayers. Then you’re all over it.

Oh, let’s spead this “wealth” around. Cuz’ I want lobster for dinner too!!!

Sounds like you could qualify for food stamps, then.

How does one discuss ethnicity, socialism, welfare, and the redistribution of wealth in mixed company? What would be the correct way to observe any correlation?

Kind of like the people who broke into McCain’s South Carolina office and spray-painted “Republican Equals Slavery” on the walls? Or those who insist that any white person who doesn’t support Obama is doing it purely on racial reasons? Or those who can’t articulate an accomplishment of Obama’s other than he’s black and won elections?

You wanna go on dubious endorsements? Hamas and Hezbollah want Obama elected. Castro’s praised him. The American Communist Party is on his side.

I don’t hold that against Obama. He didn’t seek their support. But apparently McCain gets held to a higher standard.

In other words, Obama is held to a lesser standard than the white guy.

Sounds vaguely racist to me…

J.

It’s not the race card if people are actually being racist.