United States' problems

Illegals don't deserve fair wages...that is for American citizens.

The ONLY people being abused are Americans that have to pick-up the tab for mexico's citizens.

Maybe the mexicans should look at themselves for a change.

If they manned-up and demanded a fair share from their own society they wouldn't have to hop on our coattails.

 

Yes we are. If we support places that hire these people under the table then by our silence we approve.

 

Dude save your breath. You're arguing a point to people who choose not see what's going on until it's too late. When their kids grow up have fewer opportunities then they're going to wish more people thought like us.

 

Yeah...Evidently it's God's will that people are this stupid.

It's not normal for human beings to go against their own survival.

They actually don't deserve the standard of living that was passed down to them.

 

You realize that neither of you have made a single practical solution to the problem, right?

Nobody here disagrees that it'd be great if Mexicans all just demanded a better standard of living in their own country and just stayed home.

But, and follow me here: that's not gonna happen. We can't just wish illegals away. Whatever the authors of "The Secret" tell you, positive thinking just ain't that effective.

So in the meantime, we do what?

Loki's posted some really good stuff that the government's already doing. I'm pretty happy about it.

What would you do beyond that? Spend more money deporting people? Dream of a time when consumers cared more about where they spent their money? Because if you're suggesting I'm stupid because you think I disagree with that, lemme tell you, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who shops more carefully than me. I don't think I've even walked through the doors of a non-union grocery store in years, for instance.

I've posted a number of policy-type things that could be changed. Nobody's disagreed with any of them so far, you're just calling people stupid. Which, fair enough, I call people stupid all the time, but is there anything else there?

I kinda thought we were having a decent discussion here, getting at some ideas, not just bitching at each other for fun.

But if that's all we're doing, by all means let me know, because I'm actually pretty good at that.

 

Chi I never called you stupid did I? I told Flame that his efforts were wasted on this thread because people like yourself want to include illegals. You agree with them being here and think there should br no consequences for border jumping and depleting resources from thos who pay for it. I gave my solutions more responsible consumership and harsh punishment for thos who come here illegally. Do you the penalty for entering China illegally isn't deportation its prison. And not like the prisons here which are holiday inns in comparisoon. It is infuriating when people like yourself want to dictate how my money should be spent. Your comment on daddy warbucks having enough to take the hit is annoying as well. My dad is an example of an immigrant who came here legally and busted his ass. Nothing was given to him but managed to earn his engineering degree and provide for his family but based on his income he would probably be considered rich and should have more of his money taken out to support people who shouldn't be here in the first place. There is a gross mismanagement of funds by the goverment and rather than taking more from the citizens how about stop over spending. I'm not an evil man but I don't like others feeling as if I don't deserve what I've earned. The immigration problem is a complicated issue but I promise you if we tightened up or boarders and stopped giving bullshit asylum everyone would be better off.

 

I thoroughly support more responsible consumership. I'm a very responsible consumer. Practically speaking, I don't know how well harsh punishment will work. Deterrents alone rarely work without incentives, and punishments cost mad moola.

Yeah, but to maintain that police state they can't even have Google. Are we willing to sacrifice Google, and Facebook, and YouTube just to get rid of the illegals? I dunno, they don't bother me *that* much. I'm awfully fond of my google.

I have never dictated how your money should be spent.

We were talking about the richest percentile of America. Maybe your Dad is in the same tax bracket as the family that owns Walmart -- that's who I was talking about.

But you should know, I'm not exactly hurting myself. I've been low, very low, but I'm doing pretty damned well right now. And I definitely busted my ass, as did my husband, to get here. Along the way, however, we passed a number of people who didn't make it -- not because they weren't busting their asses, not because they weren't talented, not because they didn't "want it" enough, but because life is motherfucker and sometimes your wife gets hit by a bus and you have to spend the rest of your life paying medical bills. It just happens like that sometimes.

So you can't just be an island. You can, you could be a total douche, but it would be against your best interests, because all of history shows that the poor rebel. You can bitch about spending tax money on welfare for single mothers, but you'll pay twice as much in 15 years if you don't -- once when the grown child car jacks you, and later to jail him.

I admit I have a bleeding heart, but liberal policies make practical sense. We are wasting tons, TONS of money on prisons every day. Capital punishment costs more. Yeah, health care costs are off the chain. What if people stopped using the Emergency Room (the most expensive place to get or give health care), as their general physician? How much might that change things. That bleeding heart idea is one raised by our First Lady when she worked for U of C Hospital, which started establishing public clinics. It's great for us bleeding hearts, but it makes practical fiscal sense as well.

Likewise, stricter enforcement of border security costs TONS of money. And it has a very small return. It looks really good to build a wall, but ultimately we ended up using illegal labor to build it. And we couldn't afford to make it long enough to be worth anything. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we can't afford to deport a substantial percentage of those illegal immigrants living here now. Legalizing them feels bad, it feels like they're getting something for nothing, but it tangibly changes the situation for the better, by removing the temptation to work for below minimum wage.

See, this is where the disconnect is. We don't give almost anyone asylum. We don't even give Women who have been raped as a part of war crime asylum. We raid factories while the illegal's children are at school. If there is anything our system knows how to do, it is fuck with people when they have no more hope.

Stop seeing taxes used for social programs as other people taking your money. Believe me, most of the taxes come from people like the types that start businesses like Haliburton, and they're getting plenty back from the government -- that's who I mean when I talk about Daddy Warbucks. Call him Daddy Walton, and think about how Walmart has plundered our economy by bending health care and labor laws. They've taken so much from the US economy that we are now having this conversation. They can afford to pay us back a little.

 

I personally believe America definitely can get out of this economic mess and reduce the deficit by investing more money in infrastructure and by raising the tax rate on wealthy from 35% percent to 80% percent.. This could probably the country in the long run..

Another problem United States need to combat is food safety...

 

Blackcaesar, the overwhelming majority of wealthy people (7 figure net worth +) got there by investing and/or owning their own business. Tell me, what would be the incentive to take such risks, create jobs and opportunities for others if you have to pay out 80% to the government? Doing that would kill free enterprise in this country and drive all the entrepreneurs (you know, those that create the jobs in this country) to move elsewhere or find ever increasingly creative ways to shelter their money.

 

I believe we need give tax breaks to American Businesses that keep jobs in America.. Also we should award small businesses some breaks as well.. However, we should definitely punish corporations that move jobs overseas with the Benedict Arnold tax...

Loki, Warren Buffett believes economy would be better off by raising the tax rate on wealthy..

 

Excellent points.

 

You do try to dictate how my money is spent when you believe others are entitled to or should have access to it through hire taxing. I'm not saying not to help with the problem but like I said can we stop taxing working people so damn much. We waste a lot of money every year not to mention we over spend on military spending so how about lets start there instead of taxing people who were ambitious enough to get an education and work hard. As far as the richest percentile you have to be more specific if you mean the top 1% ok we can agree on that but the top 10% need to be left alone. According to our President those making over 200,000 dollars a year are considered rich but when you live in one of the most expensive places in the world (NY) its great money but its not what it would be if I lived in the South. My parents spend between 7 to 10 thousand dollars a year on property tax alone not to mention all the other federal state taxes. The upper 10 percent pay 47 percent of the taxes as it is how much is enough. Should I sacrafice my hopes and dreams for others who haven't earned it?
I'm not part of the upper 10 percent but I think I should be allowed to get there. Personally I wish we could solve the problem with rounding them up and either shipping them back to their country or execution. I know you think that the cost of sending them home would be cost more then keeping them here but like I said legalizing the 30 million illegal immigrants in this country would destroy quality and drive unemployment to astronomical proportions. More people that aren't trained to do anything except manual labor in the information will not help it will only hurt. I don't understand why that's so impossible to see.
As far as the greedy corporations be held responsible thats a pipe dream when they control everything for government to the free market the only ones who can do anything are the consumers period. We have to look out for our own interests because even those sworn and paid to do so fail every time.

 

We can agree on tax breaks for businesses that keep jobs home, and for small businesses.

Warren Buffett was referring to the "capital gains" tax, not income tax. Per the article below he feels that the capital gains tax cuts passed under Bush are far too generous to the 'ultra wealthy' those like himself, and should be reevaluated. I certainly can respect what Buffet is saying here, that with the current capital gains tax cuts he pays less taxes overall than some of his employees and that is not fair. On the other hand, one could argue that Buffett took the risk of starting a company that employs said employee so he should reap more of a benefit. Either way, I am willing to bet that Buffett would be STRONGLY against an 80% *income tax* rate which I believe is what you were proposing in your prior post.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/58129-buffett-to-meet-with-senate-dems

 

I would definitely be in favor of a tariff tax on all the goods that are shipped into this country to sell. It would help to even the prices on consumer goods between overseas and American products. If a company had to make up the difference in wages that it pays to individuals overseas from what they pay American workers with a tariff tax, they would think twice before outsourcing and moving to other countries. All of these companies want to pay $.50 an hour, but they want to sell all their products in the States because the people they hire can't afford to buy their products.

 

First of all, possibly we are talking about how "your" money is spent, but likely not. We're not talking rich people, we're talking Warren Buffet super rich people. If you are insanely rich, perhaps we are talking about you, but if you are rich enough to have multiple jets then yes, I absolutely do believe I have a right to "dictate" how much you should pay in taxes, just as you believe you have the right to "dictate" how much poor families should have to pay for gas or milk, for instance. This is business. I'm a businesswoman, and if you're rich enough to be in the same tax bracket as the Walton family, then you're a business man, and you've done business with the US government before. Not fairly. It is perfectly reasonable for the American people to wish to negotiate.

"Working people" saw their taxes go down this year. I would advocate lowering the taxes of "working people" even further. "Working people" is not a term commonly used to describe billionaires.

Because it's better that those who were ambitious but unlucky should pay far, far more proportionately? Those with less pay more in this country. Why? Because the rich deserve more? Because they were more ambitious? Bullshit. Success is no even-handed mistress. There is no "fair" in capitalism.

Wow are you using numbers weirdly. The upper 10 percent includes that top 1%, which is paying 25% of the total. It's not like that 47% is spread equally between people making $200,000 and those making ten times that much.

Yes absolutely you should. Taxing those within the upper 10 percent more, much less the upper 5 or 2 or 1 percent, will not impede your ability to get there. Taxing the rich does not inhibit people from getting rich.

Why? It's not like they're all up her unemployed. What makes you assume that they will suddenly become unemployed once their employers could no longer employ them illegally? Those businesses will still need workers, they'll just have to pay those workers more. In nearly all cases, those businesses can afford that increased cost, but no doubt they will pass the cost along to the consumer.

Yes, corporate control and influence over this and other governments is rampant. But it's not like they aren't actively working to make things worse each and every day. We cannot afford to simply give up. It can get much much worse than this, and you only have to look at how these corporations behave in other countries to see how much worse.

Look at some of what happened during the Bush administration. It gets worse, every day. We are currently doing a tiny little bit more to slow that avalanche. If you think it's too late to fight that avalanche, I don't really see the point in worrying about what immigration will do to this country, because illegal aliens may not be citizens, but legally corporations are and the more power they get the worse our quality of life gets, in tangible, measurable ways, every day.

 

Awesome plan.

 

Officially agreeing to disagree

 

My 2 cents...

I'm currently unemployed. I was layed off a little over a year ago but before that I saw the writing on the wall...my occupation (Pre-press tech) was in decline. I currently collect UE while I go back to school...it's the deal worked out with the local government of Washington state because my occupation was so far in decline, my only way off UE would be to retrain for a new field. I'm on my last quarter and will be recieving a certification in web developing. The thing is, I don't worry about Mexicans taking jobs from me because of the money Obama pumped into education. Through this I am able to retrain. Under republicans the money wouldn't have been there and I would've been one of the ones somewhat worried about Mexicans taking menial jobs because that would've been all that was left for me...and repubs don't believe in investing in the people.

My point is to the right leaning folks on this board....thanks. Thanks to your tax dollars, I'll be able to get back on my feet and land a high paying job so I can pay it forward with my taxes....in case you too get the ax in the near future. People like myself don't look for a hand out but it's nice to get a hand up every once in a while. I hate being out of the workforce. I hate being on UE. I do on the other hand love being at home with our 11 month old daughter during the day and will miss her terribly when I go back to work.

As for the UE issue, people do need extensions BUT at some point they have to cut bait and try a new field...or try moving to a new city or state with a better job market. Some jobs just aren't coming back and thats the bottom line. If you don't want to compete with illegal immigrants, go back to school and step your game up. However, if you can randomly pick up to 5 illegal Mexican immigrant out of a pack who can code C# in Visual Studios like no other...I will eat my words.

 

Very happy you went back to school and I absolutely love giving my money to citizens like you who will reinvest into the system.

 

Our gov't is wasting too much money on so-called War On Drugs.. I think our economy could benefit big time by legalized drugs and tax it like tobacco and alchol.. Legalize Hemp can help this country when it comes to enegry, clothes, paper and other materials, we use on daily basis...

United States should focus on more Alternative Energy and transportation.. This too could definitely revive America cities such as Detroit, Pittsburgh, Akron and rest country that has suffer because of free trade..