Spanky's Place

1 - Nice analogy, I like it.

2 - LOVE IT!!!!!!!

3 - A better question might have been, "Gee, Mr, have you offered that deal to the homeless guy? 'Cause you never know - he might take it..."

If we're going to use the wisdom of children, consider the typical response of my daughter (7, and yes, quite the prodigy) to GOP policies: "That's not very nice. Why are they so mean and angry all the time? Don't they like other people?"

Ah, the classic child's naivete, how cute.

4 - Feels good, doesn't it? It's much more pleasant to be able to write off homelessness as a simplistic phenomenon, laziness its only possible cause, than to dig deeper and find that not only is it far more complex than that, but that many of us are little more than a layoff away from that condition.

I'm kind of surprised, actually: per capita, there are more people willing to work but refused a job in your state than any other in the country... figured you must have bumped into a few of them by now.

5 - The story, as told, makes no judgements whatsoever about the homeless guy's willingness or ability to do the work.

It is more an observation about the taking of the spoils of your work, and giving it to another, without your consent.

Right now, because we're a little more than a "layoff away" from being in the homeless guy's situation, my preference is that I get to control how the spoils of my work are spent. If I choose to give some away it is my choice. Having it taken from me by force (which is how the government does it) and given to another is what I object to.

6 - @5 Dude, you've been spending too much time with Nathan! All govt taxation is EeeeeeVIL, is enforced by threat of incarceration or worse (well, yes, because otherwise it wouldn't be governing, it would be asking politely for cooperation) - and should therefore be destroyed. heh

You do get a choice, you know. It's called voting. That's what made the Tea Bagging so funny. "Oooh, it's taxation WITH representation! Damn you feds!"

You must be thrilled with Obama's tax policy, in any event, because he just gave you some money back, and now you can decide exactly what you want to do with it. He took some of my wife's, but she doesn't mind because she knew it was coming - and voted for it on purpose.

7 - I find that I lose a lot of respect for people who refer to it as tea bagging...

Oh yeah, I get $12 back on a check - I'll go to a movie! My neighbor's wife is going to quit her job because it's not worth it for them to be taxed more because of her additional income....

8 - @7 Fair enough. Liberals didn't make up the term, though. The (insert your term of choice here) did, by writing letters and posts urging people to "tea bag" (insert your target of choice here) to show their presumed outrage. Liberals merely pointed out, satirically, that the people who chose to use that term had failed to look it up in a slang dictionary first. We've certainly beaten the joke way past the point where it was funny.

I lost a lot of respect for people who sat by smiling and nodding while Pres Bush ran up the biggest deficits in history and then jumped all over the new guy for doing the same, when said new guy was stuck with a massive economic failure presided over by the previous administration (when you've been in power for 8 years, you can't blame somebody else - you've had plenty of time to implement your policies and see the result).

Your neighbor's wife must be in a really odd financial situation (where she earns a truly trivial amount of money while her husband earns, what, over $225k?) given how small the tax increase is, for her earnings to both put them over the top AND cease to be worthwhile because of the increase. They'd probably do better by filing separately and assigning the deductions all to him. But "going Galt" is certainly her right. It won't hurt anyone, and if it makes her happy, good for her.

I guess there must have been a lot of people not bothering to work during the Eisenhower administration, when the highest tax bracket was over 90%. And quite a few during the Nixon administration, when it was in the 70% range. Or not, since it turns out that people still did quite well during those eras. Tax rate changes aren't apocalyptic events.

9 - Massive economic failure?!? The Bush policies saw 6 years of growth AFTER the disaster that was 9/11. Then many factors kicked in that can't be wholly attributed to the policies of one man. Hey, if you wanna get technical the economy didn't really start turning down after October, 2007 when you know who was elected. Look at the 10 year DJIA and it's pretty obvious. So let's not go to the "bushcausedthiseconomicfiascosoletskeepblaminghimforeverandthenattributesuccesstoobamassocialism" nonsense - you're way smarter than that line Rob. Sure, failed policies of Bush AND Clinton caused a lot of this to happen. Clinton did allow a lot of these policies regarding banking and lending to be implemented. Oh, and your comeback will probably relate to how Bush I and Reagan had a hand in it too. Yeah, probably, but now Obama has his hands all over it and just keeps passing the buck. At some point he'll have to say "the buck stops here" and take some ownership. But he's still in campaign mode. If he and his tax cheat cabinet would keep quiet for a few weeks, then maybe we could see something happen. But doom and gloom never helped anything out.

Two words - fair tax...

10 - Um, Chris, I looked at the DJIA. And it was tanking LONG before Obama was elected. The economy was in a major recession more than a year before the presidential election. Have you forgotten how goofy John McCain looked when he proclaimed that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" in the middle of the campaign? Even Republicans laughed at him. He had to back-pedal and claim that he considered the 'fundamentals' to be the American worker. Go back and look at weeklies, not annuals. And when you're done, start admitting that Obama inherited an economic disaster of historic proportions (I am NOT saying it equates to the Great Depression - it absolutely does not, but it is certainly the worst economic crisis since then). Whether he fixes it or not is yet to be determined - his policies may make it worse (I don't expect to see that, while you most likely do). Predicting the future is hard. Analyzing the past is not.

The policies that led to the banking collapse were definitely initiated during the Clinton administration, that's true. It was during the years of the Gingrich Contract with America when the GOP controlled Congress, though. And the deregulation accelerated under President Bush. I n neither case did Obama have anything to do with it. The buck? It stopped. Before the election. And we all saw it. That's why Obama won with the largest margin (in every sense) since Reagan. The American people voted, and they said they'd had enough of the GOP for now. That'll swing back in a while - it always does - but the results of the Presidential election are impossible to ignore when they're that dramatic. There's no debate about a mandate this time - Obama has one, and the public clearly likes what he's doing with it so far (aside from the 29% who hate him with a fiery passion and would love to have W back in office).

I like fair taxes. Thank FSM Obama is closing the corporate loopholes for multinationals who export jobs to other countries and billionaires with their tax shelters in the islands. Everybody should pay the taxes they owe. Cabinet members, mega-corps, and billionaires all included. Paying your taxes is an act of patriotism (unless you're in the military, it is the single biggest commitment you can make to your country), and it seems like too many of our elitists don't feel terribly patriotic. Shame on them all.

Oh, wait, you meant the flat tax, didn't you (changing the name is cute marketing - why don't the creators of the new name go to work for IBM?!?)? I've never spoken to a flat tax advocate who could make the math work without cutting the government in half. Flat taxers love that idea, so that's not a problem to them. The issue is that nobody else likes that idea at all, so even though everybody things parts of the govt are bloated, there aren't a majority who would agree to gutting any one part of it, much less the many eliminations the flat tax would require. In other words, debating progressive taxation vs flat tax is an interesting parlor game until somebody makes the math work. It hasn't happened, and it won't until the flat taxers admit that most people would have to have their taxes dramatically increased in order to allow the wealthy to have the tax cut the flat tax promises. The flat tax crowd won't do that, though, because its political suicide.

11 - "TeaBagging" - I just looked that up at urban dictionary. I don't think I'll be able to watch a "tea bagger" news story ever again without laughing myself silly.

I know it's 8th grade humor; but that doesn't make it any less funny.

@10 - You know this is just too fun for me to pass up:

"Of our economy I think, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
- Senator John McCain, Sept 15, 2008.

"We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished."
- President Barack Obama, January 20th, 2009.

Sounds to me like they both said the same thing. Granted, President Obama's prose is a bit more grandiose and moving than Senator McCain's succinct comments, but the core of their meanings is the same.

"Everyone should pay the taxes they owe." -You do realize you just paraphrased Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior?

They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"
"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
- Matthew 22:16-22 (New International Version)

- or -

They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?"

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. "Why are you trying to trap me?" he asked. "Bring me a denarius and let me look at it." They brought the coin, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"
"Caesar's," they replied.

Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."

And they were amazed at him.
- Mark 12:14-17 (New International Version)

"Paying your taxes is an act of patriotism" - are you kidding me? Please tell me you haven't consumed so much leftist Kool-Aide that you honestly believe this. Paying our taxes is an act of obedience. It is no more patriotic to pay one's taxes than it is to not break the law.

Patriotism is standing up for what is good and right about your country; especially in the face of tyrannical government. Patriotism is pointing out when the government is overstepping it's bounds and attempting to stop it from doing so. For you (and Tim, and all my other "leftie" friends), campaigning against the GOP controlled Senate and the Bush administration was an act of patriotism (whether I think you were right or wrong is immaterial -you saw something you believed was wrong, and you tried to fix it).

Pointing out that the government has gotten waaaaaay out of hand as far as spending money we don't have, and is rapidly mutating into an evil socialist empire with tentacles reaching into places it shouldn't be is also an act of patriotism. I'm not doing the blame thing here (well, perhaps a little) -it doesn't really matter if the economic "crisis" was caused by Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. The problem is that right now the problem is here, and it is being used as an excuse to expand government control into areas where it shouldn't belong.

Funny how one little joke could evoke so much discussion. Perhaps it contains a grain of truth?