@Renickulous Why do we need more tax on people because they have more?

Income inequality. It's so high that the richest people in the country control a sizable portion of its wealth and use it to dictate our politics. Classic Republicans, up until the era of trickle down, were against such a system, and it's easy to see why. I'm not even arguing to go back to (Republican) Eisenhower's system of a 90 percent tax on people earning more than X. But if corporations are people, as the courts have ruled they are, there is no reason they should be paying a smaller percentage in federal tax than the now mythical middle class. Heck, there's no reason they should be paying NOTHING.

Our country was unarguably at its greatest point of prestige and might when we taxed the ultrarich around 50 percent (or more). I, for one, am for America. What about you?

Our childcare "help" is antiquated and behind most nations. Many nations performing better than us per capita manage to provide respectable time off for new mothers (heck, some even support paternal leave). Why can't we?

And please, more assistance for child care has led to a boom in single mothers? What did you even just say?

Obamacare was not perfect, but it was better before all the compromise. I'm sorry you got fined (so did I), but healthcare in the first world should be a right, not a privilege. Our healthcare system is broken, and again, other nations have provided us a model (single payer) that works demonstrably better without contributing more to income inequality like our current system.

We do have grants for college, that are super difficult to get, that not everyone can get, and don't cover everything. While I do not believe every student should see college as a goal, ugh, I hate to keep repeating myself, but other nations have surpassed us here. The government, if it taxes people at a rate that it should, can afford to give our nation's teens free community college or free trade school. RIght now our undergrads are in a cycle of debt many will never free themselves of, that's hardly "manageable."

Labor rights: Workers should not make 4,000 percent less than their CEOs. People should be able to retire with dignity and not have to rely on food banks to survive. Basic stuff like that.

You can argue against classic socialism all day, but it's not what people want in America. We're talking about a capitalist system that protects and cares for its biggest driver of industry (the working person).

@Renickulous Yes having universal healthcare is not a capitalist thing. But we have many non-capitalist forms of service in our lives. We have public schools, where teachers are forced to educate citizens regardless of their inability to pay them. We have public roads, which we can use despite the fact some of us could not pay our construction workers.

That's not a problem for me. It's not a problem for most people. In fact, it's not a problem in countries where universal healthcare is a thing. The average doctor in Canada makes $339K. Specialists make more.

No one said anything about everyone having the same outcome. This isn't about averaging out incomes and everyone gets the same. You're arguing against a position no one is presenting.

It is absolutely not easy to live on government handouts. In fact, MOST welfare fraud cases are from people not reporting income so they can also receive benefits. They do this in order to get by. When I first began my (unexpected) family, I was on government assistance. It sure was nice and embarrassing buying food at the grocery store, but it was the only way I was ever going to afford formula. Easy to get by my left foot.

Few people want to be on welfare. Some people do cheat the system just because they don't want to work. That's a minority of cases, and because I have empathy, I'll fund those rat bastards every day of the week so people like me, who just need a little help getting by for a while, can survive.

And imagine that, single parent households cause a rise in juvenile crime. IDK what that has to do with welfare, but yes, it would be ideal if every child had both parents.

Again, congratulations on finding a way to get by through a broken school system. Not everyone can do that. It's a simple fact. $900 for school is as unreachable as $5K a semester at a state direction college for people in poverty. This only helps to drive income inequality. Education needs to be accessible for everyone so that everyone has a better chance to get out of poverty and contribute to the economy and society. Your policy choices are self-defeating.

A higher tax on corporations and the super rich isn't going to all of a sudden cause the worker to make 4,000 percent more than the CEO. It just means hey ... maybe let's only make it 500 times more or 1,000 in favor of the CEO. They'll still make millions of dollars while their employees can actually afford to live and both will contribute more to our capitalist society with social protections. That means fewer people on government assistance, fewer people cheating welfare to survive, and a more productive, more educated people.

I don't see how this leads to full blown socialism, which will then somehow magically become communism, a form of government that has literally never existed in its true form. You seem to be responding to fear-mongering.

@Renickulous Healthcare is the very definition of a thing used by all. Literally everyone ends up in the hospital at some point or another. Right now, our healthcare system works like this for most people:

You get the wrong disease, you have two choices: Die, or be buried alive under a mountain of debt.

Single payer is working out quite well for most countries, considering the U.S. is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that lacks it. Our doctors should be like our firefighters and police. There when we need them. Not for a price. It seems so obvious when you look at it like this.

Britain as an example works well here. People pay a nominal fee out-of-pocket for prescriptions (a fix rate, something like 12 or 13 bucks per drug) and ... that's it. No worries. No getting cancer and then leaving your grandchildren with medical debt when you fucking die anyway.

This isn't the 1700s, not dying of diphtheria if medication is available shouldn't be a privilege, it should be a right. And most everywhere else that approaches our wealth level has already realized this.

I do ask that you stop using whichever one of your buzzwords you're trying to categorize my argument as.

It is much easier to collect a check than work for it. Again, something no one is denying. That's why when you work for it, you get more money. Except, not in some cases because wages have stagnated for so long (due to said CEOs making 4,000 times what their employees do) that working poor have, instead of blaming people responsible for not growing their wages with the market, blamed poor people. It's easy to scapegoat people who don't work for their money, nevermind the vast majority of them can't, or wouldn't last long doing it.

When you argue this position, you toss your humanity right out the window. Look at the statistics for yourself, then come back to me. If you'd rather toss hardworking people onto the street because of a few people abusing an imperfect system, then I'll accept that as your opinion, but it's not one any reasonable person would have. What do they say about capitalism? Our welfare system isn't perfect, but it's the best one we've found so far.

Perhaps if we paid people a living wage fewer people would need it.

Moving on to college. I don't have to provide you with my own personal anecdotes. Education isn't accessible to everyone. Look at the numbers:

In 2013 (I can't find numbers from later) 77 percent of people from families "in the top income quartile earned at least a bachelor's degree by age 24."

Know what that number is for families from the lowest income bracket?

It's 9 percent. Nine. What it sounds like Germans say when they tell you no. N-i-n-e.

Yes, college is more accessible, but you're missing a very key piece. It doesn't matter if you can get into college (which, some families still can't, not everyone knows about the resources) if you're not ready for college. All you're giving people by letting them into college nowadays is debt.

Today's grants just get you in the door and say "good luck!" There are entire industries grown around taking advantage of poor people trying to get through college. "For-profit" institutions like the Donald's should be criminalized but that's another argument.

There's 7,000 words easy I could write on college and its accessibility, but all you have to do is look at the numbers to see Pell grants and student loans aren't exactly doing anything for poor families.

But even if you do get that degree, how many employers actually give a fuck about a degree from Saskatoon Southwest Community College-East? Again, a whole 'nother topic.

But even when you do get hired, the government has almost always had a say in what people pay their goddamn employees. I'm not sure where this Randian-esque argument comes from, but it's retarded. The government has always had oversight of what people paid their employees.

You know what happens when it didn't? Child labor, even worse wages, and 18-hour workdays. Feel free to go back to the third world where those things still exist, and where you apparently hope to return us.

People are assholes and will take advantage of every opportunity given them to fuck over people smaller than them. Period. That's not jealousy, and it's naive to say so, it's human rights.

And then we get to the final piece of your argument, where I swear you're reading a Breitbart script but OK.

Paying people a respectable wage, giving people decent healthcare, ensuring your citizens are protected and educated, none of that is a magic road to starvation socialism.

I'm not sure how you keep thinking that. We're not going to turn into the USSR because we don't treat people like shit, and it's wrong of you and the places you're getting this information from to fear-monger like it will.

"Capitalism is the only moral system." Spoken like a true American. The country with 5% of the worlds population that uses 25% of it's resources.

@Moravian

You presume that the us govt is Capitalist. It is not. All non-voluntary govts are socialist or communist. Democracy is mob rule socialism.

The us is a socialist country that allows some Capitalism. Lots of socialist countries allow some capitalism: China, the Scandanavian countries, Canada, Australia, etc.

@BryanLV If you mean by Govts being socialist because they collect taxes and spend them on behalf of the population then yes that is true but a country is much more than it's govt. Most countries have a mixture of capitalism and socialism, China is slightly different in that although it has embraced capitalism it still exerts strict control over it's citizens.

Of course the Scandinavian countries are capitalist countries but they have higher tax rates and spend tax revenue on socialist welfare policies.

The difference between those countries and the USA is that although taxation in the USA may be slightly lower instead of the money being spent of the welfare of it's citizens a much larger share is spent on it's vast military industrial machine.

@Moravian

No disagreement there.

@BryanLV right on.

@Elganned

While I do not fully agree with your statement, I do recognize how poorly worded my statement was based on your retort. So thank you for pointing that out.

What I should have stated is that it is the most moral of the economic systems. Based on the definition of moral - holding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct. - Capitalism is the only system that allows the ownership of personal property and requires the owner of that property to convince other owners of personal property to exchange or sell said property to a willing and able party.

@Renickulous I am not biased .His exact words were "most wealth in America is not inherited." Bollocks

@Antidronefreeman So ?.Ben Shapiro, whoever he is, stated categorically that most wealth in America is not inherited. I disagree. What is wealth ?. property ,stocks and shares, money in the bank, art work jewellery etc. What happens to it when the owner dies. Does it just disappear or is it given to charity. No. Most of it is passed on to family members. It is inherited !!

@Renickulous

Original reply says "wealth not inherited". Then admitted that video says, "most".

Most wealthy people do not inherit wealth.

@Renickulous prove what ????. All I said was that I started listening to his sermon but as soon as He stated an obvious untruth I lost interest.I do not disagree that capitalism created most of the "wealth" in the world but without socialist policies it is just greed. Why do you think countries such as Demark, Norway ,Sweden are the best places to live,?.The problem is that most Americans confuse socialism and communism. The old Soviet Union called themselves a socialist republic but they were actually a state dictatorship.

@BryanLV Sure. Your President Trump is a good example of a self made man.

@Moravian

I do not support Trump at all. He too, is a big govt socialist. All of the presidents have been since the anti-Federalists.

Nice try, though.

@BryanLV I am talking about Trump the "business man" not Trump the president.

@Moravian

Hes not mine. His wealth was inherited. So was Bush jr and sr.

That's exactly what I said. Most European countries are capitalist with social welfare programmes. I didn't take anything out of context. I just stopped listening when he said most wealth in America isn't inherited. There is one way of finding out although I am not interested enough to do it. Find out the GDP of the country a generation ago (25 years) and compare it with the GDP now, adjusted for inflation, and you will see how much wealth is passed down. I think you will be surprised

@Renickulous You appear to have made your mind up but this shows how it really is
[inequality.org]

If one of those billionaires gave me the same proportion of his income as I give of mine to the homeless beggars in Edinburgh I could give them even more and we would all be happy. Apart possibly from the billionaire and by the way I am well aware of the difference between inequity and inequality.