Bush take two.

[bigq]

Taking your stuff? funny when klinton was in office he didn't take anything I owned, what are you talking about??
Just more of your income by raising taxes, but then again so did his predesessor. :notam:
What do people think the minimum wage be 20k a year, 25k, 35k? I was never told i could buy a house or a new car or raise a family on minimum wage. What should it be? A recent study suggested that it cost around 60k a year to live and raise a family in California, would that be enough?

[AzDon]

You clearly have an elevator that doesn't go anywhere near the top! :sqeyes:
But I do have a boat!!
You tightie righties always seem to love to imply that YOU will lose substantially in any scheme that helps other people. You love to warn working folks all the way down to the poverty line that electing people that care about people will cost them....
Don't even bother being objective by discussing the cost of Bush's personal war!
The reality is that the Bush tax cuts gave little or nothing to anybody that is not in the richest 5% of the population. These are the people that Bush has sold his soul to!.... Are you in the richest 5%?... Then Bush is your guy!

[572Daytona]

Per my copy of Turbo Tax 2003 the tax relief act reduced the four highest tax brackets from 27% 30% 35% and 38.6% to 25% 28% 33% and 35% in 2003. Based on the 2003 tax brackets for single filers that means essentially that you paid 2% less taxes on any income over $28,400. So Don, do 95% of the people in this country make less than $28,400? Don't forget this didn't take effect until TY 2003 so this last March was the first time we saw the break from the Clinton tax increases.

[bigq]

But I do have a boat!!
You tightie righties always seem to love to imply that YOU will lose substantially in any scheme that helps other people. You love to warn working folks all the way down to the poverty line that electing people that care about people will cost them....
Don't even bother being objective by discussing the cost of Bush's personal war!
The reality is that the Bush tax cuts gave little or nothing to anybody that is not in the richest 5% of the population. These are the people that Bush has sold his soul to!.... Are you in the richest 5%?... Then Bush is your guy!
Somebody has to pay for this higher living wage you want and i am not in the position. You make it sound like if you are a conservative, the person wants dieing people in the street and not take care of the sick. What do you believe drives people to accomplish great things? Everyone at some piont in there life needs some help, a little helping hand and I believe that the people will do it not the government. your outlook on humans as giving people must be grim.

[mickeyfinn]

Folks around here are always saying a person should better themselves and are against welfare, medicare, afdc, unemployment insurance, a living minimum wage,osha, labor boards, eeoc, overtime wages, collective bargaining, and unions. Often these same people argue in favor of exporting jobs and importing workers.
While skilled and semi-skilled jobs are being exported or filled by illegals, the jobs that are left are being cut and refilled at continually declining wages.
Bettering oneself is always a vague ideal that nobody seems to be willing to provide a roadmap to. Exactly how does an entry-level person advance without starving to death first?
hmm lets see now, how about working hard proving your worth, Not expecting to graduate from school and immediately be able to afford a lifestyle that your parents took years to develop. Sounds like you believe that the teenager working at Mcdonalds should be able to afford a car, apartment or house, utilities, clothes and still have enough left to eat on and provide for other basic necessities. Anyone here up for a $10.00 Big Mac? How about taking a job just for the experience of working. Accepting a minimum wage while still working into the market allows you to establish your work ethic and your reputation. Believe it or not a lot of people still call for references on other people and base hiring practices on these references. While people may be hesitant to give a bad reference many will answer the question "would you hire them back" if the answer is no then I don't need them either. I hire a good many people every year and it appears that those who have grown up in this age of "entitlements" expect someone to give them whatever they need so why work for it.
My free-market argument against this is that eventually there will be no market for "discretionary" goods when all the "discretionary" income has been pulled back.
My more personal, heartfelt argument, though, is that:
About 135 years ago, southern plantation owners imported, trained, housed, clothed, and fed alien workers from Africa, and believed it was their privelege to protect their "investment" in these individuals by keeping them as property rather than have the terms of this arrangement be renegotiated.
We believed it was wrong, and we changed it!
And we will change it again, If it gets to far out of hand you will see that supply and demand are still alive and well. People will begin to support the small local manufacturer or begin to do without things which they can't or won't afford. Leave the economy to the free market as much as possible and quit asking for more legislation to control it. If anything the basic concept of a free market is watered down by minimum wage requrements and other bullshit laws.
Today, we have a party in power that has successfully prevented anything resembling a livable wage to be made into law. I would respectfully argue that any employee that recieves a weeks wages that won't cover a week of living expenses at a minimum American standard, is allowing himself to be treated, economically, as less than a slave. Until we place a realistic minimum value on the labor of our citizens and place restrictions on imported products/labor, we may as well get used to the idea of supporting these folks thru social welfare programs.
get real!!!! Slaves? Is someone holding a gun to their head and making them show up for work. I can look in the local papers here and find good paying jobs available every day. It is not my fault that someone didn't get the education or spent the early part of their life screwing around instead of finding a career and developing the experience need to qualify for one of these better paying jobs.
I'm completely willing to pay more for American, living wage goods because more people working at a living wage means less crime, more taxpayers, fewer grifters, more people with money to shop, potentially lower taxes for a real reason.... in other words- an economy that works for everybody!When you figure out how much more per year you would spend allow me to save you a lot of effort and you can just send that check to me.
Whether you realize it or not you are a socialist. Asking the government to regulate incomes will effectively push the window of pay between the top and the bottom of the scale to the point where it is so narrow that working hard and giving an honest effort in an attempt to move up will seem pointless and we will eventually find ourselves in the position of a country where your career is decided at birth and your compensation will be totally regulated.

[Blown 472]

So a gubment that takes tax dollars and sends it overseas to line the pockets of kbr is better then a gubment that takes tax dollars and does things like fund skools here????

[mickeyfinn]

I don't know that I ever claimed that the government was perfect. I do believe it is better than any of the alternatives currently available in other places. I truly believe that the free enterprise system is one of the things which made this government and this country the best and I get truly concerned when I hear about others who want to move us closer and closer to what has already been proven to be an inferior government. Socialism does work if you are okay with settling for mediocre. Forcing employers to pay more than they can afford to pay is not the answer. As long as there are people willing to work why not let them work for what ever the market will bear as it is better than not working at all. I guarantee you that if everyone was forced to pay a "living wage" (whatever that means) that the business' that would be most affected would be the small businesses. There is always competition between the large companies and the small businessman and this is one of the things that helps to keep things in check. If large companies get too greedy then the small businessman starts to get a chunk of their business that is too large for them to not do something about such as reign in prices or change the way they operate. I will admit that for your everyday retail and common commodity manufacturing that the small businessman is limited to small bursts of success to be followed by being swallowed by larger companies. I am not saying this is a bad or a good thing just saying that it is.

[AzDon]

If every employer was required to pay a livable minimum, the playing field would be level for all employers. I think you are making the assumption that businesses would somehow be prevented from passing those costs to the customer, but I never said that! A certain percentage of increase could be immediately expected from ALL businesses that were in segments previously serviced by subliving-wage employees. Any business that could not promote the percieved value of their product at the new pricing probably wouldn't make it!

[Delta Jets]

Last time i checked Gubment pay money to kbr. Then kbr pay thousands of employeeeeees. Then employeeeeees pays house notes boat notes food notes kid notes etc. the people that recieve this pay pay their Employeeeeeeeees who pay all thier notes and so on also i think the dreaded KBR is also a publicly traded co. so why bitch go buy some stock and share in the wealth oh yea you can also buy BIG OIL CO. Stocks won't be long you can be in that 5% bracket

[mickeyfinn]

If every employer was required to pay a livable minimum, the playing field would be level for all employers. I think you are making the assumption that businesses would somehow be prevented from passing those costs to the customer, but I never said that! A certain percentage of increase could be immediately expected from ALL businesses that were in segments previously serviced by subliving-wage employees. Any business that could not promote the percieved value of their product at the new pricing probably wouldn't make it!
You are right price increases will be seen EVERYWHERE. It would encourage more jobs to move out of this country and cause some industries to close completely. Fast food if you have to pay a whopper flopper 20 or 22k per year? I don't think so. Convenience stores are already priced so high due to the cost of limited shelf space. If the clerks were paid more what would happen? What about smaller things like life guards at public pools? These are typically high school kids working a summer job. Do we pay them big dollars too? Come on AZDON get real. Jobs are paying what the market will allow. Too many people wanting too few jobs then wages go down. Too many jobs and too few people? Wages go up. It is a cycle. Quit asking the government to control things. If this is what you want then move to a country that is already operating this way. After you have done that and worked as an employee in that country for a while then come back and tell us how great an idea it is. Trying to legislate something like this would turn into just another one of the out of control plans that the government already has. You would have to make so many exclusions that the plant would wind up being ineffective. You would also wind up eliminating many "entry level" jobs which people use as a foothold to get into a company. This country grew to be a great place without all these rules on business. Started enacting rules and things started to slide the other way. The more rules we enact the further we will continue to slide. Let's start lifting these rules and see if the country starts making up some lost ground. Why do you want to put more rules into place when history already shows that to make greatness you just need to remove some of the rules.