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Solving Class Warfare


© Lloyd Dangle

Who says Republicans don’t want to solve the problems of small businesses, jobless people, below-water homeowners, the homeless, working poor, unwed mothers, and the destitute?

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29 Comments

  1. ebdoug wrote:

    Contact your legislators. Let the tax cuts to the rich expire at the end of this year. Christian Science Monitor says that the estimate is 210 Billion a year raised from the rich. That will take 38 years to pay down the 8 trillion debt Bush put us in. I will be paying more taxes if you let the tax cuts to the rich expire. My dividends will be taxable again. My siblings and I have been crying foul since the tax cuts went into effect. We want them to expire. We want to pay more taxes to pay down Bush’s little war games.

    Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 9:34 am | Permalink
  2. Iron Knee wrote:

    I totally agree. I will be paying more taxes too if the tax cuts expire, but you know, it won’t mean anything to pay less in taxes if my money is not worth anything. We need to pay down the debt. It isn’t just the right thing to do, ironically it is the selfish thing to do.

    Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:33 am | Permalink
  3. Me wrote:

    If you love handing over money to the government so much, nothing stops you from cutting them a check.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 11:18 am | Permalink
  4. Alex wrote:

    Bailouts are a bad idea, agreed. But the rest of these boxes are forgetting whose wealth it is in the first place. And they reveal a deep misunderstanding of how wealth is created.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:10 pm | Permalink
  5. Vic Binko wrote:

    LOL, if Main Stret America wants to see any change, they will have to do it themselves.

    Jess

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:11 pm | Permalink
  6. Anonymous wrote:

    except that isn’t this what all of the obama policies are currently doing?

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
  7. Moose wrote:

    Where does he say he “loves handing over money to the government”? I would guess that rather than loving it, he’s simply believes that acting responsibly is a good thing.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:14 pm | Permalink
  8. marx wrote:

    erm, alex, wealth is created when one spends money to eventually sell commodities to make profit.

    M-C-M (M)oney spent to buy (C)ommodities to then sell for more (M)oney.

    but that presupposes and ignores how value is created – and that, my friend, is through the labor that creates commodities. Value isn’t some objective value alien to our understanding…it is created through the physical processes…or rather it should be.

    So who’s wealth is it actually? The proletariat’s.

    i.e. don’t screw over the labour class, you’re just making permanent the necessarily destructive contradictions within a capitalist market.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:20 pm | Permalink
  9. Marvin wrote:

    Brilliant cartoon which sums up the ridiculousness of right wing economics.

    The last 30 years have proved beyond any shaddow of a doubt that trickle down economics do not work.

    And to MF: Your pithy comment has nothing to do with anything. The fact is the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes in this country. It’s not about me writing a check to the government, it’s about a government that works for everyone, not just the super wealthy.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:30 pm | Permalink
  10. Marvin wrote:

    I’d like to mention that I misused the word “pithy” above.

    That is a lesson to myself: A dictionary should be consulted before pressing “Submit comment” if I’m unsure of a word’s meaning.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:34 pm | Permalink
  11. Josh wrote:

    Other than the first square (which incidentally refers to the bailout that most Republicans opposed, but the Democrats, including “the anointed one” Obama, ramrodded through congress), when you say “give money to”, you actually mean “take less away from”. There’s a difference there.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:37 pm | Permalink
  12. anti-socialism wrote:

    What is this “give money to the rich”? It should say steal less money from the people who earn it. This is the problem with most of this country, people think the government actually earns its own money. How about we stop crippling our business with legislation like Cap & Trade? OR stop bailing out failed companies?

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:41 pm | Permalink
  13. Doug wrote:

    This cartoon is total BS. Is there anyone who gets back in equal services, what they are FORCED to pay the govt through taxation? The rich/poor slant is irrelevant. Some rich people earned it through inventing amazing stuff we use daily, like computers and cars. If you want to attack someone, attack politicians who force you to fork over your hard-earned money and then don’t provide you services as valuable as what you could have gotten if you’d spent your money at private businesses.

    Govt is a monopoly. Never forget it.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:59 pm | Permalink
  14. I Khant wrote:

    You’ve got it wrong, we don’t “give” anything to the high income earners, we merely take less from them in taxes. It is their money.
    The problem with liberals is that they confuse what is fair with what is right. Life isn’t fair.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 1:39 pm | Permalink
  15. Blighted Framer wrote:

    The rich need to be examined. Those who become rich by producing wealth, should be encouraged. Those who get rich by manipulating currency and the financial system (bankers and brokers) should be indited and prosecuted for theft. The latter produce nothing, most just steal wealth by rigging the system. The former are the ones who through producing wealth, stimulate all sectors of the economy. The latter, suppress it.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
  16. SweetInspect wrote:

    This states quite a bit! Giving to the rich so that the poor can benefit. What a joke that is! The rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Isn’t that what the majority of the rich want? Can the middle class support the nation when this happens. “You betcha….” as many ignorant politicians express….at least according to all those “conservative” politicians who have “all of the answers” . But do you think they are going say that? No. They want every vote they can get, so they play along with the general public, which the majority falls within the middle class and brain wash the people stating that they will help everyone. What false statements those are.
    Why is the consensus of middle class not speaking out and showing the politicians what is needed in the every day Governmental affairs? What is needed is a big change in the way the U.S. of A. government operates! Get rid of the waste in the Government, starting from the senate which has an average of 12 people working under one senator. (Look back at our fore-fathers, the only one that had any help was the President. The rest were doing a normal capacity job and would do the governmental work after they finished their paying job.) And not to mention the Representatives which also has many costs like paying their cronies, just to do business as usual.
    Look at the waste………
    If the U.S. of A. was working as a corporation, they would be laughed at by the other corporations due to the redundancy and inept forms of just doing business. Get rid of a lot of the bureaucracy and move forward.
    I live a small simple life. I do not try to impress anyone. I just do my job to the best of my ability.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 2:15 pm | Permalink
  17. Iron Knee wrote:

    Actually, the waste in many large corporations makes the US government look positively streamlined and efficient.

    Friday, February 19, 2010 at 4:29 pm | Permalink
  18. We Khan wrote:

    I Khant wrote: “The problem with liberals is that they confuse what is fair with what is right. Life isn’t fair.”

    I believe liberals know life isn’t fair. That’s why they work to make it right.

    Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 1:29 am | Permalink
  19. joulesbeef wrote:

    Dont give me this earned it crap.
    You “earned it” through the rules of the market set up by society.
    Society requires taxes.
    one of the flaws of pure capitalism is the more money you have the easier it is to earn more money. That can be most simply shown by the difference in interest between 10k in the bank and 10 million.

    this is why we have a progressive taxation. To make the FLOW OF money more fair. ANd You can “earn” you money there and “taxation” is not stealing it from you, it is the price you pay to be in the american market.

    Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:35 am | Permalink
  20. CORY wrote:

    @JOULESBEEF: “one of the flaws of pure capitalism is the more money you have the easier it is to earn more money. That can be most simply shown by the difference in interest between 10k in the bank and 10 million.”

    That statement shows that you misunderstand capitalism. The reason why you earn more interest when you have $10 million is because you are *voluntarily* lending that money to someone who can use it to create value.

    On the other hand, if the government were simply to tax away your $10 million, you *involuntarily* give it to someone who uses it for whatever gets them the most votes.

    Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 11:01 am | Permalink
  21. jim sadler wrote:

    Capitalism is a very flawed concept. It assumes a free market and free markets never exist. Ideas such as profit are foolish unless the buyer,the seller, and other effected parties all benefit from a transaction. Usually one man’s profit is another man’s loss so the sum of the transaction is neither profit nor loss.
    The survival of America depends upon the lessening of capitalism and corporatism in our nation. The love of money is the root of all evil and capitalists and corporations are all about loving money.

    Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 4:57 pm | Permalink
  22. Iron Knee wrote:

    Winston Churchill said “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”. I would claim the same thing for capitalism, as the worst economic system, except all the others that have been tried.

    With what would you replace capitalism? Fascism, as we seem to be doing now in the US? Some theoretical system? No, give me a concrete example of some other system that is actually working somewhere.

    Note that I’m a pragmatist. There are clearly cases where capitalism doesn’t work, which is why it is so important that monopolies must be illegal. But when regulated properly, I can’t think of a single system that works better than capitalism.

    Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 5:06 pm | Permalink
  23. Yod-Aleph wrote:

    @iron knee: They probably said something similar to Churchill’s quote before democracy was invented but the Athenians decided to experiment.
    Real socialism and communism haven’t been tried, technocracy or any form of non-monetary economics hasn’t been tried, there are lots of ideas that haven’t been tried. What you’re saying is that you’re not willing to try to fix things. The “this sucks, but everything else sucks more” philosophy is foolishly limiting and isn’t at all helpful.
    Look back at history. When cars were invented some people thought they were unnecessary and that a horse and buggy works fine, but those are the people who are now looked upon as foolish imbeciles. If we had all thought like that we’d all still be like the Amish.
    We need progress and for progress we need to be willing to experiment and not just sitting complacently in the dark instead of lighting a candle.

    Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 3:13 pm | Permalink
  24. Steven wrote:

    The wealthiest 1% of Americans pay for 40% of Americas taxes. You think they should pay more? It’s their money, they should be able to use it how they choose. Instead of raising the taxes on the wealthy, why doesn’t the government try spending the tax money smartly for once? Rather then spend billions on dollars on bailouts, stimulus bills, and other money suckers, they should spend it on education, research grants, and worthy causes. Don’t blame the rich for the countries problems, blame the government.

    Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 11:21 pm | Permalink
  25. Iron Knee wrote:

    But since the rich control the government, can’t we blame them for the government’s problems? 🙂

    Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 10:39 am | Permalink
  26. Anonymous wrote:

    I’m a republican. Instead of complaining about what the rich people do, you worry about yourself. There is one thing tht can be done to solve most of the issues: EDUCATION!!

    Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 8:40 pm | Permalink
  27. fred wrote:

    It’s not giving money to the rich it’s refraining from taking money from the rich to waste on projects that don’t work.

    Sunday, September 5, 2010 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
  28. Joe wrote:

    Yes the rich pay forty percent of america’s taxes, but the scary part is, not all of them pay the taxes!!! In fact not only do some of them not pay taxes, many whom would be considered middle class pay almost half of their income on taxes(significantly more than aforementioned nonpayers.)
    Taxes aren’t theft. They are very volunatry, especially for rich people. Rich people have enough money to choose where they live. If they do not want to live in america due to taxes than they would move somewhere else. They are the price you pay from benefitting from america.

    Monday, September 13, 2010 at 7:57 am | Permalink
  29. Sayward wrote:

    The rich get rich from the labors of the rest of us—who don’t get to accumulate wealth because the rich don’t pay a fair wage.

    People used to get merit increases and cost-of-living adjustments—meaning that for every year of service and experience, people earned a bit more, thereby accumulating some wealth. Now, people only get a cost-of-living adjustment which—IF THEY’RE LUCKY—keeps up with all the increases in insurance premiums, co-pays, food, gas, rent, etc. So we’re always basically making the same amount (if not less) year after year. In the meantime, the rich are accumulating more and more wealth.

    Economies are a zero-sum game; if one has more, the other has less. People who are sitting on their wealth—not spending it either to create jobs or to pay their workers a living wage—are parasites, slowly killing the people who actually do the work.

    We should try trickle-UP economics for a change: Require that companies pay working people a living wage so they can afford to pay for necessities and still have money to buy extras. That would create demand for producing more products, and that, in turn, would create more good-paying jobs AND additional wealth for the owners/investors.

    Those at the bottom don’t want a hand-out. Doing meaningful work is a basic human need. People just need a living wage for the work they do—and they haven’t been getting it for nearly forty years now.

    When I was a kid, my mom only worked outside the home if and when she wanted to. My dad’s salary as a route salesman was enough to support the four of us in a modest home, with two modest cars, a two-week camping vacation every year, and occasional treats. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor, either. That life is impossible nowadays, because those on top don’t pay a living wage to their employees anymore. Not only do they hoard their wealth for themselves, they don’t want to pay taxes to support the roads, street lighting, libraries, schools, police, firefighters, or other public services that make our society livable and relatively safe. They pretend that they got where they are all on their own and are completely self-sufficient—so everybody should be, too. Their’s is a stupid and selfish fantasy. Labeling those who recognize that fantasy fascists, communists, or socialists (sometimes all at once!) doesn’t make it so.

    Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 1:44 am | Permalink