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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  2729 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Shake it up. Offer up one somewhat unpopular opinion that you hold.

For sure, and that one only applies to upper middle class people. There are too many to name, really, even just looking at the tax code. The list could get exhaustive if we started talking about all the ways in which the government supports businesses that affect consumer prices (that again, mostly rich people benefit from). That number is large enough that the total dollar value of line item tax breaks for specific businesses is larger than the Bush tax cuts on the top income bracket (according to an NPR report from a couple years ago when the rollback of that tax was being debated). "Public assistance" is one of the things that illustrates the dire need we have for tax reform in this country. The one thing I agree with Trump on is that the system is rigged (although I'm not sure we'd agree on prescriptive solutions).





steve  ·  2729 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The guy I was talking to was talking about food stamps, section 8 housing, and other forms of cash subsidies to the poor. For some reason he seems to want further disenfranchise the disenfranchised... or something.

His main contention was that as the population of people who are entirely reliant on governmental support grows, they will continue to only vote for public officers who commit to spend more on those systems.

b_b  ·  2729 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Is he familiar with Medicare? How about real estate depreciation? Department of Defense contractors? Recipients of all of these programs routinely vote for candidates that support their continued existence, the difference being that old people, developers, and defense contractors have actual political power.

steve  ·  2729 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm sure he is... I'm also sure he only thinks of public assistance in forms that he, or his immediate family doesn't receive. He's just an angry conservative who thinks "they" are all out to get him.

and the "they" is a moving target.

b_b  ·  2729 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My uncle once tried to claim that renters shouldn't have the right to vote for the same reason. Hate to generalize, but those people are all the same (salty old white dudes).

steve  ·  2728 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    salty old white dudes

yep... but strangely this dude's a little younger than me...