I live in Canada, and I am gald i am not living in the U.S because i never have thought people get so polarized over the policies between democrat or republicans. 

However having seen it now on this forum..i would like to add my two cents about the receont economic woes in relation to how both the Bush adminstration is handling it.

I don't think it is just a matter of simply increasing or decreasing taxes or people have to shell out more taxes in support of the auto bail out.

for one, suppose the bailout never came through and americans don't have to be afraid of their tax money being used to support a bail out, better yet, suppose the wider 700 billion dollar bail out was never approved.  Imagine the unemployment rate would sky rocketed over night, people are losing jobs left, right and center already, now if there were no bailout, then the unemployment situation would be worse.  I don't think any adminstration would want to be remembered for that.  In the short term, the political costs would simply be too high.  I am referring to losing support for potential votes. 

Second thing is..suppose again that the bailout for the 3 autos never occured, that it was rejected each and everytime, even Bush has a change of heart and say "screw you guys, because the industry deserves it"  Overnight, the entire american auto industry sinks, its various suppliers and dealers would get severely effected, some will even go under too.  Then what do we have left, well the Japanese auto makers, and they will increase their market share over time, even after the economy gets to better shape, and Americans will probably have no choice but to purchase foreign made cars.  So much for being proud to be the "made in American brand" 

Ah..but you might say, but the american auto industry can be start again by some wiser people..but will it be the same as before in dominance, that is the million dollar "if" question.

One other thing about the U.S i never understands, you guys have this warped concept of what a "social good" consists of.  If everyone has the right to liberty, happiness, etc, etc.  Well..don't the poor deserve to have a chance to have the same opportunity.  The tax system in north america is an incremented taxation system, it taxes in proportion to how much a person makes according to income bracket categories.  To simply state that it is wrong to pay taxes to help the poor is wrong because the poor do not konw how to make money grow..well...i am sorry, that simply over simplfication by a factor of millions.   For one thing, if taking the conservatives side of the arguments to its logical extensions, the poor do not deserve any knof of social services program, because they have not work for it.  Hence if they are in a bind, then they deserve their lot and hence they "ought" to fend for themselves.  If they are miserable or end up dead in the process, then it is their fault.   I gues then those poor did not deserve to have the right to have a chance at liberty and happiness just so stated in the U.S constitution and only those who are either rich or afford to deserve the right to have liberty and happiness and everything that comes with it.

Just one last thing before i close, before all you Republicans like minded whining about the poor on welfare are like a bunch of ungrateful sons of #$@.  Well... remember what Christ always said about "blessed are the porr and the weak"   And yes, i know what the rest of the new testament have said, but then...the Gospels take priority and precedence over the rest of the new testament any day.

Yes, and they have that chance. What does that have to do with taxes?

Our very own Brad Wardell, owner of this site, started as a poor kid (single mother, if I recall correctly). He obviously had a chance. What could have stopped him?

I don't have the statistics, but I recall that the US have a higher rate of poor people becoming rich than other countries, specifically European countries with higher taxes and "better" social welfare systems.

I was not comparing statistics, i was merely asking a question regarding whether poor people deserves to have the same opportunity as the rich or those that are simply well off.  Brad's argument basically boils down to the following, government's role are solely to provide basic pulbic services which includes public and national security, basic education, building and maintanence of roads, public utilies etc

And to support such endeavours, citizens ought to help the goernment out by paying certain amount of taxes.

If a society's population are taxed aboce and beyond what is stated in the above amount, than the government ought not to do so, because those extra amount of taxes can be used to generate further capital. 

Also, Brad uses example where the governments use tax dollar to fund programs to assist in helping the poor where those money can be better spend on something else, presumably to generate further capital  And of course, the best course action in the first place would be not to force such extra taxes on its citizenry. 

It doesn't matter how oen slice or dice semantics here, it boils down to the best government are the type of government that intervene the least in businesss.  Because government are known to be a) inefficient, because it is a Beureaucracy, it only knows how to spend money and it is not in the business of making any money, or rather it is worse than a non-profit organization like Focus on the Family.

Well...if you guys want pure capitalism in its full maddening glory, go to any developing country where it is on the road to acheive free market capitalism.  See how they are doing it, you don't have to go so far as China, or somewhere in teh middle east, just goggle up some African country and see when market capitalism intrudes into a society, and the government that are so used to provides the basic social services are giving up on the endevaours, because they just either don't want to provide it, or they want to privatize it, plus they slash taxes  See how factors such as the social determinants of health are affected or the mortatality of the populations.

I have a even better solutions for all those who don't like paying taxes.  You konw all those "out of the cold" shelter program, soup kitchens, batter women shelters, orphanages, etc.   All these programs that are gear to helping the unfortunate. well, we might as well shut them all down.  Because the population that it serves, well they are the poor lot, and they are good for nothing anyways, they are a burden to society, they are not in the capacity to generate any wealth, or the opportunity for it or they are just too stupid.  Either way, tough luck for them.  If they don't make it on the street, they can simply die.  YES, i mean DIE or drop dead.  It would be better because government don't have to worry about them by taxing the public.  Oh forget about publich health care program, health care costs money so, those who are in the position to provide health care service should be rewarded just like a business.    So if the poor can't pay, oh well, tough luck.  If they get sick and can't pay, well too bad, they can move aside and die somewhere quietly too.  It is not economically efficient to help the poor, because they drain scarce resources, and worse, the resources that are put into helping them, there is no gurantee it will amount to anything, never mind in helping to gernerate further resources.

Yes.

I am just saying that the US system is the closest to that utopian ideal of all the societies in the world.

So what was your point? Should we keep the US as it is or make it more like Europe, where societies are further from that ideal?