Comments on: Makers, Takers, and YOYOs

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 05:32:39 +0000

That’s certainly one of the most recent analyses of Romney.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 05:32:13 +0000

That is exactly what the Republicans are pining for. They are profoundly evil.

By: Wynter

Wynter — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:06:53 +0000

I have to agree with you. The conservative’s anti-government, anti-taxes approach doesn’t quite agree with their “everyone can be rich” theme. We all need some support throughout our lives to achieve our goals. People that have already reached the top don’t recognize (or maybe they do) that this support is essential to our working society. The markets don’t do everything perfectly and in many cases they don’t anything at all. This is where we have government support the public in a broad way. What it looks like to me is that the private sector is trying to claw back some government managed areas of our society because they finally see some profit in it. But unless they can figure out a way to do it faster, cheaper, or better then it’s not going to be privatized. Private enterprise is only in it for the money. They don’t care about providing a service for the public. So if the bottom fell out of the newly-privatized service they would just go bankrupt and move on to something lucrative elsewhere. Government managed services don’t go away. This is why some things must stay the way they are. And why Healthcare should start going towards a government managed structure. The high end healthcare will always be private enterprise, but we can’t allow basic healthcare for all citizens to be ignored due to profit taking corporations. We need a stable healthcare system.

By: David G.

David G. — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:00:53 +0000

That we are expected to pretend that we are pleased to be having this “debate” should turn a decent person’s stomach.

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 08:48:15 +0000

My take on Romney is that he is the prototypical “civic-minded” business person whose primary goal was to build a successful business for the benefit of his family and himself. Once that was done, such people turn to community service to stay busy. This is good, but is a narrow view of what makes up a society. I get the impression that he sees the non-business owner as objects there to be served by his good intentions as long as those intentions are fenced in so they don’t get in the way of business.

By: John T

John T — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 06:00:27 +0000

If I was a Romney advisor I would get him to say as little as possible until November. When he speaks he reveals who he really is.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 04:09:14 +0000

I also quite like Dean Baker’s take of this whole thing, where people take a very narrow view of what a “government benefit” is. Companies like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline benefit quite a bit from strong patent protection; when we pay inflated prices for their drugs, that is in effect redistribution up the income scale. When trade agreements place US manufacturers in competition with foreign ones, but exempt doctors and lawyers, that also helps the well-off people in those distinguished professions. And tax expenditures such as the carried interest exemption help individuals like Mitt Romney, and function the same as a signed check from the government. So if you want to look at the largest beneficiaries of government redistribution, don’t look at the unemployment man on SNAP.

I do agree with that last paragraph of yours though Jared. Once the nat’l conversation gets bogged down into “makers” and “takers,” it’s very easy to get certain portions of the population resentful and get people to lose sight of the practical things that the government can do to ensure everyone has an opportunity to succeed. I’m hopeful though; the President seems to understand YOYO vs. “in this together” and is willing to defend those ideas (and programs) that he and his party believe in.

By: azlib

azlib — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 02:48:57 +0000

You point out rightly that the 47% do not pay taxes meme is meaningless. Framing the debate in those terms makes the debate a dangerously static one. Living is a dynamic enterprise fraught with risks. Just because you are retired and do not pay income taxes now does not mean you were retired all your life and did not pay into the system at some point in time.

If you were unlucky enough to be permanently disabled at a young age by an accident or illness, does that mean we put you down like a dog because your personal wealth is insufficent to cover your care? Of course not, but that is where the YOYO mentality logically leads. Romney’s vision for our country is not only cruel, it is morally bankrupt.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 02:43:29 +0000

Whether people pay taxes or not is irrelevant. Taxes are divisive, and we should probably admit that the government doesn’t need our money in order to spend and get on with business.

The bottom line is that most people need services that aren’t easily provided by the private sector and we have government to provide those services. But maybe people are longing for the good-old days when children only went to school if parents could afford it, all roads were toll roads and old people were on the street begging if they didn’t have family to care for them.

By: mitakeet

mitakeet — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:54:06 +0000

I don’t recall the person who said it, but it went something like this: young people are liberal and old people are conservatives. Well, my life has been backward in that regard, I used to be a firm supporter of the GOP and the conservative agenda (of course, that was over a decade ago before the GOP was revealed to be a tax-cut and spend organization; at least the democrats upped revenues when the spent!). Though personally I have made little use of the public safety net (I seem to have slid right through the holes most of the time), as I get older and more crotchety I more and more believe that a strong social safety net is critical and that without upward (and downward) mobility we slide into a feudal society (well, I should say ‘slid’ since I think we are already there), which, based on my study of history, is incredibly stable and long enduring.

I _really_ object to Obama’s shredding of the Constitution, but I am convinced that Romney would continue the Bush/Cheney/Obama abuses (or try to out Obama Obama to our continued detriment), but pretty much _everything_ that has come out of Romney’s mouth has convinced me that he would pour concrete around our nascent feudal society.

Too bad there is no ‘none of the above’ option this November.