On average these three pay 24% of their income in federal income taxes.
You don't say what an above average salary is but assuming $100,000 that still lavs them with $76,000.
On average they earn slightly less than $40,000 a year and pay about 12% of their income in taxes.
Assuming £40,000 that still leaves £35,200.
Two of the friends dropped out of high school and have menial jobs; one is a school janitor and the other a mason’s helper. Their average pay is less than $25,000 and they pay no federal taxes.
so they have $25,000.
Statistics are wonderful, the one on above average is 304% better off than the one on $25,000 and the one on $40,000 is only 140% better off.
You don't mention state taxes and any indirect taxation but that presumably makes things even harder. If you're stuck in the mud of the pond is quite hartd to lift yourself out.
The average man in america has less than two legs which is an accurate statistic. Do you actually now know more about the need for prosthetics in the american male population?
posted by quinns commentary
There is an old saying; “Give a starving man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
Senator Obama seems to favor passing out fish taken from someone else’s pond. I am aware of only one person who was able to take a very limited number of fish and divide them among the masses, but even that was for only one meal.
It's a spurious argument IMO. You are all in the same pond not different ones. Do you allow the more successful fisherman to take more and more of what is available and deprive others or do you make them take less, share out more and allow more fish to breed and/or work out ways to increase the pond?
To use an analogy from an older time. If a factory owner makes profit on the work of his employees is it not in his best interest to share the wealth (pay more) so his workers have free money to buy more goods from him and other factory owners to generate more profit which allows higher wages to buy more goods etc etc. Simplistic I know but one of the reasons Britain became such a powerhouse and started the industrial revolution was that kind of thinking, access to education, and the development of an industrial working class with money to spend. It goes badly wrong when you stop investing and just take the profit for the rich to get richer.
Greed isn't good it's actually an economic dead end.
posted by quinns commentary
The point is the philosophical approach being esposed by the liberal politicians where the solution is never to reduce costs, but to always add more taxes and to seek to lower those who have achieved as opposed to raising those who have a way to go.
This is presented as being a caring and humane person helping the poor and the working class, but in reality quick fixes and handouts do people a disservice and years of doing that and billions of dollars spent have not changed the fundamental problems that plague the poor. How can a tax rebate or a credit help when in urban areas as many as 70% of students drop out of high school, or have no father in the home or are pushed into jobs that are a dead end?
Haven't a clue what those you call liberal politicians in the US are proposing but it's what you do with it that matters. In the UK quite a lot was spent in regional development funds to help areas where traditional industries had died out redevelopment. The benefits are being reaped now. I live in an area where unemployment has dropped from double figures to under 2% and a diversity of industry that means a draught in one sector isn't a wholesale catastrophe.
It's an ongoing debate with no final solution. It's like anything else in life-you try something that doesn't work the way you wanted so you adapt and change what you are doing. This good that bad doesn't work, This goos that's a good idea let's try that is much better
America seems to trying to decide if it should bother or not. You're at the bottom of the pond it's not my problem or my concern seems to be the general attitude. Our attitude is more we are at the bottom of the pond and you will do what you are told to help out.
You might find this of interest
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6547021.stm
Speaking at the launch, Mr Salmond said only the top 10% of earners would pay more under their system.
Different ponds, same problem, different attitudes. You'd hate it here as, by your lights, I suspect we're all a bunch of left wing loonies.
