The corporations are all making record profits.

Companies are stashing enormous amounts of money overseas so they won’t have to pay taxes on it.

Interest rates are low, so borrowing for investment and growth is as cheap as its been in years.

Unemployment is at record lows. But somehow, salaries are stagnant, employment benefits like health insurance and pensions are rapidly vanishing, and nobody seems to have any job security, or they’re working as temps, unpaid interns or part time.

Free from government oversight, there is a tsunami of mergers, takeovers, buyouts and stock buybacks.

Union membership is lower than its been in decades.

CEO compensation and bonuses (all thoroughly under-taxed as capital gains)is going stratospheric.

The administration is waging war on health, safety, worker, product, consumer and environmental regulations.

Next on the agenda is “entitlements”, for the sick and the elderly and the poor.

Since the Reagan administration, all the wealth created by the American economy has gone to the richest (the so-called 1%) rather than the people who do the work. The working man and the small business community have been stuck in a no-growth zone.

And the Congress is gearing up to pass a huge tax cut
and budget deficit as a “stimulus to the economy”. You know, the trickle-down theory.

None of this is the result of “natural market conditions”. It has been deliberately engineered and put in place by pro-business government policy, and lobbied for intensely by large commercial interests.

Think about that, Rob.

Trump’s tax plan will reduce it further…

The year I was born the corporate tax rate was ~%50, NOW it is %35, (Though VERY few pay anywhere near that now) and trump is supporting cutting it to %21.

The year I was born the capital gains tax rate was %34.3, now it is %20- has that put money in YOUR pocket, Rob?

Tell me Rob, do you really think it is the POOR that are taking money out of your pocket?

Change in income over the last year by income percentile

While worker productivity has increased, corporations have not been paying accordingly- they pocket that extra wealth, and you vote to let them pay lower taxes on it

You are a goddamn sucker…

It will save Trump’s family hundreds of millions, do you think the repeal of the estate tax will help you?

And why would you have an issue with subsidizing more “uneducated deplorables”? You should welcome the creation of more folks that think like you… after all, you are part of a dwindling minority.

Really, Rob, you should think a bit about the things you say and what they reveal about your ‘values’ and hypocrisy.

You are so terrified of the possibility of someone below you on the social ladder getting any kind of break at your expense that you don’t notice those above you robbing you blind… Hell, you actively work to give them more power to take from you….

I never wanted kids, never had them- but I have no problem paying taxes to educate other people’s kids. I would happily pay higher taxes if it meant the next generation had an easier time than mine paying for college… because having an educated populace isn’t just a morally good thing, it also benefits ME… it improves my quality of life…

If some poor kid gets a break that wasn’t offered to me and gets to succeed when he or she might not have otherwise, WHY should I resent that?! It just means the country is moving in the right direction.

You are so damn worried about someone below you getting an advantage that you didn’t have, that you never stop to think about what is right… meanwhile those in the top 1% reap reward after reward for simply having the money to buy political power, and you actively work to hand them more power.

The “welfare queen” is always painted as a crack-snorting ghetto black, but more and more these days, its some white suburban or small town meth-head or opioid addict.

I think we are going to learn real soon that the poverty creates social decay, not the other way round, and that the only way to stop it is more and better jobs. Everyone realizes giving tax money to the poor will always be just a temporary fix. By itself, it will not solve the problem, but shutting it off it will certainly make it worse.

As long as we promote and subsidize an economy that feels it needs to employ as few people as possible, and pay them as little as it can get away with, the problem will only get worse. The Beast is not just in the bad part of town any more, its moving in right next door.

I AM the community. I’ve always been part of it, but I’ve always known it. My “wealth and surplus” never convinced me otherwise, I know perfectly well how little my brains, righteousness and work ethic had to do with it. I was lucky, and I had help, and I haven’t forgotten. I am painfully aware how tenuous and threatened my current prosperity is, and how greedily it is envied by others, who only see it as a way to finance their tax cuts. Every tax break for the wealthy brings the Beast closer to my door. No one is safe, except those who will benefit most by this new budget. They will be secure, at least for a little while, but only because they have cut the rest of us adrift. Its what they call Freedom.

I personally know two families with 6 children each that would qualify as your “albino trailer trash”. Since the law was changed from a non-refundable credit to a refundable one, it not only reduces their tax liability to zero, they get a check because they don’t practice birth control.

What Trump is doing by increasing the credit from $1000 to $2000 is fostering the next generation of uneducated deplorables.

These people do not seem to be able to grasp that what is good for the community as a whole is not necessarily what benefits their segment of the community. I don’t have kids, I never wanted any. But I never resented the fact that my taxes were higher than those of folks who did. I’m not poor, sick, or disabled either, but I never resented sharing my wealth with them when I was young, affluent and healthy. I recognized that in the long run it was also in my best interest. I am not a do-gooder by nature, I just am able to think beyond the limits of my own hoard and to recognize that the better off we all are, the better off I am.

It is fair to argue whether social programs and tax policy are effective, or fair, or efficient, or properly administered, but whether or not they are justified is self-evident. If Ann were in a band of apes, she would be shunned by her peers, but she probably would not be cast out altogether. After all, apes take care of their tribe, even the most damaged ones. Its what makes us human.

Children are unproductive, true, but they are the future. The aged and infirm are also non-productive, but not only did they create our current prosperity, they are also our memory and our reservoir of wisdom. We OWE them, not just out of gratitude, but because they still have a role to play in our collective future. And the poor are not congenitally lazy, stupid and criminal, they are poor because those who benefit most from our society have not used their leadership as an opportunity to mold that society in a way that benefits everyone and utilizes everyone’s contributions. Instead, they have looted and taken everything they could in a desperate attempt to exclude everyone they could..

The Coulters of this world are essentially selfish. THEY are the looters and takers. They disguise their greed and lack of empathy, not to mention their reluctance to contribute to the welfare of the tribe (which is, after all, a prerequisite to their own welfare) in abstract ideological and philosophical arguments. Its no wonder they employ that rhetoric so stridently and persistently.

She did get one thing right…”empty lives of quiet desperation”…perhaps there we see the deep psychological injury that underlies this particular form of sociopathy.