Should Rich Kids sacrifice tax Money to help America, like Middle Class and Poor Kids sacrifice their Lives?

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BY NO MEANS! Those wealthy kids have it hard already, and taxing them more could really send them over the edge. I mean, they have to worry themselves with choosing which Ivy League school their dad will bribe for their admission, which luxury car they their dad will purchase for them, and what style of estate/mansion they will have built to move into after they fail out of the aforementioned Ivy League school. They really have it rough, falling into piles of money like that. It's just not fair to tax them more, because they worked really hard to earn those millions of dollars. And by "worked", I mean "were born", and by "earn", I mean "inherited". Though some of them DID earn their own fortunes, but then again, so did Bernie Madoff...

Middle class and poor kids don't have to worry about all of that stuff, so they can enlist and serve in the military. All they need to worry about are silly things like paying for college, having healthcare, and having a job.

Rich kids can't sacrifice their lives because according to flawed economic theory, they are the the ones who make the economy work. Because them blowing their money on cars, clothing, drugs, and other innane luxuries is somehow going to help unemployed citizens get a job, healthcare, and put food on the table....Show more

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is just for rich kids. For poor kids there are only obligations.

Poor kids enlist at a much higher rate than rich kids. Recruiters target them because they know they have no hope of getting a good job after high school. They are convinced by the (false) claims that military training transfers into civilian job marketability, which is does not. Thanks to the Bush administration pay and benefits restructuring, enlisted personnel can no longer support their families.

Rich kids don't enlist, they take their degrees and start out in the officer track. ∠°)...Show more

Your question is based on a premise for which you do not provide any basis and may therefore be false.
Therefore, please define rich. Then state what percentage of taxes are paid by rich people. Next, you need to compare the number of Rich Kids who enlist to the total number of Rich Kids so that percentage may be compared against the percentage derived from the number of poor and middle class kids that enlist divided by the population of poor and middle class kids.

I would suspect that you will be surprised, Mr. Class Warrior....Show more

Our military is all volunteer. Poor and middle class kids aren't forced to join and rich kids do enlist. So that right there debunks your Marxist Communist "class warfare" theory.

And for your information, wealthy people pay more in taxes than you make a year. But liberals like you won't be happy until they're taxed into poverty.

Well here's a tip. What's in someone else's wallet is none of your business and it isn't your place to tell them what to do with their money....Show more

I do not believe that any "kid" should be put in the position to sacrifice his or her life for America, regardless as to their socioeconomic background. If the powers that be have deemed that the youth of America is not mature enough to drink responsibility until the age of 21, why do they actively recruit teenagers as young as 17? They say one of the reasons for the older drinking age is that the liver doesn't fully develop until the early 20s, but the region of your brain responsible for things such as impulse control and moral judgment doesn't mature until around that age either, so why does the US military then send out 18-year-olds to combat where they could be killed, captured and tortured, or psychologically damaged for life? I realize that it is wildly idealistic of me and naive about the way the military operates, but I think the minimum age for engaging in combat should be 21, and that the young people enlisted before reaching that age should be given domestic duties and much more intensive psychological preparation in addition to the training for combat. Instead of perpetually having the same tired arguments I wish some consideration would be put into matters such as this.

Anyhoo, on to your point about taxes. As someone stated above, the way "rich" is defined varies dramatically throughout the country. For a million dollars in Iowa you could probably buy a sprawling estate, but for the same amount in LA you'd get an 1800-square foot fixer-upper in a mediocre neighborhood, or a condo. The public perception of "rich" is often quite different from the reality. And the “wealthiest” already do sacrifice a significant amount of tax money to help America, and will most likely be doling out even more in the near future to shoulder the cost of the health care bill. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I heard on NPR that “rich” was apparently defined by the House Dems as having a household income of over $350,000! Once again, in Iowa or some other flyover state that might be considered to be a handsome sum, but in LA a family on that household income would not be considered wealthy. Comfortable and well-off perhaps, but certainly not rich considering that in order to live in a decent neighborhood zoned for quality public schools in LA even in this abysmal housing market you’d most likely be paying upwards of $1,000,000, and the top private schools here cost around $30,000 per year, per child. Private colleges and universities are now nearly $50,000 per year, and even in-state public schools are expensive, so families have to save for the future in addition to paying for the costs of the present. Plus, I imagine that for many of the parents it took years to pay off their own education. It’s fair for those who make more to pay more taxes to help provide the services that benefit us all, but not for the government to become like Robin Hood.

The vast majority of the most affluent people are self-made. Some, like George W Bush, had life neatly wrapped up and presented to them, but most achieved their success through ingenuity, intelligence, dedication, perseverance and hard-work. My “mommy and daddy” are probably what you would define as being “rich,” and I can attest to the fact that they have worked tremendously hard to achieve their success. Yes, they both came from homes that were able to provide a launching pad for them to set off from, but they worked hard as teens to get into top universities, they worked hard as undergrads to get into professional schools, they worked hard to land their first jobs, and they worked hard to rise up the ranks. They have made so many sacrifices along the way, as have so many of their peers.

I disagree with the user above who said that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is only for rich kids. Quite obviously, a kid from the projects is going to have a harder time carving out a life for himself than one from Beverly Hills, but there are many who have come from nothing and with tenacity and dreams worked hard to reach the top. Oprah Winfrey was the daughter a teenage mother who couldn’t afford to raise her and grew up in abject poverty with her grandmother, Obama was also from a family with financial struggles, and Sonia Sotomayor grew up in a housing project in the Bronx.

Apologies this is so long. I just had a lot on my mind about this matter.

~ Pax / Peace...Show more