When government becomes so intrusive into people's lives and wallets...what happens when the rich?

you make excellent and valid points...what people seem to miss overall is that as the united states moved out of the 1950s and everything really boomed for us...it had been good before, but 2 world wars and a long worldwide depression, along with the korean conflict and other things, had kept the world pretty busy just trying to get a lot of things straightened out...that people in our country started really kind of splitting up on it all. so many went to work and built solid, even pretty 'cushy' lives while others used the overall prosperity to just 'do their own thing' or even take off for pretty much anything that let them avoid dealing with life. whatever, the more we did as a nation and as individuals, the more people we wound up 'losing' to their own ingrown lives. they got into drugs and sex and all sorts of things associated with being 'free spirits' or just being 'individuals', all of which is just fine by me. but because of our influence we were also able to direct a lot of wealth toward programs and so on that would both help people get back on track and help a lot of people join in on the efforts to do these things. whatever, we did develop a culture of trying to get some type of 'morality' established that had nothing to do with personal responsibility but more of the kind that we see now...officialdom taking charge and dictating what is to be done, and using so much tax money to do it all.

bottom line, yeah, we've now got a couple of full generations of people out here since all this started, and so many of them have grown up without any exposure to a life of working family and taking care of themselves. it's always about getting a check from somewhere, government-provided subsistence and shelter and so on.

and what these people don't realize is this. the government controls them now, period. they don't have any choices in how well they do, even if they see that they could have such choices.

it's a horrible, vicious cycle, and responsible conservatives are trying to tell it all to our world. we don't have any guarantees, none of us...but we need to hang in, keep working for our own good and stand up against this flood of incoming government control. but the reality is that there is a big chance that we'll fail, and then it's not about us deciding not to work. there won't be any work for a lot of us because business will fail. and whoever thinks that all the 'poor people' will then step up and form new businesses and life will go on with the only change being that it will be different people in charge...well, they're just nuts. because, if all the people out here who go to work everyday and try to pay our own was go down, it'll be the poor people who hit just before we do. they already don't have much, but by then the government won't be able to support them any longer.

@ Iris...that was written by men in a time when morals and self respect and ethics prevailed and they wrote it with the intent that most people in this nation would continue to be good productive citizens they never envisioned a whole nation of welfare slugs leeching off the working class.

Don't go cherry picking what those good men said and did.

Then the rich become the bottom feeders and all of the entrepreneurs that the rich have been paying politicians and lawyers to destroy suddenly create a new economy.

90% income tax on anyone who makes over $1,000,000

Just like it was in the 1950's (accounting for inflation)

Incentive to not be a greed-ball

I started my own business. No trouble at all. Easy-peasy. Get some licenses, pay some fees, put out ads...nothing to it.

I don't think anyone is discussing a 100% effective income tax rate, and at any rate below 100%, it's better to work than not.

Then poor people will step in to create the businesses to meet the needs of everybody.

It's sort of like how it's been for thousands of years, actually.

bottom feeders, cute, very cute and very childish as well.

Do you realize that you and yours will be paying for bush's war for the next fifty years?

We are still paying for the disabled troops that were disabled in Vietnam.

I like working, as do a lot of people I know.

Ike taxed the wealthy at 90%.

Reagan taxed them at 50%.

Obama taxes them at 35%.

Read the debates that the Founders had when they were founding this country about the common good. James Madison compiled them and they’re online. These guys had lengthy discussions about the common good.

Do you know who was the first president in the history of the United States to sign a law using federal tax money to pay to house, feed and clothe the poor? George Washington. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and every president since then has followed suit.

This country was founded by people who said “we’re going to create a government that protects the general welfare of its people.” It’s right there in the Preamble. You’ve got to start getting your information from some place other than Fox news. I’m serious. It’s tragic, people thinking like this.

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They get hungry like the rest of us.

You might enjoy being unemployed with $150.00 per month to blow with Food Stamps.