USA Mid-term elections

[markfiend]

Bill I like the clit Clinton got trounced in the midterm elections and was re-elected.

Furthermore: In 1982, Reagan had approval ratings lower than Obama has now. Two years later he won in the biggest landslide in American history, winning 49 states.

Midterms (like local elections here in the UK) are largely used as a protest vote by people disillusioned with the current incumbent.

And remember, these elections were hardly a Republican landslide. The Dems held the Senate, despite widespread predictions to the contrary, and the Tea-baggers failed to make significant gains.

[sultan2075]

Mark: why should people who make more money pay a greater percentage of what they make to the government?

Because they're better able to afford it.

Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

I don't think anyone is denying that individuals owe something to their society. Hobbes points out in the Leviathan that giving the government the power and authority to do certain things gives them, by implication, the power to tax in order to raise the revenues required to do those things. The question is why the ratio of what the man who makes more owes to the government should be higher. Were a man to make one dollar a year, and owe 25% of that to the government as a tax, that be $0.25 that he owed a year. Were the same man to make $10.00 a year, and owe 25% of that to the government as a tax, he would be paying $2.50 a year. So, he would already be paying more than the man who only makes one dollar a year. What principle of justice establishes that because he makes ten dollars a year rather than one dollar a year the government is entitled to take a greater proportion of what he has earned? "He's better able to afford it" is an empirical fact, but it is not a moral argument in and of itself.

Furthermore: In 1982, Reagan had approval ratings lower than Obama has now. Two years later he won in the biggest landslide in American history, winning 49 states.

True, but Clinton was able to moderate his stance. He took the midterm elections as a public rebuke to his liberalism, and moderated himself accordingly. He got re-elected in part because he was able to recognize that he had to become more centrist in his policy goals in order to retain power. I'm not sure if president Obama recognizes that--hence his comments that it was a messaging problem rather than a rejection of his policies. I think that he is in a significantly worse situation regarding a second term than Reagan, Clinton, or Bush ever were. We can also add that Reagan wasn't saddled with a signature piece of legislation that was as unpopular as the health care bill is, or passed in such an unpopular fashion as the health care bill was.

...and the Tea-baggers failed to make significant gains.

Let's not do this. Surely we can all disagree with people without resorting to vulgarity.

[markfiend]

I don't think anyone is denying that individuals owe something to their society.

I have seen some "tax-deniers" and Ayn Rand fans online who try to argue otherwise, but that's by-the-by.

OK. Given your two men, sure, the $10 earner pays more than the $1 earner. But to do otherwise would be to institute a flat-rate poll tax, which surely you agree is unjust.

Further: suppose in our hypothetical $1-per-year world, we determined that it is impossible for a man to support his family on less than $0.90 per year. Is it not unjust then to tax him so his net earnings are below that rate?

The extra fifteen cents has to come from somewhere.

The argument goes back beyond Paine, Jefferson and Hobbes et. al. as far as Pericles. The rich benefit from the existence of civil society far more than do the poor, therefore they have a much greater obligation to make whatever sacrifices are necessary for its maintenance.

*Edit: The tea-party mob called themselves tea-baggers before someone pointed out to them what it meant