So, last night I watched the president's State of the Union address, which was really just a campaign speech for his re-election. Why would I watch the speech if I dislike O-bummer so much? Because I want to be informed and know what the fuck I'm talking about. I also watched the Republican and Tea Party responses to the speech, and this morning, watched the Cato Institute response/review of it (which I will post a link to because it's worth watching). What I'm working my way to here is the idea of being 'informed'. Way too many people, particularly young people, these days get their news/ideas/views from what I consider to be very suspect media outlets, particularly FaceBook and Twitter. These are NOT legitimate news sources. It's not news- it's not even a news story. Most of the time, it's just a picture with a few words under it- that's not the 'facts'- it's a little 'in your face' propaganda piece that does exactly what it's supposed to do- it gives the uninformed mASSes something they can say to their uninformed friends to make them sound like they know what the fuck they're talking about. The problem is that these people take this stuff as facts without ever doing any research to find out if it's actually true. These are people- the FaceBook generation- that are just reaching or have recently reached voting age. They're going to go to the polls this November and they're going to cast an uninformed vote that will affect ALL Americans, based on (mis)information that they got from FB. Most of this crap that I see is slanted towards the left- I'm sure the Republicans do it too, but I don't see much of it from the right on FB and I have friends of all political leanings. I strongly believe that a lot of this kind of thing comes directly from the DNC- remember, Obama used Facebook quite effectively during his 2008 campaign. Facebook is without a doubt the easiest way to reach young voters. The problem is that the majority of young voters can't be bothered with actually digging deeper than looking at a picture on FaceBook. Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about- this was posted on FB this morning by a friend of mine (one that I hope is intelligent enough to look a little deeper and not take things like this at face value).
Let's look at this and try to figure out the truth. Did Romney pay a tax rate of 13.9% in 2010? Yes he did- that's the truth (and it's about the only thing about this picture that is truthful). Now, I'm not defending Romney- I think I made it pretty clear in my last blog entry how I feel about him. Did this school teacher pay 25% in taxes in 2010- it's highly doubtful (I'm not even sure that's a picture of a real teacher- it's probably a stock photo). The tax rate for most working Americans is 22%, not 25% (46% of americans pay NO federal income tax). Let's say that whoever created this image had put 22 rather than 25, would that be the truth? NO, it wouldn't. Why? Because 22% would be the rate that she was taxed at BEFORE factoring in what she got back after filing her 2010 tax return. The true adjusted rate would be somewhere around 9%, which ends up being less than Romney's 13.9%. Now there is also the fact that the teacher is paying INCOME tax while Romney is paying CAPITAL GAINS tax- the tax rates are different for each- it's like comparing apples to oranges. If they wanted this to be fair (and we know they love to throw around fairness), they would have used a picture of a millionaire that actually pays income taxes, but that wouldn't have been effective as an anti-Republican, anti-Romney propaganda piece. I'm also not defending the Republicans- remember, right at the top if this page it says that I'm a Libertarian. So, this is basically one big lie after another, but it does exactly what it's meant to do- it makes people mad, it gets the youth riled up. This is the kind of garbage that gave us the Occupy movement- little blips of propaganda pushed as facts for the FaceBook generation to devour and spit back up as rallying cries against the 'evil rich'. It's just one more example of the current administration's class warfare machine rolling forward.
Now, do I personally believe that someone making 20+ million dollars a year should pay more than 3 million in taxes? Probably, but according to our current tax codes, Romney did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING illegal, and paid the taxes he was required to pay. Do I think that taxes should be raised on the rich simply because they're rich? Hell no. Some of them were born into it, but most of them worked hard to become rich, and made good decisions along the way. I am a FairTax supporter and believe that there should be a complete overhaul of the current tax codes starting with the repeal of the 16th amendment and the abolishing of the IRS.
Here's the Cato Institute video I promised...
Let's look at this and try to figure out the truth. Did Romney pay a tax rate of 13.9% in 2010? Yes he did- that's the truth (and it's about the only thing about this picture that is truthful). Now, I'm not defending Romney- I think I made it pretty clear in my last blog entry how I feel about him. Did this school teacher pay 25% in taxes in 2010- it's highly doubtful (I'm not even sure that's a picture of a real teacher- it's probably a stock photo). The tax rate for most working Americans is 22%, not 25% (46% of americans pay NO federal income tax). Let's say that whoever created this image had put 22 rather than 25, would that be the truth? NO, it wouldn't. Why? Because 22% would be the rate that she was taxed at BEFORE factoring in what she got back after filing her 2010 tax return. The true adjusted rate would be somewhere around 9%, which ends up being less than Romney's 13.9%. Now there is also the fact that the teacher is paying INCOME tax while Romney is paying CAPITAL GAINS tax- the tax rates are different for each- it's like comparing apples to oranges. If they wanted this to be fair (and we know they love to throw around fairness), they would have used a picture of a millionaire that actually pays income taxes, but that wouldn't have been effective as an anti-Republican, anti-Romney propaganda piece. I'm also not defending the Republicans- remember, right at the top if this page it says that I'm a Libertarian. So, this is basically one big lie after another, but it does exactly what it's meant to do- it makes people mad, it gets the youth riled up. This is the kind of garbage that gave us the Occupy movement- little blips of propaganda pushed as facts for the FaceBook generation to devour and spit back up as rallying cries against the 'evil rich'. It's just one more example of the current administration's class warfare machine rolling forward.
Now, do I personally believe that someone making 20+ million dollars a year should pay more than 3 million in taxes? Probably, but according to our current tax codes, Romney did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING illegal, and paid the taxes he was required to pay. Do I think that taxes should be raised on the rich simply because they're rich? Hell no. Some of them were born into it, but most of them worked hard to become rich, and made good decisions along the way. I am a FairTax supporter and believe that there should be a complete overhaul of the current tax codes starting with the repeal of the 16th amendment and the abolishing of the IRS.
Here's the Cato Institute video I promised...
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