This was a letter I received from Ken on Wednesday. I appreciate the time he took to write it, and I thought it deserved equal time considering it, and answering. Below is his letter and my response:
Gary,
We live in a democracy, we're part of a community, we make common decisions. It's sad but you guys seem to think that individual material gain is what matters. You may not realize this but you're mocking democracy. Where's your sense of solidarity and community. An atomized society flys in the face of democracy, it's shameful.
Kenneth, I also share my wealth by buying Thanksgiving dinner for people (7) of them this year, donating to charities, paying for lunches, dinners and tickets for people who can't do it themselves, and sponsoring people to baseball games who otherwise couldn't go. I also sponsor two scholarships for $4,000 and gave $3300 to a school to honor my mom and dad; money that would help for better education of students.
None of that money comes from the government; it comes from me despite the government's efforts to take more and more from me as a producer. Without people like me, the democracy, and particularly the representative democracy which puts them in power doesn't exist. Without my money and other producers like me who have bought into them representing me and you, they are nothing. They produce nothing unless I provide them with the means. My compact with them includes respecting my choices, and making decisions that respect the way I do business as a taxpayer, but more importantly a producer in this country.
When I and people like me stop producing, those who live off the fruits of those labors that are given money by our representatives will receive no more. Do not lecture me about democracy, which by the way means "people power" from the old Greek term. Do you think that meant we should have the power, or just the few representatives whose track record is far worse than most American households where we produce each day?
As far as my sense of community, each member of the community should be doing their best to contribute in some way to, and should not be whining about what the government can do to give them more or perpetuate dependence; rather should be fostering their own independence. That will certainly help the solidarity, togetherness and bond within any community.
Best regards,
Gary Sutton
9 comments:
Gary, you need to teach Joe Biden about charity.
check out www.taxcutfacts.org, it calculates your tax savings under Obama and McCain.
I have listened to the show briefly the last couple of days, and I must say that it sounds like a McCain infomercial.
I'll go further: I haven't heard so much stupidity in one place since the last time I heard Limbaugh.
Gary Sutton is stuck on his idea that Obama is going to "redistribute the wealth" and that this is the end of Western civilization.
He is so afraid that we might have a tax system that taxes the wealthy that he can only sputter the phrase "Obama is going to redistribute the wealth" as a mantra which reveals to listeners why Obama is a horrible candidate for the presidency.
I have one question for Gary:
When the government buys an F-22 and uses it to bomb a village somewhere in the MidEast so that someone can make the declaration that "We are a nation at war"---------where does he think the money comes from to buy this plane, its fuel, those bombs, the flightsuit, the pilot's training, the ground crew, their food, their housing, their training, their transportation, their insurance, their clothing, their protection, their retirement pensions, etc etc????
Isn't it treasury money?
Isn't it treasury money being redistributed?
What part of government isn't re-distribution of wealth, Gary??? What part of "...the money being taken from the earnings of the citizenry and then being distributed to the defense contractors for example, or wherever the US in its budget chooses to spend its money" isn't a redistribution process????
Maybe this shouldn't bug me at all. I'm not even an Obama backer.
But I can think. . . .and I am upset whenever I hear someone so flagrantly misusing logic to support faulty conclusions.
It's illogical.
Redistribution of wealth is all that the government has ever done----it is the only means by which the government operates. Whether the money is coming from taxes, or tariffs, or the sale of national goods or services to other nations-----all that our government does ultimately is redistribute that wealth, which is the common property of all citizens.
In this sense this is what every election is about: we feel that candidate 'A' is going to do a better job redistributing that wealth than 'B.'
Even if an election appears to be purely political in nature, it still has to do with nuts and bolts being applied most pragmatically in the minds of the voters. Unless they're frightened....
Obviously the criminals we have had the last 8 years have done a terrible job of redistributing the wealth------that is why we are so much poorer today as a nation than we were 8 years ago. The national debt is now tabbed somewhere around 22 trillion and no end in sight....... wait for the Social Security bubble to burst: it will make the mortgage derivatives look like grade school math.
The only thing that alters common sense in the voters is implanted fear-----fear that they will lose something valuable to them, something either fiscally or politically meaningful.
What is insane is that Gary would be spreading the fear to his listeners that the wealthy would be taxed more under Obama when the likelihood that very many of his listeners are multimillionaires is extremely low.
Yet his listeners are so worried about their wealth being redistributed because Gary has spread the message -------is this not insane??
It is.
As are most of America. People not able to think for themselves are either feeble minded, or brainwashed/traumatized. I'd say most people in America are the latter.
Truly critical thought in America is increasingly rare.
Exxon Mobil breaks another earnings record
Oil giant posts biggest U.S. quarterly profit ever; breaks own record
(Spreading my wealth)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27453305/
A response to RC--
Yes, in a sense the government spending money is a type of redistribution. That is the purpose of forming a government. We cannot each form our own army or navy, set up a private police force, build a hospital or road, or any of the other thousands of things that the government spends tax dollar on. That is one of the major functions of government.
However, when we talk about Obama's plan to "redistribute the wealth", we are talking about the same tax revenues which the government collects, but Obama wants to collect that money in different percentages from different economic classes.
I own a business. I make a good living. I pay the highest percentage of income tax currently in the tax code. While 40% of our society pays no income tax at all, I pay out better than 40% of the money I earn to the government in taxes. Tell me why I should have to pay a much higher percentage of my income than someone else simply because I can afford to. And if I can afford to pay even more percentage of my income, why should I have to do that. I have worked hard for 30 years to build up a business and earn what I have. Why should I be expected to give away a substantial portion of the fruits of that labor so that someone else, perhaps someone who has not worked as hard as I have, simply because some liberal politician's view of fairness says that I should. The top 10% of the wage earners in this country are already picking up about 60% ot the total tax bill for this country. My company provides jobs with benefits to 65 people. The profits that my company makes enable me to continue to pay these employees and provide them with benefits and vacations. When you tax me out of existence, you take those 65 people and put them on the welfare roles. Do that enough times, and we will all be on the welfare roles and then our country will be bankrupt.
Put down your Kool-Aid (thank you Bill O'Reilly), remove head from sphincter and join the real world.
this country is not poorer because of the last 8 years. Bush has not done everything correctly but people need to start taking responsibility for themselves. these days there is an "entitlement" mentality. people think they have a right to go to college, get a new car, get a house, cell phone etc. take a survey of the people who are having trouble making ends meet and buying food and gas--you will find a high percentage have credit card debt, car debt etc. people have lived on credit and now are reaping the consequences. they have bought houses that they can't afford and cars they can't afford. if you can't put money down on a house, you probably should not have bought one. people have credit amount owed so high up to the limit that there is no wiggle room if gas goes up a dollar. quit looking to the government for a handout and go out and work and handle your money better. tell me you don't know people who are on unemployment that don't even look for a new job until their benefits are about to run out. they don't want to work in a restaurant, it doesn't pay enough. how many people on unemployment really don't need to be on there. do you know anyone that complains about the gas prices, but goes out to eat or gets their nails done. i know someone on partial disability that does not even work part time because she will lose her government benefit. do you think the stock market, housing prices etc can just keep going up? get a bunch of people in homes that could never have gotten mortgages before and it makes it look like there is a housing boom, so we build more houses etc and then find out that these people really can't afford it. then it makes the forclosure rate look high. many of those forclosures were house flippers that got stuck with too many houses. everyone wants to make a fast buck. keep the real facts in perspective and dont just make a blanket statement that this is all the President's fault. we need to look at ourselves.
A response to Brian:
When we are talking about a redistribution of wealth in this country, we are talking about everything that is involved in the disbursement of revenues collected by the Federal and State and County and Local government----it has everything to do with our money, from wherever and however it is collected, being used in an appropriate way.
My premise is intact----all that the government does is redistribute wealth, and it acts like a parasite on society to do it. The smallest, leanest, least expensive government would be the best----but then the government IS the largest employer last time I checked, and if it bellied up, unemployment would go into the stratosphere.
The people in this society who have more have to pay more.
It has always been this way, at least on paper. If you think about, it makes no sense at all to ask the poorest to pay more than they can.
If you think about it, it makes no sense to ask the rich to pay more than they can -----but if a person with 1 million is asked to give up 1/10th, he still has 900,000. If you ask a person with 10,000 to give up 1/10 they are left with 9000.
But it is easy to live on 900,000, not so easy to live on 9000----that is the difference---this is why the richer have to pay more.
Admittedly a flat tax would be fairer philosophically, but a progressive tax is how it's done in most every nation on the planet.
The largest earners as we have learned often don't pay even a small am't of their earnings----they shelter their money as I said. This is fair???
It isn't.
But the conversation is NOT about Robin Hood behavior-----it is about how we use the resources we have, where we allocate most wisely what we can, how to maximize what we are getting for our outlays.It is a much larger conversation than whether you're paying 38% or 45% of your earnings.
By the way, while you're in there---- does O'Reilly have polyps?
Just wondering.
Another response for Brian:
An accountant once told me that if a wealthy person pays the going rate set by the government in income tax, they should find an new accountant.
Secondly, I understand the stress that can result in paying 3 or more percent in income tax if you're NETTING over $250,000. However, which would be worse having to pay a little more in taxes or not being able to sell your product or service because people can't afford it?
For example, I just finished up a few projects around the house. Normally I'd hire someone to do it, but I simply couldn't afford it at this time, so I bought the materials and did the work myself. If I didn't have the expertise to do the work, I simply didn't do it at all.
From my own rather limited business experience, I'd think an increase in the sale of products or services would far outweigh the danger of returning to the 1990's tax rates for a business. Unless you're building or selling yachts to the ultra-wealthy, I would have to believe you rely on a economically healthy middleclass.
It doesn't matter what your rate is if you're not moving your product or service.
Rc,
I am not in favor of McCain, so I don't know where your analysis of a "McCain Infomercial on the show" comes from. In fact, I have very little regard for where he stands, and believe that he has run the worst campaign I have seen in my lifetime. Beyond supporting the "surge" I do not know of any great ideas he has offered. Because I fundamentally disagree with the "95% tax cut" of Senator Obama does not make me a McCain supporter.
I have been very clear and consistent on my show both earlier and now, that I believe that the government is in the business of "legal plunder" as economist and philosopher Frederic Baastiat called it. That is the theory that government should not be able to do anything that the individual cannot do to another individual in terms of encroaching on his choices. The idea of government is to provide a level playing field that allows for all to prosper if they choose, and to have as many choices with the wealth as possible with the wealth that each person creates. Governmental representation was to be a compact between us and them to preserve those choices in a country which relies on the individual's ability to freely create.
That compact has been bastardized in such a way that it no longer keeps a level playing field, but has succumbed to money from special interests, greed, and selfishness by our representatives to enrich themselves as well as those who pad those pockets. Where does the common person fit in? He doesn't. He is the supplier of the largesse off which these pigs live and make choices in our stead.
Having said that, the system will not get better if government which has already shown an inability to distribute well takes the job to another level by being "fair." If these scions were so interested in being "fair" to to the American taxpayer, why did they let us get to a point where they took $700 billion dollars to bailout an industry over which the Congressional and presidential intersts were supposed to be watching. They were so concerned about "helping" us that while they were passing the 400 plus pages of bailout money, they were talking to Wall Street making sure they knew that any new regulations wouldn't really be enforceable. Thus, we now hear that the first infusion of money had such great "safeguards" that when PNC Bank got their money to punch back into the economy, they bought another bank. That bill was from Democratic and Republican leadership together. (Democratic and Republican leadership--what an oxymoron!)
Point is, we already have socialism in aspects of our government, and we do need taxation whether it is confiscation of our money and financial choices or not. I am not ready to trust the same crooks to make thesystem worse by taking redistribution to a new level. Where is the effort instead to re-establish a level playing field where all have opportunity, some equality in percentage of taxation and policy, and continued strengthening of independence for the individual who remains the producer of wealth for a federal government that will do nothing without their plunder.
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