They are doing everything right, but still one bad break away from poverty
http://www.ohio.com/news/local-news/they-are-doing-everything-right-but-still-one-bad-break-away-from-poverty-1.250917<snip>
Nelson, 54, of Akron’s Goodyear Heights neighborhood, doesn’t consider himself poor. He has worked most of his life, owns his own home and never needed to accept charity.
“There’s a lot of people worse off than me,” he insists. But after being without steady work for more than a year and having used up most of his savings, he admits he’s at risk.
“I’m tapping into what I might have retired with but I have to live for today. You have to live like it’s your last day,” he said recently. “… I don’t want to live high on the hog. I just want to pay my bills and live a quiet life and retire sometime.”
Part of his risk is that he doesn’t have health insurance at the temporary, $10-an-hour job he recently took. His wife, Joleen, works cleaning a restaurant at night. She could buy health insurance at about $250 a month, but they can’t afford it.
He’s not alone.
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That "take steps to balance the scale" is pretty cold and unrealistic IMO. The system is a runaway train and individual efforts to "balance" can be like throwing kleenex into a raging inferno. I also question the frame of "everything right"--even people who do something "wrong" should not be living with a sword over their heads if they make one misstep.
= new reply since forum marked as read
for you.
I don't care for anybody but myself"...does it?
in another thread around that time, when I asked if you were a materialist, you said you were.
Do you know what a materialist is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. To many philosophers, not only is 'physicalism' synonymous with 'materialism', but they use both words to describe a position that supports ideas from physics which may not be matter in the traditional sense (like anti-matter or gravity).[1] Therefore much of the generally philosophical discussion below on materialism may be relevant to physicalism. Also related are the ideas of methodological naturalism (i.e. "let's at least do science as though physicalism is true"
and metaphysical naturalism (i.e. "philosophy and science should operate according to the physical world, and that's all that exists" .
How in the world is my being a materialist relevant to any conversation that we've ever had? In any case, I'm not on this board for the purpose of wearing my emotions on my sleeve for all to see. I'm simply here to amuse myself. At the moment, I find this conversation amusing...hence this post.
and yes or no, do you support paying more in taxes so that people who have little can have the basics of food, shelter, clothing, education and so forth?
and yes or no, do you support cutting your taxes if the cost was that people who have not enough of the basics will end up with less of them?
I'm sorry, but the questions are too broad. If it clarifies things, allow me to present my general take on taxes. Here's a chart of government spending (federal, state, and local combined) as a percentage of GDP.
This chart's moving in the wrong direction, overall. Given my druthers, I would reduce federal spending to about 17% of GDP. This would be accomplished via across the board cuts to all sectors of the federal government, no exceptions. No bank bailouts. No stimulus spending. A somewhat reduced military. Etc.
On the tax side of the equation, I would implement a flat tax at whatever percentage of income is required to fund this level of spending. No exemptions. No deductions. No exceptions. If this raises or lowers my personal tax rate, so be it For what it's worth, I currently pay a combined federal & state marginal income tax rate of about 30%. My gut feeling? That's plenty, and I'd like to see it go down.
Hope this helps!
I pointed out DU encourages an exchange of ideas from the center and the left. You then questioned my views on taxation. I provided them, and pointed out that they are centrist.
So what's the beef?
As for a flat tax making a country a third world hellhole, I suggest you check out countries such Hungary which have adopted a flat tax. Hungary's is 16%.
I could live with that. 
