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Letter
 
American Dream
John French, Contoocook
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October 29, 2008 - 12:00 am

Barack Obama says his tax plan will not affect anyone earning less than $250,000. Since my paycheck is not close to that, I am to conclude it does not affect me.

Yet it does affect me exactly as it affects you. It attacks the opportunity of our children to aspire to greater success than we ourselves have achieved. It does this by setting a cap on the highest level of success that our government will allow.

The American Dream includes that an individual can envision and create their own future. No one can hold you back except yourself. Yes, some are born with greater and lesser abilities and some are disabled. A merciful people will provide some relief for their less fortunate brothers and sisters. Yet we do not have to destroy the core American Dream to provide this relief.

Rather it can flow from the abundance of the majority who do achieve - if not every hope, enough to create an ample life.

John McCain will protect the American Dream and its engine of wealth creation that has given us all some amount of prosperity and a continual hope for the future.

JOHN FRENCH

Contoocook






 

Comments

20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

You saying this is a cap imposed by the government is just trying to scare people.

You know what my wife and I are going to do with the extra tax savings, and small business tax breaks? We're going to re-invest it into our company so we can continue to grow beyond that $250k profit, and when we're there we'll gladly pay the extra very small amount of tax for being allowed to live in a country where this was possible, and to help the less fortunate, whose shoulders the American wealth rests on. Those people who work in our factories, and shop at our grocery stores, and buy our products are the reason we are where we are.

The only wealth John McCain wants to protect is his own. He want's it to flow from the abundance in his left pocket, to the ample of his right pocket.

Respectfully Mr. French
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

I disagree. I'm tired of paying more than my share of taxes. I've worked full time since I graduated from high school. I've looked at the tax tables and understand the Bush tax cuts. I don't think we should redistribute folks wealth. I think folks should pay their fair share. It's like 6% of folks going ahead of me at the Hooksett tolls and paying 25 cents for their toll because they drive a Lexus and me paying $1.00 because I drive a Ford Escort. I shouldn't be funding someone else's tax loophole. Just make it proportionate. And when I have the opportunity to hit a higher income bracket then my proportionate share will go up. That's reality.

The fantasy is to think I will reach that bracket if my job keeps getting exported overseas (twice already) and I retrain and go to school and get new jobs (paying my own college costs-twice now). Making less money. And I get that's life. But what real irritates me is that I pay more in taxes so that wealthier folks can have a bigger tax cut and trickle it down. While proportionately to their income they pay less money. Nyah, that's not a fantasy. It's a bad dream. Soon there will be no middle class left in this country. All the jobs those folks would have would be gone. Gone to fund tax rebates for wealthy oil companies instead of creating new infrastructure and industry to put the U.S. back on top. Gone to tax credits for companies that ship jobs overseas instead of tax credits for businesses that create new jobs here. Gone to the wealthy 6% while the rest of us peck for the crumbs. It sure is a redistribution of wealth my friends. It's been a redistribution of the middle class's wealth. Don't think otherwise.

re: trickle down
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

I'm not rich but look at all the immigrants driving around in brand new Mercedes. Its no secret. They obviously didn't get the memo from the DNC that success is impossible. They're lucky. They didn't receive the brainwashing that we received as school kids.Us natives are too fearful to even try! Now we're jealous and we start bellyaching "Oh life is so unfair ! Poor Me!" At least I'm encouraged! I now know that anyone can be a success. All that is required is belief and effort.

re: ???????????
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

Pay attention. Biden was just using that number as an example (compared to someone making a million dollar income). It is not the new "magic number."

trickle down
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

"Rather it can flow from the abundance of the majority who do achieve - if not every hope, enough to create an ample life."

Great, we get to eat the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich.

Mr. French
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

You my friend are a true patriot !!! This will be an Obamanation if McCain does not win.

???????????
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

Anyone with an IQ above 50 understands that when Obama lets the bush tax cuts expire, even people in the lowest tax bracket are going to pay $2000 more in taxes. In case you haven't been paying attention, Barry's magic # is now $149,000. It will be $40,000 by inauguration day!

Defense of Wealth
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

That 5% own 90% of the personal wealth, they should pay a proportionate amount of the Defense budget to protect that wealth while the middle and lower class volunteer for the military that fight our wars.

Sometimes, figures don’t lie, even while liars figure.
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

In 2006, the top 5% of wage earners paid 70% of all federal income taxes. This includes a great number of small, subchapter S corporations.

The top 25% paid 87.5% of all Federal income taxes.

The bottom 50% paid just 2.9% of income taxes.

42% of taxpayers paid NOTHING.

Obama says he’s going to “cut” taxes for “95%” of US taxpayers, and somehow still have enough revenue to pay for an addition $1 trillion in Federal spending that he has proposed.

Sometimes, figures don’t lie, even while liars figure.

American Dreams that Republicans can take away
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

To go to college:
unless you pay cash, you get financial aid in grants and federal loans
To buy a home:
unless you pay cash, a tax deduction on mortgage interest
To raise a family:
unless you have a "golden parachute" job, time spent with a new born and still have a job to return to

To have a safe environment:
unless you have houses in mountaintop retreats and Bermuda, already the Bush administration is wiping out protections to streams that coal companies pollute and gutted the Food and Drug Administration

To have a fair economy with equal opportunities:
Republican Deregulation and Anti-Union activities- just look at unfair bonuses, compensations (now using tax dollars), corrupt lending practices by private mortgage companies that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were forced to buy, Enron, Big Oil price fixing, and sub poverty wages.

John, Obama will become a president starting with humble roots - everything that you hope for your children is more likely from his policies, not Bush/McCain. By their actions, wealth has/will become more concentrated in the wealthy class. That's not class envy, that is wealth created by the profits made by corporations selling to the middle and lower classes. That is our economy and if it keeps going that way, it will destroy the American Dreams, our Democracy and Capitalistic Freedoms ie. a return to the Feudal system of the Middle Ages.

Why do you think economic stimulus packages to get the economy out of the "tax cut for the rich/spend above budget" Bush administration provides money to the middle and lower classes? Because they are the ones who move this economy and make the wealthy wealthier. Only thing is they proportionally pay more in overall taxes than the wealthy and have to borrow, or work to jobs to keep pace with corporate prices that provided a stock market boon to the rich, for a while.

Spend less
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

The government should spend less so that increasing taxes on anyone is not necessary. Ah, but extreme liberals would never consider that. At least with McCain there is a fighting chance he will cut federal spending. Blaming the current so-called economic crisis on Bush and a McCain who is not even yet president just shows a complete ignorance of the long sordid history of how this mess came about, and is nothing more than an attempt at rationalizing the liberal idea that the government must raise taxes (even if you believe they would raise them on the "rich" only).

Not $250K
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

According to his all knowledgeable running mate, Senator Biden, Obama's plan will tax those making $150K and up. Hmmmm....first Obama defined rich as $1 million during the primaries, then it went to $250K, and then $200K, and now it's down to $150K. Soon or later it'll be down to anyone earning money of their own volition will be considered "rich."

Give me a break.

Mr. French...
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

...since you are approaching this issue from the perspective of what's best for you and your children, I offer this suggestion:

Support Obama and his tax plan NOW, while you and your children are under the $250 K threshold so as to take full advantage of it and allow you to get to that magic number a little faster.

John McCain
20081029/OPINION/810290317
810290317
article_title: 
American Dream
article_pubdate: 
20081029

The American Dream under John McCain would be more incompetency, more excessive credit-card spending, more failures, more wars. John McCain is George Bush in ann older, angrier, and more erratic body. His selection of Sarah Palin, Queen Sarah, shows his lack of judgment. Obama's tax increase on those making more than $250,000 is nothing more than rescinding the Bush/McCain tax cuts which have led to the current economic crisis. You can't have wars and taxcuts at the same time. As we are all now aware, it doesn't work.

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