I wasn't saying you supported the bail out I was demonstrating just one of the may ways in which the rich benefit from the government indirectly or directly more (in dollars) than the rest of society.

You could say "20 percent pay 80 percent of the taxes" but you could also say "that same 20 percent get 80 percent of the benefits" or "the lowest 20 percent bear 80 percent of the physical and emotional burden".

These are some examples of how the rich win:

Poor people get the same ratio (payments in to payments out) of Social Security as rich people.
Poor people don't benefit from wars.
Poor people don't benefit as much from corporate welfare.
Poor people don't benefit from national parks.
Poor people don't benefit from scholarships if they can't get off to the right start in the first place.
Poor people don't benefit from government funded medical research if they can't have access to it.
Poor people don't have the resources to wage legal battles.
Poor people don't benefit from government funded science centers and museums that charge money to get in.
Poor people are more likely to be convicted of a crime.

Private corporations and their stock holders benefit just as much as poor people from welfare (they spend the money)
Private corporations and their stock holders benefit just as much as poor people from food stamps.
Private corporations and their stock holders benefit just as much as poor people from universal health care.
Private corporations and their stock holders benefit just as much as poor people from public works programs.
Private corporations and their stock holders benefit just as much as poor people from public transportation.
Private corporations and their stock holders benefit just as much as poor people from good public education because it produces educated workers.

I could go on all day, I know you don't support many (or any) of those programs, but they exist and will exist to different degrees under each viable party.

Edit: This country wasn't founded on a free market, we had huge tariffs and restrictions at the ratification of the constitution. There were more restrictions on property and business ownership than there are today.

The country was founded on the ideals of Democracy, freedom of speech, religion, self defense, and due process.

Are you serious? Here is Obama's plan:

Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.

(guess where that money is coming from, and where it's going too).

Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.

(by the way, a credit is money, not a deduction, If you only had to pay 100 in taxes, the government GIVES you $400, or $900).

Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Obama and Biden will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses.

(again, that's a credit.)

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

"Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs"

No matter who the president is, much more than $50 billion has already been given and will be given again to try to jump start the economy.

As an aside, 1 million of unemployed Americans is nothing compared to what I think will happen. The car industry alone could account for more than that (including their suppliers).

"The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans"

How much taxes were those Americans paying before?

"Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit"

That doesn't seem like a fundamental change to me.

Thank you, Mafoo, I now see that comrade Obama's policies truly are socialist. I wonder how long we have to wait until General Secretary Obama...er, President Obama nationalizes Boeing into NASA?

How many of those do you suppose will actually get a check because of the fact that it's a credit and not a discount?  Anyway, there are already plenty of tax credits, so NJ5's point stands until you demonstrate that he's wrong.

The Making Work Pay tax credit sounds like an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which supports NJ5's point.  (Fun fact:  The EITC has been around since 1975 and was expanded by Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush II.  Wow, I guess this would NEVER happen with Republicans!)

Now that Obama won, this is what the Economist has to say...

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12562373


Great expectations

Nov 6th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Barack Obama has won a famous victory. Now he must use it wisely

NO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly that any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black (see article).

Mr Obama lost the white vote, it is true, by 43-55%; but he won almost exactly same share of it as the last three (white) Democratic candidates; Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. And he won heavily among younger white voters. America will now have a president with half-brothers in Kenya, old schoolmates in Indonesia and a view of the world that seems to be based on respect rather than confrontation.

That matters. Under George Bush America’s international standing has sunk to awful lows. This week Americans voted in record-smashing numbers for many reasons, but one of them was an abhorrence of how their shining city’s reputation has been tarnished. Their country will now be easier for its friends to like and harder for its foes to hate.

In its own way the election illustrates this redeeming effect. For the past eight years the debacle in Florida in 2000 has been cited (not always fairly) as an example of shabby American politics. Yet here was a clear victory delivered by millions of volunteers—and by the intelligent use of technology to ride a wave of excitement that is all too rare in most democracies. Mr Obama showed that, with the right message, a candidate with no money or machine behind him can build his own.
Hard times and a bleak House

With such a great victory come unreasonably great expectations. Many of Mr Obama’s more ardent supporters will be let down—and in some cases they deserve to be. For those who voted for him with their eyes wide open to his limitations, everything now depends on how he governs. Abroad, this 21st-century president will have to grapple with the sort of great-power rivalries last seen in the 19th century (see article). At home, he must try to unite his country, tackling its economic ills while avoiding the pitfalls of one-party rule. Rhetoric and symbolism will still be useful in this; but now is the turn of detail and dedication.

Mr Obama begins with several advantages. At 47, he is too young to have been involved in the bitter cultural wars about Vietnam. And by winning support from a big majority of independents, and even from a fair few Republicans, he makes it possible to imagine a return to a more reflective time when political opponents were not regarded as traitors and collaboration was something to be admired.

Oddly, he may be helped by the fact that, in the end, his victory was slightly disappointing. He won around 52% of the popular vote, more than Mr Bush in 2000 and 2004, but not a remarkable number; this was no Roosevelt or Reagan landslide. And though Mr Obama helped his party cement its grip on Congress, gaining around 20 seats in the House of Representatives and five in the Senate, the haul in the latter chamber falls four short of the 60 needed to break filibusters and pass controversial legislation without Republican support (though recounts may add another seat, or even two). Given how much more money Mr Obama raised, the destruction of the Republican brand under Mr Bush and the effects of the worst financial crisis for 70 years, the fact that 46% of people voted against the Democrat is a reminder of just what a conservative place America still is. Mr Obama is the first northern liberal to be elected president since John Kennedy; he must not forget how far from the political centre of the country that puts him.

Mr Obama’s victory, in fact, is almost identical in scope to that of Bill Clinton in 1992; and it took just two years for the Republicans to sweep back to power in the 1994 Gingrich revolution. Should President Obama give in to some of the wilder partisans in Congress, it is easy to imagine an ugly time ahead—and not just for the Democrats in the 2010 mid-term elections. America could fatally lapse into protectionism, or re-regulate business and finance to the point at which innovation is stifled, or “spread the wealth” (to quote the next president) to the extent that capital is prudently shifted overseas.
Our mutual friends

Mr Obama will not take office until January 20th, but he can use the next ten weeks well. A good start would be to announce that he will offer jobs to a few Republicans. Robert Gates, Mr Bush’s excellent defence secretary who has helped transform the position in Iraq, ought to be kept in the post for at least a while. Sadly, Richard Lugar has ruled himself out as secretary of state; but Chuck Hagel, senator for Nebraska, is another possibility for a defence or foreign-policy job. Mr Obama might even find a non-executive role for John McCain, with whom he agrees on many things, especially the need to tackle global warming and close Guantánamo. Another pragmatic move would be to announce that his new treasury secretary (ideally an experienced centrist such as Larry Summers or Tim Geithner) will start working closely with Hank Paulson, the current one, immediately.

Whoever he appoints, Mr Obama will be constrained by the failing economy. He should not hold back from stimulus packages to help America out of recession. But he has huge promises to keep as well. He has pledged tax cuts to 95% of families. He has proposed near-universal health care—an urgent reform, as America’s population ages and companies restrict the health insurance they offer. He proposes more spending on infrastructure, both physical and human. But if he is to tackle all or any of this, he must balance his plans with other savings or new revenues if his legacy is not to be one of profligacy and debt. He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.

Non-Americans must also brace for disappointment. America will certainly change under Mr Obama; the world of extraordinary rendition and licensed torture should thankfully soon be gone. But America will, as it must, continue to put its own interests, and those of its allies, first. Withdrawing from Iraq will be harder than Mr Obama’s supporters hope; the war in Afghanistan will demand more sacrifices from Americans and Europeans than he has yet prepared them for. The problems of the Middle East will hardly be solved overnight. Getting a climate-change bill through Congress will be hard.

The next ten weeks give Mr Obama a chance to recalibrate the rest of the world’s hopes. He could use part of his transition to tour the world, certainly listening to friends and rivals alike but also gently making clear the limits of his presidency. He needs to explain that, although his America will respect human rights and pay more heed to the advice of others, it will not be a pushover: he must avoid the fate of Jimmy Carter, a moralising president who made the superpower look weak.

Like most politicians, Mr Obama will surely fail more than he succeeds. But he is a man of great dignity, superior talents and high ideals. In choosing him, America has shown once again its unrivalled capacity to renew itself, and to surprise.