Taxcuts = Wagecuts

[oscar111]

good slogan for watercooler debates.

Taxcuts mean fewer Social Benefits, like food stamps and Section Eight housing, which makes those at the bottom more desperate .. desperate people will work for less and less.

When wages at the bottom , to the desperate.. go down, the whole wage ladder sinks. Including middle class wages. So taxcuts equal wagecuts, for the comfy middle class. Surprise!

THe only paycheck receivers who are disconnected from the wage ladder are those at the very top, CEO's and those just under them.

A large sea of desperate poor is the normal state of affairs... like Mexico or Egypt. Our middle class was built by strong unions between about 1900 and 1952. Economies do not need middle class wages, only folks showing up for work daily. At whatever wages. Economies do not have to contain nice wages. But people sure live better with them. Engineers and teachers can be paid just five percent more than the minimum wage, and they will take it if that is all that is offered, and no unions are around to force a higher wage. Economies do not have to contain nice wages at all.

Mexico is the real goal of the GOP. Milton Friedman spelled that out. A sea of poor people going to work every day.

But Canada is the Dem goal.

Mexico.... As Lou Dobbs says it, "the middle class is under attack". Mention that at the watercooler. Evidence: Bush singlehandedly ended overtime pay, by issuing an Executive Order. Even did it right before the election. Cheap labor is the goal.

[nick303]

1. "Mexico is the real goal of the GOP. Milton Friedman spelled that out. "

Can you cite where Friedman said that?

[oscar111]

2. no citation, alas

I was inferring a bit from what he haas written. More precisely, as you seem to have seen, he only sketched out a skeletal government... which would by my own inferrence , produce here, a copy of Mexico. You are essentially right, if you meant to say i was overreaching in crediting the Mexico image to ol Milton, "shame of Chicago". He did in fact write , TO the best of my memory,... "gov has only three functions... military, treasury, and the courts". So, ending food stamps, housing aid, .. and college aid, i assume... and TANF... etc. , would drop us to the situation Mexico has now. I should clarif;y my OP and will if possible. Regards, oscar.

i see now the editing OP time has elapsed.

BTW, do you agree with the thrust of the OP? What is your opinion of Milt?

[sabbat hunter]

3. not entirely true

if taxes are very high then they have a depressing effect on the economy.

think of it as a bell curve. if taxes are too low not enough money comes in, but if they are too high it has an adverse effect on the economy too. we are fairly close to the peak of the bell cure right now. maybe slightly to the too low end of taxes but not by much.