Perhaps you don't understand what I'm saying? That's why I asked for #s. My point is that "living wage" is both complicated and not fulfilled where you are, or maybe anywhere

(1) I understand that you have a good faith belief that the tax plan will be good for the economy and I guess lift everyone's boats but I did want to call your attention to the wealth stratification issue and that this tax plan is almost certainly going to make it worse.

2) If the charts are biased I would be happy to see fairer ones. I really never see counter-arguments to arguments on wealth stratification. The other side just stays silent

What policies can you think of that will benefit the middle 60% (not the bottom 20% or top 20%).

(7) The difference in money in politics is that people like the Hunt Brothers and Sheldon Addison (and yes George Soros but there are more on the pro-business side) can invest in politics not for their own personal interest but for ideological reasons and also as an expression of power. They have so much money they can throw it away in influencing politics without hoping for a payback.

(8) We spend a lot on infrastructure? Maybe but our road, bridges, and transportation system are in decay and our educational system costs a lot more

(went back...are you saying that only public unions have political power, whereas agreeing that private unions are pretty weak at this point?. I missed your emphasis on public unions.)

And I wonder, gentlemen, why any business that can't exist unless it pays its employees a less than living wage ... should exist. ? .... The people that work for less than a living wage end up costing society and tax payers because its from this working poverty that most crime comes...it this working poverty from which public health problems occur and which ultimately cost the tax payer as these people eventually end up in emergency wars...

Any business that demands a commitment to 35 hours a week or more from an employee, but doesn't value those 35 hours enough to pay them a living wage ..... needs to reevaluate why it exists.

Freeman has used the term "living wage" many times. I do think this needs to be defined to have a conversation on the merits.

rayjay

Perhaps you are advocating that the employer interview his/her employees, ensure that they are not on the dole (say because their spouse's or parent's income puts them over the top) and then hire them.

I'm advocating that governments set a minimum wage that ensures that they will not have to use tax revenues to support people who are working full time.

The easiest solution is to ensure that employment income is sufficient to meet these basics. (A living minimum wage)
As it is, for many hard working people, low wage jobs also come with the indignities of receiving a handout.

The term "living wage" is more complicated than you realize.

No its really not. Its insisting its complicated that keeps people
fooled.

If it's so easy, what is the hourly rate for the living wage in Canada? Use numbers.

A living wage:
• enables working families to have sufficient income to cover
reasonable costs;
• promotes social inclusion;
• supports healthy child development principles;
• ensures that families are not under severe financial stress;
• is a conservative, reasonable estimate;
• engenders significant and wide ranging community support;
and
• is a vehicle for promoting the benefits of social programs
such as childcare

Did you use #s? What's the hourly pay rate where you live?

Average? Minimum? Living?
Because there are differing cost of living,a living wage differs by locale.
Canadian minimum wage doesn't meet a living wage either by the way... (By the definition used...)
...
In my town they calculate a living wage to be $17.05 an hour.. Expensive town.
feel better now?

Perhaps you don't understand what I'm saying? That's why I asked for #s. My point is that "living wage" is both complicated and not fulfilled where you are, or maybe anywhere

Oh I understand entirely what you are saying.
You are saying, The problem is too complicated to even attempt to solve.
The problem being that poor people can work at a job full time, and yet they still need outside aid to eat, or house themselves, etc.
If you would like to decrease government handouts and involvement in poor peoples lives, increase the minimum wage. The more money they make for 40 hours week, the less they will need assistance.
That's really not complicated. As far as your claim that a "living wage" has been attained anywhere.. So its unattainable..
Well, would you agree that "its complicated" and complex

Launched in 2015, the fair-wage pizza shop will close at the end of the year, according to Bing Broderick, executive director for the nonprofit Haley House, which oversees the shop. While popular, the shop is not breaking even financially, which has put stress on the wider nonprofit organization.

“I don’t think anyone is looking at it as a failure,” said Luther Pinckney, a team leader at Dudley Dough, which is in the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building. “It’s an experiment, and some very good things came out of that, such as skill-building for staff and being in this building at this time of gentrification and change in this community.”

Pitched as “pizza with purpose,” the restaurant offered above-average pay as well as culinary and leadership training.

. . .

The challenge for Dudley Dough was to support itself, Broderick said. An offshoot of the Haley House, a Boston organization that provides food and housing to low-income residents, the pizza shop attempted to put a social enterprise model into action.

But after an analysis of the business’s operations and trends, the board determined that Haley House could not continue to subsidize the pizza shop without putting in peril its own efforts. Three other restaurants opened in the area around the same time as Dudley Dough and are still operating.

Last year, Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, donated $100,000 to Haley House, specifically for Dudley Dough. Despite the board’s decision, Broderick said, a “significant effort” is being made to support the staff at the shop as they transition to new jobs.

freeman3 wrote:Bottom line: Trump's tax plan helps the rich and corporations. Maybe some of it will "trickle" down to the middle-class and working poor..

And we will have to pay higher taxes to fund the higher deficits that will result.

We have seen this act before.

The only time we got the deficit under control was when Clinton had a tax increase.

freeman3 wrote:The old bring back the corporate money held overseas argument? Well, first some companies actually hold that money in US bans here through subsidiaries so that money is not overseas. Secondly, the last time we did that in 2004 "the National Bureau of Economic Research later concluded that 92 cents on every dollar was used for dividends, stock buybacks or executive bonuses. A study by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a similar program would result in $79 billion in forgone tax revenue over a decade."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/b ... attan.html

So I think we can throw that whole corporate tax holiday as helping the economy into the trash can.

By the way, Reagan came in with a deficit of 73 billion and left with a deficit of 205 billion, Bush took that 205 billion and raised it to 300 billion, Clinton REDUCED it to 32 billion (with a couple surpluses along the way), Bush II took that 32 billion and raised it to 1.5 trillion, and Obama took that 1.5 trillion and reduced it to 644 billion. And now Trump wants to cut taxes for the wealthy which will cause higher deficits. We don't need to cut taxes, particularly when we are in a recovery! It's really just absurd that we would cut taxes when we have high deficits caused by Bush II's tax cuts.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whiteh ... st01z1.xls

freeman3 wrote:I just saw something that said that Republicans want about 5 trillion in tax cuts...so they have to off-set with a 3.5 trillion increase in taxes in other areas.. That's the rub...

bbauska wrote:

freeman3 wrote:I just saw something that said that Republicans want about 5 trillion in tax cuts...so they have to off-set with a 3.5 trillion increase in taxes in other areas.. That's the rub...

Why do you think the Republicans have to increase taxes if there are cuts?

freeman3 wrote:The old bring back the corporate money held overseas argument? Well, first some companies actually hold that money in US bans here through subsidiaries so that money is not overseas. Secondly, the last time we did that in 2004 "the National Bureau of Economic Research later concluded that 92 cents on every dollar was used for dividends, stock buybacks or executive bonuses. A study by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a similar program would result in $79 billion in forgone tax revenue over a decade."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/b ... attan.html

So I think we can throw that whole corporate tax holiday as helping the economy into the trash can.

A similar policy was enacted in 2004, which prompted American companies to return more than $300 billion in foreign earnings at the reduced rate of 5.25 percent.

By the way, Reagan came in with a deficit of 73 billion and left with a deficit of 205 billion, Bush took that 205 billion and raised it to 300 billion, Clinton REDUCED it to 32 billion (with a couple surpluses along the way), Bush II took that 32 billion and raised it to 1.5 trillion, and Obama took that 1.5 trillion and reduced it to 644 billion. And now Trump wants to cut taxes for the wealthy which will cause higher deficits. We don't need to cut taxes, particularly when we are in a recovery! It's really just absurd that we would cut taxes when we have high deficits caused by Bush II's tax cuts.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whiteh ... st01z1.xls