SW VandeCarr said:
A lot of this is possible because EU members don't spend a third or more of their annual budgets on defense. There's pockets of poverty in the suburban rings around some big cities such as Paris, Rome and some industrial cities in Germany and there's rural poverty as you get into southern Italy and SE Europe but nothing like the poverty of many of the inner cities of the US or the rural poverty in much of the southern US and on Indian reservations..
The poverty in the inner cities of the U.S. has nothing to do with the U.S. way of doing things, it is because the inner cities and the big cities overall are run by ultra-Left politicians and bureaucrats.
New York City went bankrupt in the mid-1970s trying to fight poverty (they now have a welfare state within a welfare state). For decades, our cities, and our states, have been social engineering laboratories for these policies, and they show they do not work.
Indian reservations are, or were much the same, the people had no incentive to work due to being completely funded by the government.
Europeans do pay higher taxes than Americans, especially in Scandinavia, but they get what they pay for,
Not really. Their universities do not match American universities and their healthcare systems in general do not match the American healthcare system.
The American people can have a better life and reduce the ridiculous gap between rich and poor.
What exactly is wrong with a gap between the poor and the rich? America is not a society based on everyone having an equal outcome. Further, who cares what the gap is as long as the general standard of living for everyone continues going up?
Our "poor" are not exactly what most of the world that live on a dollar a day or less would define as "poor." For example, obesity is oftentimes a problem amongst the "poor" here in america.
The people do need to exercise the rights and power they have under the constitution. Organize and break the power of the special interests.
Not that simple, and the special interests (Big Business anyhow) gain much of their power from regulations and increased government specifically created to "help" the people (when government seeks to regulate industry, industry will seek to "regulate" government).
I believe Obama is for the people but he's temporarily trapped in circumstances left by the Bush administration. A top down, bottom up approach can squeeze the special interests out. They do it in Canada, they do it in Europe, why not in the US? It doesn't have be perfect. Every country has some corruption (except maybe Iceland).
What makes you think the special itnerests are not entrenched in Europe or Canada? The only way the special interests lose influence over government is when government stops seeking to influence the special interests.
The place to start is to stop spending on wars and interventions to save the world, and force other countries to pull their weight: the EU, Japan, S Korea and even the rising economies of Latin America. If one country (S Korea) has to go down to make the point, so be it.
I highly doubt that will happen, because the U.S. will always be the strongest and the other countries will figure they can get away with spending less.
Also, the rich must pay more in taxes.
Why? And how do you define "rich?" Because much of what is defined as "rich" are really just people earning in the higher income brackets, upper-middle-class, but not at all rich. And many of these are people who have worked many years of their life as middle-class, who are now in their peak income earning years, and are thus earning in the high income brackets, and thus are "rich" according to certain politicians.
As it is, about 40% of the population pay no federal income tax, and in some states up to 50% of the tax base is paid by the highest-earning 1%.
Why have an income cap on FICA contributions? Presently its around $110,000. Let it be open ended.
Because the idea of Social Security is that you pay into it what you get out of it. If you get rid of the cap, then a millionaire who pays into it for some years has to be paid out those same millions.
Of course then people will scream about why is a millionaire being paid millions from Social Security, when he doesn't "need" that much (nevermind the whole idea was get paid out what you pay into it).
So there's a cap. Yes you could end the cap so everyone pays and instead have a cap set where anyone earning above it does not receive SS even though they paid into it. Of course then SS becomes a de-facto welfare and entitlement program.
SS had a surplus for a while, but then Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, decided to open up SS to rob it for their pet projects (it is for this reason I believe any new massive entitlement that even did manage to pay for itself would still end up in deficit because the government would find ways to rob it).
As it is, SS is a Ponzi-scheme, as what is paid in now is used to pay the current SS recipients.
Simplify the tax code, close loopholes, and increase the rates on the top income brackets.
The top brackets, in fact all the brackets, need their rates decreased, not increased.
Reward companies that keep jobs in the US and punish those who export jobs.
How do you punish a company that exports jobs? And why shouldn't it be allowed to export jobs? The company's job is to make a profit for the owners. If it can get the same work done with better quality at 1/3 the price in another country, nothing wrong with that. We know free-trade works.