Letter writer doesn't understand socialism
While I defend the right of Joseph Rouff (“America needs more socialism,” June 21) to have his socialist views, he should at least get his facts correct before advocating such an ideology. Move to Greece, Spain or even Sweden and experience it first-hand for several years, then let us know how great it is. Your letter is filled with nothing but errors.
Social Security is not a socialist program since every income earner pays into the system. Our benefits are based on our contributions and require a minimum of 40 quarters to qualify for benefits. That is an insurance program, not socialism.
In pure socialism, the government collects the income from its citizens and then uses that money to provide for all the people’s needs — think about that and then tell me that is what he wants. There would be no “discretionary income” to buy that bigger flat screen or that nicer car, or even that USDA prime steak, because not everyone could get that, so no one does.
His argument about our military is also totally wrong. China has a larger military than ours. I agree that we could reduce our military spending, but no amount of cuts could cover the costs of implementing socialist programs.
Obamacare is projected to cost taxpayers $2.6 trillion and another $4 trillion to businesses and individuals over the next 10 years. The military budget is expected to be about $670 billion annually, so even if you cut the military budget by half or even 90 percent you can’t pay for Obamacare.
Obamacare is not even socialized medicine, for which the cost could exceed an estimated $3 trillion annually. Using the entire military budget and the proposed $56 billion in increased revenues from the proposed tax hikes, we are only another $2.3 trillion short of funding his totally free medical care. In real terms, everybody would have to pay twice as much in federal taxes (your 30 percent is now 60 percent — not so free).
His federal revenue numbers are off by a factor of 250 percent and he apparently also don’t know the difference between corporate taxes, individual taxes and capital gains taxes. The “rich,” as he says, that pay 16 percent are paying capital gains taxes (not regular income tax). The rates for the “rich” that pay regular income tax (the rates Obama wants to raise) are significantly higher than the 30 percent he says we pay.
Many are small business owners that do create the vast majority of new jobs. The tax breaks you allude to are given primarily to corporations that pay the highest corporate tax rates in the world. If we really want to be fair, since the “rich” in this country already pay over 90 percent of the taxes, shouldn’t the 47 percent of the population that pays NO income tax be required to pay something?
Lastly, who is he to suggest that he knows what the rich spend their money on? Does he follow them around and take notes? Most of their incomes are reinvested in growing the economy, not squandered as he states. If the rich did as he suggests, they wouldn’t be rich very long (unless he was referring to those rich government employees that have an endless income stream from our tax dollars).
Milan Seda
Yuma
