Quote:
Originally Posted by Clev
He can afford it. The 2012 federal budget is about $12,000 per human being. That's 4/5 of the total annual income of a minimum wage worker, yet ol' Bill earns that much in 116 seconds.
What's your alternative? How are you going to get all of the government services at the federal, state and local level to a flat price that somebody making the federal minimum wage of $15,080 can afford and still eat? And how much should Bill Gates pay to run his 200 foot yacht on the public waterways, since he obviously is using way more than his share of public services?
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The alternative is to cut those services. You are assuming that we need or want "all of the government services at the federal, state and local level". But to those who are pro-government, cutting the budget at all is anathema.
The dirty little secret is that the "the total annual income of a minimum wage worker" is usually augmented by things like food stamps and other handouts from government programs. Bill Clinton proudly announced that during his regime it was the end of "welfare
as we know it". He was actually being honest, because the subsidies didn't end. Not for the rich, with corporate subsidies and tax loopholes, nor for the poor receiving transfer payments and benefits through government social programs.
Even if the government were to confiscate all of Bill Gates' wealth, it wouldn't put a dent in the US government budget or undo the ballooning debt load. But it would make the Marxists and Socialists feel better knowing that a capitalist scapegoat has been punished and retribution extracted. That has always been the central focus of their ideology. Like all acts of vengeance, it's meant to play to and incite a mob.