1 Is this a cartoon about Michigan?

Cause them dumocrats here are sure loving raising taxes so much they have done it twice in just a month now.

2 It's Democrats all around the country, I assure you!

3 When I was laid off for almost 5 years, I went to school to better my situation and get to the point I could make a decient living. I went to being a single mom and making barely poverty level. Now I'm at a point where I make decient money and might be able to save enough to retire someday, and the Demonrats want to tax me to death and finance giveaway programs with my money! I guess even though I was a registered Democrat during those years, I was behaving like a Republican, because I never even took so much as a food stamp from the government!

4 How DARE you try and take care of yourself! Don't you care about The Children? Apparently you don't!

Don't you understand that you're supposed to rely on government to provide you with everything you need from cradle to grave. There's no need to save any money -- just ask government for some! They've got LOTS because of Democrats and tax increases.

5 ROTFFLMAO!!!! OK, where's the line forming for Hillary Care, and the free money for being born in the USA and the funds to help me get a 401K started... where is it???? Oh crud, did you say I will be paying more taxes to get all of this???

I think this "entitlement thingy" is going to bankrupt the country and the working class. I wonder if I can become a citizen of Burmuda or something... LOL!!!

6 NO, no, there's no need for a 401K. Instead, just depend on the government to send you a check. THere's no need to save for it, they'll just send it to you.

Hillary Care's line is already forming -- in Massachusetts. Romney's recent forced insurance has literally got people lining up all over the place for their "free" government insurance -- because if they don't get insurance by year's end, the government will arrest them and throw them in jail!

7 Now THAT is a system for you. It's my understanding they can get all the care they need in the prison infirmary! LOL!!!

8 And it's "free!"

9 So why are working people taxed at 43% (28% earned income tax and 15% social security payroll tax) while rich people are taxed just 15% rate ONLY on capital gains (ie, stocks they sold; unrealized capital gains are not taxed?).

Republicans been settin' the tax rates since 1994 ... at least Dems are trying to make taxes more fair to working people.

10 Not true. There's plenty of opportunity to make taxes fair. There's not more than two politicians in Washington that have ANY desire to make them fair at all.

11 Are you saying that W-2 employed people who get a paycheck stub do not see 28% of their paycheck withheld for IRS and 15% of their income deducted for FICA??

Please tell me what their paystubs read ...

12 I don't know where you get your information about what counts as "rich" but a Wall Street Journal columnist has done fairly good investigative reporting on this subject:

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/

But that still begs the question about why you claim W-2 payroll deductions are "not true."

13 Please read the entire comment before having your knee-jerk reactions. My "not true" was in response to your claim that Democrats are trying to make taxes "more fair" -- as should have been clear by my sentence that immediately followed "not true."

14 Ok, I'm willing to try one more time to get a straight answer from you:

Do W-2 employees have 28% of their paycheck withheld for IRS and 15% of their income deducted for FICA??

15 Wow. Maybe you are meatbrain in disguise. You sure are having a LOT of trouble reading what I'm typing. I'll try one more time as well:

You claimed that Democrats were working to make taxes more fair in response to the picture at the top.

I said that isn't true -- there are plenty of ways to make taxes honestly fair, but there's only about 2 people in all of Washington DC that are interested in making taxes fair. The Democrat Party is NOT one of them.

16 I was trying to settle one point: the current tax system taxes working people 43% (only on incomes below $90,000) and rich people 15% (capital gains) -- do you think the current system is fair?

My understanding is that Democrats have proposed replacing the AMT with a small tax increase on incomes over $200,000.

What's wrong with that?

17 Because it's unfair -- it very clearly punishes people who are successful. That's just wrong to those who support freedom.

18 Ok, but if we leave things "as is", doesn't the current tax system very clearly punish people who must work for a living?

19 Have you read a single thing I've posted here?

20 Yes, the editorial cartoon implies that Democrats are taking aim at the apple but will probably clobber the Middle Class with tax increases.

So I cited a simple example where Middle Class people will receive a tax break when the AMT is abolished and wealthy people (incomes over $200,00/year) will see a slight increase.

I don't know everything that's going on in Congress, but at least as far as AMT goes, the Democratic proposal does seem to target tax breaks for the Middle Class (just the opposite of what your cartoon portrays.)

But have you read a single thing I've posted here? (e.g., "Ok, but if we leave things "as is", doesn't the current tax system very clearly punish people who must work for a living?")

I'm just trying to get your views on some specific issues I've investigated a little bit, rather than platitudes or slogans like "tax and Spend Democrats" without any supporting documentation. (I think you have mentioned elsewhere that Republican politicians spend just as much, or more, than Democratic politicians)

The impression (so far) is that you feel it's OK to tax incomes less than $90,000 at a rate of 43%, while wealthy people pay only about 1/3 as much -- only 15% of their income.

Please let me know how you feel about this inequity (perhaps I missed something). A simple answer to my question might clear up everything and then I'd know where you stand on income/wealth inequality in America .

Maybe we say at some point "Aha! This is where our differences are, and there's no point trying to reconcile that issue any further.

Like abortion -- one either thinks life begins at first breath or life begins at conception. These are gut-level (religious) beliefs and there is no point to debate them any further. Better to discuss a different issue to see if there is any common agreement, or if it boils down to something we can only agree to disagree on that issue.

Or, we might discover that we actually agree on something (like the 3-state solution in Iraq).

21 Wow. I'll type slow:

To tax people more because they work harder isn't fair. I don't comprehend how you can call punishing hard work "fair."