12 opinions, 4 replies
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100
5 votes
Jun 18, 2015

I voted yes not for egalitarian reasons, but for one very simple economic reason: spreading the wealth will start the process of wealth concentration again - and in the process will stimulate our economy as people have more money to spend.

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0
User voted Yes.
main reply
0 votes,
Sep 28, 2015

Precisely. This isn't even a class redistribution issue. It's also an efficiency issue. When you have less inequality, you see more growth, for a variety of reasons, one of which being what you suggest: Each marginal unit of income is more likely to actually be invested or go into consumer goods.

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83
6 votes
Jun 18, 2015

Basically I don't want to live in world of nobles and peasants, which is where we are heading. If the free market can make that work out, then fine. If it can't, I'm willing to achieve it by imposing laws. In my opinion this is no different from imposing laws to regulate the behavior of physically strong people, because I don't want to live in a world of thugs and victims.

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0
main reply
0 votes,
Jun 18, 2015

Basically that it is Obama and his administration that is doing just that and look the gap is getting larger.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Sep 28, 2015

No, it actually is not. Most of the indicators in the Obama presidency for the poor have improved.

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100
1 vote
Jun 18, 2015

The different governments help the upper class be come more successful with all kinds of deals to get them to do business in their city or state. Why not help reduce the income gap. If nothing else improve the schools and try to counteract what just being poor does to most kids. Spend the money for good technical programs in schools. Pay the teachers in those programs what they would make on the job. Hire instructors that have worked in the field for 10 years not just out of college. The best way to reduce the gap is to find a way to bring even more manufacturing back to the US.

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100
1 vote
Jun 18, 2015

Yes, the government is the ONLY entity that can reduce the income gap...

Will they?

No.

Why not?

Because it would anger their corporate sponsors.

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100
1 vote
Jun 18, 2015

Do yourselves a favor get the government out of everything and you will do better and be better off

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100
User voted No.
1 vote
Jun 19, 2015

Since when is working hard and improving yourself become something bad. Why can't people these days stop complaining and go out and do something for themselves. We don't help people by telling them they don't have to work and just giving them what everyone else had to work for. People do not discover self worth by be given everything instead of working to accomplish goals/dreams. When things come free you don't appreciate them, that is why we have a throw away society.

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0
User voted Yes.
main reply
0 votes,
Sep 28, 2015

Many of our richest members of society never had to work a day for that wealth due to inheriting fortunes. Others work 80 hour weeks to stay afloat. This assessment of the situation is materially incomplete.

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100
User voted No.
1 vote
Aug 19, 2015

The government tried very hard to reduce the income gap. The result : an even wider gap. I don't think the government should try what they did anymore because they often achive the opposite of what they tried to do.

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0
0 votes
Jun 18, 2015

The truth is that the money to heal, feed, cloth, and bury the dead has to come from some place.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The wealthy have legislated themselves to more and more wealth and when the time comes someone has to pay for the damage they have made on the way to the top. They system should not make a place for the corporations to safe from the responsibilities to pay for the Poverty they have created and all the people that have been effected by the corporate greed.

This bill may represent the safe place for the corporate takers to land. This is the motivation to treat people fair or pay the consequences. We all know events that made peoples lives plunge into poverty. When it comes time to pay for that maybe they will not have all they thought. The Stock Market was a way to get even for the middle class and upper class but it is rigged to make the money flow up and not down.

There is no way to make them give it back and government does not have it so all we can do is legislate that if you have it "MONEY" you must pay for the poor.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes
Jun 26, 2015

I can see both sides of this argument, but we honestly should, it would not only help give us a healthier economy, but it would lessen the feeling of differences, which causes many issues in the U.S.

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0
opinion
0 votes
Jul 19, 2015

When CEO's of the major fortune 500 companies are paying less taxes then the middle class, yes, absolutely.

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0
opinion
0 votes
Aug 17, 2015

Income gap is considered bad by many. Still, that gap is not the stick, but the carrot. You see it, you know that there is a space to grow and when you climbed high enough, you can look back to all the people left behind. Without fair portion of luck, you won't make it to the peak in your whole lifetime, yes, many people really bothered by that, but your accomplishments passed to your kin, partially — to the flag you stand for. All in all, anyone will die, but not anyone will be forgotten.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes
Sep 28, 2015

Yes.

First of all, at present the income gap is so extreme as to make it impossible for some to have meaningful access to food, shelter, and clean water. As long as people could do better if they could pitch a tent in a national campground and just forage and hunt, society has failed utterly. No society, no social contract, can be justified as long as that degree of inequality is the case.

Second, government, even in the most minimalistic of markets, will always intervene to protect the rich. A military will do so, for example, as will police officers and fire departments. The rich get a lot out of society, while the poor have much less to lose from society being less stable or safe.

At present, virtually every non-failed state on the planet has a national bank. Most successful economies have had subsidies to private industry, technology funded by the public sector that benefited the private sector, etc. As long as government is acting to do anything in the economy, from affecting monetary policy to education, it should do so with an eye toward reducing the income gap, all else held equal.

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