John, nobody ever said the capitalist system was perfect. In a perfect world, we'd all make as much money as those on Wall Street.
But as it stands, people in my hometown can't afford tax raises so teachers can get paid more. Even in good economic times, my town is an economically poor, rural town.
When you decide to try to become a teacher in a small, working-class town such as mine, you have to accept the fact before you apply for a teaching position that the pay is nothing great here. It's not necessarily fair. It's just the way it is. The citizens in poor towns don't have the ability to pay good money to their school teachers.
Why don't these teachers get this through their head?! Enough is enough!
You sure have it through your head that the middle class should suffer while the wealthiest live large. The Wall Street dictated education system has taught you well.
How much money are these greedy teachers asking fo Mike? Lets see some figures.
two separate issues
and still no response to 50% not paying any income tax
any other source than a blog to verify the Walton comment?
any source indicating how much in taxes those six pay every year?
I've posted page after page of information refuting this oft repeatd 50% pay no tax (mysteriously now up from the previous 47%) myth - yet here you are again. It's like a turd that won't flush and keeps floating up after multiple flushes.
You know the bottom 50% of American workers earn only 12% of all income earned. Every worker I know pays federal income tax, along with all the other various and sundry payroll taxes, sales taxes, telephone taxes, automobile taxes, gasoline taxes, natural gas taxes, city taxes - on and on. Some get most of what they pay in back because their incomes are so low - so the fuck what? If they have it so fucking good, then join their ranks and live the good life alongside them. Give up your difficult, tax paying middle class lifestyle and join the working poor for a real easy life.
How much more of their pissy little 12% would you like the bottom 50% to pay Allen? You defend the Waltons who hold more wealth than the bottom 30% combined, yet you want to fuck over the the entire bottom 50%?? How much sense does that make?
How much good for this weakened economy do you actually believe it would do to increase federal taxes on the bottom 50%, who at the upper end earn $35,000 per year? How would that help america to take even more money out of the economy and give it to the wealthiest to hoard in trust funds like the Waltons????
Whatever the Waltons pay in tax, it is apparently too much for them. It must be pretty hard living on an $84,000,000,000 trust fund. Oops...silly me - that was 2005's fortune - try living on a mere $93,000,000,000 in this harsh 2011 economy.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2005-04-05-waltons-usat_x.htm
My goodness - look what they spent lobbying to pay even less tax in 2004:
Wal-Mart (WMT) drew broad scrutiny last year as its political spending soared in nationwide battles over health care, labor and other hot-button issues threatening the giant retailer's growth.
Now, in a little-noticed move, the company's founding family has plunged into a fight to pass income tax changes and other legislation that could preserve its grip on the USA's biggest business and the family's $84 billion fortune.
Led by Sam Walton's only daughter, Alice, the family spent $3.2 million on lobbying, conservative causes and candidates for last year's federal elections. That's more than double what it spent in the previous two elections combined, public documents show.
The Waltons have joined a coterie of wealthy families trying to save fortunes through permanent repeal of the estate tax, government watchdogs say. The election of President Bush and more conservatives to Congress gave momentum to the long-fought effort. The Waltons add more.
The Walton support for Bush and other fiscal conservatives assumed new urgency last month when Wal-Mart sweetened its dividend — boosting Walton dividend income above $1 billion a year. Bush's dividend tax cut, enacted two years ago and set to expire in 2009, will save the family as much as $51 million this year.
From a Fortune Magazine 2005 article:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/15/8191093/index.htm
If Wal-Mart, with its quarter-trillion dollars in annual sales, is almost unimaginably massive, then the Waltons' great wealth is its equal in a parallel universe of private fortunes. The Walton family is as rich as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined. Amid all the talk about how rich Teresa Heinz Kerry is, consider that the Walton family is 117 times wealthier. The Waltons' $90 billion fortune is equivalent to the GDP of Singapore. It's bigger than IBM's annual revenues. The dividend stream from the family's holdings produces nearly $880 million annually. It's likely that only the Rockefellers--before John D. gave away much of his fortune --were wealthier. And that's after adjusting for inflation. In sheer dollar terms, the Waltons are far richer. 
