Sorry, Pal, You're Rich

My family makes about $65,000 a year. We own a modest house on 20 acres and only one of us works full time. We have a 2 year old at home and another child on the way. We both drive used cars (no car payment), we don't have cable (no cable bill), we have one pre-paid cell phone (no cell bill), and we generally have no debt. We still go on nice family vacations and put away a healthy amount of savings each month. We are comfortable compared to many we know who are also college educated and earn less than us. We consider ourselves to be right in the middle of the middle class.

Even if our mortgage payment was 8 times what it is, $250,000 would makes us feel very RICH. Think about it - ithat income is over $20,000 a month! A family making that could have a $10,000 a month mortgage payment and still have $10,000 a month to live on. I think the middle class probably stops at $100,000 in most areas and $150, 000 in wealthy areas.

One has to factor in all the federal, state, county and local taxes on the $ 250,000. You don't walk away with that is spendable income.

Watch out for Republican double talk!!!!!! The fact of the matter is that lower income earners pay a higher percentage of tax on there yearly wages then the wealthy do. Think about it, Your day-to-day living is filled with a myriad of taxes including sales taxes, excise taxes on gas, alcohol and cigarettes, property taxes, telecommunication taxes on your phone bill... need I go on? Lower income earners consume most of their income and, therefore, a high percentage of their income is exposed to these taxes. As a result, these taxes are regressive in that lower income earners pay a higher portion of their gross income to these taxes than upper income earners

You liberal Dems just don't get it. So what if someone makes over $250,000?! That's good for them. They got good educations, made wise decisions, and are otherwise successful. When will you idiots realize that punishing success (raising taxes on the rich) and rewarding laziness/apathy/failure (increasing spending on social "safety net" programs) is a formula for disaster? Doesn't anyone know anything about basic behavioral psychology? If you punish a behavior, you get less of it; rewarding it leads to more. So you want to punish success and reward failure? Is that right?

I don't make 1/10 of that salary figure, so don't go accusing me of sticking up for my "own kind". I'm just using basic logic and saying what makes sense. NOwhere in the Constitution does it call for the government to redistribute wealth. Besides, these "rich" people are many of the business owners that provide us with jobs. Stick it to them, and we're the ones who pay, anyhow. Don't you people understand that?????

I think it comes down to that $250,000 is the border between middle class and rich. It would depend on the capital each person alreedy has versus just current earnings. A person who is now making $250,000, but only has for a few years and has little (realitively) overall net worth is still middle class, albeit upper. Being dependent on that salary for a livelihood AND to save (again if the person is younger and expects little from social security and medicare when they become welfare mechanism instead of an "insurance" program) and they have to provide for their own future.

So a person who is "up and coming" who has their own future to fund, houses to pay on, kids to put through college (which will only go up as the subsidies of the last two decades runs dry) and little net worth, are in fact still middle class. Anyone whose means are exclusively based upon their labor, and have slim resources otherwise cannot be considered rich.

Don't confuse making $250,000 a year and having a 10,000 square foot mansion, or having a 2nd home in malibu, or any beach in the US. $250,000 does not go that far. You are lucky to walk away with $125,000 after federal and state taxes... and if you count all of the other taxes, you really only have the purchasing power of about $25,000.

All of the prime property is owned by people who have a net worth more than $10million. They pay no taxes (less than 1% of their income). There are people worth $50 Million, $100 Million and $1 Billion+ that pay no taxes, don't work, live like kings and own nearly all of the real estate and every other major asset in the entire world.

They own the media, so they want to distract us into thinking its people who earn 250,000 a year that are wealthy and rich.

The wealthy control the government which means they control you, own everything including the media/news which means they control the dialog and with technology will know everything about you including where you are and what you are doing at any given moment. Our country, the world, the future is going to be scary.

Are you better off than you were 4 years ago is not the question. Are you better off than those in similar circumstances were 40 years ago?
I see these posters talking about hourly wages not much different than wages of the 70's yet the cost of literally everything has gone up by at least a factor of 10.
Anyone with a few years on them can remember in 1970 you cold buy a new car for under $3000 and a 2500 sq ft home for $20,000 on $10.00 an hour.
America is not better off than it was 40 years ago.
The republicans have won,
The insistent push for lower wages has kept millions of American in abject poverty of not actual poverty
It started with Nixon, made a fact of life with Reagan and now Bush has stuck it to American to the extent this country may never recover.
I suspect $250,000 is roughly the equivalent of $40,000 40 years ago and $40,000 is just slightly under the median income of today.

I'd like you to tell me why JUST because someone works hard and earns $250k they should have to pay a larger percentage of THIER income in taxes? I will also be they use gov't services at a lower rate than lower income people. Why do we penalize hard work?

Does anyone believe in freedom anymore? Or are we just free to the point that others become jealous of our possessions and vote to take them from us?

Democrats always like to say tax cuts are for the "rich" but from the Democrats point of view EVERYONE is rich. Therein is the problem, because there is no consensus about whom we're speaking. I believe in a meritocracy, not communist experiments at forced equalization. Let people earn according to their contribution. It doesn't annoy me that my neighbor makes more money than I, because I believe in myself enough that I can achieve as well.

What the middle class knows is that the government can't give you anything that they didn't first steal.

Even with the supposed tax breaks that liberals love to paste on the walls of the rich, we are all working for about $.60 on the dollar and our money is being used for what exactly? THAT is the part that infuriates people in the middle to upper middle class. They don't mind paying their share, yet they really see no value in where there money is going. Last year I paid almost $70K in State and Federal taxes- that is $70K that went into the abyss of government spending- never to return again. Before you start going after the "$250K crowd", start focusing your powers of reasoning and communication on how our lives are going to be better with a substandard, third rate politician who will say anything to get into the White House (Obama and McCain both, there is no difference between the two of them-they are both liars). Or better yet, try and focus on what isn't working in the US government and make suggestions on what WILL make it better.