"Jay Honeck" writes:

Since people being paid by the government (employees, retirees, what have
you) do not generate any income in the purest sense, the "taxes" they "pay"
are entirely illusory. Same with anyone on the dole.

A perfect example, Jay, of why your "olive branch" of yesterday is
just horse feathers, glued together with spit and bull****.

You--and many others--equate government workers with people on the
dole.

So let's see. The many government researchers who conceived of and
created the ARPAnet--later to become the Internet, which you use
now--are no better than welfare recipients. Or Albert Einstein who
was on the "dole" not only in the US, but Europe! Damn parasite.

Or maybe the trash collectors, or city engineers, or the zillion
others--they don't generate any income, eh? How about the soldiers
carrying Dumya's personal little war--oops, I meant, protecting the
Homeland. No real income generation there!

Do you? Really, all you do is take people's hard-earned money and
give them a very temporary, ephemeral product--a night's sleep--in
return. Hardly what I would call income, in the purest sense, that
is. Maybe the Enrons of the world, would that be real income and real
taxes?

Of course not. Anyone or any company that adds value to an individual
or group in the form of a product or service, and receives money for
that added value, that's income. And if they pay taxes on it, they're
real taxes. The source of the income is irrelevant.

The original poster, assuming his basic figures were correct, was
right. The blue states are carrying the parasitic red states. Here in
California, we are forced to add ethanol to our gasoline for one
purpose: to bail out Midwest corn farmers. Another burden on the
hard-working, efficient blue workers, whether private or public
sector.

Jeez, no wonder Dumya won. The biggest product this country makes is
religious fanatics and fuzzy thinkers, and they seem to be collected
in the Midwest and South.