FeedsReplying to a comment on Why Mike Huckabee is Bad for America
You fail to note that those who buy the basic necessities spend much larger percentages of their incomes than those who spend lavishly, and yet save or invest even more. The President's Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform in fact concluded "Families with the top 10 percent of cash incomes would benefit substantially from the retail sales tax. Their tax burden would fall by 5.3 percentage points – from 70.8 percent to 65.5 percent. Middle-income Americans, however, would bear more of the federal tax burden. A typical married couple at the bottom 25th percentile of the income distribution earns $39,300 per year and would pay $5,625 dollars in federal taxes in 2006. Under the retail sales tax with a Prebate, the same family would pay $7,997 in net federal taxes after the Prebate of $6,694, resulting in a tax increase of $2,372, or 42 percent."
Rather than baselessly blaming the current antipathy to the United States on "liberal values" being impressed by "social welfare groups", you should consider the reasons the terrorists have stated for their war against America. When asked why he declared a jihad against the US, bin Laden said in an interview:
We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet's Night Travel Land (Palestine). And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq... Due to its subordination to the Jews the arrogance and haughtiness of the US regime has reached, to the extent that they occupied the qibla of the Muslims (Arabia) who are more than a billion in the world today. For this and other acts of aggression and injustice, we have declared jihad against the US, because in our religion it is our duty to make jihad so that God's word is the one exalted to the heights and so that we drive the Americans away from all Muslim countries. As for what you asked whether jihad is directed against US soldiers, the civilians in the land of the Two Holy Places (Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medina) or against the civilians in America, we have focused our declaration on striking at the soldiers in the country of The Two Holy Places. The country of the Two Holy Places has in our religion a peculiarity of its own over the other Muslim countries. In our religion, it is not permissible for any non-Muslim to stay in our country. Therefore, even though American civilians are not targeted in our plan, they must leave.
We have no reason to have military in the Middle East and our bases in Saudi Arabia are the main reason Al-qaeda was even formed. Leaving Saudi Arabia (along with Iraq and Afghanistan) is the right thing to do, from a moral perspective, from an internal security perspective, and from a spending perspective. If one were to actually follow Realpolitik, we would not be in there in the first place. It is neither practical nor beneficial to attempt by force to get the Arab peninsula's cooperation.
All arguments aside, I truly appreciate your service.
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