Reddit reviews Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)

Just go read Free Lunch. Here's an excellent review. It has at least one entire chapter on Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops. Basically they come into a town, use bullshit numbers to claim an economic boost, sell it as "economic recovery" or the like, and rape the taxpayers by requiring subsidies, no property tax, and even getting to keep all sales tax for a decade or more. It's the same thing NFL teams do when they threaten to leave a city unless the city caves in. And if the city says "well these are painful subsidies you ask for" the stores respond with "ok, well the next town over could use an economic boost..." And the politicians don't want to face the public and say they "failed to improve the economy" so they do it.

As a conservative this book really opened my eyes to the abuses perpetrated by these companies. You can buy it for a penny from Amazon.

Edit: Forgot to add, some of them will also build a "nature" exhibit of stuffed animals. Guess what? That is claimed as a "museum" and that square footage is exempt from property taxes and gets other benefits.

Not only that, he is the guy who lobbied and blackmailed the US government into giving subsidies for his railroad and public utility companies. Free money that we paid as taxpayers and that Buffet received it and declared it as profit. Read Free Lunch by David Johnston. The book has a chapter on Buffet.

There's a book called "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)" by David Cay Johnston which talks about this kind of business.

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Lunch-Wealthiest-Themselves-Government/dp/1591841917/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207857662&sr=8-1

It's a fantastic read, and covers a lot more than just this type of fraud..

>Rick Santelli is a mouthpiece for the GOP

Actually he railed against Bush and the Republicans for their deficit spending and failed economic policies.. he and others like him have been a major thorn in the side of the GOP for years.

>Rick Santelli is a mouthpiece for the rich.

He opposed the bailouts that the rich pushed for, and he is opposing what the rich are asking for (raising the debt ceiling to kick the can down the road a bit longer). Who is getting rich off of the US going further into debt? The rich people who are making the loans, or the poor people? The fact is the rich have been getting richer off of the growth of government for decades and hire the best lobbyists to ensure that the politicians from both parties keep the gravy train flowing. They also control the media so they can convince the ignorant masses that adding more debt is the only solution.

>Rick Santelli is a mouthpiece for the whites.

Wait.. I missed where he said he supported the War on Drugs that the whites use to suppress minorities in the US. Or did you just play the race card because you disagree with him on the issue of raising the debt ceiling?

If you are looking for more reading on this subject I highly recommend the book free lunch by David Cay Johnston

Ok, let's take an actual look at this and not at your professor's discredited ideology.

First of all, Federal Income Taxes are only part of the total tax burden. Anyone who isn't also looking at Sales Tax, Payroll Tax, Excise Tax, and Property Taxes is trying to sell you a bridge.

Payroll taxes are regressive due to cap on earning: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/the-regressive-tax-that-does-the-work/ "As a result, people earning over $106,800 pay a lesser percentage of their earnings in payroll taxes than do people earning less than $106,800."

Income taxes themselves are regressive: http://www.middleclassimpact.com/our-regressive-income-tax/

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax): According to Congressional Budget Office estimates,[13] the federal tax system is a progressive tax system for earners all but the richest 1% of Americans. According to the study, the lowest earning 20% of Americans (24.1 million households earning an average of $15,900 in 2005) paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.9%, when taking into account income tax, social insurance tax, and excise tax. The highest earning 5% (5.8 million households earning an average of $520,200 in 2005) paid an effective federal tax rate of 21.5%. However, the highest earning 1% of Americans (1.1 million households earning an average of $1,558,500 in 2005) paid an "effective" federal tax rate of 21.3%.

note that the system breaks down once you hit the 1% mark

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/04/18/the-rise-of-the-hints-high-income-no-taxes/

"According to an article by Tom Herman in The Fiscal Times, more than 10,000 Americans who earned more than $200,000 in 2007 paid no income taxes to the U.S. government."

What this means is that yes, a lot of people don't pay federal income taxes, but some of them are ultra-rich! THEY ARE NOT SUPPORTING THE REST OF US. THIS IS SIMPLY PROPAGANDA.

> People that hate the rich are simply jealous.

The real truth is that people, like your professor, hate the poor. And if you're poor, you hate yourself. That's how you can have shit like http://the53.tumblr.com/ where people wear their dedication to being a sacred, job creating rich person while they mire in inescapable poverty like a badge of honor.

Bonus round: If you want to read a good book about the ways in which the wealthy in this country actually receive the most amount of government money, I highly recommend Free Lunch:How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You with the Bill

Many get a Free Lunch.

The video shows the increase in the cost of healthcare and she describes (as I recall) the change in healthcare since that time. If you're interested in more about how healthcare has been corrupted by the government, I recommend the book Free Lunch. It describes the pattern of change in health after the HMO act was brought into effect in the 1970s.