How much should you give up?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-21-2008
How much should you give up?
352
Tue, 10-21-2008 - 8:35pm

My mother wrote an angry reply to a post on this board. It was deleted, from what I read in her email. I know you will ask how I got into her email, well, I have the password in case something happens to her. I went into it tonight because I was trying to figure out why someone as lovely and kind as my mother tried to take her own life today. In her email, I found a reply to her post. In that reply, she was asked how much this person should have to give to her out of her $250,000 a year. This isn't an attack, it's an answer from someone who knows and loves my mother more than anything in the world. No doubt this will be deleted as well, but here it is until then.

First off, none of what you will be "giving up" out of your $250,000+ dollars will come to her or to anyone like her. It will be going to pay off the deficit for your children, and hopefully for mine, so that they will not get to a point where they would rather die than lose everything they own at the age of 56.

You were talking about losing 12% of $250,000. That is more than my mother made every year. She lost her job, and is about to lose her house. She never had much, but what she had she has lost over the years due to having a chronic illness. She has no retirement, and has watched her home value plummet. If she sold her house tomorrow, she would make less than $30,000 on it. We all know that's not even a year's income, and she cannot collect SS for 6 more years.

So here's my answer to you. You should be willing to give anything necessary to save people like my mother. You should do it because you have it to give. You should do it because it's the right thing to do. You shouldn't begrudge anyone your 12% who has worked so hard, and given so much of her time and energy to others free of charge when they were in need.

My mother taught us to give. Every Christmas, we had to take one gift off of our "want" list (which wasn't very long, since we were poor), and give that money to charity, or to someone with less than we had. There weren't a lot of people who had less than we had, or so I thought. I learned from my mother that I was wrong. She took me to homes where single mothers who had been abandoned by their husbands sat shivering with their children, wrapped in blankets, because they could not afford heat. We gave her a used kerosene heater and a gift certificate for $30 for kerosene. It wasn't much, but she cried when she got it.

Our next stop was to an elderly black man who was blind from cataracts, and had lost his wife just a month before Christmas. My mother brought him a homemade mincemeat pie, because he had loved his wife's so much. She apologized to him, saying she knew it wasn't as good, but it was filled with love.

We gave shoes to children who had none, clothes to women in battered women's shelters so they could go to work, gas money to people struggling just to get to work, and food to families when the food stamps didn't last out the month.

My mother gleaned fields every year after harvest and donated the food to a soup kitchen, and she also drove over 100 miles around our county giving it to the poor and the elderly. She never asked for anything in return. She has literally given the clothes off her back, well out of her closet, to someone she thought needed them more.

Now she lays in a hospital room, fighting for her life, because when it came down to it, nobody would help her. We kids did as much as we could, but it wasn't enough, because we don't have much either. Social services turned their backs on her because she didn't have a job to go back to. She lost her car, and her utilities were going to be cut off. And nobody...NOBODY cared about this woman who has done so much for others during her lifetime.

You obviously don't understand the spirit of giving. That's sad, with Christmas coming up. Too bad you didn't have a mom like mine.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2008
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 7:50pm
He's(Obama) said working families on several occasions.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2006
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 7:55pm

<>


Ah, sorry but it is not the same plan that was under the Carter, Reagan and Clinton progressive tax plan.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2007
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 8:01pm

I actually don't have as big of a problem with raising the tax rates slightly, particularly if they also re-do the brackets so the top bracket starts a bit higher than it is now. My biggest problem is with the refundable tax credits Obama is proposing, as I have stated numerous times on this thread adn in the Socialism and welfare thread.


I was responding to the post that asked me what the difference was between the flat tax rebates and the Obama credits. My response was, that, as the flat tax is inherently unfair to the poor as I think you agree, the rebates are there to add progressivity to the tax system.


Since Obama is keeping a progressive tax system, there is no need for the credits. If he wants to lower tax liability, by all means, do it. My problem is with the credits.


Is that clear? I don't think I can be much more clear.


ETA: the "rebates" in the flat tax are reflected in the progressive tax system through the different taxation percentage rates.




Edited 10/24/2008 8:07 pm ET by xoxo5411
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2005
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 8:08pm
i think her point was that BO plans to implement refndable tax credits.....that don't exist now...so you won't find it on the IRS website now....it is his plan

-Kristen

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2008
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 8:22pm

< really believe that I could make a difference in someones life if I was given more of the opportunity to keep some of our hard earned money and then give where I see a need.>


What happens to those where you don't see the need? They may be genuinely in need but not on the radar of your charity or anybody elses? Who helps them? TIA

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2006
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 8:31pm

<>


Once Bush's tax cuts expire, the only way

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2006
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 8:34pm


<>

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2005
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 8:56pm

not just EITC....she posted a link (a few times) to where BO's plan proposes several new refundable credits...new ones...


no offense, but do you by any chance have her on ignore, this isn't the first time you missed points she made...seriously, no offense, i just think you might not be seeing her posts.

-Kristen

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2006
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 9:29pm
Nope, I don't have a single person on ignore but probably only have a chance to read about 50% of the posts on a good day.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2005
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 9:34pm

uuuggg i am so tired


:-(


sorry


i might...if not..xoxox...do you want to..it was your post / links i was talking about.


if i muster enough energy, i'll look for it for you


sorry

-Kristen

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