Conservative Co-worker's 3 best against "Robin Hood" [sc?]

From: M, T Sent: Thu 4/17/2008 12:01 PM To: C, I; C S Subject: FW: info

Gents, my eldest daughter has begun to discuss politics with me and I remembered these stories and found them with a quick google search. I had her read them and we discussed what was fair. While there are references to parties I see this as simple comparison between liberalism and conservatism. Enjoy.

#1) liberal view (grades)

This puts the argument of democrat vs. republican in terms most of us can understand. There was a young teenage girl that was about to finish her first year of college. She considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and her father was a rather staunch conservative Republican. One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to programs like welfare, a large benevolent government, and rich-to-poor tax equalization. He stopped her and asked her how she was doing in school. She answered that she had a 4.0 GPA but it was really tough. She had to study all the time, never had time to go out and party and often went sleepless because all of the studying. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of all her studying. He then asked how her friend Mary, that was attending the same college, was doing. She replied that she was barely getting by. She had a 2.0 GPA, never studied, was very popular on campus and was at parties all the time. She often wouldn't show up for classes because she was hung over. He then asked his daughter why she didn't go to the Dean's office and ask why she couldn't take 1.0 off her 4.0 and give it to her friend that only had a 2.0. That way they would both have a 3.0 GPA. She fired back and said "that wouldn't be fair, I worked really hard for mine and my friend has done nothing". After a moment of silence, she replied, "I guess I will never vote Democrat again".

#2) Tax Analogy

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner.

The bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this.

The first four men -- the poorest -- would pay nothing;

The fifth would pay $1:

the sixth would pay $3;

the seventh $7;

the eighth $12;

The ninth $18.

The tenth man -- the richest -- would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement -- until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So the first four men were unaffected.

They would still eat for free.

But what about the other six -- the paying customers?

How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.

But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being *paid* to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59.

Each of the six was better off than before.

And the first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man.

"I only saved a dollar, too.

It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man.

"Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2?

The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison.

"We didn't get anything at all.

The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him.

But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.

They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Unfortunately, some cannot grasp this straight-forward logic!

#3) DEMOCRATIC DISTRIBUTION ON WEALTH AT A BASEBALL GAME Democrats think this is a fair distribution of wealth: 50,000 people go to a baseball game; but the game was rained out and a refund was due. The team was about to send out refunds when the Democrats stopped them and suggested that they send out refund amounts based on the democratic interpretation of fairness. After all, if the refunds were made equally to the people who paid for the tickets, most of the money would go to the top 2%. The Democratic plan says: People in the $10 seats will get back $15, because they have less money to spend. People in the $15 seats will get back $15, because that's only fair. People in the $25 seats will get back $1, because they already make a lot of money. People in the $50 luxury seats will have to pay another $15, because they have so much to spend. And the people driving by the stadium who couldn't afford to watch the game will get $10 each, even though they didn't pay anything in, because they need the most help