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The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
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By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney October 26, 2011: 9:50 AM ET
Frank Decker has a message for those at Occupy Wall Street.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Occupy Wall Street protesters might say they represent 99% of the nation, but there's a growing number of Americans who are making it clear they are not part of the dissident crowd.
They call themselves the 53%...as in the 53% of Americans who pay federal income taxes. And they are making their voices heard on Tumblr blogs, Twitter and Facebook pages devoted to stories of personal responsibility and work ethic.
Print CommentThe number originates in the estimate that roughly 47% of Americans don't pay federal income tax, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The 53 percenters stress the fact that they are paying the taxes that support the government assistance the protesters say they want.
Kevin Eder was among the first to galvanize those who wanted to differentiate themselves from the thousands of people rallying across the nation to raise awareness of the growing economic gap between the rich and everyone else.
In early October, Eder created the Twitter hashtag #iamthe53, which has since been posted in hundreds of tweets as the backlash to Occupy Wall Street mounts.
"I would never identify myself with those occupying Wall Street," said Eder, 26, a business analyst in Washington D.C. "The frustration was born out of people claiming to speak for me who don't."
Meet the Occupy Wall Street protesters
Many of those tweeting share the belief that the protesters need to stop complaining about the government and financial institutions and start looking for work. Ken Gardner, an attorney in Dallas, joined the conversation because he opposes government handouts.
"We don't want to be the 53% who carries the 47% on our shoulders," said Gardner, who thinks more people should pay federal income taxes.
Eder's hashtag helped inspire Erick Erickson, editor-in-chief of the conservative website RedState.com and a CNN contributor, to set up a Tumblr blog called "We are the 53%." It mimics Occupy Wall Street "We are the 99 percent" site.
The 53% site gives a voice to those who reject the contention that most Americans are victims of the system, said Josh Trevino, "quasi-official spokesman" for the blog.
"What the 99% is missing is the element of personal responsibility," said Trevino, who is also vice president at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. "The 53% want to bring that into the conversation."
More than a thousand people have sent in entries to the 53% site, which generally features their photo next to a piece of paper that outlines their views, as well as their struggles and work histories.
"I am responsible for my own destiny," writes one 34-year-old father of three. "I will succeed or fail because of me and me alone."
"I took jobs I didn't want. Why don't you?" says one poster to the protesters. "Suck it up and become part of the 53%."
0:00 / 2:35 Kids sleepover at Occupy Wall Street
As Frank Decker read through the posts, he felt he could relate. A public school teacher in Vancouver, Wash., Decker and his wife lived below the poverty line until they decided to go back to school to become educators. He sent in a post because he wanted to share his story.
"We didn't go through all that struggle while raising three kids to support people who don't feel they need to work or people who feel they are entitled to something they haven't earned," said Decker, 44.
At this point, neither Keder nor Trevino plan to shift their 53% efforts from the online world to the physical one. But they are both surprised at how popular the backlash has become.
"It's lasted far longer than we thought and it's become much bigger than we thought," Trevino said. "It's not over yet."
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Hey look, it's a random clown that nobody knows who is talking as if he speaks for everyone in a group of hundreds of millions!
As if he's any better than the "we're the 99%" people.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/10/26 17:46:32
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
2011/10/26 18:00:18
Subject: Re:The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
Grakmar wrote:47% of people don't pay income tax? How can that be accurate? Does it include children and the retired?
It is accurate. A lot of people don't pay income tax either due to unemployment, age, retirement, or underemployment.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
2011/10/26 18:01:49
Subject: Re:The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
Mocking the occupy wall street protesters and saying they should get a job seems rather pointless to me if not sadly ironic. A lot of 53% white papers drone on and on about their own hard work, bootsrap cliche's and mantras of personal responsibility as if that had anything to do with people demanding 1 iota of responsibility from the financial sector. If you have no sympathy for people underwater on their homes that's fine, but the buck stops at financial institutions packaging the debt up into derivatives which go on to increase the housing bubble to the point where their greed and shortsightedness effects the whole damn system.
It wasn’t just lazy entitled hippies who’ve been affected by the excesses of wall street, plenty of good conservative hard workers lost their homes and possibly their jobs. I'd be amazed at the tea party's absence at the occupy wall street protests if I didn't already know they're being controlled by the koch brothers and have actually been convinced that smaller government and less regulation will somehow improve things. It's no secret that washington is a cesspool of corruption but I'm slightly more upset at the corporate interests buying the politicians than the corrupted politicians themselves, only slightly. Jack Abramoff constantly espoused the idea that money was free speech... read up on how well that turned out...
It's actually 47% of "households" that don't pay federal income taxes. Or, again more accurately, 47% of households have a net liability of zero or less, meaning they get all withheld taxes, plus refundable credits, back.
It's one of those stats that means a lot, but not as much as some people think. Partially because many of those housholds are retirees (an increasing demographic).
But it is an interesting view of our current society. Another interesting number is the "employment to population ratio," which shows how many people are actually working, as opposed to how many are "legally unemployed." http://wjmc.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-employment-to-population-ratio.html
2011/10/26 18:04:38
Subject: Re:The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
It's actually 47% of "households" that don't pay federal income taxes. Or, again more accurately, 47% of households have a net liability of zero or less, meaning they get all withheld taxes, plus refundable credits, back.
Even so, isn't that just Federal? A person have fall into that category while also still paying state or local taxes as well I thought.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Essentially, the youth of the nation is being forced to pick up more and more slack for the lazy ass old people.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
2011/10/26 18:05:28
Subject: Re:The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
Well, I DO pay taxes and I don't agree with this clown. I LIKE paying taxes. I like it so much, I'd like to share it with everyone else in the country, just so that they could know how much fun it is.
When did OWS say they didn't want to pay taxes? When did taxes come into the equation? I know that a bunch of fringe groups jumped on the protest to try to shoehorn their message in on it, but when did anyone say anything about taxes? I thought one of the things that OWS was against was that costs are always increasing but pay only increases for the top 1%?
Matter of fact, I'm sure I could find at least one topic per person in the country that I would argue with someone else on.
daedalus wrote:I thought one of the things that OWS was against was that costs are always increasing but pay only increases for the top 1%?
It is, and the US Government put out facts proving this assertion, as discussed here.
Namely:
While everyone else's income has increased only marginally, not even matching inflation, the top 1% has had their income essentially skyrocket.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/10/26 18:10:04
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Melissia wrote:Essentially, the youth of the nation is being forced to pick up more and more slack for the lazy ass old people.
Thats because we vote and have more money.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Melissia wrote:Essentially, the youth of the nation is being forced to pick up more and more slack for the lazy ass old people.
Thats because we vote and have more money.
I personally vote, but yes, I know, it's a failure of the representative system that some votes aren't worth as much as others.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/10/26 18:14:04
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
2011/10/26 18:14:18
Subject: Re:The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
Grakmar wrote:47% of people don't pay income tax? How can that be accurate? Does it include children and the retired?
It is accurate. A lot of people don't pay income tax either due to unemployment, age, retirement, or underemployment.
A lot of people don't pay Federal income tax due to vote whoring politicians that want to buy votes by taking money from upper wage earners and redistributing it to lower wage earners. The game is stacked in favor of getting more people to vote for a system that provides them benefit by force of law. The more people that gain benefits like Federal unemployment, tax credits, or subsidies the more people that are dependent on government and are therefore more likely to vote for their benefits to continue. It's all over the election debates and attack ads. "Vote for X, because Y is going to cut Social Security (cut to scene of politician pushing Grandma off the cliff in her wheelchair)".
In short, the Federal Tax Code is not being used to maximize revenues, but to enforce a social agenda and cement bureaucrats in their positions of power.
"I hate movies where the men wear shorter skirts than the women." -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
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Check out Cinematic Titanic, the new movie riffing project from Joel Hodgson and the original cast of MST3K.
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The Green Git wrote:A lot of people don't pay Federal income tax due to vote whoring politicians that want to buy votes by taking money from upper wage earners and redistributing it to lower wage earners.
If only this was the case.
But it's not. "Upper wage earners" get far more benefits and far more influence in the government than "lower wage earners".
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
2011/10/26 23:34:29
Subject: Re:The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street
"I hate movies where the men wear shorter skirts than the women." -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Elements of the past and the future combining to create something not quite as good as either." -- The Mighty Boosh
Check out Cinematic Titanic, the new movie riffing project from Joel Hodgson and the original cast of MST3K.
See my latest eBay auctions at this link.
"We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. You have our gratitude!" - Kentucky Fried Movie
Why are you spamming every thread on the topic with stupid unfunny comedians?
Just sayin'... not really all that productive.... or entertaining...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/10/26 23:35:40
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
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