If anything turns people toward "conservative values", it could very well be discussions like this one, that toss around all the old cliches about money, wealth, and the rich like they actually mean something.

Bobert, when you speak from your own experience a social worker, nothing is more compelling, but when you toss around numbers from magazine articles, you're on thin ice.

As for you, Frank--I am surprised that, after years of watching Eisenhower, Nixon, and Johnson, Bush, etc using taxes to build up the Military/Industrial complex, culminating in post 9/11 Patriot Act America, that you didn't have a little trouble with the idea of "paying taxes to improve the public good".

The unfortunate reality is that if we live in the most affluent country in the world, it's because capitalists made it happen. The working people helped, but as someone pointed out, "Unless you've got money to pay them, workers won't generally work for you."