HitsRus wrote: I could care less about comparing us with other countries....or how it compares historically. What is important is to start with the premise that ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible, and that government should leave the smallest tax 'footprint' possible. No one should have money that they have earned taken away from them...not by a thief and not by their government. At the very least the government owes it to the taxed to take as little as possible or to spend it in such a way that the taxed derive some benefit. That is not what has been going on in Washington lately. In particular, one party uses tax policy to redistribute income from the productive to the not so productive...and hence buy votes and political power by taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the name of 'fairness'.
Tax policy should not be set by slandering our corporations and our CEO's...or by villifying those who entreprenurial skills are successful.

If you want fair tax policy then enact a value added or a national sales tax...and get rid of the political football that dominates Washington and hamstrings our national interests. Get rid of the so callled 'progressive' income tax that is no fair for anyone.

Why are Americans so opposed to being similar to or even compared to other countries, particularly in Europe?

HitsRus wrote: I could care less about comparing us with other countries....or how it compares historically. What is important is to start with the premise that ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible, and that government should leave the smallest tax 'footprint' possible. No one should have money that they have earned taken away from them...not by a thief and not by their government. At the very least the government owes it to the taxed to take as little as possible or to spend it in such a way that the taxed derive some benefit. That is not what has been going on in Washington lately. In particular, one party uses tax policy to redistribute income from the productive to the not so productive...and hence buy votes and political power by taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the name of 'fairness'.
Tax policy should not be set by slandering our corporations and our CEO's...or by villifying those who entreprenurial skills are successful.

If you want fair tax policy then enact a value added or a national sales tax...and get rid of the political football that dominates Washington and hamstrings our national interests. Get rid of the so callled 'progressive' income tax that is no fair for anyone.

Ok.

1. Your first premise is that "all people ought to pay the least tax possible..." This is hard to delineate unless you articulate the clear purposes of the taxation. If the taxation is being down to pay down a 12 trillion dollar debt in a few years (assuming no cuts in "mandatory spending") tax rates could still be objectively quite high in comparison to current rates and still be the lowest tax possible.

If you want a society with very low services, say a minimal defense budget and perhaps no federal education department, etc....the tax rates can be quite a bit lower.

The lowest tax rate possible is integrally linked with spending. A 1 billion dollar defense budget would allow people to pay far fewer taxes for example.

You need more concrete boundaries as to what is necessary for the government to spend on. Everyone wants to say "pork, pork, pork" but the defense budget, which is technically discretionary eats up about 1 trillion in tax receipts each year...and that's even before SS and Medicare, both very popular programs and then of course, the evil, interest.

2. Your second premise, nobody should have the money they've earned "taken" away from them. This is the very reason we have government in the first place...we have accepted the principle that people have personal property rights and that they ought not be forfeited against their will. Hence, we willingly forfeit some of our money, as taxes, in order to have the greater sum of our property protected against those who would take it without our consent.

As the great dissenter Oliver Wendell Holmes would say, "taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

The very reason you don't have your money taken away against your will is because you pay taxes.

3. We also have to point out how you have a distinct argument against the government but not capitalists. Capitalists put up risk and create jobs and therefore workers willingly contract away part of the price demanded of the supply they produce in exchange for employment. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, the joules of energy to create the demanded product were put forth by the worker...

Let's take, Lebron James for example...he's the reason people go to see the Cavs...he seems to have the intrinsic property claim to at least most of the revenue that comes in through the gate and yet, Dan Gilbert is profiting off it.

It's just like how our government provides us with roads in exchange for our tax dollars....or protects us with the world's most unstoppable military force.

If we're going to be angry about the amount of money being taken from us from the government...we should be so much more angry at the capitalists who employ most of us! The top 1% (mostly capitalists) took 2/3 of the economic growth from 2002-2007! You can't tell me the working people contracted that much of the prices away from the demand created by the supply they produced! That's like Lebron James earning the league minimum!

We contract away taxes to government and we contract away wages to capitalists....it seems we have democrats who only want to blame the capitalists and republicans who only want to blame the government. Both can abuse their bargaining power to "take" more than was bargained for!

It seems only Footwedge spews equal venom towards both parties.

At least the federal government, apparently, has made us safer with two wars in the middle east, as just one thing? What have the world's largest employers done in exchange for all of the profit the workers have generated? They did not raise wages as was promised by reaganomics!

Workers seeing their wages raise 13% since 92 when giving our top 400 capitalists who employ us massive deductions by lowering the capital gains rates and then hoard it away with a 399% increase in wages was not what society bargained for.

And you know, this isn't an agrarian world...peoples aren't isolated...this is a large, bustling, industrial and technological society wherein my life can intimately affect someone on the total opposite coastline with the click of a mouse.

4. It's not villifying people with entrepreneurial skills. It's not villifying Dolan for refusing to employ people that will put a worthy product on the field or for an athlete to expect to be paid fair market value or get a piece of the economic growth he's responsible for. There are lots of people out there who deserved a piece of the economic growth of the last two decades just like Josh Cribbs deserves to get paid.

5. As I've pointed out numerous times....theories of progressivity are not grounded in dollar for dollar notions of fairness.

If every dollar is worth the same...a flat 30% rate is fair...but, if we adhere to the theory of marginalism...

If we're going to be laissez-faire, austrian economists...this is the theory man, this is like the crucifixion of our economic beliefs and that as things increase in quantity they have a diminishing marginal utility...and this applies the same to the amount of chipotle burritoes I eat, the amount of broads I bone and the amount of money I have.

Just like money loses value as it flies off the printing press it has diminishing value as it flows into my offshore tax haven.

For Larry Ellison to pay 35% of billions of dollars in tax as opposed to Jerry Joe normal successful accountant who pays 35% of 255,000$ is critically unfair...because each dollar of larry ellison's is worth significantly less units of satisfaction.

Progressive rates do not punish the successful, discriminate against producers, or discourage success....they attempt to make "units of satisfaction" transferred to government "flat" across income levels. If you don't accept this and call yourself a laissez-faire guy, it's like calling yourself a Christian without believing Christ died and rose again.

Any Flat Tax or national sales tax is going to drastically make people with lower incomes give up significantly more satisfaction in exchange for significantly less protection from the state (since they have less property) as people spend less on consumption as income levels rise.

And bear in mind...Adam Smith, you know the guy Republicans think their economic philosophies emulate...argued what justifies progressivity is that the more property one has, one is receiving greater amounts of protection from the state and therefore ought to pay in that proportion...

God. I don't know why I waste so much time on this stupid place trying to persuade people who will never even budge an inch.

It's not a right/left thing...a rich/poor thing....but it is an ebb and flow between degrees of liberty and solidarity...this is a society and we are united through our states in one nation, a union...we're all in this togther...there shouldn't be hate, nor animosity...but earnest concern with thoughts on how we might preserve freedom while trying to contract for justice for all....there's no taking against wills with violence and blood shed...we have courts and assemblies with people from our own hometowns whom we ask to say our peace....we don't always get the benefit of the bargain and some would say we haven't for quite some time but let's just roll up our sleeves and get back to the negotiating table instead of demanding we flip it over.

Nobody here except Chud, (and he's gone I think) wants communism/marxism/etc.....but if remember, Marx was first and foremost a sociologist and before any normative position on politics...he was saying that communism was something that was going to happen as a result of unfettered capitalism, not that it should...it was a prediction and not a persuasion. First and foremost. (it was the bolsheviks who came along and decided to make the revolution happen asap). Marx was wrong...it didn't happen...but it didn't happen because of the ebb and flow between progressives and conservatives...the dance between new ideas and old ideas...the idea that we can all figure out what little bits of liberty we can give up in order to keep a healthy society wherein people won't gather up their guns and take it from us.

The fastest way to marxism isn't progressive taxation and it's not hire wages....it's a couple more decades of very few people hoarding all of the economic growth.

But, whatever, perhaps I'm wrong...I'm wrong a lot.

general94 wrote: Again I ask, what do you think a "fair" tax rate would be on Income, Corporations, or Capital Gains. Having a 15% Capital Gains tax rate may or may not be a "horrible loophole" I guess it depends on your philosophy. But I do know that 40% of the population not paying one red cent in federal taxes is a horrible loophole.

The tax reform act of 1986 made it so ordinary income rates in the top marginal rate bracket were 29% and that CG rates were 29%.

This, it seems to me, is the most important factor...that the code be neutral in regards to the capital gain rates and ordinary income rates because then if X is compensated with Capital gain it is done so purely for economic reasons as opposed to taxation reasons.

If 90% of the population would have gotten more than a 13% increase in wages since 1992...the tax base could've stayed broad like the TRA of 1986 intended and it wouldn't be so disproportionate.

boatshoes....I appreciate your thoughtful/insightful explanation of 'units of satisfaction' and agree with them for the most part in principle provided they were applied within the mindset of "all people ought to pay the least tax possible..." ...but that is not what is going on in Washington lately, and that is my point. Huge new entitlement programs are being proposed at a time when we can afford them the least. Moreover, somewhere in the vicinity of 50% of the people oppose them, yet they are being ramrodded thru. To sell these entitlement programs as being paid for by ANYONE OTHER THAN THE MIDDLE CLASS is disingenuous at best. If our legislators operated within the premise that 'ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible"...and balanced/tempered that with 'units of satisfaction' in taxation that would be one thing. But that is not what is happening. certainly we contract with government to provide roads and defense...those are things we cannot provide for ourselves. But government has/is going beyond that.
Good government should provide what the private sector can't....beyond that, then you no longer in the realm of 'the least tax possible'. What you have here is elitist notions of what the government SHOULD provide...and that being unwillingly shoved down the throat of a significant amount of the population. It really doesn't matter if everyone is taxed 'fairly' or not when everyone(including our posterity) is going to suffer under an increasingly larger tax burden.
First, accept and operate under the premise that "ALL people ought to pay the least tax possible..." and it'll make it easier to tax 'fairly'.

I disagree with your statement that the quickest way to Marxism is by a very few hoarding all the growth (which is an exageration). Rather it is a crushing debt and tax burden that threatens us ALL. People need to see value in what they are being taxed for....and they are not seeing it.

How about the first thing we do is stop giving "Income Tax Refunds" to people who barely pay any income tax, or none at all.

I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You should never get back more than you put in.

ManO'War wrote: How about the first thing we do is stop giving "Income Tax Refunds" to people who barely pay any income tax, or none at all.

I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You should never get back more than you put in.

this

BoatShoes wrote:

HitsRus wrote: I could care less about comparing us with other countries....or how it compares historically. What is important is to start with the premise that ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible, and that government should leave the smallest tax 'footprint' possible. No one should have money that they have earned taken away from them...not by a thief and not by their government. At the very least the government owes it to the taxed to take as little as possible or to spend it in such a way that the taxed derive some benefit. That is not what has been going on in Washington lately. In particular, one party uses tax policy to redistribute income from the productive to the not so productive...and hence buy votes and political power by taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the name of 'fairness'.
Tax policy should not be set by slandering our corporations and our CEO's...or by villifying those who entreprenurial skills are successful.

If you want fair tax policy then enact a value added or a national sales tax...and get rid of the political football that dominates Washington and hamstrings our national interests. Get rid of the so callled 'progressive' income tax that is no fair for anyone.

Ok.

1. Your first premise is that "all people ought to pay the least tax possible..." This is hard to delineate unless you articulate the clear purposes of the taxation. If the taxation is being down to pay down a 12 trillion dollar debt in a few years (assuming no cuts in "mandatory spending") tax rates could still be objectively quite high in comparison to current rates and still be the lowest tax possible.

If you want a society with very low services, say a minimal defense budget and perhaps no federal education department, etc....the tax rates can be quite a bit lower.

The lowest tax rate possible is integrally linked with spending. A 1 billion dollar defense budget would allow people to pay far fewer taxes for example.

You need more concrete boundaries as to what is necessary for the government to spend on. Everyone wants to say "pork, pork, pork" but the defense budget, which is technically discretionary eats up about 1 trillion in tax receipts each year...and that's even before SS and Medicare, both very popular programs and then of course, the evil, interest.

2. Your second premise, nobody should have the money they've earned "taken" away from them. This is the very reason we have government in the first place...we have accepted the principle that people have personal property rights and that they ought not be forfeited against their will. Hence, we willingly forfeit some of our money, as taxes, in order to have the greater sum of our property protected against those who would take it without our consent.

As the great dissenter Oliver Wendell Holmes would say, "taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

The very reason you don't have your money taken away against your will is because you pay taxes.

3. We also have to point out how you have a distinct argument against the government but not capitalists. Capitalists put up risk and create jobs and therefore workers willingly contract away part of the price demanded of the supply they produce in exchange for employment. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, the joules of energy to create the demanded product were put forth by the worker...

Let's take, Lebron James for example...he's the reason people go to see the Cavs...he seems to have the intrinsic property claim to at least most of the revenue that comes in through the gate and yet, Dan Gilbert is profiting off it.

It's just like how our government provides us with roads in exchange for our tax dollars....or protects us with the world's most unstoppable military force.

If we're going to be angry about the amount of money being taken from us from the government...we should be so much more angry at the capitalists who employ most of us! The top 1% (mostly capitalists) took 2/3 of the economic growth from 2002-2007! You can't tell me the working people contracted that much of the prices away from the demand created by the supply they produced! That's like Lebron James earning the league minimum!

We contract away taxes to government and we contract away wages to capitalists....it seems we have democrats who only want to blame the capitalists and republicans who only want to blame the government. Both can abuse their bargaining power to "take" more than was bargained for!

It seems only Footwedge spews equal venom towards both parties.

At least the federal government, apparently, has made us safer with two wars in the middle east, as just one thing? What have the world's largest employers done in exchange for all of the profit the workers have generated? They did not raise wages as was promised by reaganomics!

Workers seeing their wages raise 13% since 92 when giving our top 400 capitalists who employ us massive deductions by lowering the capital gains rates and then hoard it away with a 399% increase in wages was not what society bargained for.

And you know, this isn't an agrarian world...peoples aren't isolated...this is a large, bustling, industrial and technological society wherein my life can intimately affect someone on the total opposite coastline with the click of a mouse.

4. It's not villifying people with entrepreneurial skills. It's not villifying Dolan for refusing to employ people that will put a worthy product on the field or for an athlete to expect to be paid fair market value or get a piece of the economic growth he's responsible for. There are lots of people out there who deserved a piece of the economic growth of the last two decades just like Josh Cribbs deserves to get paid.

5. As I've pointed out numerous times....theories of progressivity are not grounded in dollar for dollar notions of fairness.

If every dollar is worth the same...a flat 30% rate is fair...but, if we adhere to the theory of marginalism...

If we're going to be laissez-faire, austrian economists...this is the theory man, this is like the crucifixion of our economic beliefs and that as things increase in quantity they have a diminishing marginal utility...and this applies the same to the amount of chipotle burritoes I eat, the amount of broads I bone and the amount of money I have.

Just like money loses value as it flies off the printing press it has diminishing value as it flows into my offshore tax haven.

For Larry Ellison to pay 35% of billions of dollars in tax as opposed to Jerry Joe normal successful accountant who pays 35% of 255,000$ is critically unfair...because each dollar of larry ellison's is worth significantly less units of satisfaction.

Progressive rates do not punish the successful, discriminate against producers, or discourage success....they attempt to make "units of satisfaction" transferred to government "flat" across income levels. If you don't accept this and call yourself a laissez-faire guy, it's like calling yourself a Christian without believing Christ died and rose again.

Any Flat Tax or national sales tax is going to drastically make people with lower incomes give up significantly more satisfaction in exchange for significantly less protection from the state (since they have less property) as people spend less on consumption as income levels rise.

And bear in mind...Adam Smith, you know the guy Republicans think their economic philosophies emulate...argued what justifies progressivity is that the more property one has, one is receiving greater amounts of protection from the state and therefore ought to pay in that proportion...

God. I don't know why I waste so much time on this stupid place trying to persuade people who will never even budge an inch.

It's not a right/left thing...a rich/poor thing....but it is an ebb and flow between degrees of liberty and solidarity...this is a society and we are united through our states in one nation, a union...we're all in this togther...there shouldn't be hate, nor animosity...but earnest concern with thoughts on how we might preserve freedom while trying to contract for justice for all....there's no taking against wills with violence and blood shed...we have courts and assemblies with people from our own hometowns whom we ask to say our peace....we don't always get the benefit of the bargain and some would say we haven't for quite some time but let's just roll up our sleeves and get back to the negotiating table instead of demanding we flip it over.

Nobody here except Chud, (and he's gone I think) wants communism/marxism/etc.....but if remember, Marx was first and foremost a sociologist and before any normative position on politics...he was saying that communism was something that was going to happen as a result of unfettered capitalism, not that it should...it was a prediction and not a persuasion. First and foremost. (it was the bolsheviks who came along and decided to make the revolution happen asap). Marx was wrong...it didn't happen...but it didn't happen because of the ebb and flow between progressives and conservatives...the dance between new ideas and old ideas...the idea that we can all figure out what little bits of liberty we can give up in order to keep a healthy society wherein people won't gather up their guns and take it from us.

The fastest way to marxism isn't progressive taxation and it's not hire wages....it's a couple more decades of very few people hoarding all of the economic growth.

But, whatever, perhaps I'm wrong...I'm wrong a lot.

Thanks Boatshoes, finally someone who "gets it". It is refreshing to have someone else on here that doesn't waste their time watching and actually believing what they are told on Fox and MSNBC.

ManO'War wrote: How about the first thing we do is stop giving "Income Tax Refunds" to people who barely pay any income tax, or none at all.

I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You should never get back more than you put in.

Quoted For Truth.

"God. I don't know why I waste so much time on this stupid place trying to persuade people who will never even budge an inch."

Well you can stop, or grow up and listen to other people's points. You're concentrating on the high end of the spectrum, which is fine if that's your point of view. Other people, myself included, have stated one of the problems we have is that too many citizens have no proverbial "skin in the game", going after economic hoarding is a smokescreen if the issue is that too many people take more out of the system than they put in.

[/quote]

Thanks Boatshoes, finally someone who "gets it". It is refreshing to have someone else on here that doesn't waste their time watching and actually believing what they are told on Fox and MSNBC.
[/quote]

Well, if 'getting it' means that it's all the fault of right wing talk show hosts and that the real problem can be solved by making the tax code 'fairer'...good luck with that.

BoatShoes wrote: For Larry Ellison to pay 35% of billions of dollars in tax as opposed to Jerry Joe normal successful accountant who pays 35% of 255,000$ is critically unfair...because each dollar of larry ellison's is worth significantly less units of satisfaction.

If you're going to tax on the level of satisfaction one gets from each additional dollar, it would make more sense that Ellison's billionth dollar be taxed less than his millionth since it is "worth less".

ManO'War wrote: I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You are full of it.

Bigdogg wrote:

ManO'War wrote: I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You are full of it.

Whether that's an exaggeration or not...the fact remains that a significant percentage of "taxpayers" get back more than they put in.

BoatShoes wrote:

HitsRus wrote: I could care less about comparing us with other countries....or how it compares historically. What is important is to start with the premise that ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible, and that government should leave the smallest tax 'footprint' possible. No one should have money that they have earned taken away from them...not by a thief and not by their government. At the very least the government owes it to the taxed to take as little as possible or to spend it in such a way that the taxed derive some benefit. That is not what has been going on in Washington lately. In particular, one party uses tax policy to redistribute income from the productive to the not so productive...and hence buy votes and political power by taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the name of 'fairness'.
Tax policy should not be set by slandering our corporations and our CEO's...or by villifying those who entreprenurial skills are successful.

If you want fair tax policy then enact a value added or a national sales tax...and get rid of the political football that dominates Washington and hamstrings our national interests. Get rid of the so callled 'progressive' income tax that is no fair for anyone.

Ok.

1. Your first premise is that "all people ought to pay the least tax possible..." This is hard to delineate unless you articulate the clear purposes of the taxation. If the taxation is being down to pay down a 12 trillion dollar debt in a few years (assuming no cuts in "mandatory spending") tax rates could still be objectively quite high in comparison to current rates and still be the lowest tax possible.

If you want a society with very low services, say a minimal defense budget and perhaps no federal education department, etc....the tax rates can be quite a bit lower.

The lowest tax rate possible is integrally linked with spending. A 1 billion dollar defense budget would allow people to pay far fewer taxes for example.

You need more concrete boundaries as to what is necessary for the government to spend on. Everyone wants to say "pork, pork, pork" but the defense budget, which is technically discretionary eats up about 1 trillion in tax receipts each year...and that's even before SS and Medicare, both very popular programs and then of course, the evil, interest.

2. Your second premise, nobody should have the money they've earned "taken" away from them. This is the very reason we have government in the first place...we have accepted the principle that people have personal property rights and that they ought not be forfeited against their will. Hence, we willingly forfeit some of our money, as taxes, in order to have the greater sum of our property protected against those who would take it without our consent.

As the great dissenter Oliver Wendell Holmes would say, "taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

The very reason you don't have your money taken away against your will is because you pay taxes.

3. We also have to point out how you have a distinct argument against the government but not capitalists. Capitalists put up risk and create jobs and therefore workers willingly contract away part of the price demanded of the supply they produce in exchange for employment. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, the joules of energy to create the demanded product were put forth by the worker...

Let's take, Lebron James for example...he's the reason people go to see the Cavs...he seems to have the intrinsic property claim to at least most of the revenue that comes in through the gate and yet, Dan Gilbert is profiting off it.

It's just like how our government provides us with roads in exchange for our tax dollars....or protects us with the world's most unstoppable military force.

If we're going to be angry about the amount of money being taken from us from the government...we should be so much more angry at the capitalists who employ most of us! The top 1% (mostly capitalists) took 2/3 of the economic growth from 2002-2007! You can't tell me the working people contracted that much of the prices away from the demand created by the supply they produced! That's like Lebron James earning the league minimum!

We contract away taxes to government and we contract away wages to capitalists....it seems we have democrats who only want to blame the capitalists and republicans who only want to blame the government. Both can abuse their bargaining power to "take" more than was bargained for!

It seems only Footwedge spews equal venom towards both parties.

At least the federal government, apparently, has made us safer with two wars in the middle east, as just one thing? What have the world's largest employers done in exchange for all of the profit the workers have generated? They did not raise wages as was promised by reaganomics!

Workers seeing their wages raise 13% since 92 when giving our top 400 capitalists who employ us massive deductions by lowering the capital gains rates and then hoard it away with a 399% increase in wages was not what society bargained for.

And you know, this isn't an agrarian world...peoples aren't isolated...this is a large, bustling, industrial and technological society wherein my life can intimately affect someone on the total opposite coastline with the click of a mouse.

4. It's not villifying people with entrepreneurial skills. It's not villifying Dolan for refusing to employ people that will put a worthy product on the field or for an athlete to expect to be paid fair market value or get a piece of the economic growth he's responsible for. There are lots of people out there who deserved a piece of the economic growth of the last two decades just like Josh Cribbs deserves to get paid.

5. As I've pointed out numerous times....theories of progressivity are not grounded in dollar for dollar notions of fairness.

If every dollar is worth the same...a flat 30% rate is fair...but, if we adhere to the theory of marginalism...

If we're going to be laissez-faire, austrian economists...this is the theory man, this is like the crucifixion of our economic beliefs and that as things increase in quantity they have a diminishing marginal utility...and this applies the same to the amount of chipotle burritoes I eat, the amount of broads I bone and the amount of money I have.

Just like money loses value as it flies off the printing press it has diminishing value as it flows into my offshore tax haven.

For Larry Ellison to pay 35% of billions of dollars in tax as opposed to Jerry Joe normal successful accountant who pays 35% of 255,000$ is critically unfair...because each dollar of larry ellison's is worth significantly less units of satisfaction.

Progressive rates do not punish the successful, discriminate against producers, or discourage success....they attempt to make "units of satisfaction" transferred to government "flat" across income levels. If you don't accept this and call yourself a laissez-faire guy, it's like calling yourself a Christian without believing Christ died and rose again.

Any Flat Tax or national sales tax is going to drastically make people with lower incomes give up significantly more satisfaction in exchange for significantly less protection from the state (since they have less property) as people spend less on consumption as income levels rise.

And bear in mind...Adam Smith, you know the guy Republicans think their economic philosophies emulate...argued what justifies progressivity is that the more property one has, one is receiving greater amounts of protection from the state and therefore ought to pay in that proportion...

God. I don't know why I waste so much time on this stupid place trying to persuade people who will never even budge an inch.

It's not a right/left thing...a rich/poor thing....but it is an ebb and flow between degrees of liberty and solidarity...this is a society and we are united through our states in one nation, a union...we're all in this togther...there shouldn't be hate, nor animosity...but earnest concern with thoughts on how we might preserve freedom while trying to contract for justice for all....there's no taking against wills with violence and blood shed...we have courts and assemblies with people from our own hometowns whom we ask to say our peace....we don't always get the benefit of the bargain and some would say we haven't for quite some time but let's just roll up our sleeves and get back to the negotiating table instead of demanding we flip it over.

Nobody here except Chud, (and he's gone I think) wants communism/marxism/etc.....but if remember, Marx was first and foremost a sociologist and before any normative position on politics...he was saying that communism was something that was going to happen as a result of unfettered capitalism, not that it should...it was a prediction and not a persuasion. First and foremost. (it was the bolsheviks who came along and decided to make the revolution happen asap). Marx was wrong...it didn't happen...but it didn't happen because of the ebb and flow between progressives and conservatives...the dance between new ideas and old ideas...the idea that we can all figure out what little bits of liberty we can give up in order to keep a healthy society wherein people won't gather up their guns and take it from us.

The fastest way to marxism isn't progressive taxation and it's not hire wages....it's a couple more decades of very few people hoarding all of the economic growth.

But, whatever, perhaps I'm wrong...I'm wrong a lot.

quality post

Bigdogg wrote:

ManO'War wrote: I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You are full of it.

I don't know about $8,000 to $10,000, but I had a pro bono client get back $6,500 in EITC and other credits - she didn't work at McDonald's but had an income of about $11,500 in 2007. If you factor in her medicaid and subsidized housing, she made more money in programs than she did actually working.

You can call me full of it if you want, but look up the EITC, it isn't a secret that many people not only NOT pay taxes, they get refunds on top of their earnings due to miscellaneous credits that go beyond netting against taxes paid.

Biggdogg...im not full of anything, as I work in a bank and see it everday. And yes, the customer with the ten grand check literally works at McDonalds (Poplar St, Greentree Pa).

BoatShoes wrote:

HitsRus wrote: I could care less about comparing us with other countries....or how it compares historically. What is important is to start with the premise that ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible, and that government should leave the smallest tax 'footprint' possible. No one should have money that they have earned taken away from them...not by a thief and not by their government. At the very least the government owes it to the taxed to take as little as possible or to spend it in such a way that the taxed derive some benefit. That is not what has been going on in Washington lately. In particular, one party uses tax policy to redistribute income from the productive to the not so productive...and hence buy votes and political power by taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the name of 'fairness'.
Tax policy should not be set by slandering our corporations and our CEO's...or by villifying those who entreprenurial skills are successful.

If you want fair tax policy then enact a value added or a national sales tax...and get rid of the political football that dominates Washington and hamstrings our national interests. Get rid of the so callled 'progressive' income tax that is no fair for anyone.

Ok.

1. Your first premise is that "all people ought to pay the least tax possible..." This is hard to delineate unless you articulate the clear purposes of the taxation. If the taxation is being down to pay down a 12 trillion dollar debt in a few years (assuming no cuts in "mandatory spending") tax rates could still be objectively quite high in comparison to current rates and still be the lowest tax possible.

If you want a society with very low services, say a minimal defense budget and perhaps no federal education department, etc....the tax rates can be quite a bit lower.

The lowest tax rate possible is integrally linked with spending. A 1 billion dollar defense budget would allow people to pay far fewer taxes for example.

You need more concrete boundaries as to what is necessary for the government to spend on. Everyone wants to say "pork, pork, pork" but the defense budget, which is technically discretionary eats up about 1 trillion in tax receipts each year...and that's even before SS and Medicare, both very popular programs and then of course, the evil, interest.

2. Your second premise, nobody should have the money they've earned "taken" away from them. This is the very reason we have government in the first place...we have accepted the principle that people have personal property rights and that they ought not be forfeited against their will. Hence, we willingly forfeit some of our money, as taxes, in order to have the greater sum of our property protected against those who would take it without our consent.

As the great dissenter Oliver Wendell Holmes would say, "taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

The very reason you don't have your money taken away against your will is because you pay taxes.

3. We also have to point out how you have a distinct argument against the government but not capitalists. Capitalists put up risk and create jobs and therefore workers willingly contract away part of the price demanded of the supply they produce in exchange for employment. Nonetheless, the fact remains that, the joules of energy to create the demanded product were put forth by the worker...

Let's take, Lebron James for example...he's the reason people go to see the Cavs...he seems to have the intrinsic property claim to at least most of the revenue that comes in through the gate and yet, Dan Gilbert is profiting off it.

It's just like how our government provides us with roads in exchange for our tax dollars....or protects us with the world's most unstoppable military force.

If we're going to be angry about the amount of money being taken from us from the government...we should be so much more angry at the capitalists who employ most of us! The top 1% (mostly capitalists) took 2/3 of the economic growth from 2002-2007! You can't tell me the working people contracted that much of the prices away from the demand created by the supply they produced! That's like Lebron James earning the league minimum!

We contract away taxes to government and we contract away wages to capitalists....it seems we have democrats who only want to blame the capitalists and republicans who only want to blame the government. Both can abuse their bargaining power to "take" more than was bargained for!

It seems only Footwedge spews equal venom towards both parties.

At least the federal government, apparently, has made us safer with two wars in the middle east, as just one thing? What have the world's largest employers done in exchange for all of the profit the workers have generated? They did not raise wages as was promised by reaganomics!

Workers seeing their wages raise 13% since 92 when giving our top 400 capitalists who employ us massive deductions by lowering the capital gains rates and then hoard it away with a 399% increase in wages was not what society bargained for.

And you know, this isn't an agrarian world...peoples aren't isolated...this is a large, bustling, industrial and technological society wherein my life can intimately affect someone on the total opposite coastline with the click of a mouse.

4. It's not villifying people with entrepreneurial skills. It's not villifying Dolan for refusing to employ people that will put a worthy product on the field or for an athlete to expect to be paid fair market value or get a piece of the economic growth he's responsible for. There are lots of people out there who deserved a piece of the economic growth of the last two decades just like Josh Cribbs deserves to get paid.

5. As I've pointed out numerous times....theories of progressivity are not grounded in dollar for dollar notions of fairness.

If every dollar is worth the same...a flat 30% rate is fair...but, if we adhere to the theory of marginalism...

If we're going to be laissez-faire, austrian economists...this is the theory man, this is like the crucifixion of our economic beliefs and that as things increase in quantity they have a diminishing marginal utility...and this applies the same to the amount of chipotle burritoes I eat, the amount of broads I bone and the amount of money I have.

Just like money loses value as it flies off the printing press it has diminishing value as it flows into my offshore tax haven.

For Larry Ellison to pay 35% of billions of dollars in tax as opposed to Jerry Joe normal successful accountant who pays 35% of 255,000$ is critically unfair...because each dollar of larry ellison's is worth significantly less units of satisfaction.

Progressive rates do not punish the successful, discriminate against producers, or discourage success....they attempt to make "units of satisfaction" transferred to government "flat" across income levels. If you don't accept this and call yourself a laissez-faire guy, it's like calling yourself a Christian without believing Christ died and rose again.

Any Flat Tax or national sales tax is going to drastically make people with lower incomes give up significantly more satisfaction in exchange for significantly less protection from the state (since they have less property) as people spend less on consumption as income levels rise.

And bear in mind...Adam Smith, you know the guy Republicans think their economic philosophies emulate...argued what justifies progressivity is that the more property one has, one is receiving greater amounts of protection from the state and therefore ought to pay in that proportion...

God. I don't know why I waste so much time on this stupid place trying to persuade people who will never even budge an inch.

It's not a right/left thing...a rich/poor thing....but it is an ebb and flow between degrees of liberty and solidarity...this is a society and we are united through our states in one nation, a union...we're all in this togther...there shouldn't be hate, nor animosity...but earnest concern with thoughts on how we might preserve freedom while trying to contract for justice for all....there's no taking against wills with violence and blood shed...we have courts and assemblies with people from our own hometowns whom we ask to say our peace....we don't always get the benefit of the bargain and some would say we haven't for quite some time but let's just roll up our sleeves and get back to the negotiating table instead of demanding we flip it over.

Nobody here except Chud, (and he's gone I think) wants communism/marxism/etc.....but if remember, Marx was first and foremost a sociologist and before any normative position on politics...he was saying that communism was something that was going to happen as a result of unfettered capitalism, not that it should...it was a prediction and not a persuasion. First and foremost. (it was the bolsheviks who came along and decided to make the revolution happen asap). Marx was wrong...it didn't happen...but it didn't happen because of the ebb and flow between progressives and conservatives...the dance between new ideas and old ideas...the idea that we can all figure out what little bits of liberty we can give up in order to keep a healthy society wherein people won't gather up their guns and take it from us.

The fastest way to marxism isn't progressive taxation and it's not hire wages....it's a couple more decades of very few people hoarding all of the economic growth.

But, whatever, perhaps I'm wrong...I'm wrong a lot.

Wow BS...that was quite a slap shot from the blue line. Nice to see some in depth analysis and well thought out positions.

I agree with much of what you state. But be careful, pragmatic views are not viewed with elevated esteem around here...just sayin.

ManO'War wrote: How about the first thing we do is stop giving "Income Tax Refunds" to people who barely pay any income tax, or none at all.

I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You should never get back more than you put in.

People that live in Pittsburgh sure love to exxagerate. A 10K refund check from a McDonald's employee?

That's a joke and you know it. If you post that sort of wacko shit, you should be forced to link a proof source. Now I know a little about the EITC from reading about it. But really, this one here is quite a whopper.

I think you were the guy I argued with on the other huddle. Someone was complaining about the welfare queens bringing in their blackberries to your bank with fancy hair dos and manicured nails, while cashing in their $800 dollar welfare checks.

It's all bullshit. My son's in his senior year at College and has worked at Giant Eagle during seasonal breaks as a check out line cashier. In 2 years, he has never seen as much as one food stamp customer with pretty clothes or a fancy cell phone.

Not even one time.

Footwedge wrote:

ManO'War wrote: How about the first thing we do is stop giving "Income Tax Refunds" to people who barely pay any income tax, or none at all.

I've witnessed people cashing income tax refunds this year of $8,000 to $10,000, and they work at places like McDonalds.

You should never get back more than you put in.

People that live in Pittsburgh sure love to exxagerate. A 10K refund check from a MacDonald's employee?

That's a joke and you know it. If you post that sort of wacko shit, you should be forced to link a proof source. Now I know a little about the EITC from reading about it. But really, this one here is quite a whopper.

I think you were the guy I argued with on the other huddle. Someone was complaining about the welfare queens bringing in their blackberries to your bank with fancy hair dos and manicurede nails, while casjing in their $800 dollar welfare checks.

It's all bullshit. My son's in his senior year at College and has worked at Giant Eagle during seasonal breaks as a check out line cashier. In 2 years, he has never seen as much as one food stamp customer with pretty clothes or a fancy cell phone.

Not even one time.

Most people on food stamps and welfare don't abuse it. You know that and I know that. But for some reason there are people in this country who would rather throw the "baby out with the bathwater" when it comes to government programs that help people.

Of course there are people who play the system and are fraudulent with social programs. But I am not willing to forsake the majority of the people who properly use these "safety nets" to get through hard times and get back on their feet. If 10-20% goes to these deadbeats who abuse the system, then I guess that's the price I'm willing to pay to help the 80-90% of the people who are honestly in need of help.

"Most people on food stamps and welfare don't abuse it."

I agree. They act quite rationally. If they work harder and make more money they are subject to the whipsaw of (i) more taxes and (ii) less government benefits.

IMO that isn't abuse. Why would they work harder for a $40,000/year job if their current $20,000/year job gets them a combined higher cash and benefit receivable that what they would receive in the former? They aren't bad people, and they aren't stupid.

It is completely rational behavior. And taxpayers (real taxpayers, the folks that actually pay taxes) subsidize it.

"People that live in Pittsburgh sure love to exxagerate. A 10K refund check from a MacDonald's employee?"

I don't know about Pittsburgh, but I know about Richmond, VA, and I've seen $6,500 refunds from people that only have two children. Again, you can call me full of it...but I know what I've seen. I'm not properly educated about all of the tax credits available for low income folks, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if some people get $10,000+ in credits.

Manhattan Buckeye wrote: "Most people on food stamps and welfare don't abuse it."

I agree. They act quite rationally. If they work harder and make more money they are subject to the whipsaw of (i) more taxes and (ii) less government benefits.

IMO that isn't abuse. Why would they work harder for a $40,000/year job if their current $20,000/year job gets them a combined higher cash and benefit receivable that what they would receive in the former? They aren't bad people, and they aren't stupid.

It is completely rational behavior. And taxpayers (real taxpayers, the folks that actually pay taxes) subsidize it.

"People that live in Pittsburgh sure love to exxagerate. A 10K refund check from a MacDonald's employee?"

I don't know about Pittsburgh, but I know about Richmond, VA, and I've seen $6,500 refunds from people that only have two children. Again, you can call me full of it...but I know what I've seen. I'm not properly educated about all of the tax credits available for low income folks, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if some people get $10,000+ in credits.

Then play by the rules here.... the way I do..... and support your claims with a credible source.

People that work at McDonald's don't yank down 10K refund checks. Not in Greentree PA nor Podunk West Virginia.

Good Lord, What in the world did we do in the days before the almighty government stepped in and 'helped' people? Oh wait, charity was left up to the churches, social clubs and the like, and guess what? There were a hell of a lot less lazy unproductive people than there are today. All of these 'great' federal programs were designed to help someone in the short term that was down on their luck. Instead we now have too many that look at it as a way of life. You are fooling yourself if you think only 10% of Welfare and Food Stamp users are abusing these programs. I remember when I was a kid, and I thought it was cool that my brother and I could qualify for free lunches at school. That was until I got home and informed my parents, and I believe my dad sad a few not so nice words, but basically said that nobody in this family has ever needed any of that and if he has his way about it nobody ever will. What has happened to this attitude of self reliance? I tell you what happened to it, the nanny state created by the federal governmnet has made it non-existent in a large segment of the population.

I don't know about the $8,000 refund, but I do know for a fact that many people get back more than what they paid in.

"Then play by the rules here.... the way I do..... and support your claims with a credible source.

People that work at McDonald's don't yank down 10K refund checks. Not in Greentree PA nor Podunk West Virginia."

Why don't you pull up a credible source that they don't? I don't know what happens in Greentree or Podunk, I know what happens with the EITC, from what I understand there is a limit, but it may or may not be mutually exclusive from other credits.

My client recieved over $6,000 back in funds when she never paid any cent of federal income taxes. I saw her tax forms, and I saw her financial figures, it was the crux of the case. The sum wasn't questioned, not then nor now (the question was her employment). There is likely a limit on what any taxpayer can receive back due to the EITC, there is certainly a limit on what they can receive on child tax credits, or at least I'd hope so. It stlll doesn't take back from the point that some folks get back funds from which they didn't pay taxes in the first place. Again, this isn't news, it is common knowledge.

^^^^even if it's not $10G's...what would be acceptable? $5000? $1000? $500...???


That lefties would embrace Boat Shoes' recitation of the Democrat's paradigm comes as no surprise.
He attempts to defeat the premise that "ALL people deserve to pay the least tax possible" by ridiculously reducing the defense budget to a billion dollars and arguing that if you don't pay high taxes, you'll have low government services and defense. Sorry, but if you just accept the status quo as 'the least taxes possible", then the Democrat's onerous position of proposing a new trillion dollar entitlement program in the context of trillion dollar deficits is exposed for what it is.
Footwedge called it a slap shot from the blue line....that is the truth. That is what a team resorts to when it can't get it in the crease.

Footwedge also said "But be careful, pragmatic views are not viewed with elevated esteem around here...just sayin."
Another truth, ....I must conclude after pondering the pragmatism of raising the capital gains tax to be sure 400 rich people are 'taxed fairly'....as well as millions of other middle class Americans investment accounts. It's important to be pragmatic and truthful.

BoatShoes wrote:
"God. I don't know why I waste so much time on this stupid place trying to persuade people who will never even budge an inch."
I feel the same way myself.