barney what r u talking about? I am paying my own way through college..i dont recieve any financial aid....how am I a hypocrite?? ur just stupid
I know I've been disagreeing with the OP here, but this is just silly. You do realize that it's in our best interest to have a well educated population, don't you? Personally I think we'd be better off if college was free as long as you proved you could hack it. There are a lot worse things to spend money on than low interest rate student loans.
Once again...your argument is about as full of holes as Osama Bin Laden once some Green Berets find him. First of all, you can argue that under a flat tax the wealthy will 'pay more' all you want - but this doesn't change the fact that a flat tax places an incredibly heavy burden on those with less income. Let's use your example to illustrate this point - doctor with $100,000 salary has a $70,000 surplus after the taxes - the secretary has $20,000. Eliminating expenses, we can definitely say that the doctor will undoubtedly have more disposable or liquid assets at the end of the year than the secretary will. The doctor invests that amount, and gets wealthier (presumably). He continues to accumulate wealth while the secretary can only squirrel away so much money a year. This creates a gross disparity between the wealthy and the poor, creating class boundaries which are far more evident, as well as alienating a middle class which is stuck between the two - the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. If the currency DEFLATES or INFLATES, the doctor is far better equipped to handle economic downturns (rise in cost of living, etc.) than the secretary is, and we're looking at a socio-economic disaster once the bottom falls out for those with low incomes.
Secondly, your point about the wealthy not making use of services as much, and using this as a reason to tax them less - what are you thinking? Are you saying that the wealthy in some way take less advantage of police forces or fire departments than lower-income families do? Do they in some way make less use of the military and government do? The point with government services is that they are available for everybody to use, regardless of socio-economic status. Whether or not a wealthy individual chooses to send his children to a private or public institution is completely irrelevant - would you suggest that we establish brackets for those who 'can' or 'cannot' make use of police, fire, or educational services? I don't think you would. Moreover, would you please explain to me how the rich use the 'police less,' 'less roads,' (?). They drive on the same roads, the police patrol the same neighborhoods (safe or not). Once again, think through your examples more carefully. I do grant that they do not utilize medicare/medicaid (once again, unless they have no health insurance) or social security to the extent that lower-income individuals may, but I would certainly like to hear what alternatives you suggest to these programs - would you rather we eliminate them altogether and leave senior citizens to their own devices? It's easy to complain about the corruption rampant in welfare-type programs but I have yet to hear of any viable alternatives suggested.
Ahh yes, trickle-down economics. Before everybody takes their Econ 101 book and slams it over your head, let us remind you that the wealthy are not necessarily going to spend more - they may have higher standards of living, but this does not translate into increased benefit for lower-income brackets. If a doctor buys a Mercedes, where is the money going from that sale? To the dealership, if privately owned to that dealer (undoubtedly wealthy) or to a large corporate conglomerate (whose shareholders are primarily wealthy as well). Investing in the stock market? Does the stock market directly benefit lower-income households? Investing in equipment? Automated services CUT jobs, as opposed to create them - I don't know where you are pulling these ideas from. The problem with the trickle-down theory is that once the wealth has moved up the ladder, it tends to circulate and STAY there, rather than actually being redistributed on it own. Certainly, new jobs may be created, but since the ultimate goal of any business is to cut costs wherever possible, I don't see salaries of hourly, marginally-skilled or unskilled laborers rising at any point in time (this is partly due to a rise in the availability of such labor). In fact, the minimum wage has remained stagnant for a long time and has NOT risen with a.) raised costs of living, nor has it been adjusted for inflation (except in some geographic areas). This is just one example of how the trickle-down theory simply doesn't hold any water.
In conclusion, while I will grant that people should be paid according to their skill and ability and should be entitled to keep what they earn, you must also admit that two things are necessary: living in a society costs money, and that money must come from somewhere - you cannot squeeze water from a rock. Secondly, there must be some sustainable gap between the wealthy and the poor, and that this gap cannot grow. I look forward to hearing your reply.
Kind of an offshoot point...giving extra money to the poor should increase spending more than giving the same amount of money to the rich. The really rich generally make a LOT more money than the spend, the poor usually don't. So a poor family will want to spend extra money, where a rich family has less incentive. It could be thought of as a "trickle-up theory" I suppose
I will try to attack your contentions piece by piece...First I agree that the rich will obviously have more disposable income than the poor and proportionatly it doesnt work out..i agree and im not saying the poor should pay the same exact rate as the rich. That does not however justify taxing the rich to a ridiculous extent. Second your assertion that the poor get poorer is false...they get richer just at a slower rate than the wealthy people. Also I did not say that because the wealthy use less govt services they should be taxed less...read my statement over again..i just said that the accusation that they owe more to society is wrong...and also for that reason I did not include things like military and defense because everyone uses that equally....ok I will respond to the rest in a minute
CONTINUED: the rich use less police because per person u need a lot less cops in the hamptons than in Harlem on in Campton or w.e...middleclass and upperclass people usually have security systems etc. They also use less public transportation (on avarage). and NO i do not propose taxing people differently based on how much police, transportationn,or education they use up...but im simply making a point that u cant say that the rich owe more money than the poor.
CONTINUED: the rich use less police because per person u need a lot less cops in the hamptons than in Harlem on in Campton or w.e...middleclass and upperclass people usually have security systems etc. They also use less public transportation (on avarage). and NO i do not propose taxing people differently based on how much police, transportationn,or education they use up...but im simply making a point that u cant say that the rich owe more money than the poor.
Maybe you get anally raped too, and don't B!tch about that either. But just because you tolerate crap doesn't mean everyone else has to put up with it as well. If you're going to use an argument, next time use something other than personal preference.
Cow, The owner of the dealership may be rich and Mercedes corp CEO maybe rich..but I guarantee you the people that work at the dealership, and the people that make the car parts are avarage joes that benefit a lot more from someone buying that mercedes than if the person was to buy a toyota...or if he couldnt buy a car at all. And investing in the stock market does benefit the lower class because once again that creates more money flow..not to mention that if SS was finally partially privatized everyone including lower class families could invest in stocks (mutual funds) and share the same kind of profits that the upper class could. Secondly why do you say that the gap between the poor and the rich cannot grow? yes it sucks if your barely making more money while the guy next door is getting richer and richer..but in the end all it is, is jelousy...people in china are jelous if u drive a bike..but a bike in the US isnt an accomplishment. So you get a car and your happy, until someone pulls up in a bentley and your like why cant I have one of those?? Yes there are people that are really really poor and im not saying that the govt shouldnt help em and give them insentives to get out of poverty but for the most part income redistribution cannot be justified
Every individual in America has rights, the rights are granted to them equally, regardless of their social standing (unless they break the law in which case they lose rights).
Politicians are idiots, regarldess if they're liberals or conservatives....
If you want to be fair and if you want to collect more money from the rich, then you do the following:
You establish a flat tax rate, say 10%. Then you esablish a sales tax on everything. Rich people buy expensive cars, expensive houses, expensive tv's, expensive clothing, etc... All of that will be taxed and the rich will pay those taxes. SInce the rich spend much more money on stuff, they will pay much more in taxes. The poor don't buy that stuff so their sales taxes will be much smaller than the rich. This is fair because the rich will still pay taxes (in fact progressively) but on things that they want to buy.
I quote: "i dont think it should be quite that..but this idea that we must take away more from the "privilaged" isnt right either. the rich take a lot less from the budget anyways and give a lot more..."
I interpret that as saying "the idea that we should take away [tax] from the privileged [rich] is wrong, especially since they put less of a strain on the budget and give a lot more." Doesn't that lead to the conclusion that you're justifying taxing the rich less because they put less of a strain on the budget (using your subsequent examples) but utilizing the services to a lesser degree?
Okay, first of all, taxing the rich to a "ridiculous" extent - what is "ridiculous?" 3%? 10%? 32%? Please specify. I don't find taxing a very wealthy man 30-40% of his income to be "ridiculous" at best - I do, however find taxing him 50%-60% ridiculous. Please specify what you mean by "ridiculous."
I find your notion that the poor "get richer slower than the rich" hilarious. Yes, granted, the rates are different but we are talking about the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer in COMPARISON. If Joe can accumulate $2 billion a year but Bob can only accumulate $40,000 a year, who is getting wealthier and who is getting poorer? Don't forget rates of inflation, rising costs of living, and other economic factors must be taken into account. As I've previously mentioned, the wealthy are far better equipped to handle economic downturns than anybody else is - as I've mentioned, a growing gap between the wealthy classes and the poorer classes is something to be dealt with, and is a very serious matter. With money comes power, and it is a very serious matter if the wealthy accumulate money and power and are able to shift policymaking in their favor - your constitutional republic turns into an oligarchy, which can be a very dangerous thing.
Moreover, by taxing the wealthy we are not purporting to state that they in some way owe more to society. The biggest mistake people make is that they see some sort of message as inherent in taxation - some sort of punishment, 'debt' owed, or some sort of other underlying statement. There is NONE - it's just taxation, government trying to pay its operating costs and exercising some control over the gaps between socio-economic classes. There is no sort of underlying 'punishment' theory here because no wrongdoing has been done (provided the money is fairly and legally earned) nor is there some sort of 'debt to society' theory at work. I don't know where you are getting this idea - when I pay my taxes, I simply see it as Uncle Sam taking his cut of my paycheck; nothing more. I'm a student, mind you, so the chunk he takes is small - but it is still sizable for someone at my income level.
Okay, there is no reason to address each one of my examples individually. I would much rather you rebut my complete arguments as a whole. Police are based on local taxation, which is a completely separate issue from the issue of national taxation at hand - but with respect to your example, there are multiple factors EXCLUDING the type of income bracket people are in which encourages the type of crime requiring a large police presence - some of these include the quality of local programs, such as after-school programs or education programs, population density, and others. OBVIOUSLY NYC is going to require more police than the Hamptons because the Hamptons have X population, NYC has 100x that population. You can't chalk it up to income alone. Also, who do you think the security companies call when there is a break-in reported? Private security forces? No, they call the local police. Your examples are decent, but they simply don't hold water when you are trying to justify your point that the wealthy owe more money than the poor because as I have said, taxation does not imply 'debt to society.'
I don't think this will generate nearly enough tax revenue, because consumption patterns vary - just because someone is wealthy does not necessarily mean that they will consume more, nor does it mean that they will end up 'paying more taxes' because they will consume more, or more expensive things. While this may be *partially* true, the wealthy are not crazy spenders - they spend a small percentage of their total income on material objects; many of the more smarter ones (i.e. NOT MIKE TYSON) invest their proceeds, and investments are not qualified as 'purchases' in a technical sense.
Now if you were to suggest the imposition of a luxury tax, this would be problematic, because how do we tax luxuries? What defines 'luxury,' and where do we establish baselines for what is considered extravagant. Do we tax Mercedes in the same class as a Honda simply because they are 'better cars' than a Geo Storm? Do we tax Old Navy or Gap at the same level we tax Gucci? There's quite a few problems with that approach as well.
Edit: I've got to go cook dinner, but this has been a most enlightening exchange- my $7 steaks await (and I bet they taste like crap).
The problem with this is that the poor spend a greater percentage of their income than the rich do. This works backwards.
It could be possible to have a take a % of your income, subtract a fixed amount, and that would be your tax bill.
ie
$100000 doctor pays 30% of his income - 5000, which results in him having $75000
$30000 secretary pays 30% of her income - 5000, which results in her having $26000.
Tax bracketing opens up the problem of people staying on the edge of the bracket.
the highest bracket pays about 53-55% right now.. I find that ridiculous. Secondly the poor still get richer (even with inflation and cost of living considered) the guy who makes 2 billion shouldnt have the burden of giving his money to the guy whos only making 40grand because the guy with the 40gs can accumilate wealth slower. thirdly, money = political power? Look how much money Soros and his buddies are giving to defeat Bush. You will always have rich people fighting both sides...i dont think thats a fair assesment that the rich are somehow going to shift policymaking, there are plenty of really wealthy liberals.
The police issue is as follows. obviously theres a lot more police in big cities..im talking about proportionally by population. I live in NJ so I will use NJ examples. Asbury Park (not a big town) =lower class town with a lot of minorities= high crime rate = a lot of cops per person. Rumson (not a big town) = less crime = a lot of money = little cops per person. and im not saying that rich folks dont use police help, im just saying that they use less of it proportionally.
Anyways...its not that i am a propenent of a flat tax rate as ive already stated...its just that i do believe 2 things which is why im making this arguement.
1) much of the taxes are imperative, but a big chunk of it goes to frivilous social spending that we could do away with.
2) cutting taxes and privitizing certain things like social security will be a major advantage to the US population..especially the poor and minorities
The police issue is as follows. obviously theres a lot more police in big cities..im talking about proportionally by population. I live in NJ so I will use NJ examples. Asbury Park (not a big town) =lower class town with a lot of minorities= high crime rate = a lot of cops per person. Rumson (not a big town) = less crime = a lot of money = little cops per person. and im not saying that rich folks dont use police help, im just saying that they use less of it proportionally.
Anyways...its not that i am a propenent of a flat tax rate as ive already stated...its just that i do believe 2 things which is why im making this arguement.
1) much of the taxes are imperative, but a big chunk of it goes to frivilous social spending that we could do away with.
2) cutting taxes and privitizing certain things like social security will be a major advantage to the US population..especially the poor and minorities
I'll just say one thing: making institutions private does not necessarily make them more efficient.
Look at the USPS.
the USPS isnt a private instituion...its a government monopoly...no1 is still allowed to send letters other than the USPS....you can only send packages (what fedex and ups) does
Just the Opposite, it's precisely b/c it's owned and run by the US government that it's so inefficient (no competition)... same goes for the DMV (although this is state) and NASA.
Ok, I agree with some of your fundamental points. We should cut spending. When I thought Bush was going to do that I was actually ok with him as president. Wish I had been right about that. We should also cut taxes when we can in a fair manor. As to when those tax cuts should take place is a bone of contention. There are actually some important facts you need to consider here. First of all the top elite rich do not pay 53-55% of thier money in taxes. They are quite capable of using tax shelters to avoid paying those taxes. Wealthy people have enough extra money to be able to make use of these shelters. That's not bad necessarily, if they exist and everyone is using them, why wouldn't you. For example, Cheney paid in effect overall a 20% tax bill last year. That's lower then most middle class people. He did it through financially savvy planning. So saying that rich people 55% is misleading. If they were morons (highly doubtful if they're rich or their middle initial is W) they would pay 55%. In addition the current U.S. tax rates are lower than they have been in a long time. We have the 2nd lowest tax rate of industrialized nations. That's fine that's a good thing. I'm not saying raise them, I'm just saying that cutting them is rash until we get our fincial house in order. Just for comparison, Japan has the lowest. And as one can see from there recent recession, low taxes doesn't mean automatic prosperity like some people would have you believe.
Lastly, your analogy isn't quite fair. The liberal ideal is equal opportunity to all. Not equality for all. Grades are what you make of you opportunity. A little redistribution is neccesary to help poor children compete with rich children. It is more difficult for a poor child to make it than the son of a doctor. For many facts, some of which include social pressures that kids in impovershied areas deal with. In addition, when spending goes up by the country (like in a war) the rich can brunt the cost better than the poor. Redistributing grades doesn't help anyone. Allthough, what you proposed is essentially done by the bell curve if you think about it. They redistribute the grades so that smart kids don't leave the slower kids in the dust.
TSS....yeah what u say makes sense...i dont disagree with u. just a couple of small things. Yea there are loop holes for avoiding taxes...but that in essense those rich ppl still pay a lot more dollars than the ppl in that tax bracket. to clear that up...u mentioned cheney paid only 20%...ppl in the 20% tax bracket prolly only pay about 5-7 thousand dollars in taxes...while cheney even if he only paid 20% prolly paid hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars..but generally i agree with u... if u look at new zealand they have great tax laws a lot better than the US and japan that u mentioned..and their economy is booming. China is boomin artifically...and their currency is artifically held also....in a free market they would collapse instantly
Do you know what New zealands tax laws are like?
My biggest thing is that I believe we need to get the deficit under control befoe we start slashing taxes. And I think the current tax ratios are relatively fair.
Hey Dikaumd, try this one on.
The primary goal of government is to maintain the basic structure of society. We live in a society which has an unequal structure. Thus, those who benefit most from this unequal structure should pay more for it.
The primary goal of government is to maintain the basic structure of society. We live in a society which has an unequal structure. Thus, those who benefit most from this unequal structure should pay more for it.
Wrong.
The primary goal of government is to secure people's rights. Right to PURSUE happines, right to life, right to PROPERTY.
It does NOT guarentee Happiness, or Property, it just ensures the protection of those things. SO, if you're rich, government is there to protect your monetary wealth, not to take it away and redistribute it to others.
And then one day, when you are old and alone and your resources are gone... and you need help.
I wonder if your tune will change?
<---there but for the grace go I
I dont' recall saying anything about not helping the old.
Just because I'm against progressive taxation does not mean that I'm against helping the unfortunate.
For instance, if you privatize social security, instead of they pay-as-you-go program that exists now, you'll benefit poor people a lot more and ensure a safe and self-sustaining social security program.
We live in a rights-based society. This is not the only way to live. Can you prove to me that these rights are inalienable? No, you can't. Can you even prove to me that property rights are recognized as inalienable by most rights-determining bodies (courts, tribunals, etc.) No, you can't. Why are property rights an good-in-itself?
Edit: one could just as easily declare that every human has a right to access to healthcare, and that that right supercedes financial determinations. Or that every human has a right to the basics of living, like food or shelter, regardless of their actions. Why are property rights more important than those, in-and-of themselves?
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 22K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
News NVIDIA and Intel to Develop AI Infrastructure and Personal Computing Products- Started by poke01
- Replies: 411
Facebook
Twitter