Headhunter,
You are the one implying that I’m being dishonest about my views concerning taxation. Do your own homework teacher.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
You guys act surprised at how taxes are painful and that they hurt the economy. Well, what do you think they were invented for?[/quote]
They were invented by liberals attempting to engage in social architecture. Their goals are to punish success and reward failure and mediocrity.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
vroom wrote:
If you cut taxes you won’t be able to afford securing your borders or sending troops overseas for extended periods of time.
Make up your minds!!!
It’s a matter of prioritizing. The government is simply too big. There are thousands of government jobs that can be cut. We start there and we don’t stop until we bring this money- sucking monster under control!
[/quote]
Amen!
[quote]vroom wrote:
Before I get berated too much, I’ll remind folks that I have stated my desire for the elimination of income tax altogether.
I see direct income tax as percentage financial slavery. If we were taxed at 100% the government would basically own us and be forced to provide food and shelter to us, because we couldn’t do so ourselves.
I’d rather see taxes on corporations or on consumption (they amount pretty much to the same thing). This gives people absolute control of all of their money, choosing to invest or spend as they see fit.
Yep, just another big government loving liberal, that’s me.[/quote]
This works well in Washington State and Nevada.
See guys, vroom isn’t all bad. True he is mostly bad, but not all!
Guys, you know when you say things like this it places you out there in whacko land just like the loony left you like to refer to.
There is a middle ground you might want to try to find some time… unless you like being out there on the wild fringes.
However, as I’ve been saying recently, finding ways to encourage more people to be productive members of society grows the pie, making all of us better off.
You may want to stretch the mind a bit and realize that life doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.
Here in Denmark, taxes depend on how much you earn. It is positive in that we have free healthcare, dental care, libraries, cheap busses, good free schools, colleges and universities. The only downfall is the fact that noone hardly wants to start their own business here as it isn’t as affordable to start one here compared to other countries. Basically I am sort of 50/50 on the subject.
I agree with a lot of the things many have said here, i.e. cutting down the size of the government, but I will never agree with a flat tax rate. Progressive rates can get out of hand, but if kept in check, as opposed to the ridiculous percentages they can get up to now, I believe no one gets “robbed.” For Christ’s sake, if you make $2 mil a year, what is $100,000?
If anything, I’m against a flat tax rate because it can harm families that are born into a situation out of which they can barely make out alive. And before you guys jump on me for being overly compassionate, I can only ask that you speak only if you have worked trying to better inner city communities. I think many republicans don’t understand that there are many who try their godamn hardest and bust their asses in school only to emerge out of it in a situation largely resembling the one they were trying to escape. It’s not that they’re all lazy bastards who can’t make anything of themselves. And a flat tax rate that wouldn’t bury low-income families into the ground would certainly not be enough across the states to provide the revenue we need to keep public systems operating well, even if we cut on our spending and reduce the size of the government.
So there are two options, not counting reducing government spending (which I am a huge proponent of). We can either have a progressive tax which hurts rich people, or one which hurts poor people. And frankly, I could give a shit about some dude from New Hampshire not being able to buy another Cadillac cash.
And let me state it for the third time, I think the progressive system we have now is poor, and combined with the amount of spending we’re doing and the size of our government, it makes for a less-than-practical economy. But I still don’t vie for a flat tax rate.
I wouldn’t mind a flat tax rate with heavy tax breaks for the poor. I’m just against heavier taxes as you go from average to well-off.
You can debate the value of a national consumption (i.e. sales) tax if you want, even though a sales tax is naturally going to be regressive, hurting the people lower down the ladder more than those with more money, but a flat tax isn’t the answer. I used to think it made sense, but it really amounts to letting the super-rich make even more money.
Before anyone starts calling me a liberal or other BS, I’m not talking about fairness here, but economic realities. Taxes in the U.S. are higher than they should be, but they’re nowhere near the incentive-killing level found in Europe. And for all these complaints about a progressive income tax, income inequality has increased significantly in the U.S. in the last 30 years, even as taxes have risen.
The upper middle class and the rich are doing just fine. I’m not gonna go looking for stats right now, but virtually any economist will tell you this.
And for whoever said there is a ton of federal spending that can be slashed, maybe Lorisco, that’s true and it isn’t. There are billions of dollars of wasted government spending, and tons of pork barrel projects, but in the big scheme of things these are pennies in the bank compared to entitlements and defense.
Since we are probably not even spending enough on defense right now, that means entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) are going to have to be slashed or hugely restructured in the future. Or, taxes will have to go up. Given that this president has done his best to get Americans used to depending on their government for even more services (prescription drug benefit being the worst example), his successor is probably going to be forced to raise taxes when he’s left holding the bill
[quote]Zeb wrote
I would understand this: “The more you make the more you pay.”
However, I will never understand this: “The more you make the higher percentage you pay.”
[/quote]
Well, WHY do you think that tax has to be a linear function (a certain proportion of your income)?
Tax = Function(Income)=f(I). We all agree that f has to be increasing. Yet there is absolutely NO indication to why it has to be linear. Just because linearity is easy to apply and is often used by humans, it doesn’t mean that it is the answer. There is NOTHING that points to the fact that tax should be proportinal to income on all levels.
[quote]danmaftei wrote:
I agree with a lot of the things many have said here, i.e. cutting down the size of the government, but I will never agree with a flat tax rate. Progressive rates can get out of hand, but if kept in check, as opposed to the ridiculous percentages they can get up to now, I believe no one gets “robbed.” For Christ’s sake, if you make $2 mil a year, what is $100,000?
If anything, I’m against a flat tax rate because it can harm families that are born into a situation out of which they can barely make out alive. And before you guys jump on me for being overly compassionate, I can only ask that you speak only if you have worked trying to better inner city communities. I think many republicans don’t understand that there are many who try their godamn hardest and bust their asses in school only to emerge out of it in a situation largely resembling the one they were trying to escape. It’s not that they’re all lazy bastards who can’t make anything of themselves. And a flat tax rate that wouldn’t bury low-income families into the ground would certainly not be enough across the states to provide the revenue we need to keep public systems operating well, even if we cut on our spending and reduce the size of the government.
So there are two options, not counting reducing government spending (which I am a huge proponent of). We can either have a progressive tax which hurts rich people, or one which hurts poor people. And frankly, I could give a shit about some dude from New Hampshire not being able to buy another Cadillac cash.
And let me state it for the third time, I think the progressive system we have now is poor, and combined with the amount of spending we’re doing and the size of our government, it makes for a less-than-practical economy. But I still don’t vie for a flat tax rate.[/quote]
You make some valid points. However, none of them gives reason to “steal” money from someone who does in fact “make it” to give to someone who has not achieved their potential.
This does not do just one harm, but two!
It is inherently wrong to punish someone for their success no matter what the intent). And it is also wrong to reward someone else for their failure.
If the last 40 years has taught us nothing else, it has shown us that “giving” people money NOT to work assures that they will continue not working.
A fair flat tax is the only way to go.
[quote]grew7 wrote:
I wouldn’t mind a flat tax rate with heavy tax breaks for the poor. I’m just against heavier taxes as you go from average to well-off.[/quote]
How about zero taxes for someone making less than 30-k per year?
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
You can debate the value of a national consumption (i.e. sales) tax if you want, even though a sales tax is naturally going to be regressive, hurting the people lower down the ladder more than those with more money, but a flat tax isn’t the answer. I used to think it made sense, but it really amounts to letting the super-rich make even more money.[/quote]
Did I read that right? You said: "it really amounts to letting the super-rich make even more money.
Should the government be in the business of preventing those who are able to make more do so?
Does it harm society in any way to have the “super rich” start a new venture?
People run new companies. If there are more new companies there will be more new jobs.
If anything it should be governments job to encourage the “super rich” and everyone else, to start new company’s as this helps stimulate the economy.
So, it’s bad here but because it’s worse elsewhere it’s okay?
Defense is actually a small part of the budget, check it out.
I stated that the government is too big and spends too much. And if we start there to fix the problem we have a shot at digging out of the current mess that we are in.
[quote]Given that this president has done his best to get Americans used to depending on their government for even more services (prescription drug benefit being the worst example), his successor is probably going to be forced to raise taxes when he’s left holding the bill
[/quote]
Raising taxes is the opposite of what we need.
If we lowered taxes and increased incentives to start businesses and attend college we would be so much better off.
[quote]skor wrote:
Zeb wrote
I would understand this: “The more you make the more you pay.”
However, I will never understand this: “The more you make the higher percentage you pay.”
Well, WHY do you think that tax has to be a linear function (a certain proportion of your income)?
Tax = Function(Income)=f(I). We all agree that f has to be increasing. Yet there is absolutely NO indication to why it has to be linear. Just because linearity is easy to apply and is often used by humans, it doesn’t mean that it is the answer. There is NOTHING that points to the fact that tax should be proportinal to income on all levels.[/quote]
Good point.
How about as a reward the more you make the less of a pecentage you pay?
This might encourage those who make less to increase their value, not only to the economy but themselves as well.
How many salesmen are paid less by thier company for making more sales?
that is in essence exactly what the government is doing to us!
Food for thought…
[quote]ZEB wrote:
grew7 wrote:
I wouldn’t mind a flat tax rate with heavy tax breaks for the poor. I’m just against heavier taxes as you go from average to well-off.
How about zero taxes for someone making less than 30-k per year?[/quote]
Well then it stops being a flat tax rate at that point, doesn’t it?
This is what I’m concerned about the most, is people who get screwed not because they’re lazy, but because they are born into fucked up circumstances. And what of rich fucks who inherit millions of dollars and piss it away on clothes and cars? Somehow, I don’t believe Paris Hilton is one of those being robbed of their hard-earned money.
So we need to accomplish a couple of things:
1 - Not rob those who’ve earned their money (Gates and Trump come to mind)
2 - Not harm those who are working hard but still barely manage to live
all the while we have to remember that
3 - Taxes are integral to a running economy
4 - Taxes must produce enough revenue to support public needs
I don’t think a flat tax rate the way many republicans want it can fulfill all these needs. Now if we’re talking tax breaks for the hard-working poor and other such things, it really stops being a flat tax rate, and becomes more of a middle-class to upper-class dividing line issue.
At this point I think the majority of people agree with me, conservative or not, so let me throw this out and shake things up. I believe that a progressive system in which the middle to upper class discrepency is not very high is superior to a flat tax rate.
The issue of robbing the rich is valid only in a few points. Taxes “rob” everyone of their money, it’s a matter of how much they’re being “robbed” by, and how FAIR it is, to them, AND to the system as a whole. A 10% rate for the middle class and a 35% rate for the upper class is not fair for the rich folk. A 20% rate across the board is not fair for those who aren’t living comfortable (lower-middle class, not poverty level). And a 10% rate across the board is simply not in the interest of the community and the United States. But having a progressive system that increases by little amounts keeps the economy afloat, the goods to the community provided, and remains fair to everyone.
What do I mean by fair? Well, it can’t be the traditional “fair,” because fair in a traditional sense means everyone pays the same amount, period, no one gets robbed more than the other. Clearly this won’t work. Fair in a tax system means that everyone gets taxed by an amount relative to their wealth that doesn’t leave them feeling robbed. 35% for ANYONE, no matter what their income, will feel like robbery.
But someone making $500,000 more than another person can’t in any right state of mind feel that it is unfair that they have to pay say, 2 or 3% more in taxes.
In short, I think a simple flat rate will not work in the favor of the United States as a whole, and a progressive system such as the one we have now is too skewed to be fair. We need to find a middle ground.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
You can debate the value of a national consumption (i.e. sales) tax if you want, even though a sales tax is naturally going to be regressive, hurting the people lower down the ladder more than those with more money, but a flat tax isn’t the answer. I used to think it made sense, but it really amounts to letting the super-rich make even more money.
Did I read that right? You said: "it really amounts to letting the super-rich make even more money.
Should the government be in the business of preventing those who are able to make more do so?
Does it harm society in any way to have the “super rich” start a new venture?
People run new companies. If there are more new companies there will be more new jobs.
If anything it should be governments job to encourage the “super rich” and everyone else, to start new company’s as this helps stimulate the economy.
[/quote]
Good point, looking at it now that’s not how I would have liked to have phrased it. I was trying to say that the money has to come from somewhere, and making the very rich pay a higher percentage, unfair as it may be, makes the most sense much of the time.
But you assume that any money saved on taxes gets pumped back into the economy. Doesn’t really work that way, the money goes where the returns are, and increasingly that’s developing economies like the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China). It’s not neccessarily going to be stimulating our economy, aside from employing a few extra guys at Goldman Sachs.
No, it could certainly be better here, but it’s not at the point where it kills the financial incentive to make money and expand or build businesses. Big difference.
That’s just not true. After Social Security, defense spending is the single largest piece of the federal government, accounting for nearly 20% of overall federal spending, more than Medicare and Medicaid put together.
I’m not saying we should raise taxes, of course we shouldn’t, they’re too high already. But unless someone (and it won’t be Bush) is willing to slash entitlement spending or come up with a creative solution (see Charles Murray’s new book), then a big tax hike is in our near future.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
skor wrote:
Zeb wrote
I would understand this: “The more you make the more you pay.”
However, I will never understand this: “The more you make the higher percentage you pay.”
Well, WHY do you think that tax has to be a linear function (a certain proportion of your income)?
Tax = Function(Income)=f(I). We all agree that f has to be increasing. Yet there is absolutely NO indication to why it has to be linear. Just because linearity is easy to apply and is often used by humans, it doesn’t mean that it is the answer. There is NOTHING that points to the fact that tax should be proportinal to income on all levels.
Good point.
How about as a reward the more you make the less of a pecentage you pay?
This might encourage those who make less to increase their value, not only to the economy but themselves as well.
How many salesmen are paid less by thier company for making more sales?
that is in essence exactly what the government is doing to us!
Food for thought…
[/quote]
That makes absolutely no sense as anything but a Randian philosophical theory. All you have to do is look at the numbers. You can’t fund Social Security, defense, medicare, and things like, I don’t know, highways, without getting the bulk of your money from the upper class. The top 1% of Americans makes more money than the bottom 40% combined. You simply can’t get that kind of revenue by taxing the middle class more, which is ridiculous anyway, because they’re far more squeezed by current taxation than the wealthy.
[quote]ill wrote:
Here in Denmark, taxes depend on how much you earn. It is positive in that we have free healthcare, dental care, libraries, cheap busses, good free schools, colleges and universities. The only downfall is the fact that noone hardly wants to start their own business here as it isn’t as affordable to start one here compared to other countries. Basically I am sort of 50/50 on the subject.[/quote]
I still chuckle when I someone says things are ‘free’. They are not free to the productive people who were forced to provide the ‘free’ gravy train.
‘Free’! Arrrrgggghhhh!
What if we instituted a ‘tax’ on all real estate transactions in this country? Make it optional, in the sense that, if you were buying a home from your parents for example, you’d trust them to not defraud you. You can then skip paying this fee or ‘tax’, if you will. If you are buying from strangers, you would of course pay the fee. Only people paying the fee can call upon government agencies in the case of fraud. If you don’t pay the fee, you have no recourse.
Isn’t this better than threatening people with jail and property confiscation if they don’t pay? Seems much more civilized to me.
[quote]danmaftei wrote:
ZEB wrote:
grew7 wrote:
I wouldn’t mind a flat tax rate with heavy tax breaks for the poor. I’m just against heavier taxes as you go from average to well-off.
How about zero taxes for someone making less than 30-k per year?
Well then it stops being a flat tax rate at that point, doesn’t it?[/quote]
Call it what you want!
If you make less than 30-k you pay no income tax. If you make more than 30-k you pay one flat rate such as 15% or 20%.
Yes, there have always been people born into poverty unable to climb out. The question is what do we do about it. The wrong answer is higher taxes. I think the proper answer is a fair flat tax. And along the way encourage all who are in poverty to get out.
I know it’s not that easy. But we also know that rewarding someone for NOT working is the best way to keep them in poverty.
Forgive me, but that sounds like pure jealousy on your part!
What do you care if Paris Hilton spends all of her inherited wealth on cars and cloths?
That too helps the economy. People are employed to make cars and cloths.
[quote]1 - Not rob those who’ve earned their money (Gates and Trump come to mind)
2 - Not harm those who are working hard but still barely manage to live[/quote]
Also, not rob those who have inherited the money. What right does the government have to take let’s say 1 million dollars from a child who was left that as an inheritance?
It was the parents desire that the child receive that money, not the government!
[quote]3 - Taxes are integral to a running economy
4 - Taxes must produce enough revenue to support public needs[/quote]
I think that last one is probably what needs to be looked at.
What is the “public need?” And at what point does that public need supercede the right for YOU and I to keep what we worked hard for?
Again, I don’t care what you call it. As long as there is one rate for all.
And I also think you are far to quick to lable those working and middle class people as “hard working” and leave out those who are also hard working. People who begin businesses and become wealthy are some of the hardest working people in the counry.
And they don’t deserve to have their money stolen by the government because they have succeeded!
Sorry, but you are back to the same crappy system that punishes those of us who want to earn more.
How does punishing those who do better help them or the economy? Answer: IT DOES NOT.
Not true! It will work if given the opportunity.
How in the world is everyone paying 20% unfair? (Leave out those who are making under 30-k)
Why if they are making more should they have to pay a higher percentage?
Two people:
The first is making 50-k per year. the second is making 500-k per year. they are both taxed at 20%, no loopholes!
The first pays 10-k per year in taxes.
The second pays 100-k per year in taxes.
The second taxpayer made more and is in fact paying more. Yet, they both pay the same percent.
Now that’s fair!
You need to think outside this disgusting box built by a the government.
You have not demonstrated why the simplw flat tax (with only one exception for the poor) will not work.