Okay. Then we should have every citizen pay the same dollar amount in taxes. Because every enjoys those services to the same degree. Fair. If you want fairness, you should advocate fairness.
The since the poor expect to receive far more in SS and medicare than they put in, it is a canard to list these as payments. Property tax? They have a much smaller contribution because their property is smaller, but they have equal access to city services. Although, a sales tax is flat, the wealthy consume more, so again, the wealthy shoulder the bulk of city services for which they enjoy equally or less.
No, it is not.
The goal of a progressive tax system is to reduce the burden on those of lower incomes. Yes, that shifts a burden onto those of higher incomes â but the goal is not to be in such a way that those of higher incomes now only have as much as those of lower incomes.
This sounds like an out-take from that glurge-article about the âcollege professorâ lecturing his students about âsocialismâ, it doesnât even pass the giggle-test.
Oooooh, like the patent office, or federal highway system? Or the FAA? Or the Coast Guard? Or the military?
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We both know how this conversation will end: with you maintaining your unshakable confidence that the reason that other people use the word âfairâ in a meaningful way in their conversations and you do not is that you are smarter than them and have seen through the ruse of so-called âfairnessâ. Obviously no one in this thread is going to convince you of anything. Youâve come here to enlighten us and whether you are the lone voice of reason among a sea of fools or are a belligerent fool among a sea of reasonable people is a matter for history to decide.
So I will say this one more time and then fall silent. If you think that everyone paying the same amount of tax is fair, then you just donât know what fair means. If it comforts you to think that if you canât understand something then it must be because it isnât understandable, then take comfort in that.
Until a couple hundred years ago when we started getting some good science on it, the concept of âhotâ was just as ephemeral as the concept of fairness - it was a chimera that morphed depending on who looked at it. Generally it still is except among people who actually allow science to alter how they think about and feel about the world. Yet, it is quite reasonable to say that for thousands of years when people talked of things being âhotâ they were actually talking about something, not about nothing. I donât think failing to understand this is a point in your favour. (And please spare the thread your explanation of why heat and fairness are different things. I certainly wonât be reading it, and I promise you that everyone here already knows that heat and fairness are different things)
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[quote=âOtherMichael, post:105, topic:40645â]The goal of a progressive tax system is to reduce the burden on those of lower incomes. Yes, that shifts a burden onto those of higher incomes â but the goal is not to be in such a way that those of higher incomes now only have as much as those of lower incomes.
[/quote]
If the purpose of a progressive tax system was to raise revenue rather than to promote âfairnessâ of outcomes, then we would shape our tax code to attract as many wealthy investors as we can to do business here and ignore concerns about âregressiveâ taxation such as sales taxes (which are flat not regressive btw). The wealthy are less of a burden on government services and yet they pay more in taxes (regardless of whether the tax system is progressive or flat). But as Coryâs article above demonstrates, the purpose is not to raise revenue. It is to make things âfairâ, and that means that as the tax system approaches âcomplete fairnessâ, the taxpayers will end up closer to the same amount of net revenue-- until it is the same.
But⌠thatâs NOT the system they use at the grocery store, the car dealership, the movie theatre (well, less so at the movies these days. No more carnival glass giveaways!).
They have tiered payments â thatâs why there are sales, coupons, rebate, refunds, BOGO-offers, âloyaltyâ cards where you get discounts in (a poor) exchange for personal information, negotiations, trade-ins, upgrades, seal-coat packages, payment plans, discounts for money down, etc., different prices in different regions, prices that go up based on stock-on-hand, etc.
People negotiate their time and effort, this is basic, modern, real-word economics.
Out of the kindness of their hearts, eh? Certainly not for tax-breaks or other incentives.
Ah, you mean the homeowners paid for it! Well, at least they profited from their payments and fees, right?
âŚ
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Also, richer people who can buy their cars outright pay less because they can avoid finance.
Plus the Captain Samuel Vimes âBootsâ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
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Not so.
On the small scale: Which neighborhoods do you think local governments care about more when they decide how much to spend on infrastructure and services such as landscaping? Do you think the LAPD would be likely to dedicate as many resources to solving a crime in Watts as they would to solve a crime in Bel Air?
On the large scale: The Walton family (heirs to the Walmart empire) are some of the richest people on the planet and one of the nationâs biggest employers. However, their reluctance to pay a living wage means that a HUGE portion of their employees are dependent on government programs just to pay for things like food and basic health care. The Waltons have successfully lobbied against laws that would make their employees less dependent on those services, such as raising the minimum wage. So who is really putting the burden on the taxpayers here?
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Until a couple hundred years ago when we started getting some good science on it, the concept of âhotâ was just as ephemeral as the concept of fairness - it was a chimera that morphed depending on who looked at it.
Iâve already said that I know there is an absolute standard of fairness. You use it all the time without complaint when you buy groceries, or a car, or a house, or electricity, or water, or go to the movies. For some reason I canât understand is why you think that standard doesnât apply when you buy-in to government provided services. There is a Kelvin standard of fairness, and NO ONE thinks it should be applied to taxation. Everyone sees it as cruel and onerous and contrary to liberty. But youâre not happy with that. Because the method of taxation that you want is so fundamentally unfair, you are driven justify its fairness more than if your preferred method was simply a practical accommodation. So you opt for the chimera version of fairness because then at least no one can prove you are unjust.
Oooooh, like the patent office, or federal highway system? Or the FAA? Or the Coast Guard? Or the military?
If that were all the government used our money for, the base income tax rate in this country would be so low it would be an irrelevant debate. Our Federal government borrows 35 cents of every dollar it spends AFTER our incredibly unequal tax rate. In California, after many taxpayers have paid HALF of their income in taxes, the government is still on the verge of bankruptcy during every economic downturn. Rather than offering the military or flight regulation (and there is no reason the FAA needs to have federal employees to do its job), I think it is on you to justify the government sinking tax dollars into ugly and second rate art or the cowboy poetry festival. Because those are the true children of a âneo-liberalâ model of government (which is neither new or liberal).
Well, yes, but if thatâs all the govât used your money for, the world would be a pretty shitty place. Viz. socialised healthcare & social safety nets (though I rather imagine they put you in a tizzy as well).
(n.b. Iâm not talking specifically about the US govât here, as they obviously donât provide those things very well as a goodly percentage of the decision-makers are fucking mad)
Yes. Of course no medicine would be available if the government didnât do it. And now with 40 years of expansive social safety nets, after spending trillions of $ that would have gone to other purposes that would have made everyone of us more affluent today, no one does without right? Have you heard of all the doctors looking to get out of general practice due to the improvements imposed by government regulation?
âSocialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.â ~ Frederick Bastiat, 1848
Yup. Knew theyâd get you in a tizzy.
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There are only two sentences in your comment that are not factually incorrect:
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Not to mention the increased use of public infrastructure by corporations (ports, airports, roadways for delivering goods, highways systems and surface streets designed for the movement of goods and favoring the sale of private, wasteful vehicles), foreign wars to secure the interests of corporations, schools built and maintained to educate the employees and consumers of corporations, police and courts bents toward protecting the outsized property interests of corporations and wealthy people, bailouts for incompetent and corrupt gamblersâŚ
AlsoâŚshow me on the tax receipt where removing funding for cowboy poets would make a meaningful dent in public spendingâŚ
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Itâs not at all clear that everyone takes advantage of society to the same degree. Someone who makes $10m a year investment income is profiting far more from society than a single mother who scrapes by and has no 401(k).
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gwwar, Ayn Randâs position on Socialism was based on watching her father, a middle class chemist, lose everything in Russia for being âbourgeoisâ. She didnât âget hersâ. When she started her political philosophy, she didnât have anything. She said âIâll get mine and you get yours. Stop asking to live at my expense.â Iâm not an Objectivist but as a philosophy it has done no harm so far as opposed to the millions starved by Marxist inspired systems (including neo-liberalism, that is âsocialismâ).
And if Obamacare didnât fail, why has the President opted to change the law by not enforcing its mandates around 30 times.
How can you say heâs profiting without calculating the benefitâs to the economy gained by him putting his capitol available as credit? Perhaps âsocietyâ gained more than he did?
