Wry Catcher
Diamond Member
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- #201
Not a good link friend. His argument are so full of holes it's no wonder yours are so stupid. Where to start..... First he wants Us all to buy into the class envy argument that we should be upset that the rich don't pay more in income taxes and that they've actually had to pay a little less over the years. Second he tries to continue to sell his unfairness argument by comparing our progressive tax rates to other countries. That argument doesn't fly because he hasn't established why a progressive income tax is fair in the first place. Next implying that capitals gains should be taxed on unrealized income; taxing money you don't actually have, yeah, sorry you might want to get your tax theory from smarter people at some point. Lastly he doesn't ever even touch on the concept of a flat tax. So make your own argument instead of using the argument of someone....or not the argument of someone else in this case.
The problem is people like you look at the tax system completely backwards. You look at it as a means of punishing this group or that group. That's wrong. The purpose of taxes is to fund the government's obligations. So step one in coming up with a system to do that should first be to determine how much money the government actually needs. That alone renders most of your argument irrellavent. The next question is simply what is a fair method of distributing that tax burden. Most of us derive equal benefit from that which our tax dollars fund. Defense of the country, our education system, roads and highways, social programs, etc. So it seems to me the fairest way to collect that would be to tax everyone's income the same amount. I would go higher than 10% admittedly. Historically the U.S. government has always collected around 18% of GDP in tax revenue. GDP can essentially also be thought of the entire countries gross income. It has always been around 18% give or take a couple percentage points despite politicians messing with the tax code over the decades. So since that's all they're ever likely to get anyway I would say an 18% flat tax on any and all income, elimination of most, if not all, tax credits, loopholes, deductions, etc. Would be a rather fair system for funding the government's obligations.
Lastly, you liberals really need to stop pretending what you want is fair tax code. In every tax debate I've had about this liberals prove they wouldn't know the definition of the word 'fair' if it bit them on the ass. A progressive tax system meets no defintion of the word fair that I know of. That the rich should pay more in taxes for no other reason than they have more meets no defintion of the word fair I am aware of. Make any other argument you want for whatever tax system you want, but please stop lieing and telling us it's because you want the system to be more fair.
There is so much BS flying about on this thread that I don't know whether to respond, or wipe down my monitor with a strong solution of bleach. Seeing as you have made an effort though, here's an answer.
You have set aside the pragmatic, and waxed towards the philosophical here. Fair enough. Underneath every viewpoint is an underlying set of beliefs. The implicit belief you state here is that the market functions pretty much perfectly, while government bureaucracy is not only inefficient, but something alien and to be feared. If a worker makes a dollar, under this paradigm, then that means he was added exactly a dollars worth of value to society. He "earned" it. If another worker made a dollar fifty, then he added fifty percent more value to society, and earned that money. I suspect there are some young boys and girls in private schools somewhere, who have led an affluent and cloistered existence, that earnestly believe this, but it is hard to imagine anyone else who does.
Here it is bluntly Bern: there is very little fairness in the market place, or in the universe generally. What fairness there is, is for the most part what has been hard won by those motivated to make the human condition better; social activists, labour leaders, intellectuals, reformers, and yes even politicians at times. They have done this for the most part by influencing the political process, not by opening a McDonalds, or a Wal Mart. The magic invisible guiding hand of the market, favored by demented movie stars, voracious industrialists, and greedy entrepreneurs is just that: magic. Magic is great for stage shows and hollywood movies. But it is not real. Those that insist it is invariably have ulterior motives, or are individuals who should have spent more time reading economics, than watching shows.
Many tend to take what they can get, and for some, that's substantial. Wall Street traders can extract millions in fees for even dubious financial transactions (why do you think they wanted social security privatized?), corporate CEOs extract 10, 50, 100 million a year, as their companies lose money, or go bust. One would think society deified plumbers and dentists in our society, such is the rate of compensation for their modest efforts. For those without a voice- without a union or a professional association- compensation can be quite out of line for what they actually do.
Whether self-employed entrepreneur or employee, all are constrained by factors far from their control in our modern world, as I have outlined above. Davy Crockett may have made his own way, but today he would have many additional things to think about. Why do you think corporations spend billions on lobbyists? It's because they know that making money is not merely a matter of a well functioning marketplace, but is inextricably embedded in political and social functioning, and is to a great extent a matter of subjectivity.
The uber-right likes to toss around the term "social engineering". It's a code phrase meaning: less tax, regulation, and government functioning means more profit for us- bring those pork chops over here! "Social engineering" happens every day of the week. If it's not done by the people, through there accepted institutions, then it will be done by someone else. That someone else today is usually those at the apex of the corporate world, and the engineered results are usually take the form of structures beneficial to them. Fairness for them is often not fairness for us. I don't think many Americans voted for massive redistribution of wealth to the top half a percent or so of the population. I don't think they voted for being bankrupted by medical expenses, when they see those in other countries easily accessing these sort of medical necessities. Those to whom materialism is supreme attempt their social engineering every day. Often this is counterbalanced by those with deeper social values in mind. Fortunately, the latter can (sometimes) use taxes as a positive, pro-social instrument.
I got your link to work and it was a fairly well written article focusing on class envy. The thing the writer did not address:
1. Why it is unfair for the rich to have the same tax shelters and exemptions and tax credits that are available to everybody else who qualifies for them in order to reduce their tax burden. . . and. . .
2. How a flat tax on all earned income that would eliminate most or all of those tax shelters and exemptions and tax credits so that the rich would be paying the same percentage on all their income as everybody else would be somehow unfair.
1. Let's see now. Joe, if he has enough to save and invest usually goes to a broker or insurance agent; Mitt goes to the Country Club or Yacht Harbor. Joe is told he must pony up $5,000 to get into this really great fund and have at least $200. a month directly deposited. Mitt speaks to his buddies in the par and decides to put $50,000 into ABC which he has been told will soon be purchased by Microsoft and triple in value.
2. CEO Mitt Whiplash earns $1.00 a year in salary but receives stock valued at $5,000,000. in ABC which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. BTW I've been to Georgetown and saw the corporate offices, it's in a four unit, two story, apt. house (built circa 1940) and has dozens of tenants, most fortune 500 companies.
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