Even more importantly, we need to have educated people in order to make the country work. If we were to suddenly stop all schooling, then the populace would become much less intelligent and it would be hard to keep the country going. Educating everyone is good for the country, not just those individuals. Keeping people healthy, IMO, falls under the same banner.

I would love to be "rich" someday but I will have no motivation to accomplish that if it is then all taxed away.

Yeah. That's how it works. You'll still be rich. The fact that you pay more taxes would merely be an indication of that. It's not like you'd be making $100k more and all of it gets taken away again. It's a sliding scale, not stepped.

I find these flat-taxers asinine. Obviously, the person making $200k a year should pay the same percentage as those making $20k a year, because having to live on $120k is the same penalty as having to live on $12k.

I'm one of those rare people that believes the rich are rich for a reason. They worked to get there.

LMAO!

[wiping tears from eyes] That's a good one! I haven't laughed that hard in a while....

“"I find these flat-taxers asinine. "”

“It's a sliding scale, not stepped”

I’m sure someone starving in Africa on $2.00 a month would put you on a “sliding scale” until you only had $6.00 a month take home. Why should you have a car when they don’t have shoes. Communism doesn’t work.

We need the rich (whether we like it or not) to keep investing and spending their money to keep the rest of us employed.

Yes, we do, but they're still rich no matter whether they take home $4mil or $2.5mil. When you go from $20k to $12k, you go from poor to homeless.

> Communism doesn’t work.

The word you are looking for is socialism, but you are right it doesn't work. But neither does straight capitalism, which is why every nation on earth has elements of both, regardless of what economic system they are claiming to have. The question just becomes what is the exact mix that a country is going to have. And I doubt very highly that the U.S. is ever going to slide into full socialism like some people here have alluded to. Having a decent public health care system won't kill you, and it just might save some people's lives.

When you go from $20k to $12k, you go from poor to homeless.

That's the second time you've used those numbers, so I'll call you on it. When has anyone proposed anything close to a 40% flat tax with a zero exclusion (i.e. starting at the first dollar of income)?

IIRC, Steve Forbes called for 17% with a $30K exclusion (for a family of four?). I believe Dick Armey's numbers were in the same ballpark.

--John

Umm, we also pay 15% sales tax on practically everything we buy (including food and booze at any restaurant - of course the restaurant owner pays all kinds of taxes already too). And for some products there are additional taxes, some of which I'm sure are much higher than those in any US state. Some alcohol for instance carries at least a 100% tax already rolled into the price when bought from the store. That restaurant example? The business already pays this and then the consumer shells out again. How about the fact that up here they expect to double or triple tax you on so many other things? Sell a used car? Oh, government gets another lump of cash (from the buyer). It gets sold again? Oops, party time at the premier's house!

Then there's the crazy and ever increasing property tax.

I don't think for a second paying income tax is patriotic. If I could get away with not paying income tax, I would. Preferably in a legal way of course.

It's about time that governments, at every level, start showing the fiscal responsibility and accountability that every company carries in the government's eyes and every public company carries in the eyes of its trading commission and shareholders.

When members of government have practically no accountability for their decisions, something is VERY wrong. When at least half the money I make goes to the government, you'd better believe I want to know exactly what they're spending it on. I want financial reports and paperwork posted monthly. I want to be able to go to a web page at any time and check their financial records. I am an investor after all.

I pay tax on what I absolutely have to pay tax. Private sales that don't need to be registered like a vehicle? Forget about it. Used items bought on eBay when crossing the border? Forget about it - that's a complete scam.

Bruno

I don't think for a second paying income tax is patriotic. If I could get away with not paying income tax, I would. Preferably in a legal way of course.

Consider that, when avoiding paying any tax (illegally), one is not cheating the government, but those fellow citizens who do pay what the law requests them to.

It's about time that governments, at every level, start showing the fiscal responsibility and accountability that every company carries in the government's eyes and every public company carries in the eyes of its trading commission and shareholders.

When members of government have practically no accountability for their decisions, something is VERY wrong. When at least half the money I make goes to the government, you'd better believe I want to know exactly what they're spending it on. I want financial reports and paperwork posted monthly. I want to be able to go to a web page at any time and check their financial records. I am an investor after all.

I agree completely, but I don't see how this contradicts my first argument.

Man, have I missed soo much on my new job (working my tail off leaves little time for posting!).

First off, I think we should all pay our taxes, because that's the law. To not pay taxes IS criminal and unpatriotic. I also think the tax code is screwed up and that it's really lame that the difference in the taxes I pay can be different depending on who I take my taxes to. I ended up saving $1,000 by taking my taxes to a different accountant last year. Talk about favoring the rich. My taxes depend on who can afford to take them to. So I'll agree that the rich are definitly favored when it comes to the tax code. Never mind that I benifited, it isn't right.

As far as the sliding scale stuff, I think it's probably necessary, but I get sick and tired of hearing about tax cuts "favoring the rich" when takes hikes hit the rich more than anyone else. The truth is that any tax change at all is going to affect the rich more than anyone else and that has to be recognized. As stated above, however, we do need to get rid of the tax code complexity that allows the rich to not pay just because their good at a shell game.

All that being said, I think the government spends too much across the board, and both Republicans and Democrats are to blame. Each points a finger at the other and says that their programs are more worthy, but at the end of the day it seems no one knows how to stop spending. My big frustration with the Republicans (who I generall agree with as far as their espoused values go) is that they talk all day about reducing spending and making a smaller government but never do it.

But here's my real conservative side coming out. As I've said before, I don't think mercy should be a function of the government. If we as citizens feel that the poor should be given money, then we should give money to them. It should not be the goverment who decides to take money from us and give it to them. It's fine for the government to make this easier and give us avenues to contribute, but I don't think it should just take our money at whatever predetermined rate the government thinks will be useful. First off, as I said, I don't think this should BE a function of the government, but second I don't really trust what the government does with the money anyway.

It's all well and good to say that we cannot let people starve in the streets so we need to give them money, but why does the government need to do this? If we really care about those in need, why can't we just give the money ourselves? I do. I give a substantial amount of money to my church and a lot of that goes to helping needy people. I realize not everyone goes to church or trusts what churches do with their money (my church is very open with how it spends its money) and that's fine- the church is only one avanue of giving. Instead of taking our money and spending it however the government deems is "merciful", why don't they let us determine that? Give me a tax form that says "oh by the way, I want to contrubed X amount of dollars to feeding low income people". Why does the government specify that mount I need to give? I suppose the answer would be that the government cannot reasonably expect people to donate their money freely, and that they must take it from them if poor people are really to be fed. Well, then apparently that program is not something people want to give to, and there's the real problem. But if people don't want to give their money to help with the poor, then why is the government taking it? Because big brother knows best? I don't like that; I don't like it when Democrats do it for their programs and I don't like it when Republicans do it for theirs. Take my money for the things it truly makes sense for the government to be involved in and let mercy be a function of my choice to give. If I don't want to give then we've isolated the real problem: that a lot of people are selfish with their money and resources. I think that's an issue that needs to be resolved, but having somebody else determine what the appropriate amount of mercy I should provide is not the answer.

I swear you're better at expressing the same ideas than I am. That was precisely my point. Taking care of the poor and needy is the responsibility of the people, not the government. Especially when you consider how lean and streamlined and cost-effective the federal government is. -=cough=- Working for the government, I see a lot of the waste, mismanagement, and sweetheart deals going on. It makes me nauseous, but until the lawmakers decide to change things, all I can do is make sure MY little piece of the world is not wasteful.

I think that it has been over-simplified in his post. I believe that in order to help the poor in a practical way, some kind of program needs to be developed. Dropping money in someone's hat is not helping. There need to be counselors and teachers to help these people get back on their feet.

I believe in the "teach a man to fish..." concept. If people just give money out randomly to the poor folk, chances are they will not improve - they will just survive without having some sort of education. And how practical is it to expect someone to take time out of thier one life to teach somebody one on one how to get a job, recover from depression and possibly learn some ethics? That is what the government programs are for.

Also, the government is supposed to be representative of the people.

I know how wasteful the government is - I work as a contractor for it - it is all made up of citizens - perhaps it is just a reflection of the populace.

I think that the government should :
1. make it easier to fire a government worker based on performance issues
2. hire more real (qualified) workers and less contractors that really eat up the budget.

my 2 cents

And how practical is it to expect someone to take time out of thier one life to teach somebody one on one how to get a job, recover from depression and possibly learn some ethics? That is what the government programs are for.

The problem is that government programs very very rarely do more than hand out checks. It's a neat theory, but I have yet to see it work in any meaningful way.

I get sick and tired of hearing about tax cuts "favoring the rich" when takes hikes hit the rich more than anyone else. The truth is that any tax change at all is going to affect the rich more than anyone else and that has to be recognized. As stated above, however, we do need to get rid of the tax code complexity that allows the rich to not pay just because their good at a shell game.

Do you not find those statements hold contradictory ideas?

takes[sic] hikes hit the rich more than anyone else. The truth is that any tax change at all is going to affect the rich more than anyone else

Yet...

tax code complexity that allows the rich to not pay just because their[sic] good at a shell game

Tax hikes attempt to hit the rich, but because of the shell games, they often don't. Then, along come the tax cuts, and who benefits from them the most? The rich folks, playing the shell games. The people in the middle, and the people on the bottom get screwed over.

Take my money for the things it truly makes sense for the government to be involved in and let mercy be a function of my choice to give. If I don't want to give then we've isolated the real problem: that a lot of people are selfish with their money and resources. I think that's an issue that needs to be resolved, but having somebody else determine what the appropriate amount of mercy I should provide is not the answer.

Tell you what, then... you prentend all your taxes go to infrastructure, and police, and the military machine, and I'll pretend all my taxes went to help feed the homeless.

why does the government need to do this?

Because it's important to the welfare of the country itself to have a healthy populace. I'm not saying that there aren't worthless people out there that will continue to be worthless no matter what (some of them are even wealthy anyway), but there are a lot of people who would like to contribute to society but are unable to because they can't get healthy enough or pay rent or whatever. Society would be better if those people were able to be productive. I think it's the government's responsibility to deal with that.

I think it's the government's responsibility to deal with that.

I think the situation here is that Jeff would prefer to attack the problem by having people donate money to take care of these problems, rather than having the government do it. Maybe he's an idealist, and thinks it's actually possible to get the rich to care about something other than becoming more rich. Those same rose-colored glasses led to trickle-down economics in the 80's, and everone was shocked and amazed to learn that, instead of trickling down, the rich took all the money before it got down to those who needed it. Or, at best, some of the rich will make donations to certain causes that may seem like a lot of money when they sign the cardboard check, but in reality, are a tiny portion of their massive wealth, not nearly enough to compensate for what the have-nots don't have. I think Rockefeller or someone like him pioneered these practices way back when.

I will concede that government meddling in things can sometimes go the wrong way, and create situations where people expect handouts to sustain their living instead of to fulfill emergency situations and temporary shortfalls. But the fact is, if the government doesn't do it, no amount of preaching to the wealthy is going to get them to give more than a token donation to those who need it. If more effort is put into tracking down and punishing those who abuse the system, programs like welfare, social security, and medicare can do their job without draining the government's budget or requiring too much in the way of taxes. But simply leaving it up to "the good will of the wealthy" isn't the answer.

It's all well and good to say that we cannot let people starve in the streets so we need to give them money, but why does the government need to do this?

What about other social issues? What about if the South Texas Project 2.5GW reactor went belly up and spewed all over Houston? Would you being willing to donate extra to cover all the additional social costs of this? What about next year? Or 10 years down the line? Do you think that everyone living in Seattle would donate? Or those in NYC? Again, what about 10 years down the line?
Just for reference, the current social welfare costs of Chernobyl are about 5-7% of Ukraine's GDP. It's probably costing Russia and Belarus similar amounts, since Chernobyl is on the border of the three. This is 17 years after the accident .

In some ways I'm an idealist, in other ways a realist. I do recognize that most of the wealthy in this country probably are not going to give money to social programs out of their good will. I think the issue is that while we'd all agree that the rich should be giving money to social programs because it's the "right thing to do", I don't think it's right to take it from them. Mercy should be a free gift, and if it's not then the way to address the problem is by working on people's hearts, not threatening them and forcing them to give.

My picture of the situation is like this. You have a bunch of people living together in an apartment building. They each own their own apartments, but there are some things that are easier to manage on a building level so they get together and hire someone to manage those for them. So now they contribute toward a "building" fund that pays for these services. Because some have bigger apartments than others, some pay more to the building fund. This is all a good thing and makes good economic sense.

Now imagine that one of the tenants comes down with cancer and needs an expensive operation in order to survive. Sensing the need, the building manager alerts all of the people to the problem and suggests they donate to help the cancer patient out. This is all good, even when he goes the extra step to figure out how much each person would have to give in order for the total cost to be met. Oh, and by the way, he's taking up a lot of time figuring this stuff out, so he needs to pad the numbers a bit to cover his own costs and investment. However, one of the tenants decides not to contribute. Maybe he's cold hearted, maybe he's hard up for cash, maybe he doesn't like that the manger is taking some of the money for himself, or maybe it's one of countless other reason, but he doesn't want to give his money to help this lady. So the building manager tells this non-giver that if he doesn't give he's going to kick him out of the apartment complex.

This last part is where I have a problem. It is a good thing for the building manager to alert everyone to needs, but it shouldn't be his job to start taking money by force for things other than managing the building. What would be appropriate would be for the manager or the other owners to meet with the non-giver and try to convince him to change his stance, but ultimatly it's his choice.

Mercy should be a free gift that we all decide for ourselves, not each other. If our society is so self-centered that none of us want to give to the needy, which I think is largely the case (the realist part of me), then we have a problem. However, taking the money by force is not a good answer, IMO. The idealist in me says that we should work to influence people's hearts and minds so that mercy is important to them, not hold guns to their heads and say "you WILL give". That is only addressing a symptom (that the poor need money), not the problem (that we are an unmerciful people as a whole). What we do is keep addressing symptoms, some of which we can't even agree are symptoms. Some say that xyz is a problem, others don't even see the issue. How much better would it be if we could all decide for ourselves what the ills of society are and address them our of true mercy?

OK, truth be told we do need organizations in the middle who do the job of determining where the money should go and what to do with it. Simply handing it out on street corners is not an effective answer. However, it is still up to us which of these non-profit organizations we trust (for me it is largely my church, though I also give to some other organizations) and CHOOSE to give our money to.

So yes, I'm an idealist in a lot of respects. I think people should take personal responsibility for mercy, which doesn't happen when the government extracts money from people by force. It is a much more difficult task to influence people's hearts and minds to give of themselves, but it is also a task that will make them (and us) better human beings.

Lastly, Bitt has an excellent point about government's responsibility toward doing what's best for the nation. In this respect what the government is doing is not "mercy"; it is smart spending. I can actually go along with this and see that some social programs are designed with the purpose of helping the country, not helping individuals. So perhaps I can say this: I think the governments responsibility should be limited to helping the country; helping individuals should be the responsibility of other individuals.

An example of this is the public school system. While I'm all for privatization in order to boost both the input and output into our educational programs (better education for students and better pay for teachers), I think we'd be remiss in not providing a solid, well funded scholarship program for those who couldn't afford schooling. It would make sense for the government to be involved here because (as Bitt pointed out) the education of our young affects us all, and a more educated country is a stronger one.

So I'm not totally against the government being involved in social programs, I just think the mission needs to be refined a bit. Of course, this is all really academic because there's not a politician in the world who's going to get up and say "I think that program xyz no longer should be government funded and instead should be on the people's shoulders if they think it is something worth giving money to."

Mercy should be a free gift that we all decide for ourselves, not each other. If our society is so self-centered that none of us want to give to the needy, which I think is largely the case (the realist part of me), then we have a problem. However, taking the money by force is not a good answer, IMO. The idealist in me says that we should work to influence people's hearts and minds so that mercy is important to them, not hold guns to their heads and say "you WILL give". That is only addressing a symptom (that the poor need money), not the problem (that we are an unmerciful people as a whole). What we do is keep addressing symptoms, some of which we can't even agree are symptoms. Some say that xyz is a problem, others don't even see the issue. How much better would it be if we could all decide for ourselves what the ills of society are and address them our of true mercy?

It would be better, but we do have a problem you are talking about.

So, the fact that money for social programs etc is taken from you, instead of being given by you, spoils your sense of doing something merciful of your own free will. Well, too bad. The tone of your post shows that you are perfectly aware that 'merciful society' where all ills are addressed by individuals' voluntary action is wishful thinking. Such societies exist in places like Ursula K. Le Guin's fantasy (which I highly respect), but in real world we abandoned them when we invented private ownership and power hierarchies.

In my opinion, subsistence-level income, basic health care and fair chance for education regardless of socio-economic status are rights. If the state does not provide those rights, I have no use for state.

Well, I don't have any kids in school - so why should I pay those (education) taxes at all?

I know I am taking your statement out of context, and that you were stating it as hyperbole to show why you felt just the opposite, but the statement does raise an interesting point.

Why should people pay to educate other people's children? Perhaps because 10 years down the road, they'll by flying on an airplane piloted by one of those kids, or having their appendix (appendices? His appendix? Help me out here, Bitt!) removed by a surgeon who is a product of that educational system they didn't want to support.

I can't imagine an investment that has a better long-term payback than investing in education.

Can you imagine the benefits we would derive if even one month's cost of Mr. Bush's middle-east adventure were applied to education in this country? But that's another topic entirely.

tanstaafl.

I think people should take personal responsibility for mercy, which doesn't happen when the government extracts money from people by force. It is a much more difficult task to influence people's hearts and minds to give of themselves, but it is also a task that will make them (and us) better human beings.

Uhh... isn't this why the government gives tax breaks to people that voluntarily contribute to charitable organizations?

isn't this why the government gives tax breaks to people that voluntarily contribute to charitable organizations?

Yeah, it is and that's a good thing for the most part, except it's all the exemptions that cause the tax code to be so complicated.

FWIW, I don't think the path to getting to my ideal is to cut all social programs and rely on personal mercy to do the trick- though our government IS spending to much and needs to start cutting back somehow. I think the real ultimate path is to move people to take responsibility for mercy and thus lessen the need for government intervention. I'm not totally certain that the government will lessen taxes if social needs get met outside of it's programs though; more likely is new social programs will be developed to consume spending.

though our government IS spending to much and needs to start cutting back somehow

I think you'd have a hard time finding anyone who didn't agree with you if you tempered it with a little "improperly" instead of simply "to[o] much". (Well, outside the military-industrial complex, anyway.)

You're right. It's time to cut taxes.

This year the USA will spend more on its military than the rest of the World combined.

I think you'd have a hard time finding anyone who didn't agree with you if you tempered it with a little "improperly"

Done!

Then again, we each have our own ideas of what improperly means. Then again, again, there's certain obvious misspending that we can all agree on, I think. (Not that I can seem to come up with a list right now. It is late, though.)

An intersting, somewhat related article comparing the neighbors.

Damn good article, I say!

My favourite part:

Canadians responded that they were not afraid to fight. Indeed, they noted that unlike the U.S. Canada did not have to be attacked before it sent troops to defend democracy against Hitler and Mussolini.

Indeed, they noted that unlike the U.S. Canada did not have to be attacked before it sent troops to defend democracy against Hitler and Mussolini.

Hitler and Mussolini had huge electoral majorities. Whatever we were defending, it wasn't democracy.

Peter

In reply to:

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Hitler and Mussolini had huge electoral majorities. Whatever we were defending, it wasn't democracy.

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I suppose it depends on whose democracy we were defending... I'm sure that even if Hitler could have secured 100% of the vote in Germany, it still didn't give him a mandate to invade Poland.