Svart said:
If you really want to be fair, tax people based on their use of government services
And in this I worry that older folks tend to use more government services too and thus would be unfairly taxing people who already worked their asses off for most of their lives but continue to work due to dwindling social security reserves. My grandfather died from cancer that went undiagnosed by public service doctors and was finally diagnosed by a doctor who owed a favor to another family member but it was far too late in the game for an otherwise curable cancer.
Sorry to hear about your dad.. my dad died of cancer, and my younger sister, and I have a brother doing chemo right now. Cancer sucks but doesn't impact my tax policy. Save this story for the public health debate which is coming.
I suggested this as fair, not a good idea that I like. Life isn't fair.
Everybody buys stuff, but not everybody spends every cent they have every payday
Why would we expect that to need to change?
This was an observation of relative saving rates.. wealthy people have higher effective saving rates through home ownership, investments in business or the stock market, and even the occasional bank account. Poor people would pay a higher proportion of their total income, the opposite of now.
I don't know how closely you've looked at this Steve Forbes has been pushing a plan for years.. IIRC the flat sales tax rate would be something like 25-30%. Most poor people would have even more trouble putting food on the table with 20+% less spending power
A wealthy person may eat a better cut of beef, but doesn't eat 10x or 100x as much of it as the poor person.
But the tax % scales with cost. An 8oz. 6$ shoulder steak with 10% tax would be 6.60. An 8 oz. 30$(wholesale) American Kobe cut would be 33$. How did the "rich" person somehow cheat the system? They paid their 10% tax just like the cheap eater, in fact they paid a whole lot more for the same steak, 20% more if mass/price=worth.
It's the whole Celeron/Pentium mentality. You'll sell a lot more celerons but you'll make just as much as selling fewer, but more expensive, pentium processors.
I find this wholly fair that everyone pays the same. What really chaps my hide is the ability for the rich to hire and maintain specialists in tax laws to legally "hide" their money and/or donating enough to get huge tax savings that the rest of us can't possibly do. Nevermind the tax loopholes that only the real pros understand and can utilize. I mean c'mon, all of the bluster and wishful thinking aside, tax laws were written by the rich, for the rich.
I suspect you haven't really studied the distribution of where tax collections come from. Rather than a bell curve, or disproportionately paid by the poor, that majority of tax revenue comes from a minority of taxpayers at the top of the income range.
My objection to introducing a federal sales tax, or value added tax, or any new tax, is that they won't let go of the old one, and we will have more taxes. It was only very recently that the government gave up a tax on telephone calls that was to pay for something like the Mexican American war. "Don't listen to what they say. watch what they do". I've been watching for a while.
Sodderboy makes a very important point. It's important that everybody has skin in the game... I am fearful of a mentality of majority of voters democratically taking from others to pay for their entitlements.
This skin in the game concept is also what's wrong with one payer health insurance and government health care.. When the patient is out of the loop for making cost decisions and managing their care the outcome deteriorates. Contrary to popular belief the government does not have infinitely deep pockets so some post office clerk will decide who gets expensive treatments.
I also find that federal sales tax would solve and finally shut the mouths of all those who blame "illegal immigrants" for all of our stressed out government-public systems. Illegals *might* not pay income taxes but they do buy stuff just like we do. Same for tourists. Why not support a system where people from other countries help us out when they come visit?
In fact many illegals pay taxes with phony soc security numbers then don't file refunds.. but again this is a red herring regarding taxes. The congresses unwillingness to properly address the immigration situation is incredibly irresponsible. This is important and must be addressed. I believe the health and future of our nation depends on the vitality of new blood, while I prefer increasing the H1B visas, over looking the other way as coyotes bring illegals, and drugs, and who know what though our porous borders.
but outright wealth transfers punishing our most productive citizens is just wrong.
I have a fundamental problem with this statement. Having a large income does NOT automatically mean you are productive or even useful to society. Look at all of these banker types who made/make millions on the sorrow of many ordinary citizens. They lied, cheated and stole to support their wealth. How was that productive other than to cut my retirement investments down to 25% of what my company and I put into my 401k? What if I was retiring and needed that money RIGHT NOW?
You appear to be buying the "class warfare" screed being stirred up to polarize voters to support increasing expansion of government programs. Perhaps if you had started a couple new businesses from scratch (like I have), you might have a different POV about this. While I am not wealthy even by Obama's modest threshold, I am philosophically in full support of business owners. I am not talking about wall street investment bankers, i'm talking the lady with a small dress shop or guy who owns the corner gas station, or the 2 hour cleaner... These days the vast majority of business startups may not even have a brick and mortar storefront thanks to the WWW. They are the ones creating "real" jobs and creating wealth, making the pie bigger for all of use.
For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks, the government will tax the wealthy.. because that is where the money is.. I am not saying don't tax the wealthy, I am saying tax everybody less.. The proper role of government is to stay out of the way of private enterprise, not rescue failing businesses, then fire the leaders. There is a valid role for government to insure a functional banking system, since that is common infrastructure like a highway that everybody benefits from, but they are even overstepping their responsibility there.
I also find it disturbing that they are getting drunk on the power since firing Wagoner to make a hit list of TARP'd bank leaders to fire (who's next Lewis?). But worse they are considering making compensation rules that apply to anybody doing business with the government. Any business who ever sells anything to the government, would now have those pinheads managing their compensation practices.
I'm fundamentally a Constitutional Libertarian. While I don't support giving the government money or moving money from person to person, I do have enough sense to realize that our country would implode if we had a purely capitalist economy, OR a purely communist/socialist economy. I know that the investment in attempting to educate our children with our tax monies or support a family in a poor part of town pays off more than most understand.
I told this story before and I'll tell it again until people who have never lived poor understand, or at least show some compassion:
I was helping a girl who lived very near downtown ATL with her yard sale. A lady walked by and came into the yard. She was wearing a Waffle House(a VERY common short order diner type place if you don't know what it is..) uniform. The nearest waffle house is miles away.. Anyway, she wants to purchase a desk that was for sale. it wasn't much but she paid for it with her tip money that she made. We offered to put it in the back of a truck and haul it to her apartment for her. We put it in the truck and rolled down the street. It wasn't far when both the girl and I realized exactly where we were going.. A project community. I grew up poor and lived pretty rough through my teens but have done fairly good for myself after school. I could see the fear in the girl's eyes as we pulled into the projects and rolled right up next to a group of "thuggish" men drinking alcohol from paper bag covered containers. You might think of movie stereotypes but I assure you some of those are factual. In any case, the lady went inside to clear a path for the desk while the girl and I started to untie the rope holding the desk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw people walking up beside the truck and for a very short period of time I thought the worst was going to happen. I turned to see those very same "thuggish" people walking up to me. To my surprise, they offered to help get the desk off of the truck and take it inside. I felt like a complete asshole in feeling threatened by absolutely nothing. We stayed and talked with the lady who bought the desk. She introduced us to her infant son and told us about her life. She was on welfare and foodstamps while she worked a minimum wage job during the day and went to school at night. She was going to be a hairstylist. Her welfare and foodstamps didn't cover her living costs and she barely made enough to eat and live a menial life. I felt proud that my money was helping someone who was actually trying to pick herself up from the bottom.
Congrats on getting a taste of the other side of the tracks. Perhaps do a stint in the military if you want to get close and personal with a broad cross section of our fellow citizens. I would also suggest traveling to other countries to see how even more people live. I applaud your compassion and empathy, I just draw different conclusions about cause and effect from my life experience.
The problem with a purely capitalist/private sector way of thinking is that it's completely self centered. We don't need this. What we need is a national community that openly commits to taking care of one another and taking the need of government intervention(welfare, social security, etc) away before a completely capitalist economy could work. The first problem you would have with this is the same reason you have investment sectors imploding right now. Greed.
I have a theory about wealth though. I've discussed this with a number of people and have had mixed results in discussions. My theory is that wealth follows the bell curve just like most other natural phenomenon. On the left side of the bell you have low paying jobs. On the right you have high paying jobs. You definately have a low end where the people make little money but do the most laborious jobs. In the middle you have folks who work hard and get paid with salaries that match their work. On the right, you have those who make extreme amounts of money but do very little work. As you move from left to right you also see that the level of stature and/or respect goes from negative(meaning that these are looked down upon) to very high(meaning that they are respected either for their stature or their money). The respect levels also track very well with the levels of exploitation. Those on the left are usually exploited pretty heavily while the folks in the center are mostly ignored and the folks on the right are the ones who do the exploitation.
So in closing, my theory is that unless you are doing a good job and getting paid accordingly, you are either getting shafted by somebody or you are making too much money for your contribution, usually by exploiting those on the other end of the graph. How is this fair?
As long as you are an employee you are just a tool or piece of a larger machine. The only person who truly cares about your best interest is you.. (and maybe your mama). The self interest of corporations is what makes them grow and be successful, which provides jobs for the worker bees, for whom it is the best deal they can mange for themselves. Life doesn't hand us anything.. we need to work for whatever we get, and to do really well we need to work harder and often risk everything we have to build a business. If you think owning a business is a cakewalk, I invite you to come on in, the water is, wet and deep. In fact there is opportunity in times of chaos.. I started my first business back in the '70s when I got laid off from a technician job.
Expanding government will make it harder for small businesses and crush this productive sector of the population. You are entitled to your opinion but I respectfully disagree,,,
I don't disagree with a sales tax, if it replaced "ALL" other taxes... I am personally offended by the double taxation, when I make profitable stock market trades, since those dollars I put at risk in the market were already taxed once in my paycheck, and that money could get taxed a third time when I die as they amp up the estate tax (but I plan to die broke and at roughly 100 mph) ..
I'd vote for only being taxed once using any system.
JR
