A business whose products are dependent on taxable widgets may be better off than the service industries. Imagine the raw product changes hands 4 times as it's crafted into the final widget. Each change of hands results in a tax. By the time it gets to the market, it's got 4 taxes embedded in it. The Fair Tax would remove all of the embedded taxes and slap 23% on at the end. That's the major reason the price of products are projected to decline under this plan.
Perhaps I'm confused. How would there not still be 4 embedded taxes on this, and how would those embedded taxes not be increased? Are businesses not paying your 23% on transactions with other businesses?
How does the FairTax protect low-income and lower-middle-income families and individuals?
yadda
Sounds like an unbiased source? Is Grover Norquist involved?
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
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No adding anything to the end of the statement. I would have simply phrased it "I believe that it is more important to the greater good of society to tax the citizens to pay for X rather than allowing them to keep the money." For liberals, the "X" is assumed to be for the benefit of families and their future - and for conservatives, "to provide for their families and their future" is implied, as they often believe these things are being hurt whenever money is taxed.
Fair enough. The underlying point is acknowledging there is a tradeoff between "X" and being able "to provide for their families and their future".
I still think you're cutting it across liberal/conservative lines too much though. I don't think "X" is assumed to be for the benefit of families and their future by liberals if "X" is an initiative to develop a new type of bomb.
I'm confused. Do you want to debate this, or do you want to wait until I write a book about it and become a Congressman?
I was just saying that I was arguing within the parameters of the House Bill that is currently submitted. Fair Tax vs. current system. You started "amending the bill" so to speak. I can discuss things I've researched but with what you've said, other than telling you it sounds like a decent idea to me, I don't know where to go, because I don't know the details.
So I guess I should have just said, sounds like a decent plan to me.
Perhaps I'm confused. How would there not still be 4 embedded taxes on this, and how would those embedded taxes not be increased? Are businesses not paying your 23% on transactions with other businesses?
NO WAY! Only the final end-user product would be taxed. No business to business taxations.
NO WAY! Only the final end-user product would be taxed. No business to business taxations.
How do you know what the eventual end user is?
If I buy a car and re-sell it, am I entitled to a refund of my sales tax?
MSG 9/11/98, Jones Beach 8/24/2000, Saratoga 8/30/2000, Albany 4/29/03, Boston 7/2/03, Philly 7/5/03, MSG 7/9/03, Boston 9/29/04, Montreal 9/15/05, Albany 5/12/06, Hartford 5/13/06, Boston 5/24/06, Boston 5/25/06, Hartford 6/27/08, Boston 6/30/08, EV Boston 8/2/08
that proves what about paco? im going for my JD at one of the best law schools in the country. when i graduate i might be making less than 30k per year becos im considering, imagine this, choosing to do something i love rather than whoring myself out for bigger bucks. id rather be able to choose how my income is taxed through my purchasing habits than have the government just take it and tell me to make do with whatever is left.
that proves what about paco? im going for my JD at one of the best law schools in the country. when i graduate i might be making less than 30k per year becos im considering, imagine this, choosing to do something i love rather than whoring myself out for bigger bucks. id rather be able to choose how my income is taxed through my purchasing habits than have the government just take it and tell me to make do with whatever is left.
Move to Monaco if you hate paying taxes so much.
MSG 9/11/98, Jones Beach 8/24/2000, Saratoga 8/30/2000, Albany 4/29/03, Boston 7/2/03, Philly 7/5/03, MSG 7/9/03, Boston 9/29/04, Montreal 9/15/05, Albany 5/12/06, Hartford 5/13/06, Boston 5/24/06, Boston 5/25/06, Hartford 6/27/08, Boston 6/30/08, EV Boston 8/2/08
What do "luxury items" and "ramen noodles" have to do with taxes? Seriously, between people who want to link taxes to behaviors and people who want to link taxes to wealth and people who want to link taxes to consumption, the perspective on taxes has become so bizzare.
I certainly agree that this plan is better than an abitrary income tax system. But that's like saying my mom is hotter than my grandma. Trust me, you don't want either one.
Taxation is inextricably linked to the value of rights and services. We can ignore this fact all we'd like, but we cannot escape it.
so what sort of tax system do you propose? besides the one where you dont give your money to anyone and keep it all in your savings and tell the poor to go fuck themselves or get a better job.
the difference between ramen and luxury items is they give you a rebate based on living costs. if you eat nothing but ramen, your "prebate" under this system will exceed your expenses, so you actually make money on taxes. if you throw your money on flashy cars and ice, your prebate won't come close to the sales tax you pay and you'll end up giving more to the government than frugal spenders. im cool with that.
If I buy a car and re-sell it, am I entitled to a refund of my sales tax?
The end user is the person that buys the product brand new.
You would not be entitled to a refund of your sales tax, why should you be? If you're saying, "Well, now this person's the new end user, so they should pay the tax", you know how embedded taxes work. The car was $15,000 but you paid $3,500 in tax. When you resale it, you're going to consider the $18,500 that you paid, not the $15,000 sticker cost. The person that buys it from you will pay the depreciated value of the tax as an embedded cost. Keep in mind though, the $15,000 sticker price is not a reflection of a $15,000 car today, the sticker price will go down because of the removal of embedded taxes but the final price back up because of the Fair Tax to give you just about the same purchasing power as beforehand.
There's definitely some literature about this topic. I may not be 100% correct in what I'm saying, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
Fair enough. The underlying point is acknowledging there is a tradeoff between "X" and being able "to provide for their families and their future".
I still think you're cutting it across liberal/conservative lines too much though. I don't think "X" is assumed to be for the benefit of families and their future by liberals if "X" is an initiative to develop a new type of bomb.
No argument there - unless it's some sort of non-lethal bomb, or has the ability to read the souls of those it encounters and selectively blows up only the bad guys.
On the flip side, if it were a tax for a new bomb, I doubt you'd hear many conservative complaints anyway.
i dont think an american jd is any good in monaco, but ill look into it. my problem isnt with paying taxes at all, my problem is with the stupid way they are collected and, more importantly, spent. big government doesn't work. that's just the way it is.
so what sort of tax system do you propose? besides the one where you dont give your money to anyone and keep it all in your savings and tell the poor to go fuck themselves or get a better job.
Besides that one? Damn.
If you're going to ignore the links between the value of the services and the way those services are paid for, your tax system is going to be fucked up. But if we're going that route, I propose blindly linking taxation to labor, which in turn means an income tax on individuals only. I'd simply make that income tax one wherein there are no deductions, no loopholes, no anything. A flat percentage that is behavior and income neutral. Every individual pays 10%, or 15% or whatever. It's trash.
the difference between ramen and luxury items is they give you a rebate based on living costs. if you eat nothing but ramen, your "prebate" under this system will exceed your expenses, so you actually make money on taxes. if you throw your money on flashy cars and ice, your prebate won't come close to the sales tax you pay and you'll end up giving more to the government than frugal spenders. im cool with that.
I understand, but I don't think you got my question. I'm wondering what the relevance of those things is to the concept of taxation?
I understand, but I don't think you got my question. I'm wondering what the relevance of those things is to the concept of taxation?
I always liked the concept of adding up all the money we need to fund the operations for the year and divide by the total number of people. That's how much everyone's taxes for the year are. Now that's equality!
I always liked the concept of adding up all the money we need to fund the operations for the year and divide by the total number of people. That's how much everyone's taxes for the year are. Now that's equality!
I largely agree with this and actually proposed it here a while back and almost got lynched.
Do you realize the per-worker tax in this program would only be about $10,000 / person?
If you're going to ignore the links between the value of the services and the way those services are paid for, your tax system is going to be fucked up. But if we're going that route, I propose blindly linking taxation to labor, which in turn means an income tax on individuals only. I'd simply make that income tax one wherein there are no deductions, no loopholes, no anything. A flat percentage that is behavior and income neutral. Every individual pays 10%, or 15% or whatever. It's trash.
id probly be ok with that too. i think simplicity is a good thing when it comes to taxes. im not sure i know what you mean about links between values of services? what are you talking about exactly? and how can you base a tax system off of that without making it even more complicated than our current one? it sounds like it would be ripe for subjective judgment calls and tinkering.
I understand, but I don't think you got my question. I'm wondering what the relevance of those things is to the concept of taxation?
im pretty sure this is going to become another of our epic debates between your stringent ideological views and my attempt to elucidate practical and workable systems. the purpose of taxation is to provide funding for necessary public services (what that encompasses is a whole other debate) by securing contributions from its citizens. in a class conscious society such as ours, we recognize that capitalism blesses some more than others. i dont believe in wealth distribution per se, but i do believe that funding for public services provided to all should be derived from each with respect to their ability to bear that burden. thus, roads or public transit available to all are paid for by all, according to their ability to contribute.
thus, as i said, a consumer based tax is rather fair... those able to splurge on luxury items are more able to bear higher tax burdens, given that they can afford to buy a lexus without worrying where their next meal is coming from. those able to purchase little more than living expenses do not have to bear heavy tax burdens. everyone gets their equal cost of living rebate and can use it accordingly. an income based tax still means that someone being taxed 15% of poverty wages is going to barely keep themselves afloat, even IF they spend no more than living expenses. though the contribution percentage is equivalent to a welathy person's, the burden of paying even a much smaller tax amount is much higher. on the flip side, a wealthy person can keep nearly all of their wealth if they like, by living a modest lifestyle. it leaves people to somewhat decide their own tax burden through their lifestyle, but also secures funding from everyone according to their ability to provide it. no, it isn't perfect, but it seems better than tying it to simple income.
I largely agree with this and actually proposed it here a while back and almost got lynched.
Do you realize the per-worker tax in this program would only be about $10,000 / person?
it does have the benefit of forcing government to reign in spending and making citizens ask what is REALLY important for their government to be supporting.
id probly be ok with that too. i think simplicity is a good thing when it comes to taxes. im not sure i know what you mean about links between values of services? what are you talking about exactly? and how can you base a tax system off of that without making it even more complicated than our current one? it sounds like it would be ripe for subjective judgment calls and tinkering.
Every governmental service has a value. It has a value to the person who provides that service and a person who receives that service. Right now in this country, someone can receive maximum benefit from public services for minimum cost. It's like running a bank wherein virtually no links between deposits and withdrawls exist.
You say that a system involving the concept of value would be ripe for "subjective judgment calls and tinkering". On that count you'd be 100% correct. There is another system of value exchange that is ripe for "subjective judgment calls and tinkering" known as a market. The market is responsible for the exchange of the majority of value in this country, and those values are determined by the individuals involved in exchange.
Again, government services are products with values. They are provided by one person to another and are perfect candidates for traditional systems of exchange. That's why I've always supported "taxation" systems wherein citizens simply buy and exchange services. Except it's no longer taxation at that point since a) you're allowed to asses the value of government services on your own and b) you're allowed to completely opt out of the system if you see no value there or a bad value proposition there. Obviously the current government could not be supported on such a system because, surprise surprise, the government doesn't actually produce $1,000,000,000,000 in value to the citizenry. They'd simply not pay for the vast majority of the services because the value proposition is incredibly weak. That's why you have to force them to pay.
im pretty sure this is going to become another of our epic debates between your stringent ideological views and my attempt to elucidate practical and workable systems.
First, it can't really be "epic" since I have some visitors coming into town tonight and won't be back on the board until next week
Secondly, you do understand that "practical and workable systems" require a stringent ideological view, right? There's nothing practical or workable about "sometimes 1+1=2 and sometimes 1+1=3".
the purpose of taxation is to provide funding for necessary public services (what that encompasses is a whole other debate) by securing contributions from its citizens. in a class conscious society such as ours, we recognize that capitalism blesses some more than others. i dont believe in wealth distribution per se, but i do believe that funding for public services provided to all should be derived from each with respect to their ability to bear that burden. thus, roads or public transit available to all are paid for by all, according to their ability to contribute.
thus, as i said, a consumer based tax is rather fair... those able to splurge on luxury items are more able to bear higher tax burdens, given that they can afford to buy a lexus without worrying where their next meal is coming from. those able to purchase little more than living expenses do not have to bear heavy tax burdens. everyone gets their equal cost of living rebate and can use it accordingly. an income based tax still means that someone being taxed 15% of poverty wages is going to barely keep themselves afloat, even IF they spend no more than living expenses. though the contribution percentage is equivalent to a welathy person's, the burden of paying even a much smaller tax amount is much higher. on the flip side, a wealthy person can keep nearly all of their wealth if they like, by living a modest lifestyle. it leaves people to somewhat decide their own tax burden through their lifestyle, but also secures funding from everyone according to their ability to provide it. no, it isn't perfect, but it seems better than tying it to simple income.
What you're saying here actually plays into what I say above. Consumption taxes are motivated by a single key assumption about the value of government services:
Rich people have more to lose in the absence of government than poor people and therefore achieve a higher value from its services
This assumption is not a terrible one, particularly in the context of a government wherein the equal protection of rights is held paramount. But that's no longer the hallmark of a society that spends the majority of its tax dollars on means-tested services to the poor.
Every governmental service has a value. It has a value to the person who provides that service and a person who receives that service. Right now in this country, someone can receive maximum benefit from public services for minimum cost. It's like running a bank wherein virtually no links between deposits and withdrawls exist.
You say that a system involving the concept of value would be ripe for "subjective judgment calls and tinkering". On that count you'd be 100% correct. There is another system of value exchange that is ripe for "subjective judgment calls and tinkering" known as a market. The market is responsible for the exchange of the majority of value in this country, and those values are determined by the individuals involved in exchange.
Again, government services are products with values. They are provided by one person to another and are perfect candidates for traditional systems of exchange. That's why I've always supported "taxation" systems wherein citizens simply buy and exchange services. Except it's no longer taxation at that point since a) you're allowed to asses the value of government services on your own and b) you're allowed to completely opt out of the system if you see no value there or a bad value proposition there. Obviously the current government could not be supported on such a system because, surprise surprise, the government doesn't actually produce $1,000,000,000,000 in value to the citizenry. They'd simply not pay for the vast majority of the services because the value proposition is incredibly weak. That's why you have to force them to pay.
i see two problems with this.
ONE is that government can't be a business. if, for instance, the poor could afford to hire police and whatnot, they wouldn't be poor. some services that truly ARE needed would be impossible for people to buy. you can't have a government that acts like a merchant. the purpose of government is to level the playing field SOMEWHAT so that everyone has a chance to lift themselves up. if you have to buy services from the government, there would be no difference between hiring bodyguards or private security and paying a police force. and NEITHER would be options for the poor. which returns us to systems like feudalism and the monarchy... a very restrictive society wherein the wealthy have protection and the poor have no recourse.
government levels the playing field by doing things like providing police protection and due process and equal rights to everyone, so that a poor person's alarm clock is just as well protected as a rich person's lexus... which makes sense becos subjectively, the poor person cannot afford to replace his alarm clock but has and thus places a much higher subjective value on it than the rich person on their lexus. however, it places the poor in a catch-22: they can have the clock, but they have to forgo protecting it via the police. or they can purchase police protection, but have no money to purchase goods to have protected. thus, buying government services cannot be like going to walmart and collecting your shopping list, becos that nullifies the idea of any government... it's not a government, it's just a business. i would also argue that people DO get to express their subjective value for services through voting. clearly, there are problems with that, but i think you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that representative democracy is worse than feudalism was.
TWO is the concept of diffusion of responsibility. i know you are all about personal accountability, but you simply cannot ignore group dynamics in decision making when talking about government. when paying taxes, people will underpay based on the assumption that other people will pick up the slack. any waiter will tell you this... large groups tip far, far worse than a party of 2. on a governmental scale, you have everyone assuming that the police are valued enough to meet their budgetary needs and thus they decide not to contribute taxes to the police and the police cannot function. as i recall, psychological studies have shown that this behavior will persist even as institutions or services decay... even as the police are crumbling and it becomes clear people are not funding in accordance with the subjective value of a police force, individual members will ride it out, hoping others will take up the slack. it is essentially the same argument used against welfare. but the bottom line is the assumption that people will contribute in accordance with their subjective value of things is questionable. i think you would have too many freeloaders, possibly even more than you have now.
unless i misunderstand your conception of how this system would work? if you're proposing a kind of earmarked tax system, i think i could get on board with that. maybe... a flat tax, everyone pays 10-15% and each taxpayer can apportion their tax load to particular agencies/departments... you think medicare is crucial... put all your taxes into it. i actually kinda like that idea. let the people determine an agency's budget from year to year. make the department of education work for its funding. and if a department's value is so low, it is axed. no more pet projects for congress or presidents, no more pork barrel. the people as a whole get to determine what they want funded.
First, it can't really be "epic" since I have some visitors coming into town tonight and won't be back on the board until next week
Secondly, you do understand that "practical and workable systems" require a stringent ideological view, right? There's nothing practical or workable about "sometimes 1+1=2 and sometimes 1+1=3".
What you're saying here actually plays into what I say above. Consumption taxes are motivated by a single key assumption about the value of government services:
Rich people have more to lose in the absence of government than poor people and therefore achieve a higher value from its services
This assumption is not a terrible one, particularly in the context of a government wherein the equal protection of rights is held paramount. But that's no longer the hallmark of a society that spends the majority of its tax dollars on means-tested services to the poor.
i think my assumption is the opposite: rich people have less to lose becos they can afford to purchase their own protections. but leaving the poor out to dry creates social instability and eventually topples the whole system, as in every society there are more poor than rich. so you create a system that, yes, offers equal protection and forces the wealthy to join in. becos even if they benefit less from it, they do benefit somewhat and it does not hurt them to participate.
and by strict ideology i mean focusing on one or two factors to the exclusion of others... as in you focus on 1+1=2 and i see an equation with a lot more factors and variables... ax2+bx+c=y... where one is trying to find as equitable solution as possible that maximizes the overall value for everyone.
it's really made me question the intelligence of our taxation and expenditures systems. im rather disillusioned with liberal fiscal policy (though the republicans are hardly better when it comes to spending).
If only differing ideologies actually had a determining effect on governmental operations... Sadly, talking points garner most votes in any given election, while day to day operations remain the same no matter who's in power.
Your first post seems to make two key contentions. The first being that government cannot act like a business because businesses cannot be equally representative (ie the poor get the shaft). The second is that government should encourage a "diffusion of responsibility" in order to ensure that everyone contributes.
First and foremost, it seems a little silly to bring up the second point in the context of the discussion (our current taxation system along with this proposed "Fair" Tax system). Both the current system and this proposed system would be primarily defined by freeloaders. To say that my proposals would be untenable because we'd have too many freeloaders would seem to imply that alternative systems don't have lots of freeloaders. Yet under our current federal system of taxation, most Americans pay little or no tax. The top 1% of American wage earners pay 40% of those taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of American wage earners pay only 3% of those taxes. How can this system wherein nearly one out of every two people is an effective "freeloader" be tenable?
To say that "government can't be a business" is to make an absolute statement that should somehow have underlying principles to support it. This would beg two important questions:
1) What is a government and what is its purpose?
2) What is a bunsiness and what is its purpose?
In order for it to be impossible for a government to be a business, the answers to the first two questions should fundamentally contradict each other. Yet they do not.
A government is a social body that serves to protect the rights of men. A business is a social body that serves to achieve the desires of men. Since moral men will desire a protection of their rights, I see little reason why the answers to the two questions above need contradict each other.
A big problem, as you seem to say, is ensuring that people receive equal protections for equal rights. Unfortunately, our current system simply chooses to approach this problem by erasing rights in order to achieve something they might call "equal protection", but rarely works out to be such. They erase the right to property by forcibly taking property from some without their consent, and they erase the right to liberty by forcibly enslaving some without their consent. The end product of this is a system wherein no one has any rights until the government determines they do, which in turn would beg the question: where does the right to govern come from? I think my own position on that question would be pretty clear, but in case you're confused the answer is something shiny, something black, something that typically makes a very loud noise.
Now, if one simply recognizes the rights that all men have (we'll use Life, Liberty, and Property unless you object) -- one finds that all these rights are derived from existence, not money or skin color or sex or age or whatever. Therefore, all men and woman in exsitence share these rights equally. What is not equal, however, is their means to protect these rights. While rights exist by default, the protection of those rights must be delivered as a service, meaning they come at the cost of others. A policeman must labor to protect you. A judge must think to exonerate you. In other words, government must work to protect in you and others those rights innate to your existence, just as a business would do to provide whatever other desires you might have. And since those services come at the cost of another, you must compensate them for that cost. And you cannot do so in a manner that would destroy the underlying rights in the first place.
So, individuals should have every opportunity to purchase the protection of their rights from the government, and they should do so above all other things. No individual should have the right to purchase protections in a manner that would violate the rights of others. So the poor may not "purchase" their protections by robbing the rich. And the rich may not purchase "protections" that would in effect attack the poor. Both actions would be affronts to the very rights we're talking about protecting in the first place.
I am therefore talking about a taxation system wherein people pay a basic flat tax for the core protections of government. From there, however, we would have additional costs for services. And the use of those services should certainly be directly linked to payment for them, for all the reasons mentioned above.
i think my assumption is the opposite: rich people have less to lose becos they can afford to purchase their own protections. but leaving the poor out to dry creates social instability and eventually topples the whole system, as in every society there are more poor than rich. so you create a system that, yes, offers equal protection and forces the wealthy to join in. becos even if they benefit less from it, they do benefit somewhat and it does not hurt them to participate.
This doesn't make a lot of sense. Leaving either "out to dry" would "creates social instability and eventually topples the whole system". You go on to talk about benefits as if the mere existence of a benefit would justify any cost. That mindset opens the door to all sorts of insane proposals that simply hold "social stability" and "continuity" as their highest aim.
and by strict ideology i mean focusing on one or two factors to the exclusion of others... as in you focus on 1+1=2 and i see an equation with a lot more factors and variables... ax2+bx+c=y... where one is trying to find as equitable solution as possible that maximizes the overall value for everyone.
Ok, but "ax2+bx+c=y" is also a stringent view. I see your point on "exclusion of others", but that's a claim easily tossed around.
Maximizing any value for anyone requires a cost. One could easily make the argument that genocide could maximize value for some majority or minority group. Such an action isn't justified by its ends, and would likely be motivated by ignoring important factors in the human equation such as morality and justice.
You approach most political problems from a "practical" and "workable" perspective, and I respect that. Anything that isn't practical and isn't workable is pretty much pointless. My only observation, however, would be that your definition of "practical" and "workable" seems to stem from either a love of simply playing a devil's advocate against change or from a real fear you have of people who would make large-scale modifications to your world. You seem to seek compromises that tilt heavily in the favor of the established order and, again, that can be ok. However, one must remember that practical and workable things come from hard, correct principles. If you compromise a valid equation with an invalid one, you are always left with an invalid equation.
I am therefore talking about a taxation system wherein people pay a basic flat tax for the core protections of government. From there, however, we would have additional costs for services. And the use of those services should certainly be directly linked to payment for them, for all the reasons mentioned above.
it seems to me this is essentially what i am saying. we just happen to disagree on what constitutes the core protections of government.
and i do see the role of government and business as somewhat opposed. government is about protecting the strong from being taken advantage of by the weak. business is about the owner trying to gain as much benefit for himself as he can. business is based on an imbalance of power... otherwise it is communism. government is at its core a check against abuse of that imbalance. and yes, there are freeloaders in both systems, i just think the alternative of having government dependent entirely on the voluntary contributions of the public would lead to far more freeloaders and social collapse. but the system you propose isn't like that anyway. so it seems we agree in a minimalist government that provides basic necessities. what those entail is a different debate though.
it seems to me this is essentially what i am saying. we just happen to disagree on what constitutes the core protections of government.
and i do see the role of government and business as somewhat opposed. government is about protecting the strong from being taken advantage of by the weak. business is about the owner trying to gain as much benefit for himself as he can. business is based on an imbalance of power... otherwise it is communism. government is at its core a check against abuse of that imbalance. and yes, there are freeloaders in both systems, i just think the alternative of having government dependent entirely on the voluntary contributions of the public would lead to far more freeloaders and social collapse. but the system you propose isn't like that anyway. so it seems we agree in a minimalist government that provides basic necessities. what those entail is a different debate though.
Government is not about "protecting the strong from being taken advantage of by the weak", nor is it about "protecting the weak from being taken advantage of by the strong" (as I assume you meant). Government is about protecting the rights of citizens, regardless of whether or not they are weak or strong.
You say that a business is "about the owner trying to gain as much benefit for himself as he can". That's exactly right, but you just forget how he does that. He does that by providing a service that equally benefits someone else. Absent the benefit I provide to my customer, my business will achieve absolutely zero benefit for me.
This doesn't make a lot of sense. Leaving either "out to dry" would "creates social instability and eventually topples the whole system". You go on to talk about benefits as if the mere existence of a benefit would justify any cost. That mindset opens the door to all sorts of insane proposals that simply hold "social stability" and "continuity" as their highest aim.
Ok, but "ax2+bx+c=y" is also a stringent view. I see your point on "exclusion of others", but that's a claim easily tossed around.
Maximizing any value for anyone requires a cost. One could easily make the argument that genocide could maximize value for some majority or minority group. Such an action isn't justified by its ends, and would likely be motivated by ignoring important factors in the human equation such as morality and justice.
You approach most political problems from a "practical" and "workable" perspective, and I respect that. Anything that isn't practical and isn't workable is pretty much pointless. My only observation, however, would be that your definition of "practical" and "workable" seems to stem from either a love of simply playing a devil's advocate against change or from a real fear you have of people who would make large-scale modifications to your world. You seem to seek compromises that tilt heavily in the favor of the established order and, again, that can be ok. However, one must remember that practical and workable things come from hard, correct principles. If you compromise a valid equation with an invalid one, you are always left with an invalid equation.
i did not intend to imply it is ok to enact policies regardless of cost. like i said, it is a matter of balance of interests. genocide would never be acceptable, becos no matter what benefit you incur, the cost in terms of loss of life is per se unacceptable. but again, when you compare the potential for an anarchic collapse of all regulatory institutions, the benefit of no taxes at all is minimal and affects only a few, but the cost to many is high. im not talking about maximizing one at the expense of another. im talking about striking a balance between cost and benefit. again... to a certain point, advertising costs increase revenue. after that, you're wasting money. but there is an optimal point where, on the whole, you are striking the perfect balance between cost of advertising and increased revnue. that is the point i am talking about with respect to government. there will always be costs and burdens involved, but the goal is to try to help as many as possible for the least cost. it's a delicate process.
anyway, to an extent, yes i favor the established order. our current system has been rather successful thus far and i favor working within it to improve it. i also understand that slow and steady progress is more tenable than a dramatic upheaval. if the system becomes truly unfair, it will naturally right itself... as we did when we began a revolution against the british monarchy. however, the fact that you are here debating about changes rather than out in the streets calling for revolution shows that you too do not find the status quo so oppressive as to demand immediate and dramatic change. you do benefit from it and your benefits are sufficient to bear the costs and continue to advocate for change. if the costs were truly unconscionably oppressive, people would revolt. on the whole, i am on your side in favor of dramatically reducing government. but i try to see it in terms of small steps in that direction. it is similar to the old missouri compromise... 13 change proposals that if placed together would have been untenable to the masses and would never have been enacted. but you split them up and tackle them one at a time, and they all end up being carried out. becos people resist change in large doses unless hard pressed. we've not gotten to that point yet.
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Perhaps I'm confused. How would there not still be 4 embedded taxes on this, and how would those embedded taxes not be increased? Are businesses not paying your 23% on transactions with other businesses?
Sounds like an unbiased source? Is Grover Norquist involved?
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Fair enough. The underlying point is acknowledging there is a tradeoff between "X" and being able "to provide for their families and their future".
I still think you're cutting it across liberal/conservative lines too much though. I don't think "X" is assumed to be for the benefit of families and their future by liberals if "X" is an initiative to develop a new type of bomb.
I was just saying that I was arguing within the parameters of the House Bill that is currently submitted. Fair Tax vs. current system. You started "amending the bill" so to speak. I can discuss things I've researched but with what you've said, other than telling you it sounds like a decent idea to me, I don't know where to go, because I don't know the details.
So I guess I should have just said, sounds like a decent plan to me.
NO WAY! Only the final end-user product would be taxed. No business to business taxations.
How do you know what the eventual end user is?
If I buy a car and re-sell it, am I entitled to a refund of my sales tax?
Oh shit, ok. My bad. Remove any protests I had on this regarding increased prices.
I still don't like the link between taxation and consumption, but the ancillary claims make a lot more sense now.
that proves what about paco? im going for my JD at one of the best law schools in the country. when i graduate i might be making less than 30k per year becos im considering, imagine this, choosing to do something i love rather than whoring myself out for bigger bucks. id rather be able to choose how my income is taxed through my purchasing habits than have the government just take it and tell me to make do with whatever is left.
Move to Monaco if you hate paying taxes so much.
so what sort of tax system do you propose? besides the one where you dont give your money to anyone and keep it all in your savings and tell the poor to go fuck themselves or get a better job.
the difference between ramen and luxury items is they give you a rebate based on living costs. if you eat nothing but ramen, your "prebate" under this system will exceed your expenses, so you actually make money on taxes. if you throw your money on flashy cars and ice, your prebate won't come close to the sales tax you pay and you'll end up giving more to the government than frugal spenders. im cool with that.
The end user is the person that buys the product brand new.
You would not be entitled to a refund of your sales tax, why should you be? If you're saying, "Well, now this person's the new end user, so they should pay the tax", you know how embedded taxes work. The car was $15,000 but you paid $3,500 in tax. When you resale it, you're going to consider the $18,500 that you paid, not the $15,000 sticker cost. The person that buys it from you will pay the depreciated value of the tax as an embedded cost. Keep in mind though, the $15,000 sticker price is not a reflection of a $15,000 car today, the sticker price will go down because of the removal of embedded taxes but the final price back up because of the Fair Tax to give you just about the same purchasing power as beforehand.
There's definitely some literature about this topic. I may not be 100% correct in what I'm saying, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
On the flip side, if it were a tax for a new bomb, I doubt you'd hear many conservative complaints anyway.
i dont think an american jd is any good in monaco, but ill look into it. my problem isnt with paying taxes at all, my problem is with the stupid way they are collected and, more importantly, spent. big government doesn't work. that's just the way it is.
It has nothing to do with paying taxes. I don't hate paying taxes, I think there are better ways to pay into said system.
Besides that one? Damn.
If you're going to ignore the links between the value of the services and the way those services are paid for, your tax system is going to be fucked up. But if we're going that route, I propose blindly linking taxation to labor, which in turn means an income tax on individuals only. I'd simply make that income tax one wherein there are no deductions, no loopholes, no anything. A flat percentage that is behavior and income neutral. Every individual pays 10%, or 15% or whatever. It's trash.
I understand, but I don't think you got my question. I'm wondering what the relevance of those things is to the concept of taxation?
I always liked the concept of adding up all the money we need to fund the operations for the year and divide by the total number of people. That's how much everyone's taxes for the year are. Now that's equality!
I largely agree with this and actually proposed it here a while back and almost got lynched.
Do you realize the per-worker tax in this program would only be about $10,000 / person?
id probly be ok with that too. i think simplicity is a good thing when it comes to taxes. im not sure i know what you mean about links between values of services? what are you talking about exactly? and how can you base a tax system off of that without making it even more complicated than our current one? it sounds like it would be ripe for subjective judgment calls and tinkering.
im pretty sure this is going to become another of our epic debates between your stringent ideological views and my attempt to elucidate practical and workable systems. the purpose of taxation is to provide funding for necessary public services (what that encompasses is a whole other debate) by securing contributions from its citizens. in a class conscious society such as ours, we recognize that capitalism blesses some more than others. i dont believe in wealth distribution per se, but i do believe that funding for public services provided to all should be derived from each with respect to their ability to bear that burden. thus, roads or public transit available to all are paid for by all, according to their ability to contribute.
thus, as i said, a consumer based tax is rather fair... those able to splurge on luxury items are more able to bear higher tax burdens, given that they can afford to buy a lexus without worrying where their next meal is coming from. those able to purchase little more than living expenses do not have to bear heavy tax burdens. everyone gets their equal cost of living rebate and can use it accordingly. an income based tax still means that someone being taxed 15% of poverty wages is going to barely keep themselves afloat, even IF they spend no more than living expenses. though the contribution percentage is equivalent to a welathy person's, the burden of paying even a much smaller tax amount is much higher. on the flip side, a wealthy person can keep nearly all of their wealth if they like, by living a modest lifestyle. it leaves people to somewhat decide their own tax burden through their lifestyle, but also secures funding from everyone according to their ability to provide it. no, it isn't perfect, but it seems better than tying it to simple income.
it does have the benefit of forcing government to reign in spending and making citizens ask what is REALLY important for their government to be supporting.
Every governmental service has a value. It has a value to the person who provides that service and a person who receives that service. Right now in this country, someone can receive maximum benefit from public services for minimum cost. It's like running a bank wherein virtually no links between deposits and withdrawls exist.
You say that a system involving the concept of value would be ripe for "subjective judgment calls and tinkering". On that count you'd be 100% correct. There is another system of value exchange that is ripe for "subjective judgment calls and tinkering" known as a market. The market is responsible for the exchange of the majority of value in this country, and those values are determined by the individuals involved in exchange.
Again, government services are products with values. They are provided by one person to another and are perfect candidates for traditional systems of exchange. That's why I've always supported "taxation" systems wherein citizens simply buy and exchange services. Except it's no longer taxation at that point since a) you're allowed to asses the value of government services on your own and b) you're allowed to completely opt out of the system if you see no value there or a bad value proposition there. Obviously the current government could not be supported on such a system because, surprise surprise, the government doesn't actually produce $1,000,000,000,000 in value to the citizenry. They'd simply not pay for the vast majority of the services because the value proposition is incredibly weak. That's why you have to force them to pay.
First, it can't really be "epic" since I have some visitors coming into town tonight and won't be back on the board until next week
Secondly, you do understand that "practical and workable systems" require a stringent ideological view, right? There's nothing practical or workable about "sometimes 1+1=2 and sometimes 1+1=3".
What you're saying here actually plays into what I say above. Consumption taxes are motivated by a single key assumption about the value of government services:
Rich people have more to lose in the absence of government than poor people and therefore achieve a higher value from its services
This assumption is not a terrible one, particularly in the context of a government wherein the equal protection of rights is held paramount. But that's no longer the hallmark of a society that spends the majority of its tax dollars on means-tested services to the poor.
i see two problems with this.
ONE is that government can't be a business. if, for instance, the poor could afford to hire police and whatnot, they wouldn't be poor. some services that truly ARE needed would be impossible for people to buy. you can't have a government that acts like a merchant. the purpose of government is to level the playing field SOMEWHAT so that everyone has a chance to lift themselves up. if you have to buy services from the government, there would be no difference between hiring bodyguards or private security and paying a police force. and NEITHER would be options for the poor. which returns us to systems like feudalism and the monarchy... a very restrictive society wherein the wealthy have protection and the poor have no recourse.
government levels the playing field by doing things like providing police protection and due process and equal rights to everyone, so that a poor person's alarm clock is just as well protected as a rich person's lexus... which makes sense becos subjectively, the poor person cannot afford to replace his alarm clock but has and thus places a much higher subjective value on it than the rich person on their lexus. however, it places the poor in a catch-22: they can have the clock, but they have to forgo protecting it via the police. or they can purchase police protection, but have no money to purchase goods to have protected. thus, buying government services cannot be like going to walmart and collecting your shopping list, becos that nullifies the idea of any government... it's not a government, it's just a business. i would also argue that people DO get to express their subjective value for services through voting. clearly, there are problems with that, but i think you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that representative democracy is worse than feudalism was.
TWO is the concept of diffusion of responsibility. i know you are all about personal accountability, but you simply cannot ignore group dynamics in decision making when talking about government. when paying taxes, people will underpay based on the assumption that other people will pick up the slack. any waiter will tell you this... large groups tip far, far worse than a party of 2. on a governmental scale, you have everyone assuming that the police are valued enough to meet their budgetary needs and thus they decide not to contribute taxes to the police and the police cannot function. as i recall, psychological studies have shown that this behavior will persist even as institutions or services decay... even as the police are crumbling and it becomes clear people are not funding in accordance with the subjective value of a police force, individual members will ride it out, hoping others will take up the slack. it is essentially the same argument used against welfare. but the bottom line is the assumption that people will contribute in accordance with their subjective value of things is questionable. i think you would have too many freeloaders, possibly even more than you have now.
unless i misunderstand your conception of how this system would work? if you're proposing a kind of earmarked tax system, i think i could get on board with that. maybe... a flat tax, everyone pays 10-15% and each taxpayer can apportion their tax load to particular agencies/departments... you think medicare is crucial... put all your taxes into it. i actually kinda like that idea. let the people determine an agency's budget from year to year. make the department of education work for its funding. and if a department's value is so low, it is axed. no more pet projects for congress or presidents, no more pork barrel. the people as a whole get to determine what they want funded.
i think my assumption is the opposite: rich people have less to lose becos they can afford to purchase their own protections. but leaving the poor out to dry creates social instability and eventually topples the whole system, as in every society there are more poor than rich. so you create a system that, yes, offers equal protection and forces the wealthy to join in. becos even if they benefit less from it, they do benefit somewhat and it does not hurt them to participate.
and by strict ideology i mean focusing on one or two factors to the exclusion of others... as in you focus on 1+1=2 and i see an equation with a lot more factors and variables... ax2+bx+c=y... where one is trying to find as equitable solution as possible that maximizes the overall value for everyone.
no hurry. it's good to know we both have real lives to attend to occasionally
If only differing ideologies actually had a determining effect on governmental operations... Sadly, talking points garner most votes in any given election, while day to day operations remain the same no matter who's in power.
Amen.
"What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact."
Camden 5-28-06
Washington, D.C. 6-22-08
Your first post seems to make two key contentions. The first being that government cannot act like a business because businesses cannot be equally representative (ie the poor get the shaft). The second is that government should encourage a "diffusion of responsibility" in order to ensure that everyone contributes.
First and foremost, it seems a little silly to bring up the second point in the context of the discussion (our current taxation system along with this proposed "Fair" Tax system). Both the current system and this proposed system would be primarily defined by freeloaders. To say that my proposals would be untenable because we'd have too many freeloaders would seem to imply that alternative systems don't have lots of freeloaders. Yet under our current federal system of taxation, most Americans pay little or no tax. The top 1% of American wage earners pay 40% of those taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of American wage earners pay only 3% of those taxes. How can this system wherein nearly one out of every two people is an effective "freeloader" be tenable?
To say that "government can't be a business" is to make an absolute statement that should somehow have underlying principles to support it. This would beg two important questions:
1) What is a government and what is its purpose?
2) What is a bunsiness and what is its purpose?
In order for it to be impossible for a government to be a business, the answers to the first two questions should fundamentally contradict each other. Yet they do not.
A government is a social body that serves to protect the rights of men. A business is a social body that serves to achieve the desires of men. Since moral men will desire a protection of their rights, I see little reason why the answers to the two questions above need contradict each other.
A big problem, as you seem to say, is ensuring that people receive equal protections for equal rights. Unfortunately, our current system simply chooses to approach this problem by erasing rights in order to achieve something they might call "equal protection", but rarely works out to be such. They erase the right to property by forcibly taking property from some without their consent, and they erase the right to liberty by forcibly enslaving some without their consent. The end product of this is a system wherein no one has any rights until the government determines they do, which in turn would beg the question: where does the right to govern come from? I think my own position on that question would be pretty clear, but in case you're confused the answer is something shiny, something black, something that typically makes a very loud noise.
Now, if one simply recognizes the rights that all men have (we'll use Life, Liberty, and Property unless you object) -- one finds that all these rights are derived from existence, not money or skin color or sex or age or whatever. Therefore, all men and woman in exsitence share these rights equally. What is not equal, however, is their means to protect these rights. While rights exist by default, the protection of those rights must be delivered as a service, meaning they come at the cost of others. A policeman must labor to protect you. A judge must think to exonerate you. In other words, government must work to protect in you and others those rights innate to your existence, just as a business would do to provide whatever other desires you might have. And since those services come at the cost of another, you must compensate them for that cost. And you cannot do so in a manner that would destroy the underlying rights in the first place.
So, individuals should have every opportunity to purchase the protection of their rights from the government, and they should do so above all other things. No individual should have the right to purchase protections in a manner that would violate the rights of others. So the poor may not "purchase" their protections by robbing the rich. And the rich may not purchase "protections" that would in effect attack the poor. Both actions would be affronts to the very rights we're talking about protecting in the first place.
I am therefore talking about a taxation system wherein people pay a basic flat tax for the core protections of government. From there, however, we would have additional costs for services. And the use of those services should certainly be directly linked to payment for them, for all the reasons mentioned above.
This doesn't make a lot of sense. Leaving either "out to dry" would "creates social instability and eventually topples the whole system". You go on to talk about benefits as if the mere existence of a benefit would justify any cost. That mindset opens the door to all sorts of insane proposals that simply hold "social stability" and "continuity" as their highest aim.
Ok, but "ax2+bx+c=y" is also a stringent view. I see your point on "exclusion of others", but that's a claim easily tossed around.
Maximizing any value for anyone requires a cost. One could easily make the argument that genocide could maximize value for some majority or minority group. Such an action isn't justified by its ends, and would likely be motivated by ignoring important factors in the human equation such as morality and justice.
You approach most political problems from a "practical" and "workable" perspective, and I respect that. Anything that isn't practical and isn't workable is pretty much pointless. My only observation, however, would be that your definition of "practical" and "workable" seems to stem from either a love of simply playing a devil's advocate against change or from a real fear you have of people who would make large-scale modifications to your world. You seem to seek compromises that tilt heavily in the favor of the established order and, again, that can be ok. However, one must remember that practical and workable things come from hard, correct principles. If you compromise a valid equation with an invalid one, you are always left with an invalid equation.
it seems to me this is essentially what i am saying. we just happen to disagree on what constitutes the core protections of government.
and i do see the role of government and business as somewhat opposed. government is about protecting the strong from being taken advantage of by the weak. business is about the owner trying to gain as much benefit for himself as he can. business is based on an imbalance of power... otherwise it is communism. government is at its core a check against abuse of that imbalance. and yes, there are freeloaders in both systems, i just think the alternative of having government dependent entirely on the voluntary contributions of the public would lead to far more freeloaders and social collapse. but the system you propose isn't like that anyway. so it seems we agree in a minimalist government that provides basic necessities. what those entail is a different debate though.
Government is not about "protecting the strong from being taken advantage of by the weak", nor is it about "protecting the weak from being taken advantage of by the strong" (as I assume you meant). Government is about protecting the rights of citizens, regardless of whether or not they are weak or strong.
You say that a business is "about the owner trying to gain as much benefit for himself as he can". That's exactly right, but you just forget how he does that. He does that by providing a service that equally benefits someone else. Absent the benefit I provide to my customer, my business will achieve absolutely zero benefit for me.
i did not intend to imply it is ok to enact policies regardless of cost. like i said, it is a matter of balance of interests. genocide would never be acceptable, becos no matter what benefit you incur, the cost in terms of loss of life is per se unacceptable. but again, when you compare the potential for an anarchic collapse of all regulatory institutions, the benefit of no taxes at all is minimal and affects only a few, but the cost to many is high. im not talking about maximizing one at the expense of another. im talking about striking a balance between cost and benefit. again... to a certain point, advertising costs increase revenue. after that, you're wasting money. but there is an optimal point where, on the whole, you are striking the perfect balance between cost of advertising and increased revnue. that is the point i am talking about with respect to government. there will always be costs and burdens involved, but the goal is to try to help as many as possible for the least cost. it's a delicate process.
anyway, to an extent, yes i favor the established order. our current system has been rather successful thus far and i favor working within it to improve it. i also understand that slow and steady progress is more tenable than a dramatic upheaval. if the system becomes truly unfair, it will naturally right itself... as we did when we began a revolution against the british monarchy. however, the fact that you are here debating about changes rather than out in the streets calling for revolution shows that you too do not find the status quo so oppressive as to demand immediate and dramatic change. you do benefit from it and your benefits are sufficient to bear the costs and continue to advocate for change. if the costs were truly unconscionably oppressive, people would revolt. on the whole, i am on your side in favor of dramatically reducing government. but i try to see it in terms of small steps in that direction. it is similar to the old missouri compromise... 13 change proposals that if placed together would have been untenable to the masses and would never have been enacted. but you split them up and tackle them one at a time, and they all end up being carried out. becos people resist change in large doses unless hard pressed. we've not gotten to that point yet.