Ok, so we got off on a big tangent in the healthcare thread thanks to a troll alt that essentially argued that poor, downtrodden rich people are going to be dying in the streets because of a tax increase to pay for healthcare and the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts. This is retarded for many reasons, which I hope we'll discuss in this thread. Mainly I'd like to focus on taxation, the growing income gap between the classes, the shrinking middle class, and social responsibility.
Now we've had a lot of taxation threads before, so I don't want to retread all of that stuff too much, but generally speaking progressive taxation is good because the people who get the most use and benefit out of the government are the primary bankrollers of it. Amazingly enough, these happen to be rich people, despite the bullshit we're always told about "moochers" and "welfare queens". As I've said before, rich people pay taxes for the privilege of being rich and having their riches protected from something like a populist revolution against their excesses.
Anyway, discuss.
When he dies, I hope they write "Worst Affirmative Action Hire, EVER" on his grave. His corpse should be trolled.
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This is doing it right.
Yeah I hate the whole false dichotomy that they've made. From a budget standpoint tax cuts vs increased spending yields the same end result: Less money
why is one ok and the other the devil's work inself?
This is a point I want to sort of give a personal disclaimer; I have a couple of friends who are rather well off (certainly not millionaires) but they do what they can and aren't money-hoarding shits. Plus they're good people in other respects.
The argument that rich people somehow get more out of government than poor people doesn't hold water, unless you subscribe to the view that financial success or failure is due to the actions of government.
Rigorous Scholarship
my counter point is my best friend's dad, who is one of the most powerful CPA's in the STATE, is a VERY nice man...except he HATES HATES HATES taxes
and as a CPA he is verrrrryyyy good at not paying them
the dude has a house that HAS A THEATER IN IT and I have had to leave his house when stuff like this comes up because he devolves from nice, selfless man (i mean, he has spent so much money on me it is silly. I am not even his son and he has given me money to go out to dinner with my friend, go see movies, pay for hotel rooms on road trips) but when the 'T" word comes up he becomes some ridiculously stingy miser.
I was mostly just going for the idea that there are obvious exceptions. I went on a rant about rich assholes to one of my friends, and she took a lot of offense on her father's behalf (well, her's too).
You know, we've done this dance before, and I'm not sure what to think of you still not getting it.
Climate change legislation has been held up because it affects the bottom line of corporations. Same with healthcare reform and financial reform. This is directly affecting the wealth of rich people, and because they're wealthy their concerns are given more weight than my concerns. How the fuck is the not an example of rich people getting more bang for their tax buck than me?
You are missing the point of view that many hold wherein the rich, in an government-free system, would be subject to the masses of have-nots looking to capitalize on all the resources being in a central area.
also wealth is DEFINED by the government, which is ironic. Most of the rich actually hold NO tangible resource BEYOND 'money' so they literally owe their ability to purchase commodities and resources they desire TO the government.
Why don't they create some new company and hire a couple employee's?
And can we stop with the generalization that rich people are assholes? I know a lot of poor people that are huge assholes too. There are also a lot of assholes that make less than half of the average income in their area.
This thread will boil down to
The real debate lies in how much is too much? 70% at the highest level is too much. 20% at the highest level is too little. 30%-50% at the highest level is reasonable depending on the state of economy/country.
I have a couple relatives who certainly are millionaires (owner/founder of a multinational retail chain...richer than fuck) and they're great people. Yeah, they stay comfortable...but beyond that they give everything they can. And you won't hear them complain about taxes.
Um...there's a pretty fundamental difference between the two. Yes, both lead to the government having less money, but that's only one aspect of it. One of them involves taking less money by force and redistributing it to others; and I think the idea is that eventually under tax cuts services would have to decline.
I mean, I don't agree with them; I think progressive taxation is A-OK. And, in fact, necessary. But asking to pay the same tax rate as others doesn't really qualify as a "handout," unless you're only willing to look at the world and judge things in terms of the status quo.
I guess I just have no problem at least understanding their argument, even if I then dismiss them as assholes. Trying to misinterpret it does nobody any good.
Not to mention that government funded infrastructure makes commerce possible, and government funded education makes an educated workforce, and government funded law enforcement protects the assets of rich people, and government funded military keeps other countries from invading and seizing wealth and land.
Money influencing and/or corrupting the political process is certainly a major concern in this country. But it has nothing to do with taxes.
Rigorous Scholarship
Financial success or failure is not directly due to the actions of the government.
The ability to capitalize on that success or failure can be due to the protections the government provides.
What's the entrepreneur class in Somalia or Afghanistan look like? Last I checked, Bill Gates doesn't have to bankroll his own private army to defend his wealth.
The super-rich in the US have much more power to lobby congress. They do indeed get "government handouts" in the form of custom-tailored legislation passed to protect their interests and to advance their objectives, which ultimately makes them much more money.
I find it increasingly ironic that the only truly "wealthy" man I know (financially) literally owes his wealth to the government, and yet hates the fact that he gets taxed
He is an accountant
Think about that
Arguing about who gets more out of the government just seems incredibly pointless. It's like saying, in the event of total apocalypse, who would get screwed the most? Well, everyone would be pretty screwed. We should just structure the government to provide the most possible benefit to everyone, and if some people get a little more benefit than others, it really doesn't matter.
I'm sure they're happy to know that there are people like them in the Bible.
The area of contention, it seems, involve social services and welfare and the use of tax dollars for the benefit of the politically connected (by way of such things as farm subsidies and the like).
The classical conservative view is that government exists to protect the rights of the citizenry. Anything beyond that is not a proper role of government and should not be paid for with tax dollars.
Rigorous Scholarship
I'll concede that. A better example is how much more utility a rich person gets out of roads than I do. UPS (and by extension its executives) is get far more economic benefit per tax dollar for the upkeep of our highway system than I do. Without a reliably maintained highway system, UPS doesn't exist.
but the counter argument is comparing the relative levels of tax dollars going into each program (e.g. infrastructure vs. medicaid. or military vs. welfare)
besides, 'rights' to me mean things like 'the right to electricity' the 'right' to have clean water the 'right' to have access to medical treatments
all of those things are NOT provided by the government
I think they should be
I'm sure someone is going to bring up Laffer at some point, so I'll get this in early. The argument I prescribe to is there is a limit to where you can effectively tax someone (by effective I mean increase tax revenue). Taxation is a very complex thing to fiddle with due to how increases in one area may or may not affect another in the economy - it does no good to drive taxes so high to fund a program that those who would benefit from the program are no longer employed because there are no resources with which to pay them. This is a bit oversimplified, but I'll use it: calling for an increase in taxes may not have any noticeable effect on Bill Gates, but someone who was about to start a new green energy company with his $1 billion might not be able to if $600 million of that is suddenly missing.
The classical conservative view apparently ignores the "provide for the general welfare" part of the constitution. This goes back to my point from earlier: progressive taxation, higher taxes on those able to afford it, and social safety net services are the price rich people pay for not being subject to a French Revolution. You allow the lower class to grow and become angry at your own peril.
Rigorous Scholarship
Freedom of the press is a right. Should the government pay for the cost of running newspapers and other media?
What you are proposing is that if something is a right, the government is obligated to pay for it. Or are you just suggesting that government needs to pay for certain rights that you like?
Rigorous Scholarship
How is that a bad example? You just said yourself that the users (ie, the ones who benefit more) pay more taxes for upkeep. Your problem is that you're trying to separate direct taxes (fuel, tolls, etc) from the income tax revenue that will go towards transportation in the federal budget. I've never argued that the rich aren't paying more. My argument is that in terms of economic benefit, they have a better return on each tax dollar they pay.
well to me, there is a difference between "rights" to bear arms and "rights" to water/food/electricity/etc
without one of those rights, you will wither and die
the other is more of a freedom
i think the two are often conflated, when I don't feel they mean the same thing
the "right" to bear arms is really the government saying that they wont STOP you from getting guns
I guess they aren't STOPPING us from getting food and water
also- isn't a laywer provided for you if you can't afford one? Isn't HAVING a laywer a 'right'?
if someone can't afford things, why not provide them with a basic level of that 'right'?
if the US government would give people guns if you couldn't afford them I wouldn't be too upset at the PRINCIPLE (but i just don' t like guns)
Government services are the exact opposite of how the private sector works, in that the people who pay the least tend to get the most out of government.
Rigorous Scholarship
It's almost as if somebody recognized that having the right to a lawyer absent the means to actually hire one was pretty meaningless, and destroyed one's realistic probability of a fair trial.
I almost feel like an analogy between this and healthcare could be drawn.
Honestly we only just how got to the point where we've acknowledged guns as an individual right.
And nothing is stopping a family from using general aid (say, the Earned Income Tax Credit) to purchase a reasonably priced firearm to exercise their second amendment rights. You can pick up a decent semi-auto handgun for like $300 (and that's new, and retail), or a shotgun for less.
We may not hand out guns, but we hand out money that people can use to buy the guns they have a right to (or money they can use on other necessities, freeing up the money for a gun...I've seen plenty of people on food stamps driving better cars than mine).
See, and most of us here simply won't agree, primarily because you seem to take "getting the most out of government" only in the most direct and literal sense.
For instance, the CEO of Halliburton has probably never drawn a welfare check.
I disagree with the super red. As an attorney, don't you benefit significantly more from the court system than a poor person. Hell, your entire trade is based on its existence.
Similarly, a poor person gets an education for themselves from our school system. A wealthy person potentially gets a labor pool.
That's where we disagree; I think the people who are getting the most benefit aren't getting checks from the government.
A wealthy person gets a labor pool AND has access to that exact same education to boot.
Yeah, I fail to see how this is hard to understand.
This. THIS. THIS.
Also- I really enjoy when people (even those who are in favor of things like welfare) say things like "That guy on food stamps has a better car than me!"
Without realizing
that poor financial decisions like that are the reason they are ON food stamps
besides- think about this. If you are a CEO of, say, a car company. If the government provided more basic amenities to people (or at least the funds to acquire them) then that frees up more of THEIR money to purchase Luxury goods. Like a sports car. Or a PS3.
Not to mention the fact that if you have the money, in civil court you can bury someone who doesn't have money in legal fees and court procedure until they drop the case or go broke.
man i totally just said that, but with accountant. and taxes.
That's a massively false statement, unless you believe the government has a presumed ownership of all private wealth and property.
And this is akin to extortion. You're equating taxes to "protection money". EVERYONE benefits from a society of laws where wealth and property are protected.
Limbaugh is a private citizen, so nobody can be sure exactly what he gives, but here's a wikipedia listing on one of his charities: