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Good points. And I've made this argument to the same people, but they choose to ignore it because it blows their argument. Fire, law enforcement, public schools, and EMS are all used much more by the lower classes than the upper classes. Maybe we should implement a user fee for these services instead and really find out who uses them most.
You are saying "burden" is an increase in taxes that causes economic instability in your life? So I suppose that any high income worker that experience economic instability by buying more but unable to pay should get a free ride on taxes? You attribute "burden" as something that only belongs to the less wealthy... strange.. I didn't know it only applies to them. so because a wealthier person with 20% taxes can survive a hardship versus a less wealthy person we should make the taxes high enough that they the more wealthy person can face financial ruin? Thats a good thing? The military and police protect everyone's assets, rich, poor, or even homeless. A burglar can break into my house just like ANY other house and steal what they can regardless if you are poor or rich. The burglars don't say lets not steal that rich person's house cause the police are protecting it and not the other house thats poor. The wealthy makes more use of interstates? Last time I check, most goods that "use" the interstates aren't sold primarily to the wealthy people (Hello Walmart, Kmart, Target, etc etc)... the lower income actually use more of the infrastructure than the wealthy... are we taxing them more then? I didn't think so... Last time I check, the majority of people who use National Parks are middle class and lower... strange when you say the system is made for the wealthy when its used primarily by the non-wealthy...
A. Taking away someone's yacht or 2-month Europe vacation is not as big of a decrease in economic well being as taking away money for college money for their kids or mortgage payments on a house, or rent money. The more you have, the smaller percentage you need to pay for necessities and the greater percentage that goes to luxuries. That is, if you can decipher through all of my excessive commas. Actually, now that I look there were only three commas which isn't that excessive.
B. The millitary and police protect everyone's assets, but the poor don't have many assets to protect. Getting robbed of all their assets would be a smaller decline in quality of life for a poor person than it would be for a rich person.
C. Everybody benefits from interstates (except maybe for the people whose houses get in the way) ... the wealthy benefit more. They consume more and ship more for profit. And also wealthy people's houses are NEEEVER in the way of interstates, or at least not where I live.
D. "The majority of people who use National Parks are middle class or lower" -- The majority of people in America are middle class or lower. Your statement says nothing about who uses them more disproportionately.
Last edited by fishmonger; 04-20-2008 at 09:42 AM..
Good points. And I've made this argument to the same people, but they choose to ignore it because it blows their argument. Fire, law enforcement, public schools, and EMS are all used much more by the lower classes than the upper classes. Maybe we should implement a user fee for these services instead and really find out who uses them most.
Wow, you totally blew my argument! Public schools provide workers for rich people. Rich people probably don't get robbed as much because they don't typically live near people poor enough to have a big economic incentive to be thieves + security systems, making it way harder for the hypothetical robber to evade the cops on the way back. Longer drive, faster cop response, more suspicious looking stuff in your car. Without the cops, everybody'd be out for the "big game." And rich people houses may not burn as often but they have a lot more to lose from them burning, so in that case the benefit balances out one way or the other depending on your bias.
A. Taking away someone's yacht or 2-month Europe vacation is not as big of a decrease in economic well being as taking away money for college money for their kids or mortgage payments on a house, or rent money. The more you have, the smaller percentage you need to pay for necessities and the greater percentage that goes to luxuries. That is, if you can decipher through all of my excessive commas.
B. The millitary and police protect everyone's assets, but the poor don't have many assets to protect. Getting robbed of all their assets would be a smaller decline in quality of life for a poor person than it would be for a rich person.
C. Everybody benefits from interstates (except maybe for the people whose houses get in the way) ... the wealthy benefit more. They consume more and ship more for profit. And also wealthy people's houses are NEEEVER in the way of interstates, or at least not where I live.
D. "The majority of people who use National Parks are middle class or lower" -- The majority of people in America are middle class are lower. Your statement says nothing about who uses them more disproportionately.
A) You think every high income has a yacht and 2 month European vacation? You are kidding right, using something that the top 0.1% enjoy and saying that this is "typical" of high income workers is absurd. Nobody provided college money for me when I was in the lower middle class and I did just fine with loans. Are you suggesting we make the top income earners pay for everyone's college education? As far as rent and mortgage payments, nobody is entitled to a house or even a house that is BEYOND what they make. If you make 40k a year, you given the choice to buy a house that you can afford at that salary, not a house that you have to rob someone else to afford.
B) You telling me that rich people leave their doors unlock because the hit isn't that "severe". Does the public know this? That rich people don't care if they are robbed or not because they can afford it?
C) The rich person consumes more... and? You are jealous they consume more than the average person? You think the middle class wouldn't consume more if their wages went up? You consume more because you make more and its not their fault because they make more. The wealthy benefit "more" from interstates? You keep saying that and I have YET to see the interstates covered in rich people or their products that they are buying. All I see is the low income earners and their products. Perhaps we should tax all the income earners who use the interstate and their products since they "barely" use the interstate at all.. they should be happy, right? After all they barely use it compared to all the wealthy people out there...
D) What? First you say that the majority of rich people who use national parks are rich people. Obviously this was never true. Now you say they use it more frequently? Have you any idea how often a CEO uses a national park? Or a lawyer? Or a physician? Or any freaking wealthy person? Last time I checked, nobody I knew who were wealthy used national parks... however I know TONS and TONS of middle class families that do.. You want to tax on frequency of use on national parks? Go ahead and see WHO complains.. it ain't the wealthy..
Consumption is just that... consumption... if someone poorer consumes less it isn't because the wealthier person has their money, its because they couldn't get into the wealthy person's pockets.
You're avoiding the point. As the taxing authority, you are already into everybody's pockets. But your scheme chooses to take dollar number 24,001 away from the poorer person rather than taking dollar number 1,600,000 away from the richer person. That's the decision that you need to explain. And you need to explain it against the background of a decreasing marginal utility of income, a decreasing marginal propensity to consume as income rises, and the resulting higher opportunity cost that the poorer person faces in sacrificing a dollar from consumption to taxation than what the richer person would have faced. Your scheme essentially minimizes net social utility, rather than maximizing it. There can be reasons for making such choices, but you haven't offered any of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
A person who works and enjoys a high income is paid because people value their services. A less wealthy person who earns a lower income, their services are not as valued or unique.
We aren't discussing the income scale. We're discussing your proposals for how to tax people at higher and lower points along the income scale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
You suggest that a less wealthy person has to "give up" on things because prices inflate? That is a problem between that person and the company that didn't give them a raise and not with other members of society. Stealing from other members because your company didn't give you a raise to afford the things you are "use" to doesn't make it right either.
No one has mentioned inflation, and it isn't relevant. The principles remain the same whether the numbers are expressed in constant dollars or nominal dollars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
You suggest that the dollar amount from the less wealthy person is more important than the wealthier person.
Once again, an extra dollar to consume is more useful to someone who already has 24,000 dollars than to someone who already has 1,599,999 dollars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
The person with the lower wealth paid 6k in taxes on flat tax system.. the wealthier person would have paid 70k instead of 40k in taxes per year... thats a 30k difference. We aren't talking about one dollar or even 1k difference..
In the original example, the richer guy made $2,000,000 and you took away 20%, or $400,000 in taxes. The poorer guy made $30,000 and you took away 20%, or $6,000 in taxes. That's a difference of $394,000 under the system that you are supposedly defending.
In the real world of today the $2M guy would pay about $675,000 in taxes while the $30K guy would pay about $3,700. What you plan to do is take an additional $2,300 out of the pocket of every $30K guy in the country so that you can hand a $275,000 check to each $2M guy in the country. And then you'd accuse anyone opposed to that plan of engaging in class warfare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
Ask ANY person who makes that much money if they don't "feel" the impact of losing 30k more than they are suppose to for the benefit of what???
Is the goal of society to assure that rich people feel no impact at all from paying their income taxes? But we can load up the poor people with all the impact we want? That is what flat tax proposals do, you know. Any flat tax proposal so far created. They all shift tax burden off of the rich and onto the poor and middle class. Period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
So that the less wealthy person can do what? Pay less in taxes? Get entitlements? Or just give them "free" money?
Your $30K guy is making a little better than $14 an hour at a full-time job. Okay, more likely less than that at a full-time job plus a part-time job or two. Your $2M guy is making about $960 an hour. Got that? $14 an hour versus $960 an hour, and you're trying to take money away from the $14-an-hour guy. I guess that's just compassionate conservatism for you...
yeah because the south is like china, cheap low wages, you dont have to provide benefits, no workers rights, low taxes, pollute all you want
Unfortunately perhaps, there is some underlying sense to that. Either the US will have to become more like China, or China will have to become more like the US. I wonder which would be better? We report, you decide...
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