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"The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk."
I agree a flat tax is often regressive but it could be modified to allow for exemptions such as housing and food and that would greatly decrease the regressive nature
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Originally Posted by cdelena
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State and local taxes can be progressive or regressive depending upon location........
Yes, many states exempt food from sales taxes already. California does. Whether that is enough to make the sales tax "progressive" I rather doubt. I think of it as neutral, but I have not read any analysis on the matter.
The poor will ALWAYS BE poor. This is how America is today and in the foreseeable future. If this is the case, one may as well surrender their citizenship and move to another country. The grass may not be greener but to say that taxation in the USA is out of control is an understatement!!!
What is your view on this? Are you paying too much taxes? What do you think can be done about this?
Well, your article has already been debunked in this thread, but I can still answer the questions you posed to other City-Data posters. In the sense that we have too much government, yes I am paying too much in taxes; almost everyone is. But I am not upset about it to the point you are with your wild talk of emigrating and your use of multiple exclamation points.
I am a retired high school teacher, middle class at best, and I live in California, a high tax state. My teacher's pension is taxed by the state and federal governments, but the saving grace is relatively low property taxes - I pay $2800 a year property taxes on a two-bedroom plus loft, two and a half bath townhouse which has a two-car garage.
I am basically O.K. with my tax burden, except as noted above. I like good libraries, paved roads, public health inspections of our food supply, fire and police protection, free public education for all comers, and much more. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
Your original post would have been much more interesting if you had given a few particulars of your own situation, much as I did in order to give my opinion some context. Right now all we have is an angry rant without any way to determine if we think your anger is justified.
When you only have $29 a week to spend on groceries, you most certainly do need and value $2.25 more than someone who has $150 to spend on groceries.
Ah, yes. The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Many on the left have used this idea to argue for a transfer of wealth from those who have much to those who have little. Social welfare economists conclude, however, that such fanciful notions are beyond the domain of science as there just isn't any way to measure the change in utility of someone else. Sorry.
High income people often have the option of picking their state and usually choose a state that doesn't hammer them as I have done choosing to live in Washington partially due to no state income tax and they tax things they want to discourage such as gasoline, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana....which I like as a philosophy.
BTW, this only looked at state and local taxes and not federal taxes. Based on the fairness argument, the article makes a good point that the rich are paying less than the lower middle and that needs to be addressed somehow...the problem is that if you make it too harsh, the wealthy will just move and there goes your tax base and jobs providers and hello Detroit.
If I gross up your income by something you never received that changes things and if you only live off ss# it's going to be non taxable but that's something you previously paid for. I know people can have a neg fed rate but I'm not sure I agree with the presentation
You paid a part of social security, same with Medicaid. By the time you retire, cost of living is way higher and will eat up your contribution in no time.
The CBO is not lying, but as I said, they do average it out writhing the quartile so it won't fit every single situation. It would fit the majority in that quartile.
Last edited by SarasotaBound1; 01-17-2015 at 06:41 AM..
I can agree on the issues with food stamps (SNAP) but the majority of those making 80k may not be able to pay all those bills (especially in high COL areas like say New York or San Francisco.) Generally though unless we are talking high debt or high COL, most making 80K would in fact do pretty fine rather than the person on SNAP that should SNAP be removed, they would instantly have issues (especially if they aren't given section 8 housing and lifeline (Obamaphone.))
I don't think the impact would be catastrophic. But I don't advocate for removing SNAP, I would simply limit what you could buy with it to pure necessities like milk, veggies, rice, beans... after all, you should only needed and use it as a necessity.
Also, how could you have issues if you lose SNAP if you only pay a fraction of an already low rent, no phone and no health care. I know people paying 2000 in rent, 800 in health insurance a month, plus 100 for the cell phone. All while not qualifying for SNAP. And many of those on SNAP forge their incomes/situation to qualify.
That's the issue with social programs, they tend to favor a group at the expense of the other.
Ah, yes. The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Many on the left have used this idea to argue for a transfer of wealth from those who have much to those who have little. Social welfare economists conclude, however, that such fanciful notions are beyond the domain of science as there just isn't any way to measure the change in utility of someone else. Sorry.
LOL, I'm not arguing for a transfer of anything, I'm simply making an observation of the obvious - 7.75% of your total budget is more significant than 1.5%. 7.75% > 1.5%, see? Really, this is the kind of math you should have learned in elementary school.
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