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Given that you believe that you have no choices, and that your life circumstances are out of your control, I don't know what I can say to you other than "Good luck!"
Individual choices, especially at lower economic levels, are constrained by government.
Does your local zoning code afford me any choices?
Looks like I really struck a nerve with you. Do you always have feelings of inferiority and inadequacy when becoming aware of the accomplishments of others?
No, you brought up your qualifications first. If you claim to be an authority upon the topic being discussed, that allows me to bring it up as well.
For what it's worth, I believe that you do have expertise on the subject; your posting history indicates that you are (or were) an adjunct professor who taught accounting at a college or university. My bringing up your expertise was to put you on notice that you aren't allowed to plead ignorance - I expect you to know what happens to those who refuse to pay their taxes. I may not have your breadth of knowledge, but you aren't allowed to use your authority to ignore genuine questions from those of acknowledged lesser expertise.
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I presented a simple example to explain the issue with income based pricing. The only insistence on a non-existent equivalency is in your mind. It didn't come from me.
Again, I would respectfully point out that income-based pricing applies only to economic activity. Taxes aren't a free market action - unlike the purchase of a gallon of milk, taxpayers do not have the option to not pay their taxes.
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What would be the problem with 100% of taxpayers paying the same marginal rate?
On it's face, there's nothing wrong with it.
But back to the point I'm making - roughly speaking, the total effective tax rate for the upper 60% is about 30% and for the bottom 20%, it's only about 20%. Do you propose to lower the tax rate on the upper income segment to 20% or to raise the tax rate on the bottom income segment to 30%. In the former, the federal and state revenues would fall drastically, causing severe cuts to government spending and/or budget deficits of horrific proportions. The latter would apply an unavoidable expense for a section of society that has no real disposable income.
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Nice straw man.
No, you're simply side-stepping the question.
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If that's your conclusion, you haven't been paying attention, or you simply don't understand the argument.
No, I think I've identified the flaw in your argument. You propose that a flat tax is "fair", but when it's pointed out that levelling the tax rate upward on the poor to make the total tax burden fair, you equivocate that "It isn't terribly difficult to minimize the impact on the poor, if that is something that society deems important."
Individual choices, especially at lower economic levels, are constrained by government.
Does your local zoning code afford me any choices?
Of course it does. You can do what millions of others (myself included) have done - move to an area where the zoning does allow you to get what you can afford.
Oh, wait, you want your cake and eat it too........
IMO, you also reach for an equivalency that is simply not there. With taxes, we don't buy goods or services, we buy civilization.
No vendor has "civilization" on its price list to sell to the Government. Vendors sell pencils, computers, construction equipment, laboratory equipment, logistics services, etc. The Government purchases those on our behalf. Many times, our Government is incompetent in its purchasing process, so we end up purchasing $700 hammers and $1500 coffee pots -- hence the Golden Fleece awards.
At the end of the day, the benefit we hope to receive from collective purchases by the Government is, indeed civilization, but the Government actually purchases line item products and services.
Yes, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society", but clearly he was not an economist.
Given that you believe that you have no choices, and that your life circumstances are out of your control, I don't know what I can say to you other than "Good luck!"
No vendor has "civilization" on its price list to sell to the Government. Vendors sell pencils, computers, construction equipment, laboratory equipment, logistics services, etc. The Government purchases those on our behalf. Many times, our Government is incompetent in its purchasing process, so we end up purchasing $700 hammers and $1500 coffee pots -- hence the Golden Fleece awards.
At the end of the day, the benefit we hope to receive from collective purchases by the Government is, indeed civilization, but the Government actually purchases line item products and services.
Yes, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society", but clearly he was not an economist.
The exact quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes is "I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization." He wasn't an economist, but then, neither are any of us.
The purchases that the federal, state, and local governments make are means to an end, not the ends in themselves. The government buys an M1A1 Abrams tank to defend the nation, not to allow SportyAndMisty the opportunity to drive a tank. You don't get the services of that tank, you get the benefit of national defense. (Although, it would be cool to drive a tank).
Saying that government is inefficient in its purchases simply says that government is inefficient in its means to an end. The end, or true function, is to ensure civilization, to protect, regulate, and maintain our society.
What we buy with our tax dollars is a "basket" of government services and activities, some of which we directly benefit from, some we benefit indirectly from, and some we benefit from not at all. The benefit that we derive is unique to each individual, and it is impossible to try to dis-aggregate each persons benefit. I make no assumption that we all "get the same gallon of milk." It was a simplified example to easily explain a point. Expanding from the simple to the complex, however, does nothing to diminish the point that I made.
Yet that is exactly what the private sector does all the time. It "dis-aggregates". I gave a clear, historical example. Every contract that will be enforced by the state has a fee. What's the problem? Why can't people just pay for what the state provides them?
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If you believe that I have engaged in an "economic fraud," you will have to come up with something else, as my milk example is in no way fraudulent.
It demonstrably fraudulent because, as is obvious , not all people benefit the same. Your analogy isn't applicable unless of course it applies to an income tax which has no direct link to benefits. Not all rich people benefit the same either. An educated person with a high salary potential is typically very mobile for this reason. A wealthy California farmer who receives subsidized water isn't going anywhere as all his income is dependent on the state .
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As I mentioned before, we all benefit differently.
No you didn't. You said we all get a gallon of milk in your example. Now you are completely changing your argument in a swindle, aka fraud.
"t's an issue of fairness. Our progressive rate structure is a rather unique form of "income based pricing" that we don't see anywhere else in normal commerce. If you went to Wal-Mart to buy a gallon of milk, and there was a two-tier pricing structure, $2 for those with incomes under $25,000/year, and $5 for those with incomes greater than that, you would be justifiably outraged, and Wal-Mart would be engaging in illegal price discrimination. That so many not just accept, but laud the practice in our tax structure, is rather strange."
In your abstraction you created a two tier pricing structure with a single unadjusted commodity. So you have no consitency in your argument.
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Trying to quantify the amount of benefit for each individual is impossible.
Something a socialist central planner would say. Perfect equality is of course a myth. However there are countless areas where fees tied to specific services are applicable.
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If your point is that the wealthy benefit more, and should pay more, a single uniform tax rate will easily accomplish that goal.
No its not my point. I explicitly said it wasn't.
"But again the counter was over total utility in a social justice argument."
"Personally I do not like either argument. "
"That is exactly how I feel about it. Taxes should always be linked to the effects of government regulation."
I don't know how anyone could make your comment having read my post. This seems to repeat the very same problem you had in this thread already.
My position is a very clear moral statement that those who recieve a service should be the one's who defray the cost to provide it. I reject the concept of the indirect social benefit as a primary consideration or as an excuse to socialize the cost. One can argue anything on that basis. Sending me to medical school might help you with your boo boo.
Of course it does. You can do what millions of others (myself included) have done - move to an area where the zoning does allow you to get what you can afford.
Oh, wait, you want your cake and eat it too........
So your zoning allows me to vote with my feet. So does everyone else's zoning. BFE is pretty much the only option in a classist society.
That is what he claimed, and it is what I based my argument on.
If it is common knowledge that our progressive tax rate structure exists because of the concept of diminishing marginal utility, it should be rather simple to find the Congressional committee reports that use that as the justification for creating our progressive tax rate structure. Trying to justify or explain it after the fact based on a particular economic principle is very different from that economic principle being the reason the system is the way that it is.
Your approach seems to be a clinic in shifting an applicable context. Politicians are making pragmatic political decisions. They are not economists , and even if they were would not likely start talking about theoretical aspects of economics. They are not trying to adhere to theoretical frameworks. However in the field of economics it is not at all unusual to see income applied to marginal theory. This is an economics forum and all you continue to do is display abject ignorance of the subject. Its easy to prove in a given context.
So you are right , its not common sense , however as common knowledge its not ground to make a federal case of it.
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