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Progressive liberal thinking on taxes has been based on the economics concept of "marginal utility" which says that to rational economic actors. the value of a marginal dollar is greatest at zero income, and falls gradually as income increases.
Operationally, this thinking ways that a marginal dollar is worth more to someone with $5,000 income than to someone with $10,000 / $20,000 / $40,000 / $100,000 / $1 million etc.
Consequently, taxing away a marginal dollar is more painful to someone with $5,000 income than it is to someone with $10,000 / $20,000 / $40,000 / $100,000 / $1 million etc.
Progressives generally consider a tax to be regressive if the effective tax rate (tax divided by income) is greater at lower incomes than at higher incomes.
Okay...I won't dispute the accuracy of what you're saying, though it seems like it's somewhat rephrasing what I was saying in my example.
In my example, it was $2000 on the $20K earner or $10K on the $100K earner. $2K on $20K is probably the difference between coupon clipping and eating ramen or PB&J out of necessity - vs. being able to enjoy steak once in a while. $10K on $100K probably means instead of getting a vacation to the Caribbean, you just go to Orlando. The $100K felt less "pain" because all their basics were covered and still got a vacation.
However, that doesn't justify the tax. Some politician deciding for me/you that I/you "valued" the dollars less - so they're entitled to it - is really no different than someone mugging me on the street because they decided they would appreciate the $40 in my wallet more than I would. I do not live for the pleasure and whims of the government; the government is supposed to be living for my service and pleasure (and yours), to the extent it protects each of us to live as we wish without the involuntary interference of others.
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Originally Posted by freemkt
The VAST majority - about three-fourths - of all low-income renters do not receive housing subsidies, which are difficult to get. Waiting lists are 5-10 years long and most who try cannot even get on the waiting list. (Housing subsidies for high-income homeowners are EASY to get and there is never a waiting list.)
Before Obamacare, able-bodied childless adults were not even eligible for Medicaid - but when they pay taxes they are forced to subsidize the employer-paid insurance most working Americans have. And childless workers do pay taxes up the wazoo - a childless adult working full time at minimum wage pays about $500 in federal income tax plus $1,000 in payroll taxes.
And maybe it's just me, but when I buy underwear and socks and toilet paper, I don't feel like I'm CHOOSING to buy them.
The flaw in the thinking here is the belief that we should have our money forcibly taken from us at effective gunpoint (and if you think it isn't, go ahead and not pay your taxes for awhile...), and have a politician arbitrarily decide how much you get back in the form of a subsidy, or instead is re-distributed to someone else in the name of "the common good". What should be happening is minimal taxes to support the minimum of what the Constitution requires. The rest stays in your pocket, and you decide what is best for you.
Okay...I won't dispute the accuracy of what you're saying, though it seems like it's somewhat rephrasing what I was saying in my example.
In my example, it was $2000 on the $20K earner or $10K on the $100K earner. $2K on $20K is probably the difference between coupon clipping and eating ramen or PB&J out of necessity - vs. being able to enjoy steak once in a while. $10K on $100K probably means instead of getting a vacation to the Caribbean, you just go to Orlando. The $100K felt less "pain" because all their basics were covered and still got a vacation.
However, that doesn't justify the tax. Some politician deciding for me/you that I/you "valued" the dollars less - so they're entitled to it - is really no different than someone mugging me on the street because they decided they would appreciate the $40 in my wallet more than I would. I do not live for the pleasure and whims of the government; the government is supposed to be living for my service and pleasure (and yours), to the extent it protects each of us to live as we wish without the involuntary interference of others.
The flaw in the thinking here is the belief that we should have our money forcibly taken from us at effective gunpoint (and if you think it isn't, go ahead and not pay your taxes for awhile...), and have a politician arbitrarily decide how much you get back in the form of a subsidy, or instead is re-distributed to someone else in the name of "the common good". What should be happening is minimal taxes to support the minimum of what the Constitution requires. The rest stays in your pocket, and you decide what is best for you.
I look at the totality of government action. Involuntary renters already pay a steep effective tax for not being able to buy a home. Many cannot buy a home because government has crippled property rights - minimum lot size zoning means property owners cannot sell me property in an increment I can afford, forcing me to rent and thus to pay that steep effective tax. The crippled property rights exist because the property owners who wrote and ratified the Constitution - to the exclusion of landless citizens - chose to not uphold Locke's right to ACQUIRE property. The Framers carefully protected property owners from government "taking" while allowing government to infringe with impunity the right of the landless to acquire property. Since the Constitution was imposed on landless citizens without their participation - without their advice and consent - I do not consider it morally legitimate. What moral authority does a morally illegitimate document have? Government effectively mugs involuntary renters regularly, where is the Constitutionalist outrage?
You join a society, you pay your dues and play by its rules. That's the deal. The base excusifications of sociophobes and self-serving free-loaders are tolerated, but not necessarily welcomed.
Meanwhile, the fastest way to have guns pointed at you is to run out of the grocery store with a cart full of stuff you didn't pay for. It takes years and years for the IRS to get that angry.
Always remember, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived..." And one of the things that the people who implement that power today consider quite seriously is the burden of taxation, which does indeed involve the entirely obvious phenomenon of diminishing marginal returns to income.
You join a society, you pay your dues and play by its rules. That's the deal. The base excusifications of sociophobes and self-serving free-loaders are tolerated, but not necessarily welcomed.
Meanwhile, the fastest way to have guns pointed at you is to run out of the grocery store with a cart full of stuff you didn't pay for. It takes years and years for the IRS to get that angry.
Always remember, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived..." And one of the things that the people who implement that power today consider quite seriously is the burden of taxation, which does indeed involve the entirely obvious phenomenon of diminishing marginal returns to income.
When did I join it? By merely being born into it? What moral authority did the Framers have to impose the Constitution on ancestors who never consented to it? Landless citizens were excluded from the Founding and the Framing. I don't have to be happy about taxes but I pay them; as a poor person I find mitigation in the tax codes as I do not live in a state with egregiously regressive taxes.
Congress does a pretty good job of mitigating taxes for people at or below poverty level, so i'm not complaining.l.
I don't understand the economics of Prime membership in terms of how it's profitable to Amazon to send packages and charge so little. I imagine it takes time to package each little item, send it cross country, time to deliver it, all for very little cost.
I don't understand the economics of Prime membership in terms of how it's profitable to Amazon to send packages and charge so little. I imagine it takes time to package each little item, send it cross country, time to deliver it, all for very little cost.
Amazon sells nearly twice as much stuff per year to Prime members. $1300 vs $700. Welfare buyers no doubt no doubt buy less per year. Amazon must calculate profiting anyway.
Increased volume on the buy and sell side. Special shipping rates due to volume and future success. Better geographical sales predictions along with regional/close to transport storage. Lower overheads per sale.
There are holes in these assumptions. I don't do Wal-Mart at all, but I am a regular patron at Dollar Tree
But you are neither poor nor the prototypical low-end Wal-Mart or Dollar Tree customer. Think instead of the working poor who live paycheck-to-paycheck; these people shop WM and DT.
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