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Governments instituted to secure rights have no power to tax rights.
Excise taxes are levied on privileges.
The current state sales tax is levied on and collected by LICENSED state businesses (they are allowed to pass the tax on to their customers, but the tax is really on the retailer).
To enact a NATIONAL sales tax would require NATIONAL licensing of businesses.
Not a good thing.... and unconstitutional, if a state business does not cross state boundaries.
MTAtech was stating a fact, not an opinion: The word "regressive" is a word with a very specific definition in the context of taxes. Payroll taxes are regressive, for the reason MTAtech mentioned: They're are the same rate regardless of income, and the regressive nature is compounded by the fact that the rate actually goes down the higher your income (i.e., after a point, the rate goes to 0%). So it's actually super-regressive.
Once again you are deliberately stating half truths because you know you are spouting a liberal falsehood.
The payouts are progressive.
Lower income people are the only socio-economic group that as a whole gets back more than they put in. By definition that is progressive. The rich as a whole get back less than they put in.
You continue to choose to ignore this fact...because reality doesn't mesh with your MSNBC spin.
With regards to a flat tax, it would be inherently fair. Everyone benefits from living in a free country. Everyone should pay for the system that keeps them free an safe. Yes even poor people, and yes, at the same percentage as rich people.
Under a flat tax, the rich obviously still pay more than the poor, and it's not even close.
With regards to Social Security, the following needs to happen:
1) Withholding continues.
2) All Social Security withholding goes to a 401-k like account that cannot be touched until retirement.
3) That account does not go to the government, it is yours until you retire.
4) You may invest the funds as you see fit in any legitimate investment vehicle - mutual fund, individual stocks and bonds, etc.
5) No money from Social Security would go to the government at any time. The assets are owned by the one who earned them.
6) To circumvent late-in-life economic downturns, the money could phase to safe havens over the last 20 years, basically into savings accounts.
At retirement age, the money is yours in the form of an annuity that pays you until you die. Whatever is left goes to your kids or any beneficiary you so name.
This is a good system because it addresses the needs of older citizens, prevents them from becoming a drain, and retains the basic Capitalist premise that you should keep what you earn, and you should own what you earn.
This is a good system because it prevents the central government from getting your money and re-purposing it for whatever nefarious purpose becomes "the public good" in the political realm.
Money is power, and this system keeps both away from the politicians, and returns it to the rightful owners of all wealth - those who earned it and worked for it.
Are you really trying to excuse blind budgeting? You want to see what happens when you engage in blind budgeting? You end up with not enough air traffic control operators to run the nation's air traffic control system. And probably the only reason why Congress has granted the change is because they themselves were stuck waiting for their flights home.
In the end, those supporting recklessness are just trying to put their own personal financial comfort and luxury over other consideration. "Don't look at what you're budgeting for. Don't figure out what is really waste and can be cut. Just cut." How irresponsible and immoral can one get?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp
To some and only you can judge if the shoe fits, but to actually many, any cut is deemed "reckless" to them.
Wrong: Reckless is the act of cutting without regard to what the cut would come from, without regard to the actual cost of the activities that are being funded by that line item.
Responsible would be the determination that a specific program doesn't have merit, followed by getting a consensus built around that determination, and then naturally having the program drop out of the budget.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp
The argument is that the government is spending more in many cases in a reckless manner and this needs addressed before any discussion about more taxes takes place.
Two instances of recklessness doesn't equal responsibility. Stop making excuses for leaders you like being unwilling or unable to present compelling arguments for what they believe it is correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michiganmoon
Once again you are deliberately stating half truths because you know you are spouting a liberal falsehood.
Wrong. You're simply unwilling to admit that you were wrong. Payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare are regressive. Live with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michiganmoon
The payouts are progressive.
Yes they are. So learn to say that from now on instead of the nonsense you said earlier. I realize why someone who's political motivation matches yours would prefer not to state the clear truth, since you realize that all we have to say, with regard to the fact that the payoffs are progressive, is that "Why should a safety net, struggling to afford to provide safety, provide as much of it to those who already have it as to those who don't?" All that talk about waste, above, and yet here you are implicitly defending waste. Imagine that. Can you say, "Hypocrisy"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
With regards to a flat tax, it would be inherently fair.
Only if you remove all human considerations from the equation; i.e., if you turn yourself into a machine, without moral consideration or social conscience; then, and only then, perhaps you can consider a flat tax, starting from $0, to be fair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
At retirement age, the money is yours in the form of an annuity that pays you until you die.
Sounds good. What if, with a withdrawal rate equal to the FPL, the money runs out before you die? Are you proposing death panels?
Wrong. You're simply unwilling to admit that you were wrong. Payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare are regressive. Live with it.
Yes they are. So learn to say that from now on instead of the nonsense you said earlier. I realize why someone who's political motivation matches yours would prefer not to state the clear truth, since you realize that all we have to say, with regard to the fact that the payoffs are progressive, is that "Why should a safety net, struggling to afford to provide safety, provide as much of it to those who already have it as to those who don't?" All that talk about waste, above, and yet here you are implicitly defending waste. Imagine that. Can you say, "Hypocrisy"?
So....
Social Security is a progressive program on the whole. Yes you can twist what is happening to just half of the picture (the tax side) to make it appear regressive...but to do that you are ignoring the most important half - the pay out side.
The middle and upper classes as a whole will pay more into it than they get out. The lower class as a whole will get out more than they put in. By factual definition this is a progressive program.
The rich gain no extra social security benefits from making above $110,000 - so they stop charging them for their social security retirement. The original intent of Social Security was to insure that people had something for retirement based on their own wages - hence there is no regression. Everyone puts the same percentage in up to $110,000 - at which point anyone making above does not receive any extra benefits. The poor receive progressive monthly checks and your pay increases dwindle down the more you make.
It is disingenuous to pretend that Social Security is not a progressive program.
I am in the middle class and will almost certainly pay more into it than I will get out - so that someone poorer than me can and will get more than they put in.
Social Security is wasteful. It has higher fees than my IRA. If you made all of those contributions with employer match into an annuity that grew over your career - you would wind up with significantly higher payments than Social Security pays out.
Are you really trying to excuse blind budgeting? You want to see what happens when you engage in blind budgeting? You end up with not enough air traffic control operators to run the nation's air traffic control system. And probably the only reason why Congress has granted the change is because they themselves were stuck waiting for their flights home.
As I suspected "cuts" only can be understood by you to be something that can't be done responsibly. You know what? We haven't had a plane fall from the sky, prisons have not had to open their doors and release violent criminals and people aren't being left to die in the streets.
As you have no desire to honestly discuss this but rather demonize those who aren't for more and more taxes there really is not much to gain by further discussing this I imagine.
With regards to a flat tax, it would be inherently fair. Everyone benefits from living in a free country. Everyone should pay for the system that keeps them free an safe. Yes even poor people, and yes, at the same percentage as rich people.
Governments instituted to secure rights, have no delegated power to tax rights.
All they can tax are privileges.
So which privileges are subject to a "flat tax"?
As to "freedom" I think one needs to revisit that term.
“Free” Americans now must get permission (license) and / or pay a tax to live, work, buy, sell, travel, build a house, enter occupations, operate a business, transmit, fly a plane, hunt, fish, trade in medical care, buy medicine, cut hair, marry or own a dog. And even after they die, the tax man gets a cut.
also I buy into a system for 40 to 50 years, but I cant keep all of that money when I die to past down to my kids/grandkids? I pay in for 40 to 50 years and get it for what 8 to 12 years on average before I die? that is a total scam...why shouldn't I take the 10% and save it, buy real estate, start a business ect? what not?
Social Security is insurance. You could buy a 50 year term life insurance which requires you to pay premiums for 50 years and you wouldn't be able to pass it down to my kids/grandkids either. Maybe life insurance is a Ponzi scheme too?
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Any down side to a flat tax?
