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Politics, religion: was 2008 Elections...? - enter at your own risk

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My experience has been people like Paul because:

They don't want to pay any taxes at all.
They don't think any country but the US is their problem.
or
They want to smoke weed

What would actually happen is:
States would raise taxes making you pay exact what you did before and public services good and bad would both be cut equally.
Problems would crop up around the world and eventually boil over into our borders if left unattended.
and
The states would break down into a patchwork of conflicting policies and violations making purchasing weed just as illegal as it is now even in states that legalize it.

That's all assuming Congress doesn't just thumb their nose at him and he becomes a 4 year lame duck president.

Also we would no longer really deserve to be called the The United States and instead should rename our country to "A loose conglomerate of like minded states in North America."
 
im.thatoneguy said:
The poor spend a dramatically greater portion of their income on retail products than someone who is affluent. A flat tax and a sales tax (pretty much the exact same thing) hit the poor more than anybody. A Sales Tax is actually in many ways like taxing the poor more than the rich.
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I would suggest that you actually study (not just read) the entire FairTax system at www.fairtax.org. It would actually be BETTER for poor people than the current system or a flat tax system. Why? Because the 23% embedded tax that everyone is currently paying on food/simple needs would disappear thanks to the prebate up to the poverty level. I think that's pretty fair for the poor.

You've got to remember that items cost will drop, so the 23% tax will equal out. You'll be paying the same for item and no income tax!

Matthew
 
Tom said:
Well anything is better than the current mess. I think we can all agree on that!
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Well that's a bit of hyperbole. I can think of some worse arangements.
 
macville said:
You've got to remember that items cost will drop, so the 23% tax will equal out. You'll be paying the same for item and no income tax!

Matthew
Click to expand...

So wait--23% deflation is your solution to taxes? That seems like the sort of solution that only works once... and could destroy our foreign trade.

Also the food tax exclusion doesn't apply to where the poor are actually getting their food. Fast Food. When you work a 12 hour day it's tough to convince them they have to cook a meal too.
 
Ok it's not 23% deflation. It's more like supposedly 10-20% deflation (I seriously doubt that's true.)

So I get charged 30% sales tax which works out to 23% when you calculate it after tax (+8.5% for Washington State). Except that means that the millionaires get a tax cut! What millionaire ony pays 23% income tax? That means we'll have to pick up the slack with the poor right? Nope! They get a complete tax break in the form of a check (Hooray more government agencies created by the 'Conservatives'!) which is based I can only assume on a wildly confusing and just as easily as income tax perverted system of credits and deductions. Except now we're making the poor figure out how much 'credit' they're supposed to get every month to offset their sales tax. Brilliant plan!

But wait! We've reduced the taxes to the wealthy... and we've maintained the 0 tax on the those below the poverty line... what about college students? Nope no luck they're above the poverty line. So they'll see their taxes go UP from 0 - 17% to 23% like everybody else. But even 23% on a college student's almost nothing is still pretty much nothing. So where does this extra revenue come from? Who knows! It sounds to me like I just got a tax increase and the yacht owners got a tax break. Yep just like the tagline on the webpage... that's a "progressive" tax system.

Oh but I'm sure that little problem could be rectified. What we'll happe is we'll all get a different sized check from the government every single week. To offset our 50% sales tax. That's a lot simpler! I can't wait to get my monthly check from the government to ensure I don't spend more on my taxes this year than last year.

Even better I read nothing on a corporate income tax. Only a retail income tax. So of course prices are going to drop.

"But wait... weren't the corporations the source of a sizeable part of the US Government's revenues?" Glad you asked. Why yes they were! and ummm err.. yeah I guess we'll just need to raise the retail income tax higher on the individual.

"But Mr. Sales Tax Man... Do the companies also need to pay Sales Tax?" Nope! Because they buy everything wholesale!

"Mr Sales Tax Man... Can I buy things wholesale/" Well Jimmy if you ask nicely and get a business license there are certainly ways to purchase things without ever touching retail! Everybody wins... except fo the consumers who still pay their Retail taxes like they're supposed to... they get to see another Retail Tax hike... let's say 60%.

"That's terrible Mr. Sales Tax Man!" Oh don't worry Jimmy you also get a 15% depreciation on all American goods so it's not quite that bad.

"But what if I want to purchase a home?" Don't worry Jimmy you get the privalege of not only paying the %60 sales tax on your home (which will be 15% cheaper) but you also have to start making interest payments on that sales tax up front in your mortage! How's that for capitalism! I Know I know before you would be taking a little bit longer on significantly less interest but it's better this way... I'm certain of it.

"But Mr. Sales Tax Man, what about those people who buy things wholesale to get around the law!" Well Jimmy we'll create another federal agency to track these people down and make sure they aren't cheating the government! We'll call it something like the Investigative Retail Section. (Not to be confused the bloated and trigger happy IRS of ages past which was terribly complicated and confusing and drove up prices by up to 20%!)

-- Disclaimer: Based on my understanding on all the defense I could find of the Proposal. Some numbers could be wrong.

The whole point of the national sales tax was to simplify the process. But as soon as you add all the compensations for poverty and ensure it's truely "progressive" you're back to an even more confusing and ass backwards system.

The income tax system might need some simplifying. (Of course I personally spend a grand total of 25 minutes every year on my taxes so I don't see how in my case that's humanely possible.) But its' 95% of the way there right now. All I see the National Sales Tax system doing is overnight radically flipping the US economy into turmoil as prices and services have to completely readjust. Our Dollar will go fluxuate for months wildly like a pendulum as people attempt to figure out what sort of exchange rate this new fangled currency is actually worth and companies are going to have to spend millions trying to figure out how much milk is worth.

You have the poor now filling out reems of paper work to tabulate how much money they get every month to compensate for their tax expenses for the upcoming month.

People are of course finding loop holes left and right to get around the system so we'll need an agency to ensure that only the poor are getting checks every month (I thought convservatives hated welfare! how is this any different than increasing the welfare check because things now cost 30 F****** percent more now.)

And who manages all of this income? Well we'll need another agency to oversee collection from the states and ensuring it makes it to the treasury.

What happens when a store doesn't charge sales tax? Who enforces the collection process at the counter? I get charged 30c at some ma and pa stores for my CC purchase (which they aren't allowed to do.) I can only imagine somebody on ebay claiming an item he purchased wholesale and drop kicked is no longer new and can be sold without sales tax.

And all of this with the EXPRESS POSITION of being "Tax Neutral".... if the end goal is to tax the same amount... why not just leave it the way it is!?

All I see coming out of this is effectively a flat income tax (with all the BS that goes into that.) combined with a complete exemption for companies. (oh yeah and of course Non-Profits and charities are now going to have to get a check every month for the things they buy as well since they weren't paying taxes as it was before.)

This sounds like exactly the same arguments I've heard before for cutting taxes on corporations. (For every dollar you now spend on extra taxes you save a dollar at the pump!) (Which assumes business will pass along these savings. Ha! Right! Pass along savings that's funny.)
 
The larger problem is the general corrupt state of American politics. That big list of Bush's problems and resigned/fired cronies? Yeah, Clinton had a big list too. Give Obama, Hillary, Edwards, Huckabee, Romney, McCain or Thompson 8 years each and every one of those would produce another list of f*ups and resigned/fired cronies.
 
The Sixteenth Ammendment to the Constitution of the United States of America said:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Click to expand...

Oh and before I hear any more crackpottery on the income tax being unconstitutional I would quote the above passage of the US Constitution.

"Oh but that's an ammendment."

So is the bill of rights! And I expect to hear no more whining from you as your right to speech etc... is taken away. The founding fathers were smart guys but lived in a VERY different time from today. That's why they were so intelligent as to offer us a means of fixing their mistakes!

(Which completely off topic is something I have to give props to the catholics for. Allowing ammendments to the divine word. Protestants take note.)
 
Shawn Nelson said:
The larger problem is the general corrupt state of American politics. That big list of Bush's problems and resigned/fired cronies? Yeah, Clinton had a big list too. Give Obama, Hillary, Edwards, Huckabee, Romney, McCain or Thompson 8 years each and every one of those would produce another list of f*ups and resigned/fired cronies.
Click to expand...

the Bush list will be hard to beat..I'm a bit more optimistic about the next one.
Aloha
-A
 
Tom said:
Well I was bummed that my main man Ron Paul did not do well, but I'm stoked that Barack Obama kicked some ass!!!!!

I fought in the first gulf war, and spent half a year in Afghanistan in 2003, and I'm sick of these wars. I want someone who will treat everyone like human beings and re-establish America as a (non-military) force for good in the world...

:biggrin:
Click to expand...

" A change is gonna come " No wars and give peace a chance, and the world will be as one.

Stewart
from largest chinese population in the world
China and its SARs and Taiwan
 
It's staggering to think that there are still people who won't or can't acknowledge what a unique disaster Bush and movement Republicanism has been. It's one thing to identify yourself as a "conservative" (meaningless though the word is today), but quite another to refuse to see what's in front of you. Or to decline to look. Insisting that all politicians are corrupt is not the way to confront the damage that was done by your candidate, or to assume responsibility for it, if you voted for him.

That aside, like all Republican tax proposals of the last 30 years, the flat tax does two things: raises taxes on the middle-class and reduces them on the wealthy. Look at the numbers and you'll see. This may mean checking websites which aren't run by right-wingers with a vested interest in lowering their own taxes.
 
Thinking aloud here...

Taxes: I'm not sure how strong this effect is, but it seems to me that rich people have a tax advantage because they can afford to hire good accountants (and financial planners) to minimize their tax bills.
But even without good accountants, some rich people pay very low taxes since most of their income comes from capital gains. e.g. Warren Buffett is taxed (percentage-wise) less than many of his employees! He also believes that a higher capital gains tax rate would be a good idea for this reason.

Free markets: In my view, free markets are good at particular tasks, and government at others. e.g. We need the government to make sure companies don't go around printing money.

In my opinion, government intervention is also very necessary to protect the consumer. e.g. deposit insurance to protect consumers against bank runs, ensuring no conflicts of interests in financial institutions (though it doesn't necessarily do a good job here... e.g. conflicts of interest in subprime crisis), drug policy (e.g. advertising of drugs to minors, not suppressing evidence that cigarettes cause cancer), etc. Free markets harm consumers when they go unchecked.

Drug prohibition: Unfortunately society has taught us that drugs other than alcohol tobacco are bad bad bad. It's a bit weird since both alcohol and tobacco are just as bad if you look at the damage to users and damage to others from users of those drugs (e.g. drunk driving).
In practical terms, prohibition of alcohol was tried at one point and it did not work well at all. Supply and consumption pretty much remained the same except that drug money was fueling criminal elements of society. I don't think prohibition of marijuana makes much sense at all.

Global warming: If you look at what governments spend money on, some of it is somewhat frivolous. Space exploration would definitely top my list. I think we'd be better off spending the money on solving global warming first. Exploring space can wait... Mars isn't going anywhere.
Government subsidies of film/video industries would also fall under this category (this is more of an issue for Canada, where Canadian film/video production is heavily subsidized and almost entirely funded by the government in various forms).
 
Power corrupts...absolute power corrupts absolutely....Accumulating massive wealth as a result of public office is counter productive and should not be allowed.. It’s a very bad trend....so is the current state of the Lobbing industry.

Public office is held to serve the people...not self serve...The system is broken!
 
I was reading a history book on the Middle Ages once and it mentioned that economies did not truly flourish until there were governmental institutions of some sort in place -- to provide protection for goods being transported and the people travelling with them, to provide courts where greviances could be heard, to provide consumer laws for protection, to provide roads for transportation, etc.

In other words, a completely "free" market without any governmental regulations and consumer protections tend to do less well. There has to be some sort of partnership between government and business to create a healthy business environment. Just look at the current sub-prime mortgage crisis or the savings & loan crisis before that to see the problem of not regulating markets. Sure, you could take a draconian view that left alone, the bad companies will just go out of business, but not before a lot of people lose their houses and savings and the general economy starts to fall.

---

The flat tax advocates are assuming that all the current tax breaks and loopholes that the wealthy employ to avoid paying taxes would be eliminated. That would have to happen for a flat tax to even be close to fair, but I don't see that happening.
 
We've known since the 1920s that modern industrial capitalist economies run off the rails without government supports and intervention. The free-market paradise has never existed and never will, in no small part because the interests that advocate for it love their government subsidies, bail-outs, monopolies and market protections. They want free markets, but only for workers and captive consumers. Note that Ronald Reagan, the labor buster and hero of the free-traders, was the most protectionist president in modern history, far more so than Carter or Clinton. But on behalf of major corporations, not their workers.

The main point here is that governments choose the sort of intervention in the economy which they conduct: they can either put the public subsidies into socially redeeming investments like schools and hospitals (and the arts!) over which the public will always have some democratic control, or they go the other route, of subsidizing businesses with little or no public oversight of how the money is spent -- in particular, the high-tech sector, which takes the form of military contracting.

I think the choice the U.S. government made should be plain by now(?)
 
I'm not a big fan of the flat tax, because it's still an income tax, but I think the idea is that if you switch to a flax tax, there would be no loopholes or any kind. Once you do even one loophole, the floodgates open. Flat tax is kind of a tired old idea we've been kicking around for decades.

I like the Fair Tax (national sales tax) much better, because you get to keep your whole check, and poor people get a very large "prebate" in cash to make it progressive. Currently, the IRS system is so bad, that in poll after poll, people literally fear getting audited by IRS more than being murdered! The government should be frightening and intimidating its own citizens for goodness sake.
 
I remember an economist once saying that Capitalism would be perfect... if it weren't for capitalists. He also said that the reason you need government regulation is the same reason you need referees at the Super Bowl game -- the stakes are too high to assume someone isn't going to cheat given the chance.

--

Nobody "enjoys" being taxed of course but most people want the things that taxes provide -- highways & bridges, police & firemen, a military, disaster relief, public schools & libraries, trash collection, etc.

And as for a federal budget, there are things that cross over state borders, like highways, crime, goods & services...
 
And the crying shame is, we know exactly how red-blooded American corporations behave when they're freed of all restraints, in countries with no regulatory control.

They'll pay $.20 an hour, gladly use slave or child labor, dump toxic pollution so flagrantly that the land for miles around is uninhabitable and the water undrinkable, and call out the local army to shoot labor protesters.

Anyone think this is fantasy? Then check out American oil companies in Nigeria, Burma or Ecuador.
 
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