Good morning, Lowell... Lowell C. Savage wrote:
> Dave Laird wrote, in part: >> Sure, if they make the tax *EQUAL* between rich and poor, it *MIGHT* be a >> better solution than the IRS. However, as proposed, the tax would >> disproportionately penalize the rich and the poor, since they will both, >> in effect, be paying the same amount. The flat-tax theory is one of the >> worst possible solutions, since a man who makes six million dollars per >> year will be essentially paying the same amount of taxes as you or I. Uh, >> you didn't suddenly fall into some money, did you? 8-) > > Actually, the flat tax theory has the man who makes six million dollars > per > year paying the same RATE of taxes as you or I. So, for instance, last > year, I paid "over 15%" of my income in federal taxes. Meanwhile, Sen. > John F. Kerry and his wife paid about 12$ of their income in federal > taxes. (That was NOT 12% on their wealth, it was 12% on the income on > their > wealth.) (Trust me, my income is only a small fraction of theirs.) A flat > tax would have us both pay the same percent, so if their income is 10 or a > 100 times mine, they would pay 10 or a 100 times as much in taxes as I do. > Most flat tax proposals actually have two rates. 0% up to a certain > amount (they call it exemptions or some such) and then, say, 19% after > that. ...and of course, the wealthy are in overwhelming favor of the flat tax, because, it would cost them a lot of money, in theory, it's the right thing to do, right? Isn't this more about who has the bigger and better lobbyists in Washington, D.C.? >> Then we have the other pitfall to this ungainly proposal-- the >> fixed-income families and retirees, who pay virtually no income tax under >> the existing system but who, under the quasi-new-and-improved system >> would be obligated to pay taxes to the federal gummint. > > Actually, the answer to that question is to make it even more ungainly by > setting up some way to refund it or not require it be paid by those > people. One would HOPE there would be such an exemption, but given my current level of trust with the Bush administration, frankly I wouldn't be surprised if he found a way to theoretically make the senior citizens of this country pay for the Social Security deficit out of their own pockets. > The other pitfall to this proposal is that it double taxes the currently > wealthy. First the government taxed them when they earned the money. Now > it is taxing them again when they spend it. (Of course, I'm sure you feel > really sorry for them. :-) However, you are right. Is it *ethical* to tax them twice? That is a problem I never considered until just now. Of course, we can always debate the ethics of big government, but it might be a considerably more complex stage than the one on which we stand. Of COURSE I feel sorry for the wealthy under this proposed system. >> No matter how you look at the flat tax, it's a sure-fire way for the Bush >> Administration to make dramatic claims that he has improved the federal >> budget, all the while placing a MUCH bigger burden on the lower and >> middle-class. Taxation without representation is tyranny, and my friend, >> it does appear to me that tyranny is the order of the day. Hell, we >> re-elected the simpering slob, now we have to live with the stupidity of >> the majority of American voters. > > I'm not sure where this "taxation without representation" thing comes in > here, since whether you happen to agree with the folks in charge or not, > they DO represent us in the legal sense--they were elected by us. And > certainly there are more votes in the "lower and middle-class" than > anywhere else. Harumph. It is very, very early in the morning here in the Pacific Northwest and I have barely crawled out of the rack, so I have a blanket conditional allowance from which to make various errors in critical thinking. By self-definition, I am perhaps the last of my clan, a Berkeley graduate with an advanced degree from the 60's who is unrepentant and unswayed, and therefore not represented by George Bush even in the slightest. The people voted for Bush were naive and easily misled (you can note I did not say STUPID in self-defense), who took very little of history into consideration while at the ballot box. The semantics of taxation without representation probably does not apply, as I have used it, but I am feeling very much unrepresented since George W. Bush took office, and the feeling of disenfranchisement has only grown since that time. > The problem is that we are approaching a situation where taxation issues > are > about to become subject to the "free rider" problem. In 2001, the top 50% > of wage earners paid 96.03% of Income taxes. It's probably actually > worse, > now. Then consider that essentially every wage earner is also a voter but > that many voters are NOT wage earners (the retired, welfare recipients, > the > disabled) who have a selfish incentive to allow taxes to go up. That 50% > starts to look like something far less and a socialist/democrat appeal to > "soak the rich" (meaning "soak the workers") could easily become a > governing > majority. THEN you'd have a case for "taxation without representation" > even if the lawmakers are elected by us. That's a very cogent point you make. If my interpretation of it is relatively unfettered by my personal and political bias, although we don't have an unrepresentative government right now, one may be right around the corner. Right? A good discussion, even given the earliness of the hour. 8-) Dave -- Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) The Used Kharma Lot Web Page: http://www.kharma.net updated 11/24/2004 Usenet news server : news://news.kharma.net Fortune Random Thought For the Minute Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
