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Soda for Food StampsFollow
Because that retired couple living on $180K/year investment income totally needs more SS checks.
gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
I'm talking about a single flat tax. No exemptions. No deductions. Every single person pays the exact same percentage of their total income.
gbajirand wrote:
I was specifically talking about income tax. So, not capital gains, (which I believe should be lower or ideally zero), or payroll taxes (which have a different justification). But sure. I'd be fine with rolling medicare and social security into a completely flat income tax rate that every single person must pay.
gbajirand wrote:
In other words, someone who earned $100k/year average over his life should receive twice the social security check as someone who earned $50k/year average if both of them are required to pay the same tax rate on their full income.
Cause that's fair, right?
Cause that's fair, right?
remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.
Kavekk wrote:
I'd favour a crushing 100% gbaji tax.
IRS agent wrote:
Shhhh.... No more words now. Only sleep.
Just as Planned.
Gbaji wrote:
But you just agreed that food stamps provided for food often actually result in other things being purchased because it frees the person from having to choose between buying food and buying something else. You even said this was a good thing. So I think it's more than fair to talk about the impact of helping people afford those other things.
....
So, it's not money for food. It is something more. WTF?
....
Of course it's relevant. It's relevant to anyone who isn't brain dead.
....
When people insist that any attempt to reduce food stamps allotments is wrong because "you'll be taking food out of people's mouths!", when those receiving the food stamps have enough extra money to pay for $800 cars, strippers, liquor, cigarettes, lottery tickets, etc, then the argument being used is absolutely deceptive. It's based on a false claim that if we reduce that person's food stamps, that they'll go hungry as a result. But that can't be true if that person has money to spend on any luxuries at all. That person *could* afford sufficient food to avoid hunger. If they choose not to in favor of hiring strippers, or buying lottery tickets, that is their choice. We should not feel sorry for their hunger at all. And we're certainly under no obligation to continue to reinforce their bad choices by simply giving them more money in the form of food stamps.
Yes. Which is what I've been saying all along. But for some bizarre reason you keep insisting that food stamps are for "buying food, nothing more, nothing less". That's absolutely false. For the vast majority of food stamps recipients, that money is "obviously" being spent elsewhere. So let's stop defending food stamps on the basis of them just being about buying food.
Sure. But when those people are maintaining $800/month cars? Or spending money on liquor, or cigarettes, or playing the lotto, or going to a casino, or buying a playstation, or any of hundreds of things that people spend money on that are not necessities? I have no problem with someone who receives food stamps, but if they are doing so, they should be so poor that they can't afford any luxuries at all (very few at least). They should at the very least meet the rest of us half way by making good choices about what little money they do have. Which is where this argument began. No one on food stamps should *ever* be choosing to buy soda at all anyway. They should not be buying chips, or crackers, or any form of snack food. If you are so poor that you require other people to help provide you with money to buy food, then you should be buying food, not junk.
We should not need to pass laws prohibiting what people spend their food stamps on. We should be limiting public assistance such that those who receive it will be forced to make good choices *or* go hungry (or end out on the street, etc). You yourself agree that people will do extreme things to avoid actual starvation (like committing crimes). But does this not also mean that they'll do something far less extreme (like not spending money on soda) long before reaching that extreme? If someone truly had a choice between soda and avoiding starvation, they'd choose to avoid starvation every single time. The reason why people on food stamps buy things like soda is because they are not remotely near that level of economic desperation. My argument is that we should be able to safely trim the benefit amounts to a point where people will make good choices while still being well above the "desperate" level economically. There has to be a point at which this will happen. We're way way way way way above it. The fact that so many people on assistance spend so much on luxuries is proof of this. The fact that differences between outcomes based on receipt of food stamps doesn't seem to change hunger rates at all is another bit of proof as well.
We can bury our heads in the sand and repeat rhetoric like "We must provide food stamps to people or they'll starve!", or we can look around at the real situation and make intelligent changes to our system. I'm simply suggesting the latter course.
So, I figured it out. This goes back to the "Tipping Thread" we previously had. You have no concept on how to manage money, so therefore, you don't understand that financially smart people categorize their spending into smaller budgets.
People have budgets for food, clothes, rent, etc., they just don't operate off of one giant budget. Therefore, if you pay for someone's lunch one day, you're covering down on that person's lunch. Just because that person later bought some cigarettes, doesn't mean that you bought that person cigarettes.
Your only counter argument would have to be that a person must be naked in the street with absolutely no access to anything before having access to food stamps. If that's your argument, then fine, say it.
Else, it makes no sense to complain that a person is able to have something other than food and obtain food stamps. This isn't a 3rd world country, therefore, our level of "poor" shouldn't be the same.
Gbaji wrote:
WTF!? Take a language course some time. I honestly have no clue what you're trying to say here.
Yes, that was horribly worded. I even had a hard time rereading that. However, that doesn't necessitate a language course.
You insist that "something is left out" from my statement that people will commit a crime before starving to death and/or stuck in an ongoing cycle of "food insecurity". I'm telling you that there isn't anything left out because the topic is about people starving to death in the US and/or having "food insecurity". Anything else is irrelevant to the conversation, unless you have something else to add.
Gbaji wrote:
And you keep wobbling from one point to another. No one starves in the US as a result of lack of availability of food. Period. That has nothing to do with the fact that there are choices to be made between food insecurity and crime though.
Wobble between what? I've consistently agreed that people generally do not starve to death in the US, but will resort to crime before doing so. "Food insecurity" is a step above "starvation". So, if a person commits a crime at the "food insecurity" level to ensure sufficient food, wouldn't that prevent that individual from ever starving to death? There is simply too much food being thrown away everyday for people to starve to death, so people resort to crime. Unlike in a third world country where there simply isn't enough food regardless if you commit a crime or not.
Gbaji wrote:
That's great. But how do we determine if our current method of determining how much each case receives is correct or not? You say we should tailor the benefits to the cases, but then argue against someone like me simply pointing out that we're currently handing out more food stamps than we should because they're enabling people to buy other things than food. Then you insist that this is perfectly ok. Then you insist that if things aren't working we should adjust them. It's like you just run around in circles on this, never admitting that the other guy has a point, but never sticking to one yourself.
You're just so biased on the topic that now you're blaming me for your confusion. I've been consist this entire time and because I'm not a free-love tree hugging hippie who believes that anyone who wants something deserves something therefore should get it, you have no way to attack my stance. Furthermore, you can't compute how a person who is in so much support of food stamps can also be so strict on food stamps.
As I said to Belkira, I'm a centrist and not a "fake Romney wanting to win the Presidency" type of centrist, but a consistent one. I have changed and altered positions in the past, but through insight, not for judgement.
My argument against you isn't that we are handing too much food stamps out, but that the food stamps don't pay for food. You're arguing that a person must be naked in the street with no access to anything as a prerequisite for obtaining food stamps. I'm arguing against that and countering that there are times in people lives where they just need some additional support from the government in order to get back on their feet. Furthermore, that additional support should be regulated to where it isn't being abused.
Gbaji wrote:
Do you think that food stamps are currently correctly managed? Yes or no?
I can't answer that question because I don't know how it's being managed and I believe that holds true for you as well. There will always be people attempting to cheat the system, that doesn't mean that the system is inherently broken. It's a constant "cat and mouse" game that applies to everything in life. To pretend that it only applies to food stamps is asinine.
Edited, Jan 19th 2013 6:03pm by Almalieque
Friar Bijou wrote:
Right; you do not want a flat tax, gotcha.
Yes, I do. I was just pointing out that those other taxes are different and should have different rates. You do understand that payroll taxes are already flat (more or less). And if income taxes are flat then so are capital gains (just the long term rate is different).
Sounds more like you're trying to weasel out of the idea of a flat tax in the first place.
Quote:
gbajirand wrote:
In other words, someone who earned $100k/year average over his life should receive twice the social security check as someone who earned $50k/year average if both of them are required to pay the same tax rate on their full income.
Cause that's fair, right?
Cause that's fair, right?
Except that the entire selling point of social security is that it's a government managed retirement fund. You pay into it over the course of your working career, and then you draw from it when you retire. The amount you can draw is related to the amount you put in. The amount you can draw is capped though, which is why the maximum you put in is also capped. I'll point out that right now this already massively benefits those who are in the lower income brackets.
You're the one who argued for a flat tax. A flat tax means everyone pays the same percentage. Currently our taxes significantly benefit those who earn the least money. When you argue for a flat tax, you are arguing for higher taxes on the poor. But you seem to want to use the fair sounding label "flat tax", but want to pretend that it's actually something else entirely, and that it somehow magically is more "fair" but just to poor people or something. The reality is that if we made our taxes and spending "fair" it would significantly disadvantage poor people because currently those things are "unfair" in a way which benefits the poor.
You don't want a flat tax. You don't want a fair tax. You want unfair taxes and unfair spending such that the poor are provided for by the rich. So why not be honest and just say that?
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
Right; you do not want a flat tax, gotcha.
As one example; if you make money on an investment in a fiscal year, then take the proceeds and then invest in something that goes belly-up, you should still be taxed on the original gain, not be allowed to "take the loss" as a tax break.
gbaji wrote:
You don't want a flat tax. You don't want a fair tax. You want unfair taxes and unfair spending such that the poor are provided for by the rich. So why not be honest and just say that?
remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.
Now I want soda, and it's all this thread's fault.
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
Right; you do not want a flat tax, gotcha.
There's already a different tax structure for different types of income. It's not something I "want", but something that already exists. You mentioned the mortgage interest deduction, which applies to just one of the three major types of federal taxes most people pay. I said that I'd be perfectly willing to give up said deduction if we gave up all other deductions and made the tax flat. We were speaking about income taxes.
We can talk about what we should do with payroll and capital gains taxes as well, but those are additional separate taxes. We were talking about deductions to income taxes. I spoke of a flat tax within that context.
Quote:
As one example; if you make money on an investment in a fiscal year, then take the proceeds and then invest in something that goes belly-up, you should still be taxed on the original gain, not be allowed to "take the loss" as a tax break.
First off, you can't claim a future loss on today's taxes anyway (unless you can see the future, which the IRS tends to frown on). So if I gain in year 1, I will pay capital gains taxes on that gain in year 1. Period. If I then lose money in year 2, I can claim that loss in year 2. Why shouldn't I? I lost money. So if my total earnings is $80k, but I lost $15k on an investment, I absolutely should be allowed to reduce my earnings to $65k when calculating taxes because that's how much I actually earned that year (80-15=65).
That's not a special tax deduction. It's an actual deduction in the amount of money you made that year. That's completely different than say paying $12k in mortgage interest and claiming $12k less income that year. You didn't actually earn less money, you paid $12 in interest out of the money you earned. That payment is part of something you are buying and which (in theory) benefits you in the long run. It's not a straight loss, it's part of what you pay when you buy a house. We make a special exception in that case because our government wants to soften the blow of buying a home as much as possible. That still makes it a reasonable target if you want to eliminate deductions, but it's wholly different than capital gains and losses.
Quote:
gbaji wrote:
You don't want a flat tax. You don't want a fair tax. You want unfair taxes and unfair spending such that the poor are provided for by the rich. So why not be honest and just say that?
So you don't want a flat tax. Remember back when I said that I do, but you don't? Can we now move past you claiming that you really do want one, even more than I do?
Quote:
Why is it that you don't?
I believe that in many cases, the country doesn't help people in the long run by doing this, and much of the money we spend it either wasted, or counter productive. It's not a matter of you caring for the poor and me not, but you and I disagreeing dramatically on the best methods to help the poor. I believe the best way to help them is to maximize their ability to move themselves out of poverty. You believe the best way is to provide them with sufficient goods and services so as to make poverty a more livable condition.
I think you're wrong because your method makes it easier for people to remain poor, thus increasing the odds of people remaining poor for a larger portion of their lives (and likely passing their poverty on to their children). You think I'm wrong because you think I don't care about the poor at all. Do you see how we're really arguing completely different things?
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
And since I know some knucklehead will jump on me for this: Yes. I'm fully aware that gains and losses can be spread over multiple years (in some cases). That's a more complex issue though, and well outside the scope of the discussion. At the end of the day a capital gain or loss is a direct increase or decrease to one's actual earnings. That's what makes them different than a deduction on something you spent money on over the course of a year.
And all that really is irrelevant, since a flat income tax would also make short term capital gains flat as well. Since long term gains is already flat, it's really a silly thing to go on about in the context of whether we should adopt a flat tax and what effect that has.
And all that really is irrelevant, since a flat income tax would also make short term capital gains flat as well. Since long term gains is already flat, it's really a silly thing to go on about in the context of whether we should adopt a flat tax and what effect that has.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
You can edit posts.
gbaji wrote:
I spoke of a flat tax within that context.
gbaji wrote:
First off, you can't claim a future loss on today's taxes anyway (unless you can see the future, which the IRS tends to frown on). So if I gain in year 1, I will pay capital gains taxes on that gain in year 1. Period. If I then lose money in year 2, I can claim that loss in year 2. Why shouldn't I? I lost money.
2. You gambled and lost. You should not be rewarded for making a poor choice.
gbaji wrote:
So you don't want a flat tax. Remember back when I said that I do, but you don't? Can we now move past you claiming that you really do want one, even more than I do?
gbaji wrote:
It's not a matter of you caring for the poor and me not..
Just so were clear, you may note that I have repeatedly written "those that cannot help themselves". As in: elderly, disabled, chronically ill, children, etc. Not "lazy people".
remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.
Kavekk wrote:
You can edit posts.
Don't worry. I'm the only person who can get banned for that.
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I spoke of a flat tax within that context.
Ok. But that's a different argument than saying you're for a flat tax. You're arguing that all federal taxes should be treated as income tax, rolling payroll, income, and capital gains into one tax system. That's an entirely different argument and has massive ramifications far far beyond just how we divvy up the tax rates among income brackets within our income tax system.
You also don't really believe that income is income. You only want it treated as such when it fits into your "tax the rich more and the poor less" narrative.
Quote:
gbaji wrote:
First off, you can't claim a future loss on today's taxes anyway (unless you can see the future, which the IRS tends to frown on). So if I gain in year 1, I will pay capital gains taxes on that gain in year 1. Period. If I then lose money in year 2, I can claim that loss in year 2. Why shouldn't I? I lost money.
Then that makes no sense at all. We're taxed on money we earn over the course of a year. Key word "earn". You're attempting to create arbitrary differentiations between what counts as earnings and losses. As I said, it makes no sense at all. With regard to capital gains, it's all added together. You might gain X dollars in investments but lose Y dollars on other investments over the same period of time. The price of the gains is the cost of the losses. That's what "risk" is about.
You're painting yourself into a bizarre corner if you try to go down this line of reasoning.
Quote:
2. You gambled and lost. You should not be rewarded for making a poor choice.
Your problem is that you're looking a this as being rewarded in the first place. The correct way to look at it is that you are being taxed on the actual total amount of money you made. If you earn $100 and lose $50, then your net earnings are $50. That's what you should be taxed on. It's insane to try to do it the way you're saying. Attempting to do this would create massively horrible side effects which I'm not sure you really understand.
It also has nothing to do with the idea of flat taxes either.
Quote:
gbaji wrote:
So you don't want a flat tax. Remember back when I said that I do, but you don't? Can we now move past you claiming that you really do want one, even more than I do?
Which is not a flat tax. A flat tax means that everyone the tax applies to pays the same rate. If you have different tiers of rates (presumably based on income), then it's not a flat tax. You used the wrong term.
But I'll bite on what you claim you want as well. Do you really want zero deductions? So no standard deduction, nor deductions for dependents? No Earned Income Tax Credit? No deductions for medical expenses? Do you understand that deductions also massively benefit those in the lower income brackets as well? Want to know why? Because no matter how you get around it the poor are either much more likely to spend a larger percentage of their total earnings on things which will qualify them for a deduction or are much more likely for standard deductions to make up a larger percentage of their earnings.
A set standard deduction clearly benefits someone who makes less money more than someone who makes more money. Same deal with deductions per dependent. And the EITC specifically applies to those who have low incomes.
Just as I don't think you really want a flat tax, I don't think you really want to eliminate deductions. You just want to eliminate those which benefit those people you think can/should pay more in taxes. Again though, that' not about fairness, it's about making our tax code increasingly unfair in order to fulfill a social agenda. I'm not saying it's wrong for you to want to do that, but again I'll ask that you be honest about what you really want instead of wrapping it in terms that don't really match what you really want.
Quote:
gbaji wrote:
It's not a matter of you caring for the poor and me not..
I'm not going to convince you. But I might convince someone else reading this just how irrationally and unfairly you are interpreting what I write. I have never said that the poor should just fuck off. I've been incredibly consistent (for over a decade now) in saying that I believe the best way to deal with poverty is to provide people with the maximum opportunities to avoid/escape it. Making poverty more comfortable is the exact wrong way to deal with it.
You're free to disagree with me, but it's somewhat counterproductive to just insist that I hold the positions I do because I'm some kind of vile and evil person who just loves to see other people suffer. At some point, that just gets to be a bit tiring and frankly the whole twirling mustache villain riff is overdone even in films and makes less sense in real life. There are many motivations for people doing things. Very very rarely is that motivation "I'm a bad guy and I like to do bad things". The real world isn't that simple.
Quote:
Just so were clear, you may note that I have repeatedly written "those that cannot help themselves". As in: elderly, disabled, chronically ill, children, etc. Not "lazy people".
And the day the left can come up with an even semi accurate method of objectively distinguishing between those two groups (which will work when implemented in a government social program), that argument will work as a general argument for social spending. You want to "help the poor" because that fills an emotional need. But who is "the poor"? Which of the poor actually need help, and which are just scamming you for a free lunch? Hard to tell. Again, I'm not saying don't help those in need. I'm saying that there are better ways of doing it than just handing out a free lunch to anyone who claims to be in need. That's just asking for abuse, and will dramatically decrease the help per dollar of cost.
While off topic, this is why I much prefer private charitable organizations to big government programs. They are much better able to ensure that those who really need their help receive it, and that those who are trying working the system are less likely to do so. They also tend to have very good track records of actually getting people in need back on their feet and back into being productive members of society (to the greatest extent possible), while also identifying those who are truly in need. Government bureaucracy is terrible at that. They fill out forms. People stamp them. Money flows. Everyone along the chain has near to zero interest in preventing abuses, and in many cases actual incentive to allow it.
But I'm sure you'll continue to assume that I just don't care about anyone but myself. Never mind that I want other people to succeed. I want them to live the American dream. I want to help them help themselves. I know that sounds like a silly slogan, but it's true. I have no problem helping those who are truly in need, but that's not what a whole lot of our social spending dollars do. Just like with food stamps, the bigger these programs get dollar wise, the more wasteful they become and the less they are helping compared to how much they are hurting. Ultimately, someone has to work to earn money to pay taxes for the "help" the government wants to provide. So it behooves us to have as many people working as possible. So an approach that attempts to maximize employment and advancement opportunities works well, and one that attempts to maximize the number of people who qualify for government benefits works poorly. If that's your goal. If the method is the end (ie: you want as many people dependent on government entitlements as possible as a means of political control), then the liberal approach is exactly what you'd want to do.
That's one of many reasons why I believe my position is better. It's better from the perspective of helping those who could be successful on their own. It's better for those who truly do need help. And it's better from a general personal liberty perspective as well (which is kinda what our whole system of government is based on ). I don't hold the positions I do because I hate poor people, but because I don't think that big government solutions are the best way to deal with their situation. And I happen to think that overly simplistic rhetoric doesn't help the issue at all.
Edited, Jan 21st 2013 6:48pm by gbaji
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Kavekk wrote:
You can edit posts.
QFT
Dandruffshampoo wrote:
Curses, beaten by Professor stupidopo-opo.
Annabella, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Stupidmonkey is more organized than a bag of raccoons.
The point, gbaji, that you are utterly missing for the one millionth time is that all people are not equal.
Some are dumb.
Some are weak.
Some are crazy.
Some are inrcedibly ugly.
Point being, no matter you rhetoric on "striving for a better life/job" some just won't...ever.
What you consider a "starter job" (McD's, Wal-Mart, etc) is the best these folk will ever achieve. If they are paid a living wage, they won't need government assistance {{the full-time working poor, that is}}, now will they?
So, yeah. If any given job will pay enough for food shelter clothing and health care then, yes, I'm all for no government assistance, too.
ALSO: Your saying that you are not a cold-hearted @#%^ does not undo all you previous posts proving you are. Just sayin'.
ETA: I don't think you enjoy seeing people suffer. I think you just don't care at all.
EDIT: {{In}}
Edited, Jan 21st 2013 10:12pm by Bijou
Some are dumb.
Some are weak.
Some are crazy.
Some are inrcedibly ugly.
Point being, no matter you rhetoric on "striving for a better life/job" some just won't...ever.
What you consider a "starter job" (McD's, Wal-Mart, etc) is the best these folk will ever achieve. If they are paid a living wage, they won't need government assistance {{the full-time working poor, that is}}, now will they?
So, yeah. If any given job will pay enough for food shelter clothing and health care then, yes, I'm all for no government assistance, too.
ALSO: Your saying that you are not a cold-hearted @#%^ does not undo all you previous posts proving you are. Just sayin'.
ETA: I don't think you enjoy seeing people suffer. I think you just don't care at all.
EDIT: {{In}}
Edited, Jan 21st 2013 10:12pm by Bijou
remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.
Just for clarity:
I have a chronic, progressive disease. It is robbing me of my sight daily. It is treatable. I cannot afford to be seen.
Is it better for the country in the long run if I get preventative care NOW, or total care after I am too ******* blind to continue to be a productive (TAXPAYING!) member of society?
If you answer is preventative care then you would naturaly support government paid health care, right?
I have a chronic, progressive disease. It is robbing me of my sight daily. It is treatable. I cannot afford to be seen.
Is it better for the country in the long run if I get preventative care NOW, or total care after I am too ******* blind to continue to be a productive (TAXPAYING!) member of society?
If you answer is preventative care then you would naturaly support government paid health care, right?
remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.
Friar Bijou wrote:
Just for clarity:
I have a chronic, progressive disease. It is robbing me of my sight daily. It is treatable. I cannot afford to be seen.
Is it better for the country in the long run if I get preventative care NOW, or total care after I am too @#%^ing blind to continue to be a productive (TAXPAYING!) member of society?
If you answer is preventative care then you would naturaly support government paid health care, right?
I have a chronic, progressive disease. It is robbing me of my sight daily. It is treatable. I cannot afford to be seen.
Is it better for the country in the long run if I get preventative care NOW, or total care after I am too @#%^ing blind to continue to be a productive (TAXPAYING!) member of society?
If you answer is preventative care then you would naturaly support government paid health care, right?
Private charity takes care of this, duh.
You do understand that payroll taxes are already flat
Aside from that part where I pay <1% of my income and most people pay 6%, yeah, they're perfectly flat. What we should do, really is just tax people on the first 200k and after that just call the rest "winner's spoils". Why punish success?
Aside from that part where I pay <1% of my income and most people pay 6%, yeah, they're perfectly flat. What we should do, really is just tax people on the first 200k and after that just call the rest "winner's spoils". Why punish success?
Disclaimer:
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I spoke of a flat tax within that context.
Ok. But that's a different argument than saying you're for a flat tax. You're arguing that all federal taxes should be treated as income tax, rolling payroll, income, and capital gains into one tax system. That's an entirely different argument and has massive ramifications far far beyond just how we divvy up the tax rates among income brackets within our income tax system.
No, he is saying he is for a flat tax. As in all income is income. And all tax is tax on income. And you pay taxes according exactly to the amount of money (aka income) that you have. Including inheritances. Including capital gains.
Edited, Jan 21st 2013 10:01pm by Olorinus
rdmcandie wrote:
It costs me 2 bucks for 500ml which is about 15 bucks a gallon when all is said and done.
Donate. One day it could be your family.
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
You don't want a flat tax. You don't want a fair tax. You want unfair taxes and unfair spending such that the poor are provided for by the rich. So why not be honest and just say that?
They're just faking.
Alma wrote:
I lost my post
Uglysasquatch wrote:
rdmcandie wrote:
It costs me 2 bucks for 500ml which is about 15 bucks a gallon when all is said and done.
You be getting hosed son. Costs 5 bucks for 4L here, unfortunately I don't think it is functionally viable to show up with a 4L sac of milk at work. Ill continue buying my 500mL for breaks and lunch, ill leave my 4L bags at home.
HEY GOOGLE. **** OFF YOU. **** YOUR ******** SEARCH ENGINE IN ITS ******* ****** BINARY ***. ALL DAY LONG.
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2. You gambled and lost. You should not be rewarded for making a poor choice.
No, Gbaji is correct here. You aren't being rewarded with this mechanic, you already are punished by the investment losing value. If you had a job for 6 mo. and then lost it for 6mo. you don't pay tax on the last 6mo. (and have some subsidization via UEI), same thing is going on here. The part which has an unfair reward is the much lower and more easily fudge-able tax on investment returns, which makes certain compensation structures vastly more lucrative than standard wage-income.
Just as Planned.
Friar Bijou wrote:
Point being, no matter you rhetoric on "striving for a better life/job" some just won't...ever.
Sure. And fewer will if you give them an easy choice like working the system for benefits. So is it better to provide easy access to benefits for those you've already concluded will not succeed no matter how hard they try if the cost is for many more people to fail to reach their potential because they foolishly fall into the trap of easy entitlements? If we assume the first group cannot possibly succeed then we don't do them any favors in terms of long term outcomes by handing them things. We do, however, significantly harm the second group.
I put myself in the "do no harm" category on that one. I'd rather risk failing to provide for someone who utterly cannot provide for himself than risk causing a harmful outcome to someone else.
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What you consider a "starter job" (McD's, Wal-Mart, etc) is the best these folk will ever achieve.
While I'm sure that may be true in some cases, I think you have far less faith in your fellow man and their ability to improve and advance than I do. I think a hell of a lot of people who think "I can't do it" actually could, if they were given the encouragement to do so. Certainly making it easy for them to not even try is not helping them at all.
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If they are paid a living wage, they won't need government assistance, now will they?
That's yet another argument though. There's no such things as paying a "living wage". It's an illusion sold to people who don't understand economics. The minimum wage is based on the relative value of the things produced by minimum wage labor to other things produced within the economy. Period. It does not matter what arbitrary dollar number you assign to it. If tomorrow you raise the minimum wage from $8.00/hour to $20.00/hour, then costs will rise to make $20.00 buy what $8.00 did before.
The only way to increase the real wages of a worker is for the output of the workers labor to be more valued to others in the market. And the best way for that to happen (from an individual standpoint) is through time and experience (and training/whatever). It's a good thing for minimum wage to pay as little as possible. I know that seems counterintuitive, but it's true.
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So, yeah. If any given job will pay enough for food shelter clothing and health care then, yes, I'm all for no government assistance, too.
All jobs? So the high school kid working part time at the local burger barn should earn enough money to pay for his own home, food, clothing, health insurance, transportation, etc? Again, while this may seem counterintuitive to most people, if your lowest wages are not lower than that need to pay entirely for a home, food, clothing, etc, then you actually make it harder for those who need to be able to pay for their own homes, food, clothing, etc to do so.
Here's an example which illustrates why: Let's assume a business is open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and has 3 people on each shift. This gives us a total of 252 hours of labor that has to be paid. Let's assume that the profits on the store sales allow for an average pay of $8/hour ($2016/week in this case). Let's also assume that we're currently employing 10 part time students and 2 full time shift leaders/managers. So the breakdown is 80 hours for my managers and the remaining 172 hours for my part time students (average of 17.2 hours a week each). If minimum wage is $5/hour then we can pay the 10 students $5/hour each, for a total of (5*172) $860/week. This leaves us (2016-860) $1156 to divvy up among the remaining 80 hours, which works out to $14.45/hour for my two managers.
What this allows me to do is hire a couple of single moms, who are more responsible than the typical high school or college student (and will stick around longer) and pay them a "living wage". In this case, each of my two store managers are making about $30k/year. Not bad at all for managing at a small business, right? And the students are making far less than they can live on by themselves (17.2 hours/week average at $5/hour works out to $4500/year). But they're students. This is temporary labor. They'll move on (nearly all of them will).
What happens if we raise the minimum wage to $8/hour? Everyone makes $8/hour. The employer can no longer afford to pay his managers more. The students, most of whom this is just beer money, make more of it. But those who really needed a better paying job no longer have it. Raise minimum wage enough and you completely drown out the "unskilled professional" labor market.
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ETA: I don't think you enjoy seeing people suffer. I think you just don't care at all.
I do care. I care enough to look at what solutions actually work versus those that simplistically appear to do so (but don't actually work at all). I care enough to look at social statistics and realize that a whole lot of the recipients of our social spending don't ever seem to improve their lives. I look at studies like the one I linked to earlier showing not only no correlation between food stamps and decreased food insecurity but in fact an *increase* in food insecurity associated with food stamps. I look at what the actual outcomes are, not what the social engineers tell us they should be. And I notice the difference between the "should be" and the "actually are".
I care about the actual results. You care about appearing to care by following along with a politically correct solution. Doesn't matter that those solutions often don't work and that they sometimes cause more harm than good. You're in a crowd of people who all assume that "caring" equals agreeing with and supporting those specific solutions. So you all clap yourselves on the back for how much you "care", and never once notice that the people you care so much about seem to be worse off each year. And if you do happen to notice, it never occurs to you that maybe what you're doing to show you care isn't actually helping them.
Caring isn't enough. Doing the right thing matters even more. I don't believe that most of our social spending is the right thing. And that has nothing to do with me not caring. Quite the opposite. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother to argue the point.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
rdmcandie wrote:
a 4L sac of milk at work...leave my 4L bags at home
That never gets old, no matter how many times I hear it.
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