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I simply cannot stand such anti-American, Marxist assholes.
You don't pay into the Social security and Medicare system if your earnings are only capital gains, dividends, and a few other types of income like bonuses. If you don't pay in a certain amount for a certain period before you retire, you simply don't qualify for SS.
I simply cannot stand such anti-American, Marxist assholes.
"anti-American"
being anti-Repug, anti-teabagger, anti-conservative, anti-neo-c*nt doesn't make one anti-American.
"Marxist assholes"
... and doesn't make one a Marxist.
WC, I may have missed your answer to this question earlier, but were you this stupid before you went in the Army or did your Army career make you stupid?
I used to be fairly opposed to the flat tax. One thing a lot of people miss is the costs of switching things over when they calculate the costs/benefits and that cost is not insubstantial.
BUT
Our tax code has gotten downright byzantine. I got an "A" in my income tax accounting class, and know how to navigate it, but yuck...
I am actually for it at this point. The costs of the current system in terms of time/effort spent trying to figure out if one is in compliance with the IRS code/regs is beyond any reasonable benefit.
But, it will never happen. Too many people have too many little gimmies in the tax code for one thing or another. The tax lever is just too popular not to pull.
One thing to remember is that the tax rate from a flat tax would probably have to be a bit higher than many proponents would have you believe.
Considering our deficit; I'm betting it would have to be a lot higher!
Also; there is not just people with gimmies in the code; there are A BUNCH of jobs at stake if that thing gets simplified - attorney's, accountants (both at firms and within other corps), and their related support staff, would be scrambling for work.
exactly, a super-complicated tax code is make-work (aka societal overhead/friction) for 10s of 1000s of lawyers, accountants, their support staff.
Let's see, lawyers (the elected ones, and the lobbyist ones who ghost-write the tax laws) make the tax laws, and lawyers hustle the tax laws. Such a deal.
A sure trait of a Marxist is believing that people should pay by their ability to pay.
Indeed.
Being one of those accoutants, I still support the simplification.
Any job loss would be more than mitigated by the overall savings to everybody.
Sadly the overall public good is not what drives the country. It is the narrow interests with enough money to throw around that drive public policy.
I know it, you know it, and it is clear to just about everybody else at this point.
The bigger question is what do we do about it?
If one were to benefit most out of any given system, would not that person bear some moral responsibility to support that system more than others who did not benefit as greatly?
Actually, "what to do about it," I think, is happening, to an extent. Never before have I had SO man discussions with people of a disparate political bent from myself, that have ended in agreement as to WHAT the problem in this country is; usually the animosity (or insert word of greater or lesser degree as you see fit) between liberal and conservative, or Republican and Democrat is too great to overcome. Many are now figuring out that Corporatism (large powers controlling the govt - which is controlling all of us) is the ultimate evil - it manipulates Congress, and both sides of the political landscape to its own ends. Keeps us arguing about meaningless stuff while we get (insert euphemism for "sodomized" here).
The GREAT thing about this country is that every 2 years, we have a chance to almost wipe the slate clean with a new set of leaders. We have not taken advantage of that opportunity - and, frankly, we've been so fat, rich and happy for so long; ignorant of so much, that it is no wonder. Ain't so happy or rich anymore, and society is becoming less ignorant (fat is debatable). Democrats misread the results of the last election as everyone is pro-Democrat; and Republicans, IMO, are misreading Brown's election, and other trends as the country swinging back the Republcans way. Both are wrong; people are PISSED at ALL of THEM! The pendulum, that for 160 years has swung strait back and forth, is beginning to tilt off its axis ever so slightly - and I think (hope, pray) the momentum is building; There is not a coming third party, but I think there is a coming "Throw the Bums out" movement - and it WILL have an effect.
However, if that doesn't happen, we're ed.
You get a chance to read the Tiabbi article posted by Winehole?
I thought I was mad before... man.
Yup. I concur. As a committed Democrat, I must admit my party leadership in Congress seems to be as clueless as the GOP's.
You assume the "system" is what gave the person the ability to succeed.
The founding do ent of this Nation is VERY clear as where the credit lies, and thus, by your reasoning, where moral obligation to payback should be directed.
article posted by Winehole in this thread:Con artists have a word for the inability of their victims to accept that they've been scammed. They call it the "True Believer Syndrome." That's sort of where we are, in a state of nagging disbelief about the real problem on Wall Street. It isn't so much that we have inadequate rules or incompetent regulators, although both of these things are certainly true. The real problem is that it doesn't matter what regulations are in place if the people running the economy are rip-off artists. The system assumes a certain minimum level of ethical behavior and civic instinct over and above what is spelled out by the regulations. If those ethics are absent — well, this thing isn't going to work, no matter what we do. Sure, mugging old ladies is against the law, but it's also easy. To prevent it, we depend, for the most part, not on cops but on people making the conscious decision not to do it.
That's why the biggest gift the bankers got in the bailout was not fiscal but psychological. "The most valuable part of the bailout," says Rep. Sherman, "was the implicit guarantee that they're Too Big to Fail." Instead of liquidating and prosecuting the insolvent ins utions that took us all down with them in a giant Ponzi scheme, we have showered them with money and guarantees and all sorts of other enabling gestures. And what should really freak everyone out is the fact that Wall Street immediately started skimming off its own rescue money. If the bailouts validated anew the crooked psychology of the bubble, the recent profit and bonus numbers show that the same psychology is back, thriving, and looking for new disasters to create. "It's evidence," says Rep. Kanjorski, "that they still don't get it."
More to the point, the fact that we haven't done much of anything to change the rules and behavior of Wall Street shows that we still don't get it. Ins uting a bailout policy that stressed recapitalizing bad banks was like the addict coming back to the con man to get his lost money back. Ask yourself how well that ever works out. And then get ready for the reload.
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146999
Last edited by RandomGuy; 02-19-2010 at 02:37 PM.
RG: ^^^^ ?
Thanks for the heads up; just read it.
Screw waiting for November. Gonna go fire up the Cessna.
(Since I posted that: how long you think before the black helicopters appear above my house?)
Heh, fixed the post to put in the source. Sorry about that.
Yeah, I just read it; now I see; just tying the threads together.
Produce body counts, apparently.
if people who were about taxing the rich actually wanted to tax the real rich people in this country I wouldn't mind.
But they don't.
They convince poor people that the middle class are rich and tax them instead.
then they act all indignant when the middle class objects to "taxing the rich".
2nd biggest scam ever. (the first being fractional reserve banking)
Are you saying the people taking my tax dollars should return money to the community somehow?
After-all, they benefit the most. Those who my wealth is redistributed to, right?
40% of the people in this country contribute no tax dollars to the system.
Thats 120 million people.
Go after them.
Make them pay something or kick them into the ing ocean or across the border into a Saguaro Cactus or Pine Tree.
Thats how I feel about the tax code.
I don't know if you are being sarcastic, but either way:
Flat taxes are regressive. They have the dual problems of castrating a government's ability to create non-mandatory incentives while simultaneously punishing the poor as a flat tax more drastically impacts take home income per relative need. $10,000 on 10% tax is 1000 that might otherwise go to food, for example...
A flat earned/unearned income tax with no loopholes will never fly in USA because the wealthy have enough wealth to bribe enough Congress critters, who are really, really cheap (in many ways) compared to the wealth of the wealthy.
ie, do you think Buffet would pay a 25% flat tax (earned and unearned) rather than his 17% (avg paid by the wealthy)? He'd pay millions to bribe Congressmen away from that idea, and the bribes would work with 100% confidence.
Those loopholes you talk about are NOT available to everybody, because many depend on investing, ie it takes money to "save" money, but most people below the median income and certainly the poverty level, simply don't have the discretionary funds to invest AND pay the accountants and tax lawyers to find and exploit the loopholes.
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