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Post by
ElhonnaDS
@ Boron- but half of the households in the US pay NO taxes, so for them it IS free.
If our graduated tax system provided as many or more social programs, but they were set up so that EVERYONE had to contribute something, had to pay some percentage of income tax, then I think that programs would be made and laws passed more responsibly. If you want to raise higher brackets as well, that's fine too. But make it so that everyone has a stake in the decisions, and the tax rates, and in paying for the government to turn around and provide various social services.
@Patty- sorry, didn't see that. I was getting a crash course in Norwegian economics and tax law, so as to make an informed response to Gamer. I'll see if I can find what percentage of the country that is.
If anyone who has access to info not in English wanted to tell me, I'd be obliged.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
contribute nothing to the social programs they want the government to provide
Oh, they still contribute. Presumably those 47% of people are not starving, so they still pay sales tax: remember, consumption is production since it stimulates the economy. There is ample evidence to support the notion that lower income earners are less likely to save money too, since a lower percentage of their expenditure will be on luxury goods. They are also not all unemployed, so they literally create wealth through labour. Since other individuals had prior access to the means of production, they accumulate more of this wealth. In fact, executive remuneration has spiked since the 70s and taxation for the highest earners has receded.
Also, there's the obvious practical point that there's pretty much no point in collecting taxes from people whose incomes barely cover their means of subsistence.
And as a result, we are now 15.5 trillion dollars in debt, and we are going to spend 1 trillion more this year than we take in in taxes.
No, expenditure is the reason the US is in debt, not the fact that lower income households do not pay tax (or at least, gain in the aggregate from federal programs, which is one of the other ways of demonstrating it). What would taxing those households yield, anyway? Probably something equivalent to the 90 corporations that paid no tax in 2009.
Many of the people who are paying taxes feel that it's not fair for them
I'm well aware of the billionaires against welfare program led by Pete Peterson and I'm constantly amazed at how well it seeps into the public unconscious. Just takes a few well aimed public service announcements and John Locke disappears from history.
Edit: Oh, despite the fact that billionaires will complain about any level of tax, even a flat one, it doesn't change the fact that a disproportionate amount of that complaining is levied at public healthcare and welfare. Why not take the examples you provided earlier and just not investigate crimes where the victims didn't pay income tax, nor rescue them from fires? Why should they expect a free ride?
Maybe that's the solution to getting Republicans to accept abortion: a foetus is physically incapable of labour and yet decent hardworking Americans are expected to keep it alive?
Post by
MyTie
It would be nice if we could afford to give everything away free, but we don't have the money.
The US spends more on healthcare than any other country and has results tied with Cuba, a country with 1/14th of the expenditure.
Norway has a public healthcare system, is ranked at least top 3 in the HDI from what I can recall and was the only country in the world to break even recently... What's that about destroying work ethic?
I think this has more to do with doctor's insurance, which has to cover lawsuits, which is due to the judicial insanity we are dealing with. Doctors are sued for EVERYTHING. It makes doing their job, even when they do everything right, very expensive. That expense goes to the clients, which is why healthcare costs so much.
So basically, you want cheap insurance... but you don't want the government to do it? How do you suggest it be done? Maybe giving heart implants to insurance company executives?
This is a BIG difference between you and I, and in fact, between conservatives and liberals everywhere. We both see a problem. We see expensive healthcare. We both want people to get healthcare. The difference is, if you see a difficult problem, you see the only solution is to put the problem in the hands of government. When (read above) the problem IS government. You can then cast it as this uncaring position of myself and other conservatives who don't want to put this in the hands of government. Don't we care? Don't we care about uninsured? Why won't we let government fix this? Here's an idea. Government is as effective at fixing insurance as burning down your house is at staying warm. Why don't you burn your house down during winter? Don't you want to stay warm? What are you crazy? Do you like being cold? Liberalism is such an obvious failure of logic. Why? Doc? Why? You know there has to be a different solution than... what... putting this in congresses lap? Why not just replace all hospital equipment with rusty spoons and rotting cat skulls?
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
Doctors are sued for EVERYTHING
Which is a symptom of your system of healthcare. It's cheaper to resort to the courts than it is to undergo uninsured surgery, or perhaps higher premiums. Then there's the issue of a safety net if one is left disabled by malpractice.
Why don't you burn your house down during winter?
Because our socialistic fire department will come and put the blaze out before one can get nice and toasty. Luckily in America, rugged individualism is in play and one has to pay the local rapscalions to hoist buckets from a well several miles away. Because Jesus said "burned are the poor", or somthing like that.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@Gamer re: your points
1) Sales tax is a state institution. In my state, groceries and clothing items that cost less than $110 (including shoes) aren't taxed. Rent isn't taxed as such, though the landlord has to pay income tax on it. Very few "necessary items" are taxed, and so the majority of sales tax being paid by everyone is on non-essentials.
Also, if we're playing this game then the people who spend a lot on luxury items should get credit for how much sales tax they pay into the system, which would set their percentage significantly higher. After all- if they buy a new car every year, they're paying sales tax on that, and then income tax on what they get back from the car they sell. if they eat out rather than cook, then that's taxed. If they buy brand name clothing, they pay taxes on clothing when other people don't. If we're counting sales tax, we count it for both sides.
And why, in your estimation, does someone who creates wealth through labor (i.e. has a job) get credit for contributing to society through it, when he works primarily for the wage given directly to him, but the person who takes their money and invests in buildings, and machines, and material and payroll, and per capita creates much more wealth than the person who depends on that payroll for a job, gets no credit whatsoever when his motives are essentially the same?
2) I know we're in debt cause we overspend. Hence my desire to not overspend, and try to create the same benefits without exacerbating the debt. Which was the argument that got me in trouble with you in the first place...so I'm not sure why you're suddenly using it.
I'm not saying we're in debt because they didn't pay directly. I'm saying we overspend because there is a huge portion of the population for whom the tax rate has no effect, and the free stuff from social programs does.
At my job, which puts me in contact with customers on a fairly regular basis, we sometimes get customers who order something, and either aren't happy with the product, or aren't happy with how long it took to get. If it's our fault, we pay to fix it. If it's not, we often still offer to meet the customer half way, or more, just to make them happy. You'd be surprised how often someone who "absolutely must have it in two days," who didn't read the ordering policy that said we need a lead time on certain items, changes their tune when you ask them to pay even a fraction of the cost. The same person for whom it absolutely needs to get rushed by $150 air mail, if we ask them to pay even a third or a quarter of it, suddenly can wait the extra two days. I'm just saying that if you are responsible for any portion of the layout, it's a lot easier to put in perspective the cost vs. benefit of programs, and to be more willing to look for a sustainable alternative on how to provide medical care and the like, rather than just say "pay for it with taxes."
3) How arrogant. How come every person who gets involved in the tax discussion is either impoverished or a haughty millionaire? How about all the people in the middle, who work hard, have a moderate lifestyle, and pay taxes?
Lets ignore the top 1% for a second. Lets pretend other people pay taxes too.
47% of households pay no income tax.
16% of households live below the poverty line- which means they live on below a certain percentage of what the median income is in the country. In the US, that actually includes a number of people who make enough to meet their housing, food and medical costs, because it's based on a percentage of deviation, and not on specific deficiencies in lifestyle. It also doesn't include welfare income, or public assistance, or anything other than monetary income not from public assistance. But lets say that the whole 16% can't afford to pay anything.
That still leaves 1/3 of the population, not in poverty, who pay nothing towards the government. It also leaves half the population, most of which are not millionaires, or billionaires, or even making a 6 figure income, who are paying part of the share of that 1/3 of the population. They're people who work manual labor jobs in things like construction, plumbing, carpentry, etc. They're people who went to school and got office jobs, and who will never own a company or a fancy car but did invest money and hard work to get an education to get a decent job. They're people who want to put their kids through college, and so they work 50-60 hour weeks for extra money to save for college. THOSE are the people who aren't necessarily getting a fair shake, not the rich fat-cats you want to wave around as the only people who are upset about tax inequities. They DO have a right, if they have to put in a few extra hours to make up the difference, or have to send their kids to a school that isn't what they wanted, because they are paying into a tax system that is bloated with overspending, to complain about how the money is being spent.
Source for numbers.
I'm not saying that those that make more shouldn't pay more. I'm saying that if we expect the government to provide our essentials with tax funding, then the majority of people should be contributing something. I think it would lead to a much more realistic approach in terms of what we spend, what we charge in taxes, and how we structure programs to have the most long terms sustainability in terms of operating costs. It seems like any time anyone suggests any budget cuts, the automatic response is to say that they're greedy, that they want the billionaires to pay nothing, etc. Maybe some of us just don't want the government to collapse into anarchy because of lack of funding.
Post by
Squishalot
Question for the US people - what does your healthcare budget currently get spent on? Can anyone put dollar figures on expenses?
Post by
MyTie
Doctors are sued for EVERYTHING
Which is a symptom of your system of healthcare. It's cheaper to resort to the courts than it is to undergo uninsured surgery, or perhaps higher premiums. Then there's the issue of a safety net if one is left disabled by malpractice.
Why don't you burn your house down during winter?
Because our socialistic fire department will come and put the blaze out before one can get nice and toasty. Luckily in America, rugged individualism is in play and one has to pay the local rapscalions to hoist buckets from a well several miles away. Because Jesus said "burned are the poor", or somthing like that.
Socialist fire department? Geez. That's deep.
My local fire department is the largest building in a 10 mile radius from my house, by far. It is the only "service" offered locally, besides the miracle we have a library right next to the fire hall. The library is meager, but nice. The fire department is volunteer only, from the chief on down to the regular volunteers (which includes me). We have 2 water tenders, 1 rapid response vehicle (medical), and 1 fire engine. We pay our bills mainly through donations from the community (if you can call it that, since most are just farms), and bake sales. Firemen out there making stacks of pancakes to try to get enough money to put gas in the tanks. Amazingly, the community pulls together and gets what we need. That's how it is done. Sure is better than paying the federal government an extra 40% of my income so I can get the same service. Capitalism works, amazingly well. You should try it sometime, instead of your inaccurate and biased perspective.
Instead of straw manning me, would you care to answer the question of how to deal with the problem without government intervention? I'm seriously all ears.
The issue of inequality is definitely a problem, but I'd rather have some tax inequality than people dying of easily preventable conditions as it is now.Government mandated healthcare is going to drive the price up and quality down. To fix the problem itself, we need to tone down regulation, and do away with the silly cases of malpractice lawsuits. They need to move the healthcare industry slowly back to capitalism, and let the market bring the price down to something affordable, and then insurance will be reasonable. At that point healthcare will be affordable and adequate for everyone.Question for the US people - what does your healthcare budget currently get spent on? Can anyone put dollar figures on expenses?
I pay healthcare expenses out of pocket. I have health insurance provided for the state for my kids. I've never used it. It's nice to have in case they get hurt.
Post by
Squishalot
I pay healthcare expenses out of pocket. I have health insurance provided for the state for my kids. I've never used it. It's nice to have in case they get hurt.
Sorry, I meant government healthcare budget.
Post by
MyTie
I pay healthcare expenses out of pocket. I have health insurance provided for the state for my kids. I've never used it. It's nice to have in case they get hurt.
Sorry, I meant government healthcare budget.
$0 - Government provided healthcare. Granted, that could change, but it's unlikely. Now compare that to the amount I pay in taxes for illegal immigrants to receive healthcare. Win? How about the amount I pay for the justice department to gouge doctors, running up costs for them and insurance prices, and price on the government taxes collected. Win? Should we just give it over to government completely? WIN? No. I think not.
Post by
Squishalot
Argh, still not getting my point across properly.
The government spends $X on healthcare, be it for you, Joe Bloggs down the road, or the illegal immigrants freeloading on society. Where does the money that the government spends on healthcare actually go (and what services are actually provided)?(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
The healthcare provider would be put out of business, if in a capitalistic market, due to the inability to sell his goods. A competitor would offer services at a fraction of that price and the first healthcare provider would be out of business.
But that all is beside the point. I'm not advocating a PURE capitalistic society. I'm advocating a regulated healthcare system, to a point. What we have, currently, is too much regulation, with a push to increase government control and regulation. Providing an EXTREME argument as a deterrant for my argument doesn't exactly work.
If 0 is purely free market, and 10 is communism, I'd say we need a 3. Your example is like, 0.2 or something.Argh, still not getting my point across properly.
The government spends $X on healthcare, be it for you, Joe Bloggs down the road, or the illegal immigrants freeloading on society. Where does the money that the government spends on healthcare actually go (and what services are actually provided)?
Google your own statistics.
Post by
Squishalot
Google your own statistics.
I have a decent idea of where the money goes. I'm curious if you and others here know, seeing as you keep saying that the government is useless at regulating the healthcare system.
That being said - you still haven't responded to my earlier point about whether applying a levy on people who don't have insurance would be sufficiently constitutional in your eyes.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
If we're counting sales tax, we count it for both sides.
Granted, but here's evidence for my earlier claim that using the principle of currency and market principles to stimulate growth with redistribution (and since wealth in a capitalist system accumulates upwards, tax cuts are a method of distributing wealth to the rich) works best when that
distribution takes the opposite form
.
And why, in your estimation, does someone who creates wealth through labor (i.e. has a job) get credit for contributing to society through it, when he works primarily for the wage given directly to him, but the person who takes their money and invests in buildings, and machines, and material and payroll, and per capita creates much more wealth than the person who depends on that payroll for a job, gets no credit whatsoever when his motives are essentially the same?
This is based on a misunderstanding of economics. In order for labour to profit the owner of the means of production, a portion of the worker's labour must be made a present. The wage received by the worker in profitable employment will always be lower than the value of their labour. This is an independent question from constant and variable capital.
Demagogic appeals about “job and wealth creation” work because it's easy to assume that control of the means of production is equivalent to labour, when in fact the controllers of the means of production are a redundant population that serve to extract surplus labour from others. They spend the fruits of other's labour on whatever they will, expanding operations, increasing their control of property, producing propaganda vis. Fox News and funding political campaigns (Democrats and Republicans alike).
I'm just saying that if you are responsible for any portion of the layout, it's a lot easier to put in perspective the cost vs. benefit of programs, and to be more willing to look for a sustainable alternative on how to provide medical care and the like, rather than just say "
pay for it with taxes
."
Why look to cut or halt programs that are saving lives? Do you think it's any consolation to people with curable illnesses that their death will help save the deficit, or is fairer on the people for whom the tax burden is higher?
then the majority of people should be contributing something
Why should we ignore the 1% that control 35% of the wealth
? It's their decision not to share that hurts the middle class, not the 30% that could just about scrape by with 10% less. If we really wanted to talk about the best way to proportionately share resources, those with the most resources would have the most to give. We don't need to resent those that have far fewer resources, since they'll (tautologically) never proportionately have as much as the top 1%. Hell, we don't need to resent the 1% for not voluntarily sharing their resources, we just need to ensure that they're taxed appropriately.
Capitalism works, amazingly well.
That's not capitalism. Lewontin volunteers for his local fire department. Capitalism is the doctrine of property rights and prior ownership of the means of production and has nothing to do with volunteering.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@Gamer
- Point 1- sales tax was your inclusion in the debate, not mine. If the poor are spending all of their money on food, clothes, etc. then they're not paying sales tax. If they're spending a significant portion on non-essentials, then they're not as badly off as you're suggesting.
- Addressing point number 2- if someone could make $15/hour without working for another person, why don't they? I imagine that labor by itself should be able to make that if the owners of the means of production are redundant. Unless, of course, the value of the person's labor increases when he performs that labor upon certain machinery and/or materials. If the person requires a specific location to operate from (that needs to be paid for), materials to work with and machines upon which to perform the labor, in order to make it worth whatever it's worth, then is sounds like they need the resources of the person who is providing these things in order for that to work. If the person needs to actually sell the product to make it possible, then they need advertising done so that they don't saturate their local circle of acquaintances and then have no way to continue to make money from the product (not in all cases, but in products without a high replacement rate this would be true). So if the one person pays for all of the tools, expenses, etc. so that the second person can perform the labor, and that same person loses all of the investment if it doesn't go well while the second person moves on and finds another job, then it does seem to be kind of a joint effort, no?
The difference between what the labor is worth to the owner and what the laborer is being paid is what the laborer trades in order to not have to buy any of the materials he's working on, not have to worry about multiple facets of the business, and not have to be at any financial risk if the business isn't successful.
- Point 3- Why don't you want to argue about what I actually said, instead of what you want me to have said to make this argument easier for you? I said lets have the government deal with medical care, because it's too important to let private profit-making cost people lives. Then I said, in order for us to be able to keep providing things like medical care, we need to make the programs sustainable and not go further into debt. You ask why cut programs that save lives- what I said was if we don't restructure the programs so that they don't keep driving the national debt up, they're going to collapse and a lot more people will die when we have no ability to give them anything. You may not agree that this will be the result, but don't accuse me of wanting to trade lives for money when that's clearly not what I said at all.
And I won't apologize for thinking people need to be somewhat responsible for themselves- either through taxes, or through paying directly by working for a living. I don't agree that people would produce at a high level if there was no incentive. Even in Norway, where many services are provided by the government, they do have a number of elements of the free market economy that keep production levels high. In truly communist countries, where means of production have been centralized and taken out of private hands, the people have a much poorer quality of life than in capitalist countries. But they're all equally miserable, so that's progress, right?
Point 4- I'm not saying high earners shouldn't be taxed more than everyone else- that never came out of my mouth. What I said is that it's easy to spend money you have no stake in earning, and that if we wanted people to make responsible decisions in spending, they should have a stake in it. You were the one who said that if workers all owned shares in a stock, they'd work harder and think in terms of the well-being of the company because it's partially their company. Shouldn't it be the same with the country- if the decisions on what to spend money on are made by people spending the money, then wouldn't they be making better decisions because it's their own interests too.
I find that in this argument, you have a lot of expectations of what someone will say about taxes and social programs, when they don't agree with you, and so you argue against those rather than what they DO say. I'm not a firm conservative or a firm liberal- I tend to have my own ideas that draw from both sides. But I am a realist. And I know that having to pay $20 to see the doctor, and having that service available for the rest of your life and your children's lives, is better than seeing him for free for 10 years, and then dying in the street because the government doesn't have access to the money to pay for anything to stock the clinics, or to pay people to staff them.
I'm also someone who has seen both ends of the spectrum, and has definitely been below the poverty line in her life. When I was younger, my parents worked their way out of it- my father worked construction, put in 60 hours a week, and made the money he needed to bring his family out of it. My mother worked full time and went to school part time, having been a foster child with no financial resources from her parents after she turned 18, and became a nurse, which is a generally well-paying job. I earned my college tuition partially through good grades, and took out loans for the rest. When one company went under or another cut hours, I always managed to find a job, even if it was a low-paying job, to get me by until I found something better. But I have definitely lived a life where I didn't always have money for food, or to go to the doctor unless it was an emergency. And then I worked hard enough to do better. I haven't finished working my way out of it- I still have debt left from my rough patches. But the point is I feel it's my responsibility to take care of it, and no one else's.
Two questions gamer:
1) Have you ever had a job? Do you know what it means to work to live?
2) Have you ever actually researched the number of social programs and money available in the US for people who are low income, or for people in general?
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