As for value judgements, you seem to be missing the point. For this discussion, it’s quite simple. We are a free country. Having a billion dollars is not against the law. Neither is having only $500. There is not a problem in either of these things that the government needs to correct, and it cannot do so even if it needed to without taking effectively complete control over the economy an our lives in which case we are no longer free.
Yes. Saying Rich is bad, poor is good and taking from one to give to the other to make them the same is well over that blurry line.
Clearly those who do well should bear a tax burden larger both in real dollars, and proportion than those who do not. That is their part of the social contract.
Those at the bottom should pay only token contributions, but they should be contributions nonetheless.
This is in fact the way the system is working now.
By definition, cuts in income tax are going to effect those who pay the biggest burdens.
If you want to talk about payroll taxes, that is a different issue since one buys into participation.
All value judgements are not bad. ones that make value judgements concerning our personal freedoms and rights are.
I stand by my summary of your assertions. You don’t like it, show me where it’s inaccurate - that might at least force you to stick with your definitions, rather than constantly try to tapdance away from them whenever you’re cornered.
Sam, nice effort at explaining why one-time tax cuts to people who will actually spend them in wealth-generating activities are bad for the economy, while permanent ones for people who will shuffle them around in non-wealth-creating activities are good for the economy. But ideological answers don’t hold up to sunlight very well.
The goal ought to be to encourage broad-based wealth creation, and quickly. That makes life better for everyone, no? But cutting a tax that only a small sector, which isn’t going to buy more stuff from manufacturing or agriculture, pays won’t do anything of the sort. It will even hurt, by diverting capital from companies that are using their cash for growth instead of dividends to those that are already mature and using their cash for dividends and non-wealth-creating acquisitions. But the people and companies who already have the cash available for campaign contributions will have even more, no?
But choosing to support a particular tax structure, or any other public policy, over another is in fact applying value judgments, and yes, those inevitably entail effects on personal freedoms and rights, as represented here by money. You cannot escape the messy affair of making value judgments of that sort when discussing this topic, although you seem like to pretend to be above them.
Unfortunately as well, you yourself inevitably are judged by others on the basis of the judgments you make.
Sorry, Scylla when it comes to cite-searching I’m truly hopeless. (Wheres Duck Duck when I need her?) It was on the local news (WCCO-TV) and the local Star-Trib paper. But the phenomenon of full time homeless workers is by no means local. If its happening here in the People’s Republic of Minnesota, its a lead pipe cinch its happening elsewhere. We’re kinda in shock around here, we just found out we’re $4 billion in the hole. (Elect a pro wrestler Governor? Seemed like a good idea at the time…)
You know, I wrote a rather lengthy example on the last page specifically to deal with this kind of thing.
In my submarine example, a value judgement has been made to benefit Virginia. There was no way to avoid it. Go back and read how I treat it, and see if you have any questions concerning my stance.
Your tv Station ran some pieces on homelessness in general, highlighting New York City and the state of homelessness across the nationn back in December.
Your paper ran this article back in September.
Is this what you were referring to?
I get the idea that you were being… shall we say “figurative” rather than literal with your statement about lotteries for full time workers at homeless shelters in MN last night.
I kind of had a hunch. I kind of suspected the whole bit about wanting to make a donation was a set up. Like I said, I’m a pushover. Just proved it again. Ah, well.
Nope, nothing “figurative” about it, I heard it and read it and don’t doubt it for a minute. Just to be completely clear, I have never, repeat, never knowingly posted something I knew to be untrue, an exaggeration, or “figurative”. Rough guess, it was about two weeks ago.
You’re real close to stepping over the line here, companero. Want to challenge me on it? Do so. I’ll find it if it takes me all day. All I expect in return, when I do, and I will, you eat a major serving of crow.
You want to back away from that insinuation now or later?
Thanks…But could you actually support these assertions with any proof?
Note #1: You will have trouble on the bracket creep part since bracket creep was eliminated long ago (80s, early 90s?). Look at your tax booklets over the past few years and you will see the brackets move up every year (not by that much recently since the CPI has been so low). [There may be some creep for a few particular deductions and I think there is some sort of issue like this for the alternate minimum tax, but not for the brackets.]
Note #2: You may have trouble showing that the taxation has become more progressive, at least at the top end, given my numbers showing that the top 1% has seen their AGI share grow by a larger factor than their income tax share.
Note #3: As for average income tax rates (I assume as a percent of AGI), these are given in the Tax Foundation link. Note that the average rate on everyone is about the same in 2000 as it was in 1980 (although it did dip down lower in between). The average rate on the top 1% is only 27.5% now as compared to 34.5% in 1980.
So, in short, december, your assertions are not correct.
…and I had a hunch you might be fibbing. Nevertheless what you describe is bad indeed, and I would like to find out more, and make a donation to one of these shelters that is forced to hold lotteries and turn away people who are working full time if that is in fact what is occuring.
That should not be routinely happening.
I can imagine that circumstances might dictate that such a thing might happen as a rarity, an exception.
If this is going on with regularity at shelters near you, it deserves our help, and I would like to make a donation.
Please do find the cite, or even if you can recall the name of one of the specific shelters than I will do the rest.
I looked at both the newspaper and the TV Station for mention of the story, and found none.
Good enough? Google has lots of hits for “Minneapolis + homeless + lottery”. (But some of those are news pages with stories on homeless people next to state lottery results, side by side with mentions of “Minneapolis”, so there you go.)
Here’s an article which presents some of the arguments given attention in this thread. (Obviously, this article is really commentary from a particular p.o.v., and makes frequent appeals to emotion, but it also makes some interesting points regarding the homeless situation for the working poor.)
What, exactly, are you having trouble with here? That the shelters are full. Every night. You doubt that?
Or that some of the people turning to them for help are employed full time? The very article you cited stated:
“The survey found a steady increase in the percentage of homeless people working full-or part-time, from 18.5 percent in 1991 to 41 percent last year.”
You read it, right?
So what remains? The method of choosing which of the “lucky duckies” gets to sleep indoors? A lottery troubles your conscience, you’d prefer “eeny-meeny-minie-mo” or “one-potato”? Whats the crucial issue to you? Surely it can’t be the method of selection, but the other facts are already in your hands.
What exactly do you want proven, beyond what you already know. You know the shelters are full, correct? You know they must turn away people. You know that they turn away people who are working full time. Any of this you doubt?
And how much? I’m duty bound to honor your challenge if I can believe it worthy. How much? I will, of course, insist on some sort of confirmaton. As ol’ Uncle Ronnie says “Trust, but verify”
So: explicitly state what is to be proven, what is acceptable proof, how much you willing to chip in. I’ll find out who to contact to accept your donation, and I’ll check to see it’s been done. And, of course, you will swallow those two words “fib” and “figurative”. Here will do nicely, Macy’s window at high noon will not be required.
I never said there was a perfect linear relationship. I claimed that lower income people would tend to have a higher marginal propensity to spend than higher income people. Admittedly, the only thing we found written down as a general rule was a relationship between wealth and marginal propensity to spend rather than income, so we would either have to search further (which I don’t really think is a productive use of my time) or simply note that the correlation between income and wealth should be strong enough that this correlation would likely continue to hold true for income vs. marginal propensity to spend.
But, okay, if it makes you feel better then I will say that it was a bit too strong for me to indirectly compare this correlation to Newton’s 2nd Law. Sure, that was a bit hyperbolic. I hardly see this as any sort of great victory for you or for ignorance fighting, but I guess one takes one’s victories where one can get them.
I mean we have people making blatantly false statements in this thread and you are concerned about whether something should be analogized to a general law or be considered just a statement about a correlation that we can only at the moment indirectly determine to likely be true. Whatever!