I have to say I really like this argument. I shall put it in my bag of tricks.
Again, this time very slowly so you can understand. “not easy” is different than “impossible”. It is impossible for there to exist a situation where there isn’t a lowest 20% of earners. It is a situation that never, ever, exists. There is always a bottom 20%. A single person can exit the bottom 20, but they are, by definition, replaced by someone else.
You find this surprising, or notable in any way? In 2005, the topmost income of the second quintile (20-39%) was $36,000. So, at the age of 22, as a single person with no dependents, you earned more than 40% of households. Wow, you’re truly amazing, you should write a book about your incredible ability to survive such hardships. It’s not like there were 40 million households trying to get by with less money than you.
While there may be “a lot” of jobs that make $37k, 40% of households that take in less than that. Are there 40 million jobs that pay that much, ready to hire? I didn’t think so.
So, 40% of the population should spend their lives living like you did then. No kids, no creature comforts, used car, small apartment. Sounds great, that’s exactly the type of country I want to live in.
But when you were making that minimum wage other, richer people than you were paying more than you. I didn’t hear you complain then.
But now that you’re them, now that you’ve used every advantage you could get out of society to climb that social ladder, you think things should play the other way, the people you climbed on top of oughta pay more while you oughta pay less, because you’re different, and deserve it ?
Strong moral argument, there. Yes booboo, it really ain’t fair, your life’s story. Woe is you.
Is a progressive tax system really that hard to figure out? I’m somewhat baffled by arguments that flat taxes are more desirable because they’re “simpler”, half-expecting the proponent to follow-up by saying “who needs multiplication, anyway? Instead of five times seven, just add five seven times, 5+5+5+5+5+5+5 = 35, and I didn’t need no hifalutin’ commie egghead multee-plee-cashun stuff, just good old fashioned honest American addition, like mah daddy and his daddy a’fore 'im.”
All your property is rented? Including your underwear? TMI, dude…
Exactly. I wasn’t complaining that they should be paying more to offset the impact on taxes of my already slim paycheck. Trust me, I would have LOVED to be making much, much more money and paying my share of taxes. My equal share. I wasn’t griping that they should be footing more of the bill because it was hurting me.
They aren’t paying more, unless you’re speaking of percentage of paycheck devoted to tax vs percentage of pay check remaining.
It’s not like I, or anyone for that matter, instantly started utilizing government services more the second that first big paycheck hit the account. I wasn’t waiting at the door at midnight when that first direct deposit hit my account to go use the roads more, demand more out of public employees, etc.
Umad? Yeah, umad.
More so a case study, not an “IN YOUR FACE” note.
Regardless of what I made vs. what others made or had or didn’t have, why is their situation of my concern? Why should I be burdened to pay more? I’m not using the government or it’s services anymore. I worked to get that money, why should I lose anymore because others can’t keep their end of the slack? Jobs aren’t there? Tough shit. Life isn’t fair, right Kobal2?
Oh har, har.
I rent an apartment. The rest, albeit slim, I own. I have a bad, bad habit of rat holing money. I still use a computer I built for college… 8 years ago.
So, the argument is “I’ve got mine, fuck you.” It doesn’t have anything to do with fairness, just a preschool notion of “Mine! Mine! Mine!” What’s fair is whatever gives me the most stuff.
No sense of decency or interest in the welfare of your fellow man, just your inner 4 year old whining about how mommy is making you share with your playmates.
… but now you do want to pay less, which *will *impact the minimum wage guy’s paycheck.
Of course they are. Taxation is a zero sum game. The country’s got a bill to pay. If some people in the country get to pay less (and, in the flat tax scenario, the upper 5% would pay MUCH less) then someone else has to pay more. For some reason, that someone is never whoever’s proposing the tax reform. Funny, that.
Haha, yeah, that must be it.
Well, you’re the one who started waving your situation as justification (or as a demonstration ?) that things were so messed up in the current statu quo. You evidently thought *your *situation was of our concern.
Well, no, life isn’t fair. Why should taxes be, especially your fucked up understanding of what constitutes fairness ? Pay your taxes, as much as you’re asked to, or go enterprise somewhere else. It’s that simple. I hear there’s no income tax at all in Somalia. Or, as I already told you, if you want to pay strictly less income tax you can always opt to make less income.
You want to stay here and keep making the big bucks ? You pay what the mob says you must pay. Tough shit. You worked hard to make that money ? Get a ticket, stand in line.
Nope, the claim that a flat amount of money paid by every taxpayer is the fairest tax got me nowhere. The reactionaries around the dinner table refused to accept that $2,000 from everyone was fair. They insisted that the same flat rate (percentage) was the only fair way to go.
But of course that means that even they reject the idea put out in the OP. Even my Tea Party friends accept that the rich should pay more.
Nonsense. Someone with money necessarily uses the roads more than someone without money, because vehicles, fuel, and goods delivered thereby (which not even the most reclusive can avoid using) cost money. You most certainly did demand more from public employees the moment you got your first paycheck, unless we are to assume that if it had bounced or been embezzled away once you deposited it, you would have philosophically shrugged your shoulders and not gotten any of them thar big-gummint PO-leece involved.
I have a lease with an option to buy.
-* Fletch*
You’ve reached the point where I give you “30 percent serious, 70 percent mock”. Care to try for 0-100?
A revenue-neutral flat rate tax - one that collected the same amount of revenue as the current rate - would require that we lower the rate for the top four percent of incomes and raise the rate for the other ninety-six percent.
So ask your dining companions if they think it’s “fair” for 96% of the people in the country to have their taxes increased so that the richest four percent can have their taxes lowered.
Funny that you bring up apples-to-apples comparisons, then go on ahead and compare paying taxes - from which different individuals derive highly variable benefits - with multiple people purchasing the same product - where you can make the reasonable assumption that the benefit gained from such a product would be quite similar.
As it’d be nearly impossible to come up with a measure to determine the objective benefits a person earns from paying their taxes (income amongst others), we have to make reasonable decisions about how our national expenses of $X will get paid. You can certainly make an argument that X should be a lower number, and everyone’s tax burden should decrease - but you still have to decide how it gets split up. And while you might favor a flatter or less progressive tax structure, the point of the system isn’t to appeal to your personal notion of “fairness” - it’s to divide up the expenses in an effective manner.
Why on earth is that way more fair than any other way? What about the definition of fair makes it so? That’s why I find this argument so frustrating. “Fairness” is an utterly subjective quality. It’s totally a matter of opinion, and worse than that, it can’t even be defined except in a kind of “I know it when I see it way” – and everybody sees it in a different way.
So people – such as your dinner companions, it appears – who think that one plan can be objectively fairer than another drive me up the wall.
One plan can be better than another in other ways: It can be more politically popular, it can produce more revenue, it can be more efficient, it can have certain other good or bad side effects, etc. But arguing over fairness just leads one into circles.
Since I suspect I’m much older than you, I personally was footing more of the bill when you were making minimum wage. You might recall we already have progressive taxation. Should I have demanded that you should have paid a lot more in taxes in order to lower my horribly high (sob) bracket?
Any parent knows that “fair” does not mean “the same.”
You can do this three ways…
Everyone pays the same - all people, regardless of income pay $20k/year (or whatever) in income taxes. Obviously that won’t work. Not everyone has $20k.
Everyone pays the same percentage. As Captain Amazing pointed out, that hurts the poor a lot more than it hurts the rich.
Everyone pays to the same amount of pain…they don’t, but that is what we are trying to accomplish with progressive rates.
And by the way, everyone pays the same percentage on each marginal dollar. That guy making $21k a year is going to pay 34% (or whatever it is) on his millionth dollar this year just like Bill Gates (who actually probably won’t, because his millionth dollar will be long term capital gains and he’ll get taxed 15% on it).
Hey rich guy, don’t complain about high taxes, just use the same tax dodge I do. It’s called having a crappy job.
Not true. If “fairness” is utterly subjective, so then is “justice” (pretty much a synonym) and other concepts based on fairness (like “theft”; after all, why should the victim complain if theft is just subjective?).
IMO John Rawls’ theory of social justice is the best defense of progressive taxation. Suppose you have two societies A and B, equivalent in every way to current American society, except A has a flat tax and B has a progressive tax. If you were to be assigned a random place in either society A or B (essentially be born into world A or B), and could choose, which society would you pick?
As Little Nemo points out, under a flat tax 96% of members in society A would pay more in taxes, though equivalently 4% would pay much much less. But would you want to take that chance, and if so, do you play the lotto often?