Most of us probably read Cecil’s article on the low rate of tax we pay in this country compared with the rest of the world. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/001201.html
Taking that into consideration, should our taxes be raised? I mean, I know no politician would run on this platform,except Mondale 
, but aren’t there some good things our goverment could do by raising taxes a bit? Are there any reasons for raising taxes?
Yes. Higher welfare and free health care and college would be good starters. People have just been bred to think that “taxes are stealing” without noticing that some good actually comes from them.
http://www.uexpress.com/ups/opinion/cartoon/tr/rallcom/2000/09/tr000930.html
I guess that depends on what you want from the Government. If you want a lot of social services, then taxes are the only way to go. Personally, I don’t use Government social services so not I’m too terribly fond of raising taxes; besides, I think the socials woes that would be served by Government social services would be better served by individuals, community, and Churches or Places of Worship. A country like France has a mother lode of social services, a high income tax, but no better quality of life. It may be a bit judgmental, but I don’t think the citizens of France are well served by the high degree of Government services and get a very poor returned value for the taxes they pay.
The classic comics version of the situation is that the poor, needy, and unfortunate benefit from the high income taxes by increased social services and the “productive” income earners lose out by keeping less of their productivity. If you want a country that’s “providing for needy” centered, then taxes should go up; if you want a country that is centered on “productivity,” then keep taxes low.
While American taxes may be low compared to the rest of the world, but the amount paid by individuals can still be staggering and disproportionate. Consider this, I anticipate my 2000 Federal and State taxes from a combined family income to be in excess of $20K. That’s a hell of a lot of tax, IMHO, but nowhere near the amount the rich pay. There are people rising kids whose yearly combined family income is less than my tax. Think about that for a moment. A whole family living for a year, doing whatever they do, for an entire year for the amount I pay in taxes.
Why would I think there is a good reason to rise taxes to support services I don’t use? As I’m sure you can guess, I don’t support the rising of taxes.
The column you cited also mentioned the low unemployment and high economic growth of the US versus other countries. There is a trade off between high taxes and high unemployment, in the US we opt for the lower taxes and the lower unemployment.
Only in America can you separate people from large percentages of their money to provide them with services which you can manage to convince them are “free.”
Hey, when you’re giving out that “college,” will that include paying off the student loans I incurred when I took the initiative to fund my owneducation?
Also, why is “higher welfare” prime facie a good thing?
Well, right now, the State, broadly defined, takes ~40% of every marginal dollar I make for Federal purposes, ~10.25% of every marginal dollar I make for state and city purposes. They also get an 8.25% surcharge on much of my consumption (more on ciggies and beer, of course).
And of course, real estate taxes are built into the cost of my rent.
So I ask you: How much more? Not, generically, “more.” Precisely, to the fucking penny, how much more of the money I earn working 70-hour weeks do you propose to take to pay for someone else’s college, or for this “welfare” you think is such a great thing.?
Well, I’m not surprised. Mostly no answers. Puddle, I noticed you mentioned a link between our unemployment rate and tax rate. I thought the unemployment rate is America is good compared to the rest of the world because of 3 reasons only.
We are America.
In Europe, their jobs come with more paid vacation and better benefits but are much harder to get.
Their economy is never as good as ours. Don’t pick on the word “never”. I mean “generaly”.
Oops. Sorry I was unclear. You asked:
. My response is, “No. Seriously.”
Hope that helps.
Manhattan,
We have had our differences in opinion before but not on this issue. I concur seriously NO more taxes preferably less taxes.
Pyrrhonist: Personally, I don’t use Government social services so not I’m too terribly fond of raising taxes; besides, I think the socials woes that would be served by Government social services would be better served by individuals, community, and Churches or Places of Worship.
Goodness, Pyrrhonist, you never drive on paved roads or use any safety-regulated appliances or materials or consume any FDA-approved food or drugs? You freewheelin’ self-sufficiency poster child, you! (Gee, how’d you ever manage to get onto the internet?..) But I can’t quite see how “individuals, communit[ies], and Places of Worship” will do a better job of providing them.
If you’re talking specifically about means-tested entitlements (read: poor people’s stuff) such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (welfare) and Medicaid, you may be surprised to learn that they account for only about 12% of total federal expenditure. (See this report on the federal budget to see how the different slices of the pie measure up: Social Security (which is not means-tested) is the biggest at 22%, non-defense discretionary (all education, training, science, technology, housing, transportation, and foreign aid) is next at 17%, national defense 15%, and Medicare (also not means-tested!) and interest payments on the national debt tie at 11%.)
So manhattan and Pyrrhonist and pldennison, when you’re foaming at the mouth about all that tax money being spent on other people’s welfare benefits and other people’s education, try to keep in mind that all of that uses less than 20% of the government’s money. The vast majority of your tax money does not in fact go to “services you don’t use.” (And that doesn’t even take into account the question of whether “services you don’t use” such as welfare actually end up being beneficial to you because they make our society at least a little bit healthier and more stable, thus reducing potential risks to your all-important self.) Mahaloth is quite right (of course, because he was quoting Cecil :)): we are a low-tax, low-service nation.
And yes, this creates or exacerbates certain problems in our economy and society (the one-seventh of our population without health insurance, our high incarceration rate, our skyrocketing levels of wealth inequality and the consequent wealth-domination of our political system) that other countries don’t suffer from as much as we do. (See some other current debates like the taxing consumption and Colin Powell threads for some discussion of why these are widely considered—and by many conservatives as well as liberals—to be disadvantageous for our society as a whole and how they are related to our low-tax/low-service structure.)
So yes, there are indeed reasons to support some raising of taxes that might strike even you anti-tax types as good ideas if you only knew more about the issues. No, manhattan, I’m not a tax economist and can’t give you a proposed revised tax schedule down to the frickin’ penny, but you can find discussion of these questions and cites of more detailed information on the threads I mentioned.
Yes, I support some raising of taxes (and yes, I’m perfectly willing to pay some more in taxes myself). Primarily and specifically, to fund a universal single-payer healthcare system.
In regard to the contention of America having low unemployment because it is America remember there was a time when the unemployment rate was 25%. In general I would think that all things being equal Europe should have a lower unemployment rate than the US because there is less immigration into most European countries than there is in America.
Not sure I follow what you’re driving at, puddle. But as for the issue of currently higher American productivity and consequent lower American unemployment, many have noted that they can be traced not just (and possibly not even primarily) to our lower taxation but to the fact that real wages for most workers have been almost stagnant for decades. Higher productivity is an outcome not just of energized and enthusiastic innovators being spurred on to glorious achievements by the prospect of minimally taxed profits, but also of the simple but effective policy of keeping employee wages and benefits down. Here’s a Century Fund report that describes this wage polarization, and a recent article on how this ties into Federal Reserve Bank policy to preserve high economic growth.
Heh. Presumably the universal single-payer housing system and the universal single-payer food system can wait until we’re used to paying for the health care. Fair enough.
But seriously, how much more ? I’m at an 35% average rate right now (and a marginal rate of ~50%), plus whatever the 8.25% comes out to (I don’t track how much of my consumption has a sales tax attached to it). And that percentage doesn’t include social security, medicare or unemployment insurance on the highly generous assumption that I may see some of that money back as a direct transfer payment someday.
Hell, yes, I use services like the streets, the police, the subway &cetera. And I believe in the existence of public goods. But how much more fully a third of my working year would you have me pay?
I was going to reply, but Kimstu said it much better than I ever could.
pldennison, I’m for amnesty on all student loans as well.
No, I’m not just talking about “means-tested entitlements.” I’m talking about all “social services,” which would include all the “poor people’s stuff” and among other things student loans, Medicare, and the biggest bugbear of impropriety Socialist Insecurity… oh no, I mean Social Security. Using your statistics this comes to 34% of the budget for “social services” excluding Medicare. While it may not be possible to reduce this social spending, I certainly would not favor increasing my taxes to some kids from the trailer parks or Projects to college.
BTW, road maintenance would be better labeled as a “utility service” than a “social service” and most roads are maintained by the state taxes with some matching funds.
**
Canada, you know, our neighbor to the North, has a universal coverage health care system. Rich Canadians come to America for serious medical treatment. I can’t imagine any reason why they would do that. Can you? I’ve even heard rumors about those crazy Canadians visiting veterinary clinics after hours for x-rays and stuff where the wait isn’t as long and there are few Government regulations. Why would they do such a thing when they have a fine universal coverage health care system?
**
Well, in case you don’t know, the internet was originally invented (not by Gore) to allow for communications after a nuclear war and not for “social” use. If it had remained solely as intended, in the hands of the Government, I doubt we would be discussing these issues in this forum today.
As for being a poster child for self-sufficiency, I gladly accept the offer. Maybe may ugly mug staring down from a billboard will really scare those poor folk in self-sufficiency. 
Pyrrhonist: *Socialist Insecurity… oh no, I mean Social Security. *
Golly, I hope something like this message board is still around in thirty or forty years (and we all grow old together on it?..eek, what a concept!). When folks like you and manhattan hit retirement age and start collecting your SS and Medicare benefits, I am gonna mock and mock and mock you. I know, you think the programs will be dead by then and you’ll have wasted all “your” hard-earned money…wait and see.
*Using your statistics this comes to 34% of the budget for “social services” excluding Medicare. While it may not be possible to reduce this social spending, I certainly would not favor increasing my taxes to [send] some kids from the trailer parks or Projects to college. *
??? No? Not even though a college education has been shown to be one of the best routes to social and economic advancement, enabling “kids from trailer parks and Projects” to earn more money and become more productive and remunerative members of society? You’d rather see a poor person scrape by on minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit for the rest of his life than move up to a career in which he ends up paying back far more in taxes than he was originally given in scholarships?
This is what just blows me away about you anti-tax types: you don’t seem to want the gummint spending “your” money even on benefits for others that will pay off for all of society, including you, in the long run! Do you seriously not believe that such “social investments” genuinely stimulate wealth creation (and if not, I’d like to see some cites, please, because this is quite widely accepted), or does your indignation at the government’s brutal violation of your sacred wallet simply fog up your brain so you can’t understand the reasoning anymore?
Goodness knows I sympathize with resentment of counterproductive social programs that cause more problems than they solve, and I can even understand the basic resistance to seeing somebody else get help of any kind that you yourself had to get by without. But I just can’t follow the mental processes whereby you intellectually justify opposing benefit programs that make our society overall healthier, wealthier, and more stable. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face…
And as for the single-payer health care: yeah, I’ve frequently heard (always from American conservatives, btw) these horror-story “rumors” about Canadians desperately trying to sneak into American healthcare facilities. To which I can only say: cite, please? Because as it happens, I’ve never met a real live Canadian who wanted to trade their health-care system for our privatized one or thought that ours was more effective or simpler to deal with.
Now, I certainly believe that wealthy Canadians, like other wealthy foreigners, make use of our top-of-the-line “boutique” health care for services that are not as readily available or as world-class in their home countries. But most Canadians don’t use those services. And neither, by the way, do most Americans, including the ones who brag about our top doctors being the best in the world and getting all sorts of wealthy international clients. Wealthy international clients can afford our top docs, which most of us can’t.
For the average American to boast about our “best-in-the-world” health care system rather reminds me of peasants during a bread shortage bragging to visitors about the gourmet delicacies that the king’s court has up at the palace—kinda pathetic. Most Canadians, I think, would rather have a system in which everybody can count on good-quality health care for their entire lives than one in which a small minority get absolutely the best care in the world and one-seventh of the population doesn’t even have health insurance. And I think most Americans would too. (But of course, once you show me your well-documented factual evidence about significant percentages of Canadians expressing envy of our superior system and desperately trying to piggyback onto it, why then, I guess I’ll have to change my mind.)
Actually, I’m more moderate than most (does that make sense?) I’m no libertarian, and I’m no anti-tax protester, and I’m no hater of the poor, or even programs for the poor.
It just ticks me off so see people make the intellectually dishonest statement that they want to increase taxes so that the State can provide a “free” service, as Jello did early in the thread. The service is not free any more than someone’s beer is free if I buy a round at the bar. It’s not free – it’s on manhattan.
So I have no desire to debate the specifics merits of any given program; there are plenty of threads for that. I have just one simple question. 1) How much? No, really, how much? Not generally “taxes should go up.” I want some supporter of higher taxes to have the guts to stand up in this thread (figuratively, of course) and state “this is exactly how much more than ~40% of manhattan’s income I am willing forcibly to extract from him to allow the State fund things I think are worthwhile.” Would you be willing to take it all to fund this stuff? 80%? 60%? Or is there a level at which you would say “well, that’s not quite fair – I guess the State can’t afford to provide that?”
Is it really so much to expect an answer to that question?
And if someone actually is willing to answer that question, I’d appreciate any advice you might render regarding which activities I should reduce to compensate for the additional money you intend for the State to take? Shall I reduce my charitable activity? Move to a smaller place? Save less for retirement?
Better mock me now while you still can. Pyrrhonist and Mrs. Pyrrhonist are diligently working and saving for an early retirement in our early to middle fifties instead of the 65 or 67 or whatever it will be mandated by social security. I guess it couldn’t really be called Retirement, but since we won’t be working every day it amount to the same thing. Mrs. Pyrrhonist thinks we might be able to quit working in our late forties, but the skeptic that I am says she has to expect some up and down in the economy and that age is a little too ambitious. Oh well, hope she proves me wrong and she may just do that. If perchance, SS is still around and if perchance the Government doesn’t disqualify us for whatever cost saving schemes exist then to save it, we will happily use the Government’s money to expand our two week vacation in Bermuda in two months. Mock me to your hearts content, I’ll be on a beach with pink sand napping by the sea. Of course, I don’t think the purpose of SS is to give Pyrrhonist and his Mrs. an extended vacation, do you?
Well, I don’t have a college degree and I do okay. I earn more than the national combined family income and each year I do better and better, too. In five years I’ll there is a fair probability I’ll earn twice the national combined family income, so don’t boohoo me how every kid needs a degree. Of course, I’m a techie, so I lot of employers will look the other way when I don’t have that Calligraphy on Sheepskin to hang on my wall.
Not only that, there are more ways to get a college degree (for those that want them) than from Government programs. Let us see, right off the bat I can think of working full time and going to school part time. Lot’s of employers, including my employer, have tuition reimbursement benefits, so scholarships are not needed. People who get their degrees this way do it the old fashioned way, they earn it. Yeah, they won’t go to an Ivy League school, but who cares.
I have no objection to private scholarships from wealthy individuals or estates. If you (and all you who believe likewise) believe so strongly in the issue–why not convince a rich old man with a guilty conscious to provide a scholarship to his Alma Mater for a disenfranchised youth form the trailer parks or projects.
Aside from college degrees, there are many “working class” trades that don’t have enough professionals to meet the demands. When my basement flooded last year it took four months to find and hire a contractor to do the work because they were too busy for “small jobs.” These contractors can earn a fair income, $30k to $50K, depending on how much they want to work. Jobs like these go begging for people to fill, college degree not required.
So there you go, a few ways to escape the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit without Government intervention.
Well, you know I don’t have that college degree to understand all the economists who blow smoke up the my bung to prove a point. Instead of pursuing the mystic figures of the pundits for that “Ah Ha” why don’t you look at the high-tax/high service nations and ask yourself why wealth hasn’t been created there? France, for instance, has heavy “social investments” but I wouldn’t call them a model of wealth creation.
Hupff ahhgr mummm ssph. Oh, pardon me I’ve cut my noise and couldn’t speak correctly into my Dragon Naturally Speaking Program. I better stick to typing. Anyway, if your reasoning was so crystal clear than everybody would be cheering “Spend! Spend! Spend!” A lot of economists, philosophy professors, political gurus, and assorted pundits with college degrees from the Ivy Leagues disagree with your “healthier, wealthier, and more stable” statement. I’m not saying that America should have absolutely no “social investment” programs, but I do say, returning to the OP, there is no justification for increasing taxes to spend on these programs.
Well, I’ll keep this short. I’m not going to be dragged into a long drawn out discussion of the Canadian Health Care System here because 1) It is way off topic 2) I’m not Canadian and can’t speak for them other than in rumors 3)I don’t know any real live Canadians, so I can’t ask about their opinions.
However, if you do an Internet search you will come up with a few articles on “Canadian Heath Care in Crisis” Here is one: http://www.acponline.org/journals/news/jul97/canadahc.htm#flirting
The article has an argument that can go both ways, so it is not strictly in my favor, but an interesting quote about privatizing some services said: “A 1995 CMA poll of 3,600 Canadian physicians found that 73% of the respondents said that a complementary, private health care system to cover non-core, non-essential services would be “very or somewhat acceptable.”
As for universal coverage in America, I don’t really see the need. I’m happy with my HMO and if I get dissatisfied with it I can open my sacred wallet a little deeper an buy the PPO. Sure, some Americans may not have health care, but it isn’t the role of the Government to provide it or make it more affordable. It is a commodity to be bought or given as a benefit. I don’t see it as a right for all citizens. It is really no different than a car, a boat, a cable modem, or a Q-tip. Either you can afford it or you can’t.
My understanding is that this happens very infrequently. Most of the Canadians who seek health care in the US do so because they’re here when they need the health care. (IIRC, places like Florida and Arizona have the most Canadian demand for US health care, because a lot of elderly Canadians spend the winters there.)
Also, I always hear about how long Canadians have to wait for CTs and MRIs and such, but I’ve never heard that this led to more negative outcomes. How could they do so many fewer imaging studies than we do, yet still have comparable results? Could it be that we Americans (gasp) order too many MRIs?
Dr. J
You’ve said your in the 50% bracket: the top bracket is about 40%, but (deductable) state taxes can add something like 10% to that. So, assuming you’re paying the top rate, you must be making more than $283,000 per year. I’m not sure how much more. (For comparison, median family income in 1994 was about $32,000. Also your marginal social security tax is zero, assuming most of your income is in the form of wages).
I don’t think the disincentives would be too great if we raised the top federal marginal tax to, say, 60%. But I wouldn’t want to go much beyond that.
Since I don’t know what you spend your money on, I can’t help you with your budgeting. Sorry. 
I agree that certain levels of taxation can have unfavorable effects on work incentives. So, if I lived in Sweden during the 1970s, I’d be a conservative. But by US standards, where taxes are low and health care access nonuniversal, I’m decidedly left of center.