And some people have been bred to think that if “some good” comes out of theft, then it isn’t really theft.
I wouldn’t be too sure, there are some who want all these things now, but they may not be posting their ideas here. I used to work with a fellow (six, seven years ago) who wanted (using terminology as outlined above): [list=a][li]Universal single payer heath care[]Universal single payer housing[]Universal single payer college education[/list=a].[/li]
I am sure he wouldn’t have objected to adding universal single payer food system, too. We really got into it over the housing: he ranted and railed about the rich having large homes and how they could do with less; when it got to specifics, he got fuzzy, but I gathered that an individual under this systems would be assigned a certain amount for housing suitable to the individuals needs and in my case, back then as a single male I would have been granted a room in a group home when in reality I had an efficiency apartment; I pointed out that under his system I would be downgraded. He muttered something like a young single mother would have better need of the apartment. Kind of scary that some people think that way.
Just to toss an other bugbear into the circus ring: Hasn’t there been talk of establishing universal child care in some circles? Is there anybody out there willing to increase Pyrronhist’s and Manhattan’s taxes for that?
Going back to the OP: Should taxes be raised? I have three answers:
[li]No[]No[]Hell No[/li]
The current tax rate is sufficient to supply essential public works, fair to middling defense, and adequate social services. I think we could use a tax cut, especially for the taxpayers and not the “most needy,” but not necessarily as sweeping as the GWB plan.
False dilemma. It’s not an either/or situation: How 'bout a third option: that “kid from the trailer park” get off his ass and work two jobs at a time like I did to go through college on his own!
Fenris
Kimstu:
I’ll thank you to withdraw that characterization, as it is a) incorrect and b) completely misses the point. For one thing, you know absolutely nothing concerning the circumstances under which I grew up, which may in fact be releveant to the discussion at hand. For another, I never claimed that most of my money goes to services I don’t use; I questioned whether these free college educations are retroactive and why “higher welfare” is prima facie a good thing. two questions which have not been answered. Seems to me that “higher welfare” implies either more severe systemic and institutional problems than welfare can address, or a benefit level which creates dependency rather than self-sufficiency. The term “higher welfare,” on its own, addresses **nothing[/].
As far as SS, I’m putting away for my own retirement, and earning far more on my 401(k) than SS will ever be able to provide me. So you can toss those in my face all you’d like, but I intend to make my SS benefits (should they exist in 30-35 years, which I doubt) irrelevant. They’ll make nice charitable donations.
I’m willing to bet that there’s no justification for raising taxes that couldn’t be achieved through redirecting current funding and eliminating superfluous and extraneous programs. And you should no better than to assume that, because not everyone shares your vision of how society should operate and how it should be paid for, that everyone else is unaware of the issues. That’s an intellectually dishonest trap that I thought you were above.
BTW, Jello, blanket amnesty for student loans is an excellent way to a) teach people to be irresponsible, and b) put some banks out of business. I happen to think both of those are terrible ideas.
Ah Ah Ah. Don’t forget about the 3% deduction reduction that starts this year at $128,950, or about the personal exemption phase-out which starts at $124,500. The tax tables will tell you the marginal rate jumps from 36% at $283K. The truth is it really starts around $126K.
I’ve left SS out of it entirely, again on the extreme long-shot that I will see some of that back someday as a direct transfer payment. I’d just as soon continue to leave it out of the discussion entirely. (Aside: Yep. This year, unfortunately, substantially all my income will be in the form of wages. I invest for growth, not income, so interest/dividend income is minimal in any year, and I think you’ll understand that I won’t have a whole heap-o-capital-gains to report during 2000. 
)
Disincentives, huh? I rather doubt that you favor beating petty thieves to within an inch of their lives. But if “disincentives” are the sole determinants of public policy, I can guarantee that a good, sound, life-threatening beating is a stronger disincentive to criminal behavior than community service.
Do you think I ought to be paying 60% on the margin as a matter of right, and then the various governments will go and spend it until it’s gone, or do you have a specific basket of goods and services you intend to offer which just happens to cost that much.
Thank you, BTW, for having the guts to stand up and say it.
The government has the right to take only what it needs for the services it provides. Anything more is stealing, plain and simple.
Rich Canadians come to America for serious medical treatment. I can?t imagine any reason why they would do that. Can you?
I can. They come here so that they won’t have to live with painful and even debilitating conditions for months while waiting for treatment.
Guys, it’s already over 60% or close. Consider if I make an extra dollar:
Fed tax: 28%
State tax: about 14%
Social security: 15% (half from empl but still counts)
sales tax: 6.5%
Property tax: about 4.5% (for me)
license tabs and other misc taxes: .5%
Let me see… about 68.5% (61% if exclude employer ss)
Oh wait, what is medicare? 1.5% add that.
People, marginal is over 60% already and it sickens me.
and I make less than $65,000.
Taxes too high?? Forget it!! It needs to come down AT LEAST 10%.
Blink
We’re trying to have a fair debate here; let’s not double count. First, Social Security is ostensibly a (flawed) forced savings/insurance plan. The idea is that you get some/all of that back if you live long enough. Let’s leave that out for now.
Second, your extra dollar of wage income changes your property tax not at all.
Third, applying the 6.5% sales tax to the entire marginal dollar implies you spend all of your raises (and more specifically, spend it on things subject to the tax), in which case you ought to be pretty happy about that whole Social Security thing you’re carping about. If you are not funding your retirement at the $65K wage level, be glad that I am doing it for you.
Please run off to MPSIMS and play while daddy and the other adults hash this out.
Manhatten, what the hell are you babbling about? Social security is a TAX, pure and simple. If I divide my property tax by my income now and if I made an extra dollar the percentage is essentially the same, about 4.5%.
You are intellectually challenged and just need to admit it, instead of trying to cover it up by attacking others personally.
Idiot!
Blink
Um, BlinkingDuck, that’s not quite the way we play it here in Great Debates, as a mod will surely soon show up to tell you. It’s one thing for manhattan to advise you to “run off and play in MPSIMS” or for pldennison to accuse me of setting an “intellectually dishonest trap,” but it’s quite another thing to respond by saying “you are intellectually challenged” and “Idiot!”. Disparaging remarks about the quality or accuracy of one’s posts are standard fare for this forum; direct personal insults are verboten.
Now, on to a few more of the disparaging remarks… 
manhattan, I hear what you’re saying about tax-funded services not being literally “free”, and I don’t believe I’ve ever called them so (although I don’t really think it’s unfairly misleading to use “free” in this case in the specific sense of “tax-funded rather than fee-for-service”; I have never found anyone naive enough to fail to understand that “free” services are paid for by taxpayers).
And of course I’m not suggesting that the government take all your income to fund more programs. But if you want an exact specification of how much I think the government ought to take (or, what’s more probable, how much the various tax-increase proposals that I think sound fairly reasonable would suggest taking), I’d need to know exactly how much your income is. I’m in favor of tax progressivity, so naturally the size of the chunk that gets taken out would vary depending on how big the total is. Mind you, I’m not asking for this information from you; I’m just explaining why I can’t state a suggested tax bracket for you, as you request, without knowing it.
As for providing specific advice on how to afford your current lifestyle if you turned out to be in a bracket that would be hit with increased taxes: well, when you’re confronted with the question “how can poor people afford the things in life that they want?” don’t you respond basically by saying “that’s their problem”? Don’t you think it’s their business to figure out how to obtain enough money to pay for their needs? If you don’t have advice for them (beyond perhaps a generic “work harder, earn more, save more”), then why should we have advice for you (beyond perhaps the same generic suggestions)?
Pyrrhonist, congratulations on your wealth and plans for leisure, and believe me, I have no desire to make it impossible for you to enjoy a nice early retirement napping on the pink sand, if that’s your desire. (It might take you a few more years if you were paying higher taxes, but I think you’d find the overall long-term improvements—if the extra revenues were wisely handled, of course—to be worth it.) And I think that awarding you Social Security benefits to give you an extended vacation that you could certainly afford on your own is simply part of the deal for getting broad support for a truly universal pension plan.
But I think that this topic is about more than just your individual plans for yourself. I’m glad that you’re doing so well without a college degree, but I was not intending to suggest that there’s no middle ground for poor kids between getting government scholarships and scraping along at minimum wage. (This objection goes for you too, Fenris.) Of course there are people who manage to pay for college on their own or do well financially without going to college. That wasn’t my point. My point was, if on average a generous scholarship program makes more kids into well-to-do taxpayers and hence ends up being more remunerative than your laissez-faire approach, why would you be against it?
You said: Anyway, if your reasoning was so crystal clear than everybody would be cheering “Spend! Spend! Spend!”
Why? There’s no question that minimal taxation is much more advantageous for wealthy people, at least in the short term, than higher taxation. And this country is run largely by wealthy people, or those who intend to be wealthy, seeking short-term gains. (Actually, I guess I’ve pretty much answered my question in the previous paragraph, haven’t I?) That doesn’t prove that a higher-tax, higher-service system wouldn’t improve the overall quality of life for more people, just that the overall quality of life for most people is not the primary concern of the policymakers.
As for objections that other countries with higher taxes are worse off than we are: well, take a look at some 1991 statistics comparing industrialized nations. Americans certainly have more purchasing power and productivity (although note my comment above that productivity is increased not only by high levels of innovation and performance, but also by keeping worker pay and benefits low). But we have much higher household debt than most other First World countries, much lower personal investment levels, much greater income inequality, much worse health care coverage, a much smaller middle class, much more poverty (especially among children), much higher incarceration levels, and much less paid vacation or parental leave.
Now, if you personally happen to have no household debt, sizeable investments, an income on the good side of the wealth gap, little or no fear of falling out of the middle class, no problem paying for your health care, a very low risk of poverty, small chances of being accused of a crime, and the ability to afford or demand from your employer as much vacation and leave as you feel you need—then yes, hell, why would you personally want anything to change, especially if it would cost you more in taxes? But that alone hardly suffices as a responsible attitude for a citizen to take. And just responding “well, if you don’t like being poor, then work harder and get rich” is merely naive.
*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. *
So we managed to luck into exactly the right amount of taxation (or, perhaps, erred on the side of excessive taxation) to fund all the “social investment” programs we really need? Hmmm, lucky us. I question whether you really have a coherent vision of what a society ought to provide for its citizens, or whether you’re just used to the status quo so you think that whatever we have now in the way of “social investment” is okay.
(By the way, although manhattan whimsically suggested that my views included advocating “universal single-payer housing and food systems” (speaking of intellectually dishonest traps…:rolleyes: ), I should probably point out that I think both of those, as well as universal single-payer higher education, are pretty lousy ideas. It is often difficult to convince people that you can support some increases in taxation and social services without wanting to create a completely socialist system, but if we’re really going to have an honest debate here you’ll have to be willing to accept that my views are really more moderate than you might like to think they are.)
Now to take my whuppin from pldennison. Okay, Phil, I apologize for lumping you in with any mouth-foamers who seem to think that what taxes do is pay for “services they don’t use”, which I do maintain indicates ignorance of basic budgetary issues.
I questioned whether these free college educations are retroactive
I don’t really understand what that means, unless it refers to blanket amnesty for college loans (which would do me personally no good, btw, just finished paying off mine this fall, 15 years after graduation!). No, as I said, I think universal “free” higher education is probably too much of a cookie-cutter approach to instructional needs, although I do support increased federal support for higher education and for education and training later in life as well.
and why “higher welfare” is prima facie a good thing. two questions which have not been answered. Seems to me that “higher welfare” implies either more severe systemic and institutional problems than welfare can address, or a benefit level which creates dependency rather than self-sufficiency.
Here I think we may be conflating two senses of the word “welfare”. I quite agree that simply handing money to people who don’t have jobs is not a panacea, and can easily produce disincentives to creating mature, stable, productive lives. But there are lots of social entitlement programs that are not mere handouts that can be truly said to contribute to public “welfare”, and those are what I’d like to see more of. Most of us on this board, for example, have probably received at least some public education without having it impair our capability for self-sufficiency. (This is not to claim that public education currently has no problems or that private education isn’t often better, which probably goes without saying, but some people here are prone to overlook the existence of a middle ground!) That’s an example of “social welfare” that isn’t about “creating dependency.”
I intend to make my SS benefits (should they exist in 30-35 years, which I doubt) irrelevant.
Wonderful, and congratulations, again. But as I said, the system should take into account not only you and those like you, but those for whom SS benefits are not an irrelevant aspect of surviving in one’s old age.
I’m willing to bet that there’s no justification for raising taxes that couldn’t be achieved through redirecting current funding and eliminating superfluous and extraneous programs.
Okay then, how are you going to do it? How do you suggest ameliorating the problems I noted above, in which (among others) the US lags significantly behind other industrialized nations, just by “redirecting funding and eliminating extras”? If your response is that high levels of poverty, low access to education and health care, etc., are not problems that affect you personally and therefore are not your responsibility to address, then of course you’re off the hook. As far as this debate goes, that is: as a member of this society, I think an attitude like that will keep you on the hook for a long time to come.
RoboDude: *The government has the right to take only what it needs for the services it provides. Anything more is stealing, plain and simple. *
Um, not to be cruel, RD, but: duh!! Believe me, when the government uses taxpayer revenues to send its representatives on Caribbean vacations, I’m the first to object! The question in this thread is not “should the government be taking more money than it needs?” but “should the government be taking more money than it does now because it ought to be providing more services?”.
It depends on what services you’re talking about.
I would be willing to pay more taxes for for universal health care if it could meet the following criteria:
a. No having to wait ridiculously long periods of time for surgery for non-life-threatening conditions, as is the situation in Canada.
b. Doctors must be allowed to practice privately on the side(this might be necessary to comply with (a.)).
c. Cosmetic surgery(except to cure freakish disfigurement) should be left to the private sector.
RoboDude,
I think we can all agree that a universal health care system should meet some reasonable criteria, of which at least (a) and © of yours seem to be. I’m just not up enough on the topic to go one way or the other on (b).
But, a caveat on (a): I haven’t lived up in Canada for almost 5 years now, so things may have changed. But, when I was there, it was hard to find a Canadian who was dissatisfied with their health care system, especially relative to one like in the U.S. In fact, one of my roommates in Vancouver, who was a real hard-working entrepenuerial type…basically a Republican / conservative / libertarian’s wet dream…and was no liberal, told me that he just could not understand why the U.S. wouldn’t go over to a universal health care system like Canada’s. Another story is that when the Reform Party started saying that they wanted to make some modifications to the health care system, they were immediately attacked by their opponents as trying to start dismantling the universal health care system. And, boy, I don’t think I have ever seen politicians backtrack and say “no, wait, we are not trying to do that at all” as fast as those Reform Party folks!
Gee, I almost feel guilty with everyone ganging up on you. Glad you can be a sport about it.
Well, I don’t think that was the original intention of Social Security Act of 1935, but I haven’t looked up the law so don’t take me to the grave on it. Its purpose is to provide an additional income, not the sole income, in retirement. Now, if you were to calculate the returns on investments of the combined 12.4% employee and employer contributions as private investor over a worker’s lifetime, your additional income is much higher than the benefits from Social Security. As Einstein said, civilization’s greatest invention was compound interest. The Social Security program does not take meaningful advantage of compound interest. It was probably the grandest pyramid scheme in this country’s history. Ideally I would like to see SS eliminated in its totality immediately like the gangrenous limb, but that is not really a feasible plan for a number of reasons: the cost and expense of uncoiling the massive Government tendrils that set it in motion and the dumb suckers who now depend on payments being two examples. What is most needed is reform allowing for some immediate privatization of partial funds now and a gradual disseminating of the systems over the next century. But it must eventually be replaced in its entirety.
Well, I wouldn’t be against Santa Claus if he existed. (I’d light a fire for him on Christmas eve. ;))Your premise is hazy and flawed, that generous scholarship program would turn out more well-to-do taxpayers, on a number of accounts. I think your system could pump out a lot of kids with college degrees, but greatly devalued degrees. At one time a college degree was a mark of distinction, a real achievement, which was why employers sought them out. But under a system were Tom, Dick, and Harry all have college degrees, the value of the degree goes down until it is little better than a High School diploma. The quality of the education would also further deteriorate with the greater demand and more intellectually challenged students in attendance If you were to limit your generous scholarships to “gifted” students I think you would be defeating your point. Under a laissez-faire systems the degradation of the degree wouldn’t be as extensive and the students would be more motivated to learn (i.e. they have to work for what they want) than under a “Free Bee” scholarship.
Bad things happen to good people, everybody knows that; but good people can pick up the shattered pieces and get on with life. Bad people cry for Government to kiss their booboos and make them feel better. Hell, anybody can make errors in life, I did, but I didn’t ask the Government for help and I’m no Übermensch. The social “safety net” is a creation of the overly fearful. Instead of catching us when we fall, the Government should let us take a tumble then get back on the horse.
Thanks for that statistics, they were interesting. However, I think there is a great danger in the “micro-management” viewing of breaking down what each nation does better or worse belays the point that a high tax/high service creates wealth and better living standards. Who choose that these statistics constitutes a better living standard anyway? More immigrants want to come to America than anywhere else. Additionally, the statistics didn’t give the whole view. In France, my favorite whipping nation, they have better “standards of living” judging by your report, but they also have a negative birth rate despite a generous “baby bonus” paid to French women to have children.
I don’t think a responsible citizen would take the attitude of Give the Government More Money to Solve Problems. A truly responsible citizen sees problems first hand and takes personal action to solve them. I saw a problem in this country that I wanted to fix, so I joined a charitable organization with the same views and I now donate time and money (yes, money from my sacred wallet) to support the cause. I want to solve this problem and I don’t think the Government could do a better job than me or be of much use other than giving a tax exempt status as gravy. I’d still do it even if it carried a luxury tax. Now my cause may not suit you. You may not even view my pet problem as serious as others, but I do my part. I believe in what I do, do a good job of it, and that IMHO is the attitude of a responsible citizen. No higher taxes required.
Do you do anything aside from saying pay more taxes and let the Government do the job? If you don’t do it already, I suggest finding a cause you care deeply about and doing something to enact change. Get your hands dirty. If the plight of the poor is what you care about, join an organizations that teaches job and life skills to them. Don’t sit on your thumb and whine while waiting for the Government solve the problem, do it yourself. One poor family at a time. If everyone did a part of their own choosing the problems of the country would be greatly lessened. No higher taxes required.
While asking the poor to simply work harder and become rich may be a touch naïve, an equal naïveté believes the solutions to the problems of poverty belong in the hands of the Government. The definitions of poverty come and go with the up and downs of the age and economy, but there has always been poor people. There [l] always* will be poor people by one definition or another. It is not the purpose or place of the Government to rescue everybody from the ever present condition of poverty. Even if the Government does try to ease the plight of the poor, there is no assurance that the assistance is truly helpful. Look at Welfare before reform; I think that program help keep people in poverty. As surprised as you may be, there is one program that I would support if the Government ever had the guts to place it in a bill: Free No Questions Asked Abortions for Women of All Ages. This would help women in poverty because it would lift the responsibility of child rearing and let them focus on jobs and wealth building; additionally, it would save the Government in the long run because the cost of an Abortion is much less than cost of public education alone not to mention other costs assorted over the child’s lifetime.
No, we didn’t luck into the right amount of taxation or perfect balance of “social investment,” but I acknowledge that yanking existing social programs must be done judiciously, that it is difficult to take something back once it is given. Yes, I think we have adequate social services and yes, when I look at them closely, I see a lot of surplus and waste taking over. Our social services could easily be trimmed and made more effective. Reform could replace current programs and spending reduced, but with the partisan discord in upcoming Government there might not be much more to expect than the status quo. You can question my “coherent vision” all you want, it is a free country.
BlinkingDuck:
[Moderator Hat ON]
Direct personal insults are not allowed in the Great Debates forum, BlinkingDuck. Please do not post insults again.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
It means exactly that–would I get to just blow off the tens of thousands of dollars of debt I incurred to make myself a better person? What a great lesson.
I would like to see less of them, or, more to the point, less need for them. As, I’m sure, would you; the disagreement lies in how to achieve that end.
Don’t you think, however, that the government should be encouraging and creating an easier market for personal savings and investment rather than increasing the scope of SS?
I’ll dodge that question the way you dodged Manny’s. By deferring to people who are better qualified to handle large-scale budgeting than I am.
That’s a loaded question–my acceptance of all of those things as “problems” is contingent upon my believing that those are the things that government should be empowered to address, which I don’t. Your link contains this little tidbit, which is very telling: “These statistics are shattering to those who believe that greater individualism and less government somehow produce better societies. And they should serve as a wake-up call to every American that this country is headed in the wrong direction.” Well, I suppose that that all depends on one’s definition of “better societies” and “wrong direction” are, doesn’t it?
As I’ve noted several times in these threads, I have immediate family members in poverty. It does affect me personally. But that begs a question–why am I doing well and they are not? My sister and I grew up in the same house with the same parents under the same circumstances; so why am I fairly successful, and she is not? Because of her choices. She chose not to go to college, to attempt to remain a perpetual adolescent, to be involved in a string of failed relationships, and to have several children she absolutely was in no position to raise. I chose to do otherwise. I help her children when and where I can. If half my paycheck wasn’t disappearing every week into the government coffers, I could afford to do a lot more for them, like buy them quality medical insurance. Ironic, isn’t it? Would it be nice if we could all address those problems nationwide? Sure. Does my own family take precedence? You better believe it. I am not unsympathetic to the general condition of the poor, but my family comes first. Unfortunately, I cannot do for them what I want to, because I am told I am required to provide for other peopl first.
At some point, people have to realize that poverty often comes down to choices. Yes, I agree that there are institutional barriers that conspire (for lack of a better word) to keep certain people from achieving as much as they otherwise could. Yes, I agree some people need temporary assistance to get over rough spots (although I disagree as to the source and scope). But my sister is where she is because of what she chose to do. I don’t want her children punished for it, because it is not their fault, which is why I help them. But I would never feel that I have the right to tell everyone else in the United States that they must help as well.
[/quote]
…if you want an exact specification of how much I think the government ought to take (or, what’s more probable, how much the various tax-increase proposals that I think sound fairly reasonable would suggest taking), I’d need to know exactly how much your income is.
[/quote]
Fair enough. For purposes of this thread, let’s use a nice, round $200K in gross wages, reduced by $12,500 for various “pre-tax” stuff like 401K, pre-tax medical and commuting, de minimus interest/divs, and no net realized capital gains (sigh), with the current tax rates I mentioned above and the only real deductions being charity and state income taxes.
Because I firmly believe that a college education achieved without working for it is essentially worthless. The military offers generous scholarship benefits, loan programs are already widely available, there are loan “work-off” benefits with a some jobs, including teaching in some areas.
I had no parental help for college. My school’s privately-funded endowment had a need/ability based scholarship fund which I qualified, I worked 20 hours a week during the school year and 60 during the summers, and I borrowed tens of thousands of dollars. If I had not qualified for the scholarship, I would have gone to a state school on the same work schedule and less debt. I honestly believe that college is already available for anyone who really wants to go and who has the intellectual ability to make it through. I do not wish to expand the ranks of college attendees beyond that group, with my money or otherwise.
I have absolutely no idea what this means. Would that be wealthy person Bill Clinton? Funny, I thought he was poor until his wife got that book deal. Or do you mean wealthy people like Bill Gates? His dad had some dough, but he didn’t start off wealthy. He got that way. Sure, he intended to be wealthy. So did the guy Gates bought Q-Dos from. So did Mike Tyson. And so did the poor schmuck Tyson clobbered in his first fight, who’s probably now a bouncer in a honky-tonk bar someplace. I think you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of what wealth is, where it comes from and how people earn it, keep it, and spend it.
No, we have excessively high taxation to provide too much “social investment.” But the economist in me fears “dislocation” over almost all other things, so we’ll go slowly. But Social Security in the future ought to be means tested, deductibles and co-pays ought to be higher for medical insurance (both private and especially public), &cetera. I really believe that overall welfare is increased to the extent you remove the disconnect between payor and beneficiary, whatever the situation.
Are you calling me dishonest because there do not currently exist extensive public subsidies to housing and food for the poor in this country, or dishonest because it is impossible to imagine that someone who wants greatly to expand existing public subsidies to health care might want to expand these subsidies, too? Help me out here.
Agreed, but what about those for whom SS taxes are not an irrelevant aspect of surviving to one’s old age. Would not SS be better if it was a program solely for those who needed the money to survive and taxes lowered to allow me to do more of my own planning? This is really more of a lower-middle class thing than for the upper middle class or the rich. As ** Pyrrhonist**, pldennison and now I point out, our retirement planning can safely ignore SS because we’re going to have more than adequate retirement resources even assuming our “contributions” turn out to be “donations,”
What about my mom? Why is it right to take 7.5/15% of her income to “hold” for her until retirement when she could have invested it so much more successfully on her own? Wouldn’t it be better to take 2% and only dole it out to those who invested poorly or not at all? Are you really happy extending Pyrrhonist’s vacation? Cuz’ I personally am pretty pissed about that.
Pyrrhonist: *Gee, I almost feel guilty with everyone ganging up on you. Glad you can be a sport about it. *
No prob, we liberals are very used to it! But I have three long posts from articulate and passionate opponents to try to respond to here, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t get to all your favorite points.
Now, if you were to calculate the returns on investments of the combined 12.4% employee and employer contributions as private investor over a worker’s lifetime, your additional income is much higher than the benefits from Social Security.
If you had sufficient luck and good judgement in picking your investment, and if unwise or criminal behavior on the part of executives or stockbrokers didn’t cream you. The problem I have with SS privatization advocates is that they always seem to be comparing current SS rates of return and reliability with a projected outcome from private investment that is almost certainly rosier than what the average investor would get. See this report on “The Problems of Privatization” for more details.
Your premise is hazy and flawed, that generous scholarship program would turn out more well-to-do taxpayers, on a number of accounts.
All your objections (the degrees would be devalued, the students wouldn’t be motivated) seem to be contradicted by the example of the G.I. Bill after WWII, which was a very generous government scholarship program that did indeed turn out more well-to-do taxpayers (my own dad among them, btw). Here’s an excerpt from the Secretary of Education’s testimony before a House committee:
*Who choose that these statistics [from the comparison of industrialized nations that I linked to] constitutes a better living standard anyway? More immigrants want to come to America than anywhere else. *
Sure. America is the most visible nation in the world in the media, and one of the easiest First World nations to emigrate to, as well as being the one with the biggest network of recent immigrants from all over the world who have relatives or friends wanting to emigrate. That doesn’t mean that our immigrants have deliberately selected America over all other First World nations as being the one most congenial to their desired quality of life.
*Additionally, the statistics didn’t give the whole view. In France, my favorite whipping nation, they have better “standards of living” judging by your report, but they also have a negative birth rate despite a generous “baby bonus” paid to French women to have children. *
?? They do? What makes you say that? According to the World Factbook 2000, France has 12.27 births per 1000 population, not much lower than our own 14.2 births per thousand. Factoring in our much higher infant mortality rate brings France’s rate effectively even closer to our own. So what do you mean by saying their birth rate is “negative”? (And why should a higher birth rate indicate better quality of life, anyway? Most of the high-birth-rate places in that World Factbook list are not places I’d particularly want to live in.)
Bad things happen to good people, everybody knows that; but good people can pick up the shattered pieces and get on with life. Bad people cry for Government to kiss their booboos and make them feel better.
This would seem to imply that people who for some reason or other don’t manage to “pick up the shattered pieces and get on with life” to the point of achieving self-sufficient prosperity can be dismissed as “bad people”, whose problems, presumably, aren’t worth our bothering about. Here’s a place where we may just have to accept an irreconcilable difference of philosophy: I think that such a belief may be convenient, but I seriously doubt that it’s true.
Do you do anything aside from saying pay more taxes and let the Government do the job?
Absolutely. Since I’m the one saying that private charity isn’t adequate to do the jobs our society ought to do, you have a right to ask whether I am contributing in that way, so I’ll disclose. I donate 2.5% of my (lower-middle-class) gross income to non-profit organizations for charity and social change (ones in good standing with the National Charities Information Bureau, that is), on which I do not take a tax deduction. Also, I’m involved with citizens’ groups on the state and local level (one of which I helped found) to take direct action on issues I care about.
It is not the purpose or place of the Government to rescue everybody from the ever present condition of poverty.
I agree with you that there will always be some poverty and that some of the people in it are simply unrescueable, and we’ll do more harm than good by devoting large sums of money to the assistance of people to whom it will never succeed in doing any real good. But I don’t think that means that it’s not the purpose or place of the government to reduce overall levels of poverty significantly below what ours now is; and other governments seem to have done so quite successfully.
On to the other posters…
pldennison: *Don’t you think, however, that the government should be encouraging and creating an easier market for personal savings and investment rather than increasing the scope of SS? *
See my objections to Pyr’s SS comments above. I do agree that private investment should be encouraged and assisted, but I think it will work best for the largest number of people if combined with a less volatile universal public pension plan too.
my acceptance of all of those things [the “quality-of-life” indicators from my earlier link] as “problems” is contingent upon my believing that those are the things that government should be empowered to address, which I don’t.
Well, that’s another irreconcilable philosophical difference, then. I quite agree that there are some social phenomena that some people might regard as genuinely undesirable without feeling that the government should explicitly interfere to change them (high divorce rates, say, or Sweet Valley High teen novels); but I don’t put things like high poverty rates or low investment into that category. If you do, then naturally you don’t want tax money used to deal with them. All we can do is hope that each other’s views are in the minority.
*But that begs a question–why am I doing well and they are not? My sister and I grew up in the same house with the same parents under the same circumstances; so why am I fairly successful, and she is not? Because of her choices. […] At some point, people have to realize that poverty often comes down to choices. *
Yes, but I think the key word there is “often.” And I don’t think that we’ve seen evidence to indicate that “often” means “most of the time” or even “for a high percentage of poor people.” I admit, as I said to Pyr (whose full handle I’m too tired to type out every time in a post not devoted to him ;)), that help is just wasted on some poor people, but I will need to see better evidence before I believe that “some” is really “most”. (And without making any judgements or predictions about your sister specifically, whom you certainly know much better than I do, I’d be reluctant to write off most 35-year-olds who have consistently made poor choices as unsalvageable; 35’s not that old, says I who just turned 37.)
*But my sister is where she is because of what she chose to do. I don’t want her children punished for it, because it is not their fault, which is why I help them. But I would never feel that I have the right to tell everyone else in the United States that they must help as well. *
Well, this is another I.P.D. You hold that the principle of non-coercion is paramount, so you reject the idea of mandatory contributions to social welfare via taxation. I, on the other hand, hold that there’s no such thing in real life as a society without any coercion, and I’d rather see coercion spelled out in a binding social contract than manifesting itself sneakily as economic compulsion and Hobson’s choices under the disguise of nominal freedom.
Ug.
I once heard a fellow libertarian running for office in CT back in 1992 just after they voted in a State Income Tax, “Income taxation is government sanctioned extortion of the people’s property with stiff penalties for non-compliance.” (well, it’s not a direct quote). Of course, his platform was based on repealing the Tax, but he lost.
A favorite question of mine, to Kimstu and other tax and spend, income-redistribution folks is, as has been asked: how much is enough? At what point have you taken enough of my hard-earned money? 60%? 75%? 90%? Income redistribution is the primary action of communism, is it not?
Fortunately my chosen State, FL, has no income tax, and as long as we have the sunshine, the Rat, our visitors will pay the taxes for us.
I personally prefer the idea of paying fed taxes at the point of sale, excluding food and clothing. The only problem is, at some point, I fear the Income Tax would return and we’d have both.
Slight hijack, are y’all aware of the stamp going up to 34¢? Here, I would gladly pay 50¢. Mailing letters is a bargain.
(Whew! Manny, I may not get to your new tax plan tonight, but rest assured I won’t abandon it.)
manhattan: *I firmly believe that a college education achieved without working for it is essentially worthless. *
What do you mean by “working for it”? Do you mean that it’s worthless if the college student doesn’t pay for at least some of it? What does that say about people who go to college on full scholarships or whose parents can afford to pay their way? In what way is their education “worthless”?
Or if you just mean that students should be motivated to study, I agree. Which is why I don’t suggest for a minute that everybody should automatically be given a college scholarship, because I don’t believe that everybody would make good use of it. But I certainly believe that there are advantages to be gained for society as a whole by making it possible for more non-wealthy kids to go to college without having to take on the work and debt burdens that you did (which doesn’t mean that I don’t personally congratulate you for having succeeded at that difficult task).
*“And this country is run largely by wealthy people, or those who intend to be wealthy, seeking short-term gains.”
I have absolutely no idea what this means. Would that be wealthy person Bill Clinton? Funny, I thought he was poor until his wife got that book deal. *
Oh, my goodness! Manny, you and I just have different ideas of what constitutes “wealthy” and “poor”! But to slap some quantification on it, more than 50 of the fewer than 550 members of Congress are millionaires, and at least a hundred more are half- or quarter-millionaires. This may not count as “wealthy” on your scale, but they certainly have very different financial situations (and interests) from that of the average American worker. And their personal yardstick of job success, of course, is re-election (which usually depends largely on the money provided by lobbying interests) within a few years. Wealthy or near-wealthy people seeking short-term gains, in other words.
Are you calling me dishonest because…
No no no, there there, I take it back, it was mostly a joke. Phil had accused me of setting an “intellectually dishonest trap” when I overgeneralized in making a rhetorical point and ascribed to him views he didn’t share, so I was just trying to point out that I wasn’t the only one who could make such mistakes, by referring to your inferring from my support for single-payer health care similar support for single-payer food and housing.
What about my mom? Why is it right to take 7.5/15% of her income to “hold” for her until retirement when she could have invested it so much more successfully on her own?
As I pointed out a couple of posts ago, yes, she could have, but suppose she hadn’t? Lots of people are unsuccessful with private investments, and by suggesting that our national pension funds should be privatized, you’re essentially saying that “people who are too stupid or unfortunate to make money off their retirement savings should not be my problem.” But if they’re there, they will be your problem, one way or another, eventually.
Wouldn’t it be better to take 2% and only dole it out to those who invested poorly or not at all?
Optimist! What makes you think that 2% would cover that category?
*Are you really happy extending Pyrrhonist’s vacation? Cuz’ I personally am pretty pissed about that. *
Well, I admit the money would probably do more good somewhere else. But most people who have looked at proposals for means-testing SS benefits agree that it would certainly undermine support for the program to some extent. Blame all those people who refuse to support something unless it provides a direct monetary benefit to them.
(BTW, “pissed”? I can see the need to investigate different social-capital issues, as we’re doing here, to try to find the best and most effective system, but surely you don’t expect ever to find one that’s totally just and fair? So why be “pissed”? I suppose it’s no good reminding you that it’s only money? :))
(Note added in preview: oh lordy, Wrath, not another of you! I’ll bring out my tax-system suggestions tomorrow, I promise.)