It’s simple: tax or GTFO.
Having lived here my entire life (except my time in service) I feel I have the right. The poor and lower middle class have voted against their own self interests since before the civil war when it elected leaders willing to sacrifice their lives in order to uphold the right of the rich to own slaves. We still vote in leaders who support the right of the rich to keep more of the pie verses the majority (the majority of the south is poorer than the rest of the nation) to receive the benefit of those taxes therefore the rich have the wool pulled over the eyes of the working poor and middle class. It is stupid to vote against ones self interests, particularly when it is to add just another layer of money to the already wealthy while they themselves struggle to simply have decent housing and enough food.
By now it should be obvious to anyone with a brain why we need taxes. Having lived in the south, it is my advice to give up on convincing those without one. It won’t happen. This is why education is so important. It is also one of the reasons some of the rich do not support education of the masses. I once heard Rush Limbaugh disparage the value of education by saying he never got much from school and look where he is now. How cynical since not everyone can make a good living being the mouthpiece of the wealthy.
I agree that the South is less educated, but I don’t think it’s at all clear cut what the average person’s economic interests are. If you pay taxes, chances are your preeminent economic interest is going to be to pay less taxes.
Only if you’re extremely short-sighted and ignore the benefits received from those taxes. E.g., if your taxes are reduced by $X but you wind up spending $X*2 on car repairs since the streets are no longer maintained, how have you benefited?
If taxes primarily went to things like street repair, there wouldn’t be a problem. The reason the tax revolts in the 1970s got started is because taxes had been going up and up and up, yet public services were the same as they always were.
Cite? The main complaint I’ve heard from tax protestors is that their money goes to “those people” who are undeserving and sit on their asses all day. I’ve never heard one say “I’d be fine with the current or even higher tax levels, if only it more directly benefited me specifically.” It’s always “the government shouldn’t be doing X and it would better handled by the magic of the free market.” Like, you know, the OP of this thread.
Also, cite for “taxes had been going up and up and up”? According to this they were relatively flat throughout the 70s and the highest tax rates had gone down. That’s just the first google result for “us tax rates by year”, I’m not standing behind the data there, but you’re the one making the claim, let’s see your evidence.
Since you were mentioning street repair, I was talking about local taxes and especially the 1970s tax revolts:
Moreover, the state’s increasing population resulted in increased demand for housing, resulting in greater residential property values and, consequently, greater taxes for residences. Many older Californians with fixed incomes had difficulty paying increasing property taxes. Due to severe inflation during the 1970s as a result of the 1973–75 recession, reassessments of residential property increased property taxes so much that some retired people could no longer afford to remain in homes they had purchased long before. Government spending had also increased dramatically during the years prior to 1978. Between 1973 and 1977, California state and local government expenditures per $1000 of personal income were 8.2 percent higher than the national norm. From 1949 to 1979, public sector employment in California outstripped employment growth in the private sector. By 1978, 14.7 percent of California’s civilian work force was state and local government employees, almost double the proportion of the early 1950s.[5]
Today, more and more cities are finding their budgets eaten up mostly by pensions and salaries of employees. That doesn’t leave much to provide services, which is naturally going to make voters hostile to tax increases.
It’s interesting that you’d mention an item that is overall a tiny portion of the federal budget. How about the ever increasing burden of entitlements at the federal level, or the burden of pensions at the state level, or the ever increasing money going into education while providing little in the way of improvement? That’s what I mean by taxpayers paying more, but getting less. Why should they continue to feed a machine that isn’t providing public services anymore?
Well, actually they are more or less the same thing, since money is a medium of exchange. But I didn’t make my point clear.
Taxes are money by definition, true. But the “value” one receives in return can be non-monetary, and in fact often is. But that doesn’t change the point - the value received, on average, cannot equal or exceed the value of the tax money for each taxpayer or the system isn’t sustainable.
LHoD pays his taxes, and in return lives in a society where he can walk down the street and not see starving people. That’s fine, but my point is that those who don’t pay taxes also receive the non-monetary value of walking down the street and not seeing starving people. Non-taxpayers, IOW, are receiving value for which they never paid. LeftHandofDorkness has to pay more he would if everyone paid taxes.
If people only received the non-monetary value if they paid taxes, then those who didn’t or couldn’t pay taxes wouldn’t receive that non-monetary benefit. Same thing for police protection, fire protection, military protection, welfare, Medicaid, etc. Somebody has to pay for that, because not everybody does.
Regards,
Shodan
That assumes value is a zero-sum game. If I pay $1.00 for safety, but I’d be willing to pay $1.25 for that same safety, doesn’t the value of that safety exceed what I paid for it?
I think I see what you’re saying. I don’t argue that people only receive the non-monetary value if they pay taxes. I argue that the non-monetary value is most efficiently generated by the payment of taxes by certain people. While everyone benefits from those taxes, I think the value each person paying taxes receives is more than equal to the value of taxes paid, given that part of the value of taxes is getting to not live in a war-torn dystopia.
Well, it was an example of how cutting taxes can have a direct negative impact on average middle class people. It certainly didn’t consider it some killer argument that would stop all debate in its tracks, nor did I imply that it would. This thread is full of people insisting without evidence that all taxation is inherently harmful to average middle class people as they receive no benefit from it whatsoever. If you’re not one of those people than it wasn’t directed at you.
Your example of California property taxes is odd though… If property values went up why wouldn’t the amount paid in taxes go up? Or are you saying the tax levels went up, i.e., a greater percentage rather than the same percentage of a greater value? You seem to be suggesting (or at least the author of the wikipedia article) that tax rates should have been decreased as property values increased?
The issue with pensions is valid though, but misses the larger focus. You say “Why should they continue to feed a machine that isn’t providing public services anymore”, ignoring that it’s the anti-tax crowd that’s created that situation. Cut taxes so the government can’t adequately provide services, and then point to that as proof government doesn’t work! Classic starve the beast strategy.
At any rate, your posts still represent a major tonal shift from the first 5 pages of this thread - up until now it’s been “taxes are evil, it doesn’t matter what good comes of it, they’re equivalent of theft/slavery/etc.”, while you’re arguing that it’s the services themselves that are lacking, and therefore we must cut taxes even more! Rather than, you know, attempting to fix the problems.
THat’s a fallacy though. When the US only asked 50 cents per citizen we weren’t a war torn dystopia. When the US only took 5% of GDP before the New Deal we were far from a dystopia, in fact we were the strongest economy on earth or close to it by then. When the US took 15% of GDP before the Great Society we had the largest middle class ever.
I was only responding to the argument that middle class voters’ economic interests are clear cut enough to justify voting for one party. republicans start winning once you get to the $50,000 threshold and often run even with Democrats down to $30,000 annual income.
Ah, I wasn’t the one making that claim, but I suppose I was indirectly responding to a post that implied that. I don’t think either party represents middle class voters’ economic interests.
I think they both do. The middle class has always been the key to winning elections and you’ll notice both parties rhetoric is all “middle class, middle class, middle class” these days.
Middle class taxes have dropped by a lot over the last couple of decades, while taxes on the poor and rich have either gone up or stayed the same. It’s gotten to the point where a poor single guy making minimum wage pays taxes, while a middle class family with a house and two kids but three times the income pays no taxes.
No, it has nothing to do with zero-sums.
No, you are confusing value with price. If you are paying $1 but it costs 1.25 overall, then someone else has to come up with .25 and you are being subsidized.
Correct. Everyone receives the non-monetary value whether they pay taxes or not.
That doesn’t follow logically. The value of receiving a benefit without offsetting costs is greater than the value of receiving a benefit with offsetting costs. If it didn’t, then the concept of value has no meaning.
My point is, if we want to not live in a war-torn dystopia, then someone has to pay for it. By definition, the amount of taxes paid by some has to exceed what would be their share if everyone paid equally. Because not everyone pays equally. That’s the sine qua non of a progressive tax system.
Regards,
Shodan
“Rhetoric” and “actually doing something meaningful” are completely different things.
Taxes on the wealthy have been going down significantly for “the last couple of decades” and beyond.
I’d like to see a cite for “a middle class family with a house and two kids but three times the [minimum wage] pays no taxes”.
As an Australian, I pay taxes so that I’ll never have to go bankrupt due to medical bills like so many Americans do. I pay taxes so that if my employer folds I won’t be thrown to the wolves.
It amuses me when you American “libertarian” arseholes talk about morality. It really does.
“Freedom” is knowing that if you’re the one unlucky enough to step in front of a bus tomorrow, your fellow citizens will have your back. It’s not merely about putting a “Support the Troops” sticker on your rear bumper and then denying them healthcare when they come back from some bullshit war started by lies.
I’ve lived in the US, and the “patriotism” of right-wing Americans is the most hollow fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
The US locks up a higher percentage of its population than any other country on Earth (including North Korea). “Land of the Free” my fucking arse.
Or almost 1.5 billion teeth:D
Do you think you would have more freedom in North Korea?
Maybe we have more assholes than any country on Earth? Americans seem to have a unique sense of entitlement that “freedom” means “I can do what the fuck I want regardless of the consequences”. That’s an attitude that often lands people in jail.
OMG! Who invaded?!
So who is the strongest economy now?