Fair enough. I’m not familiar with the Canadian judicial system. I was just guessing at roles.
That seems more like it. Whoops.:smack:
I see what the others meant.
Utterly not addressing the questions. Missing the point. Answering questions with new assertions and not actually answering. Smoke and mirrors through and through. Pure evasiveness on the central point of:
PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR IDEAL MEANS OF FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT!
If the current way is awful and unfair then do tell how it should be done, in your opinion, as specifically as you can.
Indian casinos!
I’ve done everything I can except read the thread out loud to you, I assure I have no interest in evading your actual questions. If you’re at all interested, read through the recycling case study, read the points recently about welfare, and read that post #364.
If you have questions, ask them. Let me know what confuses you.
Well, aside from completely undermining cities and leaving them to crumble into filth and decay while rural areas devolve into neo-feudal fiefdoms, your plan sounds perfect.
I read #364.
Tell me how you tax people or otherwise fund the government. Your ideal system; as you would have it.
#364 seems a bunch of principles. Who is writing the checks though? How are you assessing who owes what?
Thunderdome!
Basically, I’ve given up on contributing anything of value.
One of the results of having moved around a lot over the past 10 years was the realization that here is no “standard.”
In one city, garbage collection was paid for by taxes, in other it is user paid. That seemed weird at first, one would expect the city to descend into chaos. Except the city is fine, and produces less garbage overall. Having each individual responsible for his/her volume of garbage both funds garbage collection and has the added benefit I think this is one of the best example.
In one country, health care is single payer, in another it is based on private insurance. Depending on who you ask, it’s working great. Essentially, if private insurance works for health care, let it work for more things.
We saw the cost of a single burglary which seemed astronomical. Except when I saw that $52,000 I actually laughed out loud because that is just a small fraction of what a round of chemo and a bone marrow transplant will cost.
The very last way may sound a bit radical, and I realize it’s a bit silly, but the other way of funding the government is to have the government stop spending. Like the apple example, don’t base your budget on the richest resident.
Anything in specific you’d like to know how I’d fund?
“Given up” suggest that at some point you contributed even something of value.
oh snap
burn
To clarify this last point a bit more.
Let’s back up a bit and go with the default assumption that we tax people based in proportion to their wealth. So if we’re going out to dinner, the portion of each person’s bill is proportional to their wealth within the group.
Using your chart above, the bill comes to $42, the richest person pays $20, the poorest person pays $1.
Let me be clear, I am NOT advocating each person pay $8. And I am NOT suggesting that I should get a free meal. And I am NOT suggesting that the richest person should pay less.
The bill should cost less. Or the group shouldn’t go out to dinner.
What I am advocating here, is taxation based on personal responsibility. If the poorest person can only contribute $1, based your choice of restaurant on what that can afford.
I may have misunderstood your apple example, but it seems like you are advocating a system where we say, “that guy can contribute $20, where can we go to spend it.” Just because he has the $20 to spend, doesn’t mean he should.
If the people at that restaurant actually want that meal, logic would say they should be a least willing to pay for that meal.
What I’ve noticed in society, is that if something is offered up for free, everyone wants it. Put a small fee, even as low as a quarter, and you rule out 90% of the crowd.
If the government service is of benefit to society, society should be willing to pay for it. If society can’t afford it, then don’t do it.
"Well, aside from completely undermining cities and leaving them to crumble into filth and decay while rural areas devolve into neo-feudal fiefdoms, your plan sounds perfect. "
Keep in mind that the current solution is to either run deficits to pay for things we can’t afford, or increase the taxation on the richest 5%. As a result, because of your plan cities are crumbling into filth and decay.
Like with the recycling program in Nova Scotia, we need sustainable solutions, that encourage people to pay for the things they want.
And the evasion continues.
Part of your proposal can be to point out which things you think the government should fund and which things you think are the proper area for the government to spend money. For starters I think we can all agree the military must be paid for via taxes. There is just no reasonable way for me to decide I want to pay for $50 of military protection a year and you to decide you only want $10 of military protection.
Once you settle on things the government pays for and things citizens should pay out of their own pocket tell me how you decide to assess a tax levy on the citizens. What you think is the fairest means and sufficiently covers the costs the government does incur.
And for the apple thing you are right and wrong the government should not base its spending on what it collects. They should not be saying, “Hey! We have a billion dollars and so far only spend $500 million so let’s go find a way to spend the rest!”
Ideally the government should look at its costs of operations and tax accordingly to cover those costs (and perhaps a bit more for a rainy day fund). One year Appletopia may have a 5% tax to cover costs but next year it is determined they need to build a dam. To cover the costs of the dam they need to raise taxes to 20%. Once built perhaps it goes back down again. Of course yo-yo taxing like that is not a very good idea but as said it is a simplified economy.
Now, you may say they should not build a dam. Fine, welcome to your opinion. Yet in a democracy if a majority want the dam then everyone helps pay for the dam. My condo association does the same thing to me all the time. I may not want an assessment to pay for flowers but if enough residents want to pay for flowers I have to chip in. If I do not like it I can move.
If you’re honestly claiming that I’ve never contributed any valuable analysis or commentary in this thread, than it simply reinforces how wrong you’ve been about everything from the start.
And if you were just trying to be funny, you failed.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
If you are trying to say that I didn’t voluntarily answer a question that you didn’t ask, then yes, I was evasive.
Yes, the military should be paid for via taxes. The question is, which taxes? Income, property, sales?
If you can show that the benefits received from the military are proportional to my income or property value, tax those. If Bill Gates has more to lose because he is rich, you could argue that he should pay more for protection.
What about looking at it another way, YOU have more to lose from an invasion. I think Bill will be fine, I’m pretty sure he’s got an escape plan in place. The Mongols are much more likely to rape, pillage, and enslave the rest of us. Although if you’re curious, arsenic tablets are extremely cheap and help complete any at home invasion response kit. I keep mine in my panic room.
And even once we’ve decided that we’ll pay for the military via proportional taxation on income, we are still left with the questions of how much military can we afford. It seems you are arguing that we get as much military as Bill Gates can afford. I am arguing that we should look at what each of us are “willing” to spend collectively on protection.
If it’s unreasonable to ask for each of us to contribute one apple (excluding the bottom 1%), I think it’s unreasonable to expect an army that costs 320million apples. As Donald Rumsield said, “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
If having a more a expensive army is needed or wanted, everyone should be willing to kick in as many apples as they can, not look to uncle money bags or deficit spending. Lots of countries choose to have a cheaper army and as a result are more prosperous (Canada), some countries choose to spend everything they have (North Korea). Some of them get invaded (Iraq), some of them don’t (Iran).
As I said above, start by addressing your last point first, cost the government does incur, and have that match what it’s citizens are willing to pay, and not just 50%+1, all of them. If it’s important, they’ll pay, if it’s not, they won’t. Then tax what directly contributes to the cost. If you want/need highways, tax gasoline. Those that want to use the highways pay for it through gas taxes, which reflect highway usage. Those that don’t want the highways choose not buy gasoline. And those that benefit from the highways indirectly though the transport of goods, will see the cost of those goods go up in proportion to the distance it traveled.
Then, you’ll see people are willing to pay $5 for tomatoes and not $50, so tomatoes will travel 50 miles instead of 500. As a result, highway usage goes down (or up), to match what people are willing to spend on it. Highways become funded sustainably, and unless the individual cost per mile goes up or down (through technological improvements etc) the taxes don’t need to change.
Exactly, and even worse, government economists tend look at (I forget the name) that chart that shows how much tax revenue they COULD get, and seek to be there.
Except, especially in the case of damns, it’s easy for 50%+1 to see tremendous benefit from the dam, and easily out vote all the poor schmucks that live within the proposed reservoir, or downstream.
If everyone benefits from the damn equally, charge everyone equally. If some people are going to be seriously hurt financially does it make sense to tax them the same (or more if it’s by income) than the people benefiting from the damn? That’s fucked up.
I don’t mean to pick on the dam example because I know you just threw it out there. But it highlights what I said at the beginning about how often a government action has very serious negative consequences. And how easily well meaning individuals can overlook those results. You think it benefits everyone, because you’re not the one losing his house to eminent domain, or losing his farm because water was diverted. But the 51 people benefiting get to fuck over the 49 other people AND tax them.
Interesting you brought up the condo example, I mentioned that a few pages back. Tell me, what happens if you can’t afford the condo fees?
When my wife and I were looking for a house, we looked at townhouses and condos. The townhouse we LOVED had a $365 a month association fee, that all went to an extremely expensive retaining wall. We chose NOT to live there. The cost of that retaining wall was paid for by the people benefiting it instead of taxed for city residents. Those that want the retaining wall can pay for it, those that don’t live somewhere else. It’s easy to make a case for how that retaining wall benefits all the residents of the city in some way, or how the flowers in your condo improve the overall neighbourhood.
So apply my system, people that want it, will pay for it. If you can’t generate enough revenue, either because not enough people want it, or people can’t afford it, you don’t get flowers. Notice the difference between flowers and something like the building foundation, or your counter tops.
Improving your counter tops will improve the value of your condo, and that will bring benefits to everyone in the building, except the person selling at the same time. So put it to a vote, should the association pay for your counters?
I’m going off on a tangent now: if someone on the board can benefit from you getting counters (perhaps because their wife owns the counter store*), one of the members is your friends that always vote with you because you vote on his pet projects, and 2 more are except from paying association fees, you can easily get a 5-4 vote on your new counters, that everyone else will pay for.
So those four people complain, and someone says, “stop whining or move.”
Three of them can’t afford to move, the one that can does. Now your association is underfunded.
Jeebus…
I and others have asked multiple times how you would tax people. Once again you write a lengthy post and completely manage to evade the question.
You waffled even on the military…maybe a property tax, maybe sales tax, maybe income tax. Pretend you are king for a day, you can effect tax reform with the stroke of a pen, what would YOU do?
I give up. Not because I find your arguments compelling but because you seem to be enjoying the smoke and mirrors dance more than answering this most basic and important question. The whole thread has been about the evils of taxes yet you provide zero personal opinion of how you would actually pay for a government…even a super minimalist one needs money to run. If you cannot say how you, in your opinion, would see the government funded then the rest is mental masturbation.
I do applaud your tenacity though and willingness to continue (really, not snark).
Well, if the government can’t afford to pay for a military using a fair tax system, then no military for you!
Did we ever find out how old he is? I thought you had to be at least 13 to post here.
King for a day: A single flat rate to every property owner, who as you agreed, has the most to lose from a military invasion. Those that rent would see this show up as part of their rent. Businesses would include this in their fixed costs. Those that are getting some sort of assisted living won’t see it show up and hence wouldn’t be taxed.
The flat rate would be based on what everyone is capable of paying. I am also willing to consider having it proportional to land size, since this also seems to reflect need for a military.
The size of the military would then reflect what people are capable and willing to pay. The choice of owning land in American would then reflect the cost of having safe land. You could choose to buy cheap land in Somalia if you wanted, but wouldn’t get military protection.
Also, I don’t think I was waffling before because they are all the same thing. A person with a high income can afford a larger home and by more expensive things. And I say they are all the same because none of them have anything to do with the benefits received from defense spending.
More importantly, it shouldn’t matter what I would do personally, this isn’t about me personally, so don’t try to make it personal. Look how many people tried to attack me and my character, demanding to know where I live, how old I am,
It’s like trying to show that Darwin was a pedophile, so that we can disprove evolution. Or trying to show Al Gore is a hypocrite so we can ignore global warming. Or a founding father had slaves so the constitution is garbage.
I’m also not trying to be the king, nor do I want to be the king.
Mostly because people believe the benefit to society outweighs the cost to society. Don’t ask me to defend every government expenditure but things like public libraries and public schools are pretty wasy. Things like roads, police and other public goods that require collective action are also pretty easy. It seems we are no longer talking about whether or not taxes are theft but whether government is necessary.
Some people though no fault of their own (poor kids) can’t really afford it.
Call your insurance company and ask them for a quote on fire insurance if the nearest fire station is 12 hours away and you only have a sprinkler system with well water. Ask your mortgage company what the rate on your mortgage would be without fire insurance.
Yeah I grew up in a city with huge tolls on the bridges. People used the subway (I think it was subsidized and maybe that made people overuse it, we should probably get rid of mass transportation, it never pays for itself).
And a $5 gas tax wouldn’t do that?
Define massive? Is there any social safety net you would be willing to pay for or do we let people die from blood loss outside of hospital emergency rooms for lack of funds?
That’s our system. There are conatitutional protections agaisnt the tyranny of the majority (and the tyranny of the minority for that matter) but yeah basically that is what democracy is about. Majority generally rules.
How are you going to stop using your freedom and the other benefits of being in this country? Are you going to send a check to every WWII widow and orphan? Are you going to send a check to every descendant of a slave that helped build this economy that you enjoy? How much would you make those checks out for? Freedom isn’t free brother.
Is government-funded contradiction insurance available?
Seriously, to anyone still reading this thread, unless the question has a direct answer like, “can I vote?” “How old are you?” my age if of ZERO relevance. If you need to know a poster’s age, your arguments are not valid.
If my age is blow your magical cut off someone will say, “you’re just saying that because you are too young, wait until you’re older”
If I’m old someone will dismiss me as being old and cranky, “go back to the 50s when everything was great.”
You should be able to disagree and argue with my statement regardless of my age, race, gender, sexual orientation or political leanings. Look at the dismissals and references to Ayn Rand and libertarians.
To suggest otherwise reflects YOUR personal biases, and has nothing to do with my argument’s merits or lack there of.