Taxes are Theft

Great Debates
441

Damuri Ajashi, you quoted a post from several pages back, but I have no desire to appear evasive, so I will do my best to answer them. If I miss something, please consider that an accidental omission, and not an attempt at smoke and mirrors.

I agree, there are some things where the benefits to society justifies the cost. I think we can all agree that there are some things that don’t. I believe we need to start with the assumption that most things don’t, instead of starting with the assumption that most things do.

When I say “taxes are theft” it reflects the disconnect with how taxes are collected for the things we agree to pay for.

Like I said with public libraries: there is no question they provide a benefit to society, and because they aren’t restricted to one segment* it seems acceptable to have everyone chip in.

I doesn’t makes sense to tax income federally, for a benefit that’s enjoyed locally. Others agree with me which is why libraries are generally funded at the city or county level. It is also why many libraries only issue cards to residents (I don’t know how many actually do that).

Looking even closer, many libraries lend books for free, but charge a nominal fee for dvd rentals. Why? People are willing to pay to enjoy that service. The small user fee helps fund the dvd collection as well as the library. And it ensures the movie gets brought back. The more popular and useful the dvd collection, the more revenue it can generate.

So now we have a mix of both public funds and user pay.

eg only poor people can use them

True. I would first like a system that discourages the people who’s fault it is (responsibility). And also address the issue of poverty. And lastly, have a government budget that’s based on what people can actually afford. So the size of the library and quality of the books reflects what the local population is willing and able to pay. If a library is important, they will fund it. If a stadium is more important, that’s where the money will go.

People can then make the choice of what is important to them (what brings them benefits), very much like condos. If one community has a $30 levy for a library, and another has a $30 levy for an amusement park, people can pick which community they would rather live in.

Exactly, that’s basically what I’m talking about. We currently have a lot of incentives that encourage or discourage certain actions.

My home owners insurance is designed to cover the cost of replacing my house. It could also include the cost of the fire department to put out the fire.

That statement seems weird because we’ve all had publicly funded fire departments for a long long time. So think about what it’s like to be a Canadian, that moves to the US and suddenly has to have health insurance.

Single-payer UHC health care makes a lot more sense to me than single-payer universal fire department. See how a lot of things can go either way, and in the end it has a lot more to do with what we’re used to.

Garbage collection greatly benefits society (check out India if you’re curious) Some places have garbage collection paid by taxes, others individually. I am arguing that when garbage is paid individually it becomes self sufficient–more garbage means more money, less garbage means a better environment. A poor person can then choose how much garbage he/she can afford, and doesn’t get waste based on what other people can afford.

Mass transit could pay for itself if the alternative was more expensive. If taking the bus across the bridge is more expensive than driving across the bridge people will chose the car.

Right now we have tax funding for highways but user fees on mass transit. Why? What would happen if instead we put the money for highways into mass transit, then charged for driving on the highway? Now more people use mass transit, pollution/congestion goes down.

Technically speaking, mass transit represents people pooling a small amount of money to avoid a large individual cost. The places with the best mass transit are usually the places where the cost to have a car is prohibitively expensive. The places where it’s the worst are usually where the cost of owning a car is heavily subsidized (free highways, ample free parking, low cost of gas).

Yes, it would, exactly my point. Having the tax reflect the usage is self sufficient, and discourages the harmful effects.

Yes there are. UHC for one, represents a way that we all enter into a nation wide group health plan that dramatically lowers individual costs, improves health, and makes everything better. The fact that a handful of people get it for free vastly outweighs the alternative.

I also mentioned earlier how a system of employment insurance could be used to fund periods of unemployment, just like disability insurance. If it makes sound economic sense to do this nationally through a government run program, so be it. I see no reason why it can’t be something that people pay into, and then draw from.

As a general rule unemployment hurts us all, the problem is to find a system that benefits us, without indirectly rewarding gaming the system.

The current system of income tax has a tendency to encourage people to either not work, or stay in lower income brackets, which is exactly what we don’t want.

Exactly. By allowing a system where the majority can agree to tax the minority is a recipe for disaster. A politician that stands up and says, “I’ll reduce the taxes for 95% of Americans, by increasing the tax for 5%” is destined to win. But it doesn’t produce what we want or need. All the incentives push politicians to use pork barrel spending to buy votes.

Right now, the top 1% is paying 95% of the taxes. What incentive or power is there to change that?

That’s right, it’s not free. We need to figure out a cost, and then decide if we can afford it. In addition to the WWII windows, we also have widows from a more recent war. But nobody bothered to fund it.

If the government passed around a collection plate before going into Iraq, and had a system where those that wanted the war could pay for it, we’d all be a little bit happier. Did the war in Iraq benefit any of us (other than the people getting defense money)?

That war will continue to show up on our federal income tax until the federal debt is zero.

442

I don’t think anyone is saying its your fault or even your personal responsibility. Your responsibility ends with your legal obligation to pay taxes. Right now you seem to be taking issue with how your taxes are being spent (to help those who need help) rather arguing that taxes are in fact theft.

Your mortgage company requires fire insurance. Ask your insurance comapny about your rates without access for fire trucks or minucial water.

So you would have a poor uninsured sick person die on the hospital steps?

So you don’t thnk there are problems that governments are uniquely qualified to solve. Problems that won’t solve themselves with some elbow grease and a little personal responsibility?

cite.

You’re right we should get rid of the army ari force and marines. All we really need is the coast guard.

Because charity from the wealthy has so well to meet the needs of the needy in the past.

They come to me too.

My experience has been that most poor people only really know other poor people.

Only when you get really sick.

I can get information on the financial helath of a company, where do I get info on the moral health of that company?

I went to public school. I could nto have afforded an education without public school. In fact public education and financial mobility were the primary reasons my parents immigrated here when iw as a child. Now I am a lawyer, my sister is a doctor, my other siblings are mid-level executives. We would all be picking fruit during harvest season if there weren’t a public education system. But that’s just anecdote. It is hardly worth the billions of dollars we spend on education to educate me and my siblings.

For every dollar the government spends on education we receive at least a dollar back in future tax revenue (on a present value basis). In fact it isn’t until the second year of college that a publicly funded education stops creating more tax revenue than it consumes and that doesn’t count the economic benefits of a well educated populace generally and it doesn’t count whatever other benefits you attruibute to an educated population. Does every kid graduate high school with a good education, of course not but we as a society have decided that education is one of those things that everyone should have regardless of ability to pay.

Why would there be less people in need? You do realize that the welfare system as we know no longer exists right? We have limited lifetime welfare benefits to 60 months during your lifetime. This doesn’t count things like food stamps and baby formula but welfare checks stop coming after 60 months because bill Clinton signed the Welfare reform Act in the 1990’s.

Read some John Rawls.

443

I will, if it’ll move the discussion along.

444

That’s not how Rome felt when the grain shipments were late from Egypt.

445

Switch those sentences around.

Yes, it is my responsibility and my obligation to pay taxes. Taxes are my rent to live where I live. That part isn’t so much in dispute here.

Why are our federal taxes fixing individual problems? The issue is what other people assume should be part of taxes.

I will gladly pay a fee to cross a bridge that I use. If goods and services I want cross that bridge I will pay the additional cost for those items.

What I will NOT do is pay for a bridge to no where. To increase one person’s taxes to provide someone else a bridge is theft.

You asked for cites, consider this:
A section federal highway collapsed in Minneapolis. After investigation, the issue of under funding the program that inspects bridges came to light. Then they had to go around the state and country looking a similar bridges.

Instead of properly funding the bridge and inspection program, we’ve now paid a fortune for the rescue and recovery operation. Clean up of the old bridge. Replacement of a new bridge. 13 people died as a result. Oh, and maybe they’ll increase the funding for inspections. Don’t forget the loss of that bridge had a pretty dramatic impact on a lot of businesses.

Considering the daily use that bridge receives even charging a penny per crossing would have easily funded the inspection and maintenance of the bridge (I’m guessing based on 144,000 daily crossings) Users could have decided if a penny was too much and not used it. The the bridge and it’s inspections could have been self funded. People could have decided to live and work on the same side of the river if the cost to commute was too high.

Without any sort of toll, there was ZERO incentive not to use it, and zero incentive to fund it properly. 13 people died as a result.

446

Wow, so that’s the answer? Buy a house in the middle of a field?

So what you’re saying is that the existence of a police force has no effect on crime?

When was the last time a truck plowed into you on the highway?

Did you think that the end result of education was supposed to be Utopia? Are you under the impression that society is no better off with public education than it would be without it?

447

We are better off in absolute terms by almost every metric.

Really? All the kids are barely literate? Maybe you just meant MOST of the kids? Or perhaps a SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE of the kids. Or do you mean that some small tiny percentage of kids that we put through school don’t benefit from it?

The playing field isn’t level but it is a lot mroe level than it wod be if we told poor kids to pay their own way through school.

For the most part. Go to your typical inner city school and see how many of the graduating class can read. I bet the percentage is a lot higher than we would find among poor kids before we had public schools.

Its made drugs more expensive, made drug dealers rich and made the The Mexican border very dangerous (don’t expect me to defend everything the government does).

Once again I don’t really want to defend the current size of the military but I’m pretty sure taht I want a military that is capable of more than simply patrolling our borders.

448

I think you should just rephrase your rule to say, the government should not be in the business of redistributing wealth. No EITC, no food stamps, no medicaid/medicare, no social security, no WIC, no social programs generally.

449

Historically, relying on charity has not done as well as what we have now. Its not perfect and requires constant reform but its better than relying on charitable giving.

450

I think the point is that there is a net societal gain when you create a government that providers public education and medical care regardless of ability to pay. I think that most people would say that little children should not starve no matter how irresponisble they (or their parents are).

We can’t fix all the problems, and I don’t think anyone is saying that government will lead to utopia but it will avoid a lot of unnecessary suffering.

If it makes you feel any better, I think we need to cut the military and we need to cut benefits under medicare and medicaid (and probably social security as well)

451

Damuri Ajashi, I want to thank you for taking part in my thread, but you are a loooong way back. Just about all of my points were torn to shreds a couple of days ago.

That is most certainly true, but means nothing. We could be better/worse, and we could get better/worse.

Although it’s already been established that we need public schools, allow me to at least say that too many kids are functionally illiterate for the money we’re spending.

Haha, you spelt wood rong, that meens all you’re points are invalid. :smiley:

Um, did we have inner city schools BEFORE we had public schools?

We shouldn’t be using literacy rates a hundred years ago to prop up our accomplishments. We need to aim for the highest percentage that we as a society can afford.

Unfortunately this is what happens when you let an engineer get involved with social programs. If we put more money into schools we probably wouldn’t increase the literacy rate much. If we took money out of the schools, we probably wouldn’t reduce literacy rates much either. So why not pull money out until we start to have a noticeable but acceptable level?

Lastly, I think literacy rates are a pretty piss more measure of educational quality since correct me if I’m wrong but it’s based on a really low level, like grade 4 or something. If literacy was our goal we could probably achieve 100% for a fraction of the cost if we did away with grads 7-12.

Let’s establish a new measure like the ability to know what a percentage is, or understanding what interest on a loan or investment means. If I was king for a day I’d make it about evolution first but that’s just me.

Hooray, I win. Me 1: Otherside 549

Sweet, Me 2: Otherside 549

452

Make cuts to the military? Are you kidding? Do you know what that would do to the economy? If you think the unemployment rates are bad now try dumping another 500k into the pile.

No thank you, we’re stuck with the military the size it is, growing at the rate it does.

(someone told me this once, not sure if it pans out)

453

Not a bit of an over reaction there? I have distance between me and my neighbour. If I didn’t then the two of us would have a mutual responsibility for fire protection, just like everyone in an apartment building. Did you know that the word firewall meant something before computers?

No, that’s not that I was saying. I was pointing out that we have a lot of crime under the current system that needs to be acknowledged before dismissing an alternative system.

Three weeks ago.

You are confusing “education” with “public education.”

Without education society would be very bad off. With public education we are better off. But are we as well off as we could be?

If we could some how encourage people to have as many children as they are capable of providing for we’d probably better off while a private system. Then allow people to invest as much or as little as they want in their kid’s education.

It’s a shit covered double edge sword that the people we are providing education for are the ones that seem to want it the least. The metrics just aren’t where they should be with regards to income levels and SAT scores. They should be essentially equal and they aren’t. There is no excuse for an under privileged child to under perform on the SAT, we as a society are paying too much for that to happen. Technically speaking we should have broken that part of the poverty cycle a long time ago. But now I’m back to preaching.

454

Wow, good reference! (even if you did just want the DVD)

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties;
for the People who once upon a time handed out military command,
high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and
anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

  • Juvenal

We have improved in every single metric since 100AD except that one.

I was wrong, taxes aren’t theft, they are our punishment for political apathy.

455

Well, glad we got that cleared up. Next thread.

456

I found this dead horse I thought would help me disavow the notion that we all benefit from defense equally. It sounds nice in theory, but when you look at the numbers, a lot of things start to fall apart. Consider:

The little town of Lima, Ohio. Population 40,081 (in 2000). Now, logic would dictate that those 40,000 benefit equally from defense, so it only makes sense that they pay just like the rest of us. Right?

Well, that town is the sole producer of the M1A1 Abrams battle tank. Each tank costs about $6.21 million, and the Lima Army Tank Plant is making about 120 of those per month. So in addition to the benefits of not being invaded, that little down gets $745million dollars per month from the federal tax revenue.

As another example, up until recently, the single largest employer in South Dakota was Ellsworth Air Force Base.

If defense really benefited us all equally, you’d see more projects like the B2 Bomber that has a part built in each state.

And if it was actually about defense you’d see a lot fewer projects like the B2 bomber.

457

It sounds like you are talking about moral hazard.

But there are some instances where moral hazard simply does not exist. Based on your rationale we should get rid of fire stations so that people will realize that noone is going to comesave them if their house catches fire so people will stop letting their houses catch fire.

I agree that there are moral hazard issues across the baord. Smoking in a national health care system is just one example but unless you are ready to watch people die outside of emergency rooms for lack of money, you are wedded to the notion of society carrying the cost of medical care.

By letting the suffering go unchecked?

If you have a mortgage, your fire insurance company does this.

Agreed. But now it sounds like you have [problems with specific policies not the general concept of taxation in general.

Why didn’t you think Z was worth doing? Isn’t it possible that the insurance company mispriced the discount for Z?

Once again the concept of moral hazard come up most frequently in the case of insurance. I think you are taking the concept to a bit of an extreme.

458

Nope, pretty sure its the nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.

Good point.

OK so you made an argument for toll roads or a gasoline tax. Would you be against a government subsidy for mass traonsportation? I mean its not like its ogin to get overconsumed because its cheap.

I’d like to see how you do that. At some point the idea of a la carte government gets ridiculous.

Because public health is more important than that. Your notion seems to be that we should turn the FDA into the food and drug equvalent of a rating agency so that people who value the FDA approval can buy stuff with FDA approval and people who are willing to trust Merck to sell stuff that works can simply rely on merck’s reputation. That’s one way to do things but its not the one that society (after much trial and error) has adopted.

459

I think part of the governement process is determining what sort of goods fall into the public sphere. What sort of goods should people have regardless of ability to pay. For us, education, transportation, and health care are among those things that our society has determined should be available to all regardless of ability to pay. Ipads do not fall into that category (oddly cell phones and internet access may soon fall into that category in the USA).

I don’t know how it works where you live but sidewalks are either paid for directly by the homeowner or paid for by the local government and then the homeowners are taxed for them.

460

income taxes account for less than half the tax base.