Sorry I missed this.
I didn’t say they had to be. I said they generally were. Those advocating a flat tax are not usually those interested in raising taxes. And while the result of a flat tax might be a loss in revenue, the advocates typically try to decouple the tax from budget and spending issues. So my point stands.
I was talking about loopholes going into the new law. Yes, loopholes in the old law will be eliminated - that is certainly not in dispute. But given the input of various lobbyists, I think the chance of a loophole free law in this universe is slight.
However, consider Schedule C income. You clearly can’t tax that on just income - you have to deduct expense from running the business. Not so simple now, huh? And while this just applies to the self employed (and there is a lot of them) there would now be a major incentive to create a schedule C business if at all possible.
And that is minor compared to the chance of our brave and honorable Congress standing up to the housing industry and all those losing mortgage deductions.
If Congress were that brave they could eliminate favorable treatment of hedge fund managers without totally tossing the current tax code.
So, I ask again - are the rich going to pay more, less, or the same under a flat tax?
I, too, think that is a terrible assumption to make, and it’s going to lead to all sorts of incorrect conclusions. But maybe wolfpup should flesh that out and see if we’re talking about the same thing or not.
What are the values that you think all sides agree on? Let’s tackle that one first, and then we can move on to objectives and tactics.
I’m sorry you don’t like my writing style. I just try not to be boring. I’m going to guess you don’t like Bill Maher or Jon Stewart, either.
It’s not a question of being “immune” to anything. It’s a question of being analytical and looking beyond the superficial, beyond the metaphorical glittering shiny objects. It’s a question of being appropriately skeptical of advocacy spinmeisters and politicians, of taking into account their motivations and trying to look at the issues beyond the spin. Should everyone rush out and buy every gadget that’s advertised on television as the cure for everything from clogged drains to a lackluster love life? Yet clearly many do, because it’s the economic foundation of commercial broadcasting. And I suppose it’s also about getting your information from thoughtful print journalism and not from television sound bites (especially if the television in question is Fox News!).
First of all I was trying to be optimistic and conciliatory in suggesting that there was a lot of common ground. Perhaps I was sadly wrong – doesn’t matter, because I think I’ve established now with quite a few specific facts and cites that voters for some of these right-wing policies were neither expecting nor supportive of the actual outcomes of their voting decisions, nor are they in any way benefiting by them, and that the idea that these useful idiots to the plutocracy were actually voting in their best interests is, well, a useful mythology.
What I was trying to convey is that we could agree that, for instance, a peaceful, safe, and just society with a robust economy and broad participation in the social and economic capital was a goal shared by both liberals and conservatives. That this would inform everything from gun policy to tax policy to corporate regulation – and that though liberals and conservatives might well disagree on almost all of the specific policies, these rational end goals would be shared ones.
I am, in fact, now starting to doubt this. We’ve been hearing about how “small government” is the objective, in and of itself, independent of the need for public services; about how the conservative value is such as to not care in the slightest about income disparity, despite its injustices (if one is moral) and its clearly destabilizing societal impacts (if one is merely pragmatic) – to the extent that economists now regard it as a serious emerging global problem with its epicenter in the US, where it festers in its most extreme form. And that’s just one tiny example of what I would think should have been an obvious common value.
Perhaps there really is a fundamental value difference, where one set of values is some form of extreme libertarianism that says the only thing that matters is me – my freedom to do whatever I like, and nothing else matters. Government is bad and government regulation is bad and therefore no public agency has any right to interfere with dangerous work conditions, or dumping toxins into drinking water, or emissions of anything into the atmosphere – and if disaster strikes, we’re all on our own. Is this what we mean by not having shared values? Otherwise I’m at a loss to explain how there could not be shared values in the terms I just described. And the problem with this form of extreme libertarianism is that this is not how humans live; we all live on the same planet and in the same environment, we are social creatures, and we depend on each other and on the collective social capital of society to meet our needs and elevate our lives to something greater than subsistence cave dwellers.
The elephant in the room some are bending over backward to not address (obfuscate might be a good word)
Wolf: Great job. But I think we have some people here just trawling for action.
MEDIA
The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are the Most Misinformed
Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.
By Chris Mooney / AlterNet October 20, 2014
Print
232 COMMENTS
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality.
In June of 2011, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.”
…
And thus we find, at the root of our political dysfunction, a classic nurture-nature mélange. The penchant for selective exposure is rooted in our psychology and our brains. Closed-mindedness and authoritarianism—running stronger in some of us than in others—likely are as well.
But nevertheless, it took the emergence of a station like Fox News before these tendencies could be fully activated—polarizing America not only over politics, but over reality itself.
Chris Mooney is the author of four books, including “The Republican War on Science” and “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality.”
Then what you describe as ‘writing style’ is intentional.
I take it you believe that you yourself engage in this analytical review, being skeptical and looking at issues beyond the spin, and therefore you’ve been able to come to the conclusions you have. Why do you think people have concluded differently than you on a variety of issues? Do you think if they engaged in the same level of analytical review, the same level of skepticism, and taken the same efforts to look beyond the spin that those that would disagree with you would come around to your way of thinking?
Your attempt to be conciliatory has the opposite effect. How about this example to illustrate: “I know that we both agree on our [celebration of the right to keep and bear arms as a bulwark against tyranny and defense against unlawful acts] and even on [wanting to push constitutional carry in all 50 states], but disagree on policies of how to achieve these things.” <— That’s not conciliatory.
Why is this relevant? He wants to know how they think because it will inform him, and enable his political life. Why do you put words in his mouth? (You tryin to say he’s “arrogant”?)
I don’t know where you’re going with that. I think he’s referring to things found in the Declaration of Independence and in the laws we inherited from European societies about trying to live peacefully as a state. You should be specific about these things too, or else say you share them with him. Why do you have to conflate?
OK turn on Fox and try to feel like the center is holding (for them and their business party/partner). There’s not much time left.
Left-leaning multi-millionaires of the entertainment industry are hardly a good counterexample. If they have to pay a half-million more in taxes on their investment or production company revenues, it will make little to no difference as to their personal circumstances.
As so often in these threads, one can ignore everyone but wolfpup and see most of the intelligent answer:
I’ll quote** drad dog** also. Contrary to some strange comments in-thread, voters really are misinformed:
FoxNews is one of the most obvious examples, but disinformation is very common on Internet. OP’s question loses much of its interest when we acknowledge that many voters lack the information to vote in their self-interest whether they want to or not.
I wonder if you realize how frustrating it can be to attempt an intelligent conversation with you. Follow this thought experiment:
Country A places a $10 tax on a poor person and a $100 tax on a rich person, and spends $92 of the $110 raised providing education and health care for the two persons’ children. It then cuts both taxes to $9, reducing revenue by $92, and stops spending on the children. Does it advance the quality of debate to describe this as Taxcuts for Everyone ?
Nevermind whether the hugely simplified scenario has any relation to reality. I’m just trying to test your grasp of, and intuition with, simple arithmetic.
