You keep saying federal taxes when you mean to say federal INCOME taxes. everyone who cashes a paycheck pays FEDERAL payroll TAXES. But I agree that even a nominal amount of federal income taxes would be beneficial for the system.
This conversation has been about federal income taxes from the beginning. We are talking about the federal system. What sense does it make to say that people deserve the right to determine how federal taxes are spent because they pay state taxes?
I agree that one year tax cuts would be more effective, but we still have the problem that their expiration would be a “tax increase.” We seem to be in a system know where taxes ratchet down easily but have a much harder time going up, even when appropriate. If we could automate tax increases for deficit reduction during times of prosperity that would be good. Impractical, but good. Instead we get the “a slight increase will destroy all incentives” nonsense despite the counter-example of the Clinton years.
And to forbidding pictures of the flag-draped coffins coming home.
I’m curious if the tax haters would have hated a tax to pay for Iraq - back when they still thought Iraq was a good idea. What would be your answer if we had actually found WMDs, justifying the war?
No but I’m telling you that if you showed up to enroll at your local public school and they said no, then your rights have been violated.
As a society we have decided that certain things should be available to all regardless of their ability to pay. Education is one of those things and health care is now another. Right now everyone has a right to a public education and if all goes well, pretty soon every American will have a right to health care.
When you are talking about limiting the ability to vote based on the payment of taxes, I tend to take an expansive view of taxes. If you think the ability to vote in federeal elections should be limited to people who pay federeal taxes, how do you justify ignoring medicare, and social security?
Nothing short of a direct connection ebtween Saddam Hussein and 9/11 would have jsutified Iraq for me.
One year tax cuts tend to increase propensity to save don’t they?
There once was a time when taxes were raised and lowered with some regularity. In the last 30 years we have had about a dozen tax cuts and two tax increases. The first one got H.W. bush kicked out of office, the second one was During Clinton. The citizenry has acquired a taste for tax cuts and there is one party that seems to think we can keep feeding them tax cuts.
Medicare and Social Security are benefits that we all get back…assuming we live long enough. That money is, in theory, dedicated for those benefits. It can be ignored for the purposes of this discussion.
A right is not something that can be handed to you by your government. By the same token, health care, which was not available to every american, is still not a right. If the courts decide that the HCR is unconstitutional then have your rights been violated? Rights do not emanate from the government. Negative rights are freedom FROM government. The second ammendment does not dictate that the government MUST provide you with a gun…you are free to go get one. Same goes for education and health care.
You know, Yorick, just because you can nest quotes seven deep doesn’t mean you should.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0728/top-1-making-280-1979/ This is what has been happening in America since Bush. Why you guys can’t get it, L don’t know. the very rich are making out like bandits. The poor and stupid who really do not understand what is going on are able to be convinced that the rich deserve better breaks than the poor and middle class.
People believe the reason poor are poor is because they don’t work or try hard enough. That is wrong.The poor work much harder than the wealthy.
Extending Bush Tax Cuts WON'T Create Jobs, Says Leading Economist | HuffPost Impact Here is yet another economist who sees that the tax cut should be stopped. He gives the regular reasons, which are so simple to see with open eyes. The tax cuts have done a lot of damage.
Well, at least it is symmetrical. Seriously, though, this quote nesting thing must be something new since, in the past, this was not automatic. I’ll have to remember to delete the previous quotes.
Ah. I see what I did.
I left out part of my chain of thought.
See, if the government weren’t the government, if it were, say, the Mafia, what it does to raise money would be a sort of extortion. So from the point of view of someone to whom the gov’t is a useful & corruptible human organization, not an authority over oneself, a government is a nice big legal extortion racket.
Not my p.o.v., necessarily; the point of view of someone who bankrolls GOP candidates. Bear with me here.
A government that demands rents from YOU is perhaps the enemy. But a gov’t that will sell you bonds is useful. From a certain pov (not mine) the most desirable gov’t is one that minimizes one’s tax liabilities & expands access to bonds.
Most working people do not experience the gov’t this way. But professional investors, trust fund babies, & the like, do. Once the cherry was popped for peacetime deficit spending, the expectation came to be cultivated.
Here’s their plan: Raise taxes on the working class by raising FICA & cutting EIC. Use their productivity to fund your investment in T-bills. And the mere humans won’t know what hit 'em.
ALL IS GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN.
Watch this:
My point is that, ideally, only a small percentage of the working population should be exempt from federal benefits. As we approach 50% of the working population that receives nothing in federal benefits then we have to be concerned that there is no disincentive for them to vote to decrease benefits even on the poorest beneficiaries. And, with almost a majority, they effectively have the key to the Treasury.
See how that works?
I don’t know what “doped” means. I guess I was just wrong.
You have a very particular ideological definition of rights. Not a standard or universal one.
Maybe he meant “duped”?
You’re not as clever as you think you are. Don’t you think this would have occurred already? The welfare system can only exist if those who are not on welfare agree that benefits should be paid to those in need. If our government decided against the will of the people to extract wealth from some to give to others, we would vote the bums out of office in short order…kinda like what’s going to happen in November.