Thread: Hey!! Who's pulling the Bandwagon????

Originally Posted by billyjeff2

So now I'm a socialist. Who knew?
Actually, I think you are missing my point. Let me try another approach.
Let's agree that it takes "X" amount of money to cover the government's operating expenses in any given year (and let's put aside for the moment arguments about how we should be cutting the fat, etc). So, how is this done? Well, we could tax everyone at the same flat rate-that has a certain appeal since it treats everyone equally in a sense-everyone pays the same % of their income. But there's a problem with that idea--we've grown very accustomed to our tax deductions-mortgage interest; charitable contributions; education costs, etc. Another problem is this---there are a lot of people who barely get by, financially-speaking. they live paycheck to paycheck; they carry debt month to month; they don't have the ability to save to any meaningful extent. They struggle to put food on the table. They don't have retirement accounts. If they own a car, it's old and expensive to maintain. They often have no health insurance. You get the idea. If they were to be taxed at an "equal" rate, it would seriously threaten what little financial stability they have. So, being a rather equitable society, he have taken a different approach-the graduated income tax. This concept reflects the idea that as one's wealth increase beyond a certain point, so does that person's ability to absorb higher tax rates, since the higher rates apply to discretionary rather than essential income. To put it in rather extremes terms, a tax of 10% on someone who only earns $100 per week is far more financially devastating than that same tax on someone earning $10,000 per week. (i.e. not eating versus not eating Kobe beef). Hence, we don't tax (or more precisely, we give tax credits to) those who can least afford to be taxed lest they go hungry)
Now here's where you and I part ways: I don't agree that the people who live below, at, or just above the poverty level are just a bunch of lazy leeches. Especially in the present economic circumstances, there are tons of folks who are out of work; or who are working at low paying, menial jobs through no fault of their own. And truth be told--in modern history there has always been a sizable percentage of our society that lives in or near the poverty level. The fact of the matter is our economic system (the best in the world) has never been able to produce enough jobs, at sufficiently high wages, to eliminate, or come close to eliminating, significant levels of lower income citizens. And if our economy hasn't been able to make that happen so far, chances are we ain't never gonna see a time when the vast majority of people who are ready, willing and able to work will be able to obtain well paying jobs. Not in our lifetimes, anyway.
So while you seem to want to blame those who don't earn a lot of money for not being more---motivated, my contention is that until a better economic system is invented, even the best system we have won't be able to create enough jobs, and enough well paying jobs, to neutralize the equitable reasons why we tax those who are wealthy/wealthier more than we tax those at the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
Please excuse my rant...

I agree with your reasoning to a large extent. The tax code is as much to do with influencing behavior as it is about raising money for the treasury. However, our economic system isn't really to blame. It generates plenty of money. However, we don't have enough regard for our fellow man to take care of our own families (as a whole of course there are good folks who do), much less have a system where the distribution of wealth is so askew

I'm with Commiecat... The Fair Tax sounds like a great deal to me.

Originally Posted by richmondesi

I agree with your reasoning to a large extent. The tax code has as much to do with influencing behavior as it is about raising money for the treasury. However, our economic system isn't really to blame. It generates plenty of money. However, we don't have enough regard for our fellow man to take care of our own families (as a whole of course there are good folks who do), much less have a system where the distribution of wealth is so askew

I'm with Commiecat... The Fair Tax sounds like a great deal to me.

So does that mean we can get rid of ALL other taxes and just go with the Fair Tax?

Originally Posted by Alembic

So does that mean we can get rid of ALL other taxes and just go with the Fair Tax?

That's the idea (not state, but federal)