Over 80% Oppose Raising Gas Tax

[cfg83]

theunchosen -

(NOT speaking as moderator)

Originally Posted by theunchosen

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Jacob do you honestly believe that taxing one person 80% is fair and one person 10%?

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I have no problem with that. In fact, I am in complete sympathy with this :

Dave Johnson: Bring Back the 90% Top Tax Rate! - April 18, 2009

When Eisenhower was president the top income tax rate was 91%. But you had to have already made a LOT of money before you hit that rate. (Eisenhower, by the way, supported that 91% top tax rate.)

Conversely, I think it's important that we have mutual tolerance of each other's POV. I don't have your life experience and you don't have mine. Isn't that part of what makes us interesting?

CarloSW2

[JacobAziza]

Unchoosen:

the number one expenditure of government is welfare spending, which you failed to mention completely.

Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2009

Define "Welfare"
If you choose to count SS as "welfare", maybe, but the benefits people get from it are directly proportional to what they paid in. Same goes for unemployment. If you don't work, you don't get social security or unemployment. These things are revolving funds which legally the government doesn't get to spend (although they do anyway). Part of the category of human services also includes education. Education is an investment that pays for itself by having an educated workforce. Veteran's benefits, which should properly be classified as military expense, are also lumped here.
Most of all, medical payments is counted under the same category, which I addressed earlier, and is by far the 2nd biggest sub-component after SS.
Yes, if you count all of those things as "welfare", then it adds up to more than the military.
But if you are looking only at direct AFDC payments to poor families, it is less than 1% of the budget.
If you have a source that says otherwise, please feel free to share it.

Military spending only makes up 1/3 of all government spending. With the expenditures lately. . .its not even remotely close to 1/3.

If you remove SS (which is a trust fund, not a government handout) from the budget, "national defense" come to well over 1/3. Check the numbers at the link I provided above if you don't want to take my word for it.

Ford never asked for any money. You lose all credence when you post overt fallacies.

Ford's bailout plea to include pledge for smaller cars

Ford CEO on bailout opposition: Past is past - CNN.com

Back to the top, you can throw all of those things the government provides away and allow for the private sector to pick them up. Bodyguards pick up where police forces are useless.

So, in other words the wealthy should be protected, and no one else should. I didn't say it was unviable.
What I said was, in the absence of law, body guard = mercenary. Whoever has money can buy guns and take what ever they want from those who can't afford a mercenary force. I'm not saying it is impossible, I'm saying that isn't a world any of us want to live in.

Look at situations in which there is no military to speak of. Rich families in Mexico have their own para-military body guard service. They pack automatics body armor and bullet proof vehicles. They don't hold trials and they don't take prisoners.

Yeah. Exactly. That's my point. Besides, there IS a military and police force in Mexico. The Federales carry sub machine guns and ride around in pickups with 6 guys in the back.

A justice system that provides quick and immediate punishment to murders, thieves and what the CIA classifies as "abrasive" crimes or "assualt" crimes typically has fewer of them and it costs far less. I don't have to hold criminals in jail for months before trial feeding them and I don't have to put up with appeals and other issues. If someone breaks into my home there will not be a trial. I might have to go into a civil case with their surviving family but as I live in the south I know my local judges will throw it out and the appelate judges will also throw it out.

Sounds like someone hates America. There is this thing called the "constitution" - they put it there for a reason. Thing is, sometimes innocent people are accused accidentally. You do realize that, right? And sometimes people accuse the innocent on purpose, out of spite, or to draw attention away from themselves. Trials are not to coddle criminals. Trials are to determine the facts as best as possible so that the wrongly accused aren't punished.

Adam Smith did not argue that the government was out to protect the poor from the rich. If you read your quote again he said that government is necessary to protect those who have(corporations) from those who dont(employees).

He didn't say it was "necessary". He said that's what actually happens. He was not suggesting it was a good thing.

At Smiths time the East India Trading company were a racketeering organization that stole from honest traders by imposing their own taxes on their goods so that they wouldn't be attacked by privateers. Smith was against this practice.

Exactly. He further suggested that corporations only exist because governments create them, and that they are inherently anti-competitive.

He obviously was not against a corporation in and of itself because he had his own.

An individual can not have a corporation. Their is a difference between a corporation and a company.

I won't repeat all the points about how libertarians distort Smith's work, because someone has already done it for me:
The Betrayal of Adam Smith
SimpleUtahMormonPolitics.com: Adam Smith Hated Corporations

Jacob do you honestly believe that taxing one person 80% is fair and one person 10%?

That was an example to show the numbers involved.

If you do I'm leaving Ecomodder. What you are saying is. . .because I work 2 full time jobs and 2 part time jobs I should only be allowed to have 2x as much as someone who works never and gets a welfare check? I put in 80 hours a week(2 full times) I mow for 6 hours a week and I work for a neighbor for about 5 hours a week. You are saying that some slackass that works 0 hours deserves the same amount of money I get when I work vastly more hours than he does(90 compared to 0 and he gets the same amount as me)?

That's not what I am saying at all. First of all, someone who works 0 hours pays 0 taxes, no matter what the tax rate is. Someone who works 2 (or 4) jobs likely does not make that much per hour (or else why would they be working so much?) and so isn't going to be in a top tax bracket no matter what.
What I am saying is NO ONE earns a million dollars a year through working. It can't be done. You have to understand just how rich the rich are. There was a guy who owned a chain of casinos who made one million dollars an hour on average for a year. He didn't have to work. He added nothing of value to society. He didn't build the casinos. He didn't even pay to have most built, he bought them. So he didn't earn that money, which means he didn't "deserve" any of it. Bill Gates took open source (free) software, made a few minor changes, and patented it. He was not an innovator. He was a predatory businsess man who made exclusive deals with hardware manufacturers in order to form a monopoly. Now he pays other people to come up with (often inferior) software, and he gets to skim some of the profits. He is not creating jobs. If Microsoft weren't there, those same people would be working at smaller companies.

The market does not assign wages based on how valuable the work done is to society. Consider an ad company executive. The ad company has big clients which don't make the best or cheapest product, but have momnetum on their side. The ad companies job is to convince people to buy their products. This in no way betters society as a whole, but its valuable to the corporation that hired them. So they make big bucks. Meanwhile someone who does a job that actually creates something valuable, say the day laborer that builds a house, a auto plant assembly line guy, a public school teacher, makes a tiny fraction of what the ad guy makes.

Damn straight I think people who work hard for little pay should be taxed less than someone who makes their money on the stock market, or by being a landlord, or any other job where you make a lot of money without doing any actual work!
I think you should pay less taxes.
I think anyone who makes over 200k a year or has more than 2 million in assets should pay more taxes.

We are totally high jacking this thread.

I could get so much more into it, but maybe I'll just reference some of the stuff I wrote on the topic in the past:
The root of the problem - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

Black Friday - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

Anarchy VS Capitalism - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

Predictions - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

Global Warming vs. Fascism; or, why NASA wouldn’t have stopped Apophis - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

Free Market VS. Democracy : (1-0) - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com)

In responce to my last entry - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

In Which a progressive writes an article about the economy: - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

29; My neigbor is a Republican (who lives in a tiny trailer) - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com)

24; Taxes, and the contribution to society of the wealthy - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

22; Wealth should be taxed - Bakari's Personal Blog - Powered by Doteasy.com

[theunchosen]

Jacob you need to be very careful.

I do make what most people classify as upper income. I don't do it through low wages no. I don't do it through the stock market(It has only cost me a few grand from 401k contributions that fell below investment limits kicked out and then got taxed based on original value and I lost substantial liquid assets).

I work as a mechanic and I work as an escalations rep for Citi. As a Mechanic I work morning and evenings by myself when no one else is there(I open and close and do alot of prep work and repair alot of things after they have been diagnosed). I work also on Sundays doing the same after the other two guys have setup things to be finished off.

For Citi I handle the really obnoxious calls from customers who are livid. I do it for 10 hours a day 4 days a week fridays off(Mowing my own yard). It pays very well, because I have alot of previous experience with Citi and every single year my Manager, HR and my site manager rate me the highest possible and I get the maximum possible raise per hour per year. I also pull down a bonus every month for number of customers handled per hour, money collected, and customers satisfied.

After that my two part time jobs I mostly do as charity to family or family friends. My aunt mows for a local college, but its way too much work for one person so I take about 6 hours (friday and saturday) to help her get it done. On friday and Sunday I work for a neighbor who lives out on TN107 who owns a day lily farm because hes elderly and can't do it himself anymore. I pay for my gas usage, cell and car insurance using those two.

Depending on how well I perform at Citi(calls per hour-money per hour) I make over a year anywhere from 42-46K. Working as a mechanic I make about that much, but its much more variable and I haven't been doing it for more than 2 months so I can't tell you exactly. The other two are seasonal.

What you are saying is that despite the fact I have earned that pay difference I shouldn't get it? If you want to tell me I didn't earn it I would like to see an example of someone who earned it. . .

[JacobAziza]

You do not fall under the category of upper class at 80k.

There is no one accepted income definition, but it tends to be above at least 100k, as much as 200k, or is based on assets (over 1 million).

I don't think national policy should be set on anecdotal (personal) stories, but since you are talking about your own situation; I have to wonder, if you make good money with Citi, why are you still working as a mechanic? What good does the extra income do you if you never have any free time to spend it?
I don't mean to make this personal though.
If you choose to work 80 hours a week, that's your business.
I would not be opposed to a tax structure that takes # of hours worked into account.

Also, as I pointed out in my (admittedly exaggerated) example, even with a highly progressive tax rate, you still end up with more money even if you pay a higher percentage. It always pays off to make more. So you do get the difference. Just not 100% of the difference.

If you are working hard to earn your money, that makes you working class. Bush Jr. reduced the tax on capital gains to 0%.
Which means you end up paying far more of your hard earned 80k than the upper 1-5% of society which doesn't produce anything at all.

[theunchosen]

Let's please refrain from ad hominem attacks btw Jacob.

Insulting(or trying to) your opponent means nothing about their argument so suggesting I hate the USA or our constitution doesn't mean anything.

[JacobAziza]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

Let's please refrain from ad hominem attacks btw Jacob.

Insulting(or trying to) your opponent means nothing about their argument so suggesting I hate the USA or our constitution doesn't mean anything.

Fair enough.
I concede your point and apologize!

[theunchosen]

I don't mind people above me getting a tax break. I don't mind anyone getting a tax break(if they pay taxes already, if they don't its not a break).

No I don't hit the 1 mil mark or the 100K mark. But even under our current system I pay I believe its going to be 28% for my total income but then the bonuses I've recieved are taxed at 50%. I'm only a measely 6% points away from being in the top bracket so any adjustments there is going to put me right about 2/3 of whatever they are. So even if I am at 54% thats still 26% more than I pay now. So even if the scale is just linear(its currently not so I doubt it would be in the future, so it would be more like 67% for me) I'm going to have to pay more than an additional 22 grand in taxes.

I have holiday time that I use to spend my money. I either request off time(and don't get paid at the garage) or I spend holiday time(citi I have substantial holiday time for my ratings).

I also spent it paying back school loans and now I'm spending it building an ecobuggy out of CF. . .

[JacobAziza]

The only reason you are near the top tax bracket is Bush Jr eliminated all the higher brackets in the name of encouraging growth (despite the fact that the economy has grown equally fast historically under both higher and lower tax rates.)

I don't mind people above me getting a tax break.

Now, I already agree that spending is too high. We could cut the budget in half if we reduced the military by 4/5ths (which would still give us the highest military budget in the world), nationalized all health care, and payed down our massive debt.

But given a particular amount of spending, that money has to come from somewhere. If you give the rich tax breaks, the middle class has to make up for it. You can't get it by taxing the poor. They don't have it.

Consider that the top 1% holds as much wealth as the entire bottom 90%.
A flat tax simply could not generate the revenue to run government services. Because the income distribution is top heavy, the tax rate has to be top heavy as well.

Another hypothetical example:
lower class guy: 10k
middle class guy: 75k
upper class guy: 250k

Progressive tax:
10k * 10%: 1k
75k * 30%: 22k
250k * 60%: 150k
total income: 173k

flat tax:
10k * 20%= 2k
75k * 20%= 15k
250k * 20%=50k
total: 67k

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I think this is why the radical right has been able to get away with the changes they have made the past few decades which caused the gross income inequality we see today:
the middle class imagines that it is, or will soon be, wealthy, and so vote to support measures which help the wealthy. Meanwhile, they are the very people most hurt by those policies as someone has to take up the slack.

[theunchosen]

Thats why I vote that way lol. I'm going to be completely honest.

I'm somewhat looking at it as likely as a small business owner. The garage as I said has 2 other mechanics both of which are going to retire and one of which is my grandfather who owns it.

The moment someone says they want 60% of my income I'm working to profit you not me and I'm going Galt to get under your tax bracket and I won't make a dime more.

I don't terribly mind our tax system because I only have to pay 28%. As much as I would like to pay only 15% thats not ever going to happen.

Jacob you said somethings aren't able to be funded by the private sector. Our military is very streamlined as far as how it manages cost effectiveness. Its one of the few branches that effectively spends its money rather than throwing it down the toilet. And honestly do you want them cutting money from the system that protects you or from the system that allows people to sit around and do nothing?

If I could I would remove 66% of the budget and fund just the military(since police are locally funded and truly private toll roads would be much better than government designed ones). My justification for private highways is the DOT continues to build roads that are I think 6 inch deep whereas Germany has proved that an 18 inch deep roadway doesn't even come close to breaking apart as badly as ours do. Its also possible to manufacture bridges to far superior deisgn(the Romans did it 2000 years ago and I've driven across them in a car). If a private sector had to make a road its like a nuclear power plant, its very expensive up front and it takes a good bit of time to pay for it, but after that its dirt cheap. they would just make the roads much thicker to resist wear completely(trucks create the wear primarily because their bouncing on their suspension compacts the roadways unevenly and typically right after bridge connections) and they would design the bridges to spec so that we don't ever look at them again for 400 years.

Under government spec I've seen my local roadways paved and re-paved in the last 10 years due to wear. Parts of the autobahn haven't been repaired since they were first laid over half a century ago.

Social security is a ponzi scheme. Its not an investment. I have several relatives now drawing social and they are going to draw far more than they ever put in even with inflation and whatever else.

If you fired all the bureacrats, didn't pay all the politicians and just made the tax code simple(and fired all IRS agents) you would be taking one huge leap towards reducing deficits. If you then took another leap and cut any form of social safety net systems and only left in place military spending the private sector could do everything else more cheaply. If there are companies making a profit by streamlining road and bridge construction that is far superior than having to pay a toll(tax) and it being higher. I've had friends deal with trying to use medicare. . .it takes forever and requires unbelievable amounts of work. Private insurance, i give them my card the make a copy and bill them and I'm done. It costs less per individual than medicare does, by a long shot.

If you reduced all taxes 66% and cut everything but the military then everyone has a big new window and can make a profit much easier and are able to sell their products for less.

I know not everyone will do it. . .but some will. Some things in effect will cost the same whether its a tax or a toll, but I would bank on the service always being superior(go to a DMV). In some cases though(maybe in alot of cases) the toll would be less than the tax and the service would still be superior.

[Frank Lee]

Our military is very streamlined as far as how it manages cost effectiveness.

Now how do you expect me to read anything after that? LOL