Image by William Banzai
In previous installments, we’ve noted that we could more than offset the need for the “sequestration” budget cuts by doing any one or combination of the following:
- Stopping the counter-productive quantitative easing by the Fed
Here’s another way to offset the need for budget cuts: cut off the welfare queens. (Jamie Dimon – shown above- and the other Wall Street queens are the largest recipients of welfare.)
Liberals and conservatives agree that we should stop subsidizing the fatcats. For example, the conservative Cato Institute points out that corporate welfare amounts to almost $100 billion per year. Cato notes:
Corporate welfare often subsidizes failing and mismanaged businesses and induces firms to spend more time on lobbying rather than on making better products. Instead of correcting market failures, federal subsidies misallocate resources and introduce government failures into the marketplace.
While corporate welfare may be popular with policymakers who want to aid home-state businesses, it undermines the broader economy and transfers wealth from average taxpaying households to favored firms. Corporate welfare also creates strong ties between politicians and business leaders, and these ties are often the source of corruption scandals in Washington. Americans are sick and tired of “crony capitalism,” and the way to solve the problem is to eliminate business subsidy programs.
Cato also notes:
The federal government continues to subsidize some of the biggest companies in America. Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, General Electric, and others have received millions in taxpayer-funded benefits …. In addition, the federal crop subsidy programs continue to fund the wealthiest farmers.
(Indeed, the Federal Reserve threw money at hedge funds, McDonald’s, Harley-Davidson, “several billionaires and tens of multi-millionaires”, including Christy Mack, the wife of Morgan Stanley’s John Mack, billionaire businessman H. Wayne Huizenga, and Michael Dell, co-founder of Dell Computer, hedge fund manager John Paulson and private equity honcho J. Christopher Flowers.)
The liberal Huffington Post reports that corporate welfare dwarfs individual welfare:
Welfare Spending Nearly Half What U.S. Forked Out In Corporate Subsidies In 2006: Study
Welfare queens may actually look more like giant corporations.
***
Charles Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this month that crony capitalism is a “destructive force” for business and government. [Both conservatives and liberals hate crony capitalism.]
Conservative Senator Tom Coburn has documented that many wealthy and famous people receive huge tax and other subsidies.
The liberal New Yorker magazine notes:
In recent decades, what you could call the corporate welfare state has become bigger. Energy companies lease almost forty million acres of onshore land in the U.S. and more than forty million offshore, and keep the lion’s share of the profits from the oil and natural gas that they pump out.
***
In 1996, for instance, the government temporarily lowered royalties on oil pumped in the Gulf of Mexico as a way of encouraging more drilling at a time of low oil prices. But this royalty relief wasn’t rescinded when oil prices started to rise, which gave the oil companies a windfall of billions of dollars. Something similar happened in the telecom industry in the late nineties, when the government, in order to encourage the transition to high-def TV, simply gave local broadcasters swathes of the digital spectrum worth tens of billions of dollars. In the mining industry, meanwhile, thanks to a law that was passed in 1872 and never rewritten, companies can lease federal land for a mere five dollars an acre, and then keep all the gold, silver, or uranium they find; we, the people, get no royalty payments at all. Metal prices have soared in the last decade, but the only beneficiaries have been the mine owners.
***
U.S. sugar companies benefit from the sweetest boondoggle in business: an import quota keeps American sugar prices roughly twice as high as they otherwise would be, handing the industry guaranteed profits.
The tax code, too, is a useful tool for helping businesses. Domestic manufacturers collectively get a tax break of around twenty billion dollars a year. State and local governments give away seventy billion dollars annually in tax breaks and subsidies in order to lure (or keep) companies. The strategies make sense for local communities keen to generate new jobs, but, from a national perspective, since they usually just reward companies moving from one state to another, they’re simply giveaways.
A New York Times investigation found that the number is even larger:
A Times investigation has examined and tallied thousands of local incentives granted nationwide and has found that states, counties and cities are giving up more than $80 billion each year to companies. The beneficiaries come from virtually every corner of the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates, technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains.
The cost of the awards is certainly far higher. A full accounting, The Times discovered, is not possible because the incentives are granted by thousands of government agencies and officials, and many do not know the value of all their awards.
***
A portrait arises of mayors and governors who are desperate to create jobs, outmatched by multinational corporations and short on tools to fact-check what companies tell them. Many of the officials said they feared that companies would move jobs overseas if they did not get subsidies in the United States.
***
For many communities, the payouts add up to a substantial chunk of their overall spending, the analysis found. Oklahoma and West Virginia give up amounts equal to about one-third of their budgets, and Maine allocates nearly a fifth.
***
Nationwide, billions of dollars in incentives are being awarded as state governments face steep deficits. Last year alone, states cut public services and raised taxes by a collective $156 billion ….
But this isn’t just a state issue. As the Times notes, “20 percent of state and local budgets come from federal spending.”
The New Yorker continues:
More subtly, government boosts business profits via regulation. The most obvious example, perhaps, is the banking industry. The F.D.I.C. encourages people to deposit money in banks, and the biggest banks also benefit from the perception that the government will not allow them to fail, which enables them to borrow money at a low cost. Another leading beneficiary of regulation is the ethanol industry, a sacred cow of American politics. The government requires refiners to blend billions of gallons of ethanol into gasoline annually, and hands out an ethanol tax credit. As a result, forty per cent of corn acreage in the U.S. now goes to make ethanol. This jacks up food prices, since less corn is grown for feed and table, and the environmental benefit is dubious. But farmers and refiners benefit enormously, so the mandate stays in place. [Treehugger notes that - as of 2007 - 76% of all federal renewable energy support went to ethanol.] Vested interests of this kind also explain why so many states have onerous licensing regulations; Florida says that you need six years of training and apprenticeship to become an interior designer. Such regulations, which have grown precipitously in recent decades, are catnip to incumbent businesses worried about competition.
Perhaps the biggest boon that the government offers business is the benefit of copyright and patent protection. As the [liberal] economist Dean Baker shows in his book “The End of Loser Liberalism,” patent protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the drug industry alone. And while most of us would find it hard to imagine doing without copyrights and patents, that doesn’t justify the huge expansion of intellectual-property rights we’ve seen of late: the length of copyright has been expanded eleven times since 1962, and the range of things that can be patented has increased hugely, even in areas where, as [conservative, free market advocate] Judge Richard Posner recently argued, there’s little or no economic benefit to society.
Forbes’ Doug Bandow – a conservative from the Cato institute – notes:
Most politicians want to cut the federal budget in theory. Few want to cut it in practice. So it is with corporate welfare, which is enthusiastically supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.
***
Among the most outrageous expenditures is corporate welfare. Desperate businesses now overrun Washington, begging for alms. Believing that profits should be theirs while losses should be everyone else’s, corporations have convinced policymakers to underwrite virtually every industry: agriculture, education, energy, housing, manufacturing, medicine, transportation, and much more.
***
Cutting business subsidies would be a good start to balancing the budget. Moreover, going after corporate welfare is essential to create a budget package that the public will see as fair. Corporate welfare reflects politics at its worst.
For example:
The largest single source of business subsidies is the Department of Agriculture, with $25.1 billion. For the most part crop payments go to large farmers, who are big businessmen.
Bondow notes that – notwithstanding mainstream Republican party rhetoric – narrowly-drafted tax loopholes are a form of subsidy:
Spending is the most obvious but not only form of corporate welfare. Tax preferences, often called “tax expenditures,” are the functional equivalent of direct outlays. Failing to tax is not the same as spending, since all income does not belong to the government. However, when the government provides a narrow exemption from general tax obligations it essentially is writing a check. While appropriations have some level of transparency, tax preferences often are obscurely drafted and dropped into larger bills, hidden from public view. Taxpayers then are unaware that they are being looted.
He also notes the hypocrisy of Republican politicians who talk about the free market, but enthusiastically dole out corporate pork:
The greater outrage is support for corporate welfare from the Right. Political conservatives wax poetic about the virtues of the free market, but conservative office-holders often are pro-business rather than pro-market.
Liberal writer Matt Stoller notes:
Here are eight corporate subsidies in the fiscal cliff bill that you haven’t heard of.
1) Help out NASCAR - Sec 312 extends the “seven year recovery period for motorsports entertainment complex property”, which is to say it allows anyone who builds a racetrack and associated facilities to get tax breaks on it. This one was projected to cost $43 million over two years.
2) A hundred million or so for Railroads - Sec. 306 provides tax credits to certain railroads for maintaining their tracks. It’s unclear why private businesses should be compensated for their costs of doing business. This is worth roughly $165 million a year.
3) Disney’s Gotta Eat - Sec. 317 is “Extension of special expensing rules for certain film and television productions”. It’s a relatively straightforward subsidy to Hollywood studios, and according to the Joint Tax Committee, was projected to cost $150m for 2010 and 2011.
4) Help a brother mining company out – Sec. 307 and Sec. 316 offer tax incentives for miners to buy safety equipment and train their employees on mine safety. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to bribe mining companies to not kill their workers.
5) Subsidies for Goldman Sachs Headquarters – Sec. 328 extends “tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which was a program to provide post-9/11 recovery funds. Rather than going to small businesses affected, however, this was, according to Bloomberg, “little more than a subsidy for fancy Manhattan apartments and office towers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp.” Michael Bloomberg himself actually thought the program was excessive, so that’s saying something. According to David Cay Johnston’s The Fine Print, Goldman got $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.
6) $9B Off-shore financing loophole for banks – Sec. 322 is an “Extension of the Active Financing Exception to Subpart F.” Very few tax loopholes have a trade association, but this one does. This strangely worded provision basically allows American corporations such as banks and manufactures to engage in certain lending practices and not pay taxes on income earned from it. According to this Washington Post piece, supporters of the bill include GE, Caterpillar, and JP Morgan. Steve Elmendorf, super-lobbyist, has been paid $80,000 in 2012 alone to lobby on the “Active Financing Working Group.”
7) Tax credits for foreign subsidiaries – Sec. 323 is an extension of the “Look-through treatment of payments between related CFCs under foreign personal holding company income rules.” This gibberish sounding provision cost $1.5 billion from 2010 and 2011, and the US Chamber loves it. It’s a provision that allows US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad.
8 ) Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – These are well-known corporate boondoggles. The research tax credit was projected to cost $8B for 2010 and 2011, and the depreciation provisions were projected to cost about $110B for those two years, with some of that made up in later years.
And as conservative Congressman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said of defense contractors in 1986:
They are the new welfare queens, isolated from competition and the consequences of their mistakes and with the government always ready to bail them out....
Here are some specific examples of welfare handouts to defense contractors, which total many hundreds of billions per year.


are u telling us that "corporations" aren't beneficiaries of some of these "individual" subsidies?
are u telling us that corporate lobbies don't run the show?
are u telling us that the new SCOTUS "corporate people" (overturning all legal precedent) doesn't demonstrate who is favored?
what country are we talking about?
Hell GW, all we have to do is just stop the Fed QE for a week
thank you george......and other beneficial abolitions would be the department of energy, department of education, the nazi departments of homeland security, the pentagram budget - and that is just the low hanging fruit....
Why not remove the dole from ALL welfare queens, and the kleptocrats as well?
It has to come, sooner or later.
Why can't we all just be welfare queens?
Where is Big Pharma in all of this? I bet they get a ton of welfare to lobby up thier politicians.
It's good to be (corporate welfare) King
It's good to be King...and give them a smile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SF1iLXSQto
So, are you calling for chunking the "progressive tax code" or do you think we can add a few thousand more pages in order to make it "fair"? ;-)
Why are people required to pay taxes when institutions can print all the money they need?
Could it be US citizens are slaves to the interest?
I'm okay with no taxes at all for individuals or corporations ...
OR taxes which cover everyone ...
What I'm AGAINST is an unfair playing field ...
playing field
funny, even those are unfairly subsidized
Tariffs, Bitchez.
Just like the good old days before the income tax.
Considering our FT deficits, I think we're talking real money here.
What we have is the double whammy of organized crime taking control over governments, without the vast majority of people understanding why that happened. Therefore, everything has been effectively rigged by systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, in ways that work because the vast majority of people do not understand why, and do not want to understand why.
The triple whammy to all this, of course, is that almost all the "solutions" to these problems are based on false fundamental dichotomies, and impossible ideals, which assert that organized crime should not control government, in absurd ways that deny the basic fact that government simply is organized crime on the largest scale, with the best organized criminals able to effectively control what that government does.
Therefore, on superficial levels, everything that George Washington's series of articles states are correct, including his implied or proposed "solutions" being superficially correct. However, everything that he says still operates within the Bizarro Mirror World, and therefore, everything he suggests with respect to implied or proposed "solutions" to these real problems continues to be backwards.
My views are that almost everyone gets their mechanisms backwards, and therefore, proposes sets of solutions which are always backwards. Of course, the biggest banks, and the corporations that grew up around them, are the supreme "Welfare Queens!" They were the best organized gangs of criminals, the biggest gangsters, that were most able to apply the methods of organized crime in order to take control over the government, and direct the government to do what they wanted to be done.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the people were brainwashed to be sheeple within those systems, being routinely fleeced orders of magnitude more by the banksters than by the poor people on welfare. However, since the entire system is almost totally dominated by the best organized gangs of criminals, who have taught the sheeple to bleat their morality, the only sets of "solutions" allowed to be promoted in the public spaces are still operating within the Bizarro Mirror World, and therefore, propose impossible ideals, which are impossible to ever become real, but rather always actually make the opposite things happen in the real world.
The only genuine solutions require basic breakthrough in the paradigms of social science, such as recognizing that money is backed by murder, and it always was, and always will be, because governments are the best organized gangs of criminals, and always were, and always will be.
What I almost always read are articles that promote some level or another of the false fundamental dichotomies. The majority of the mainstream morons continue to believe that somehow the banks are not banksters, and that the governments are not gangsters. Some of the alternatives present some of the levels of reality that the banks are banksters, and the governments are gangsters, but then, after presenting that better analysis of history, they then collapse back to the same old bullshit regarding the "solutions" being that there should not be governments that are gangsters, controlled by banksters.
IF, IF, IF, we ever had more thoroughly scientific understanding of society, then we would have gone through the necessary paradigm shifts to understand that human realities are always organized lies, operating organized robberies, and then, upon that basis, we could work towards better dynamic equilibria between those.
The "fair playing field" only exists in the ways that energy is conserved as it flows through systems. That already exists. The universe is already perfect. That the best organized gangs of criminals are the government, or control the government, is necessary to the basic nature of the energy systems manifesting through human societies. The sublime contradiction that our civilization has amplified to astronomical sizes is that everything else we do is understood as being energy systems, and our understanding of those things in those ways has made advances in their sciences and technologies become able to be advanced, BUT, BUT, BUT, when it comes to human civilization as an energy system we maintain deliberate blind spots, and adamantly refuse to become any more scientific about ourselves. The reasons are obvious. When we become more scientific about human societies, then it becomes plainly obvious that those energy systems are the manifestation of the principles and methods of organized crime.
There are no fundamental dichotomies between people. Governments were always territorial gangsters, and more modern governments have been controlled by the biggest gangsters, the banksters. Therefore, our governments are organized crime, working towards the interests of the most capable criminals. More importantly, it is not possible for human realities to ever be anything else. Therefore, the only sufficient solutions to the unbalanced systems of social robbery are to attempt to better balance those systems of social robbery. However, the basic fact is that those systems always were, are, and will be, some system of social robbery.
It's all ugly just like the Big Ponzi that it is. We've allowed ourselves to be lied to, to be told that "God" or "science/technology" is the goal, the thing that will "save" us. Fact is, it's ALL about saving the handful who are able to continue to perpetuate this scheme (top down hierarchy). And the funny thing is, TPTB do NOT in any way operate in accordance of either ("God" or "science/technology").
Is this not just human nature? Do we cling to TBTB as an excuse to not turn on ourselves? (though TPTB have programmed us to do so should they need cover)
Agreed.
My preference, is to tax everyone the same and we have to deal with the reality that only people can be taxed because that is the net result of any & all taxation. The consumer pays via higher prices for the end product or service.
The other great thing about doing away with the current federal tax code is, it gets the politicians hands out of passing out favors which are reciprocal come election time. They won't be able to promise Joe a tax break or credit to the detriment of Frank because they both pay the same rate. Think of it...no more lobbyists after the public purse.
I'll go as high as 10% for the feds but 7% is more reasonable ;-)
Low taxes on PEOPLE, high taxes on CORPORATIONS.
Corporations don't pay taxes. But not the way you think. Taxes are levied on profits. Profits come from sales. Sales come from customers.
So what really happens is that whatever corporate taxes are due is built into the price of whatever product or service that the corporation sells. Consumers are the ones who ultimately pay the taxes that the corporation pays the government. In that way, the corporate tax is really a stealth VAT.
It gets passed straight through to you and me spinone, you know that. And thats exactly where we're at now on a global basis...maybe we can be the true global superpower in corporate taxation and go up by factors of ten ;-)
You know I'm not lying...look up corporate tax rates and see where the US falls out, we're either number one or two...I got disgusted and quit tracking it myself.
At least then we have a choice, unless its a state sponsored monopoly.
Am I fooling myself that there's any escape from the screw job?
Probably not, until we wake up and realize we control our own destiny.
Spin's got an interesting concept. If we had only corporate taxation, then consumers could theoretically choose which, and how much, tax they paid...
I assume we'd end up with some monopolist fat cats (those who "produce" more revenue for the government are rewarded with cronyism) like Wal-Mart providing us "options" through business divisions.
Meh, fuck 'em all.
Really? You say "tax everyone the same" and then you apply a flat rate tax which is inherently progressive? Charge everyone the same. Set a dollar amount for taxes each year. Everyone pays the same amount. No more IRS wanting to know everything about you anymore because it's no longer any of their fucking business -- if you paid the full federal tax, that's it, you're done with the feds for the year. Only people who want to claim they can't afford to pay the tax have to reveal their personal data to the IRS, and even then they have to pay what they (as defined by law) "can afford".
And when you pay your full federal tax, you get a token which allows you to vote in federal elections. If you only pay 30% of the tax, then for federal elections you only get a 0.3 vote rather than a full (1) vote.
Why is it assumed that people pay an INCOME tax. Rich people are rich because they already have money and don't have to work for a living. Why not pay a WEALTH tax based on your net worth? Or at least pay the same rate on capital gains.
I am against both income and wealth taxes because both are an unnecessarily egregious violation of property rights, both result in inefficient use of resources, both distort the role of government, and in both cases effective enforcement means the invasion of your privacy.
Note that my post was not about an income tax, it was about a fixed dollar-amount tax. And when I stated "Only people who want to claim they can't afford to pay the tax have to reveal their personal data to the IRS", that would not mean just income. If they are rich but have zero income, then they can afford to pay the tax!
"that would not mean just income. If they are rich but have zero income, then they can afford to pay the tax!"
A-Fucking-Ha!
The red herring (I smelled) had indeed been left in the sun too long, then thrown on ice for consumer purchase.
Soooooo, when you were talking about taxes, you were talking about taxing savings (which is wealth) as well. Is there any limit YOU would like to prescribe BY LAW for this practice? It was taxed once at earning, doesn't matter whether it was yesterday or fifty years ago, it was taxed.
You're really a proponent of double or triple or quadruple taxation of the same dollar earned aren't you?
Logical fallacies indeed.
I am not proposing that income be taxed, at all.
I am not proposing that wealth be taxed, at all.
I am not proposing that trade, or sales, or any number of other things be taxed.
I am proposing that we tax the only thing that can truly be taxed, and that is people. Every person pays the same number of dollars in tax.
The only exception to that rule is if they can not afford to pay. And if they want to make that claim, then they need to provide the evidence of it -- show that the do not have the means to pay. I don't care if the means is "earned" income, "unearned" income, existing wealth, or anything else.
If someone uses some of their savings to pay their tax, that is not the same as taxing their savings, not even once, much less double/triple/etc.
You're high or drunk.
Looking back over your comments, you're proposing a never ending fee for service to the federal government whether one is rich or poor...until everyone is made destitute by the proposal and only government has any real money.
No thanks.
I'd like to say its been enjoyable but its been a complete waste of my time.
Good night.
No, you've got a reading comprehension problem (or you're just trolling).
Minimal government is the only way to get minimal total taxes. I am saying we should limit the role of federal government, and only tax the people as much as is needed to cover the cost of that limited government. Minimizing taxes leads to prosperity, not destitution.
Making everyone pay the same (and not letting them have control over the money spigot to the extent that they do not contribute) helps obtain/keep minimal government (and may in fact be a necessary condition for maintaining minimal government).
Letting everyone get the same service, no matter how little they pay, even when they are perfectly capable of paying for their portion of that service, that's a rather nasty variant on socialism.
OK, as long as governments only role in markets is to enforce the rule of law and provide courts for efficient bankruptcies.
"Only people who want to claim they can't afford to pay the tax have to reveal their personal data to the IRS, and even then they have to pay what they (as defined by law) "can afford"."
I like that idea.
But a millionaire paying a $100,000 and thousandaire paying $100 is only progressive when looked at through a statist prism of someone concerned with how much tax revenue is going TO government for the benefit of it, to my way of thinking...they both paid ten percent of their income. Period. I'm not so much concerned with how much the federal government has, as I'm concerned with how much it takes away...and not just monetarily.
In this way, everyone has the same percentage of their skin in the game. And I'm not touching the rest with a ten foot poll tax...lol...although I will say, if one is only a taker of skin and not the one being filleted, this entire exercise is a lesson in futility, as de Tocqueville pointed out a long time ago.
Why not make the politicians pay for any program they want out of their own pocket?
Heilein
+1. And they could go fight their own wars too.
Sorry, but your argument about what is progressive/"the same" makes no sense. By your logic, in order for Apple to charge everyone "the same" for iPads, they should charge a certain percent of the buyer's income.
Also, you would have to explain why it is important that "everyone has the same percentage of their skin in the game". You want equal voting power, but unequal cost to each voter -- that can only lead to distortions in the allocation of funds.
And you admit the logical contradiction between 1) letting people who don't pay in getting to vote and 2) the unavoidable hell hole that leads to, but you don't offer any solution. Instead you reject a rather straightforward and (dare I say it) fair solution with no justification whatsoever.
"Sorry, but your argument about what is progressive/"the same" makes no sense."
No, you're wrong. Progressive is not the same. Its punitive, punishing on the productive, which is decidely not "the same". Progressivism seeks favoritism...always.
"Also, you would have to explain why it is important that "everyone has the same percentage of their skin in the game". You want equal voting power, but unequal cost to each voter."
The cost is the same, in my example, ten percent. Do I have to break this down into Johnny has ten apples and Sally has six for you?
"And you admit the logical contradiction between 1) letting people who don't pay in getting to vote and 2) the unavoidable hell hole that leads to, but you don't offer any solution. Instead you reject a rather straightforward and (dare I say it) fair solution with no justification whatsoever."
A poll tax is not a solution. Who will you pay to enforce it, the federal government who you just said only what is "required"? By whose standard, yours? How much are you willing to pay for that service above your neighbor? You're going backwards to a third of a man based on income but this time not based on skin color alone.
So, if I read you right, you want a fee based taxing & voting system...correct?
Who will these august leaders be (and their voters) to set those new rates? You better be careful what you wish for...it could be a penny...the law is the law...right? ;-)
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Dude, that's what a flat tax rate does. It punishes the productive. The more productive you are, the more tax you have to pay. Try all you want to convince me that paying more dollars in taxes is not punishment, you will not succeed.
A percent is not a cost. In this case a percent is a means of determining the cost. And the same percent on different incomes (or whatever your tax basis is) results in different costs.
Your questions do not constitute a valid argument of any sort. You can ask the same questions of anything the federal government does, including everthing explicitly stated or implied by the constitution. By your "question logic" the federal government can't do anything at all.
Don't pay taxes, don't vote -- that's part of it. (There's more to my "ideal system of voting" but it's not relevant to the current discussion.)
See post #3328250 where I give a basic algorithm for determining the tax.
One wonders if people would pay more attention to how tax revenue was spent if the more local the tax jurisdiction the higher the rate. Instead of the bulk going to the feds and the originators of the taxes getting the smallest piece of the pie.
I think left & right can agree that the bulk (or lack thereof) of any taxation should be local, not sent off to a foreign land (DC)...they'd have more control for whatever they wanted to fund.
Thats why my bottom proposal is seven and top is ten percent...I think somewhere in that range is fair for what a national government should be funded at.
I propose they just print the money now and each year and end fedderal taxation altogether. Defecit is almost eliminated just by doing away with the interest payments. Since debt is money already, this would not be inflationary and could actually be deflationary as bank balance sheets would shrink.
Your language is a bit off. It should not be about what's "fair". It should only be about what is "required" (by nature, not by arbitrary law). Limit federal government to it's true role, and then only fund that.
I haven't had this much fun since my last colon exam ;-)
What is required...the demand or the supply?
We have forty seven percent of filers who wind up paying ZERO FEDERAL INCOME TAX. The labor force is now what...130 million?...in a country of 310 million, sixteen percent of that is unemployed...or believe what you will, 7.7...lol.
What begins to happen here (again) we continue to argue on their ground instead of where we should be. We went past whats right, "required" and proper somewhere around Wilson, the Fed & FDR. We can argue that bullshit all night long...but the facts simply are...we're a national socialist nation now.
Revolution or play the hand you're dealt...whats it gonna be?
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Not sure what you're getting at there. Required (in terms of actions) is pretty much what the constitution spells out. In dollar terms it's the number of dollars that manages to pay for that. Dealing with the fact that many won't be able to afford the full tax is a simple math problem that you don't even have to get exactly right -- just estimate ability to pay in the current year using data from the previous year, and take into account the current required funding along with any current postive/negative debt of the federal government, and fix the tax amount for the current year such that it attempts to set the new federal debt to zero (with an offset slowing decreasing to zero if you are starting from the current massive positive debt position). If honest math is used, the federal debt (less offset) will bounce around zero from year to year as there will invariably be some amount of overestimate or underestimate of actual revenue.
Except you seem to be the one that wants to do that. I'm not interested in trying to have a logical discussion based on an illogical foundation -- that's a loser's game.
Anyways, we were disussing how things should be, not how they are. If you are going to reject all possible improvements because that's not how things are, then go back and reject your own original post.
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that the answer may get me droned.
"Limit federal government to it's true role, and then only fund that."
Yet, below, you imply there is no funding limit for government as anyone with saved wealth (obviously one who has been taxed already at earning a single nickel) is obligated to pay more...just because they can.
You have an insatiable appetite, a logic and a concept of law that escapes me.
The tax amount per person is fixed each year. You don't pay more than that that year no matter how great your income or savings.
The tax amount is determined from the cost of government executing its proper role (as described in post #3328250), not the other way around. The tax amount (and "proper role") does not just grow to consume everyone's savings.
You guys are amazing. Thank you for all of your insightful light. There is prolly no greater blogging on the blogosphere, than there is here on ZH. The Grand Eagles of mental shinnyship are certainly shining here in real leadership ways. Give thanks. Honored to be here.
It is good to see the good and very wise folks here that do come together under the same tent of resolution seeking. Let this atmosphere of resolution be caught up by all to replace the chicken shittling fearfulness brings. There may indeed be nothing to stop all this insanity that there are certainly preparations in place to create. The good news is, more and more folks are seeing it all for what it is in this arena. One big money changer scam. The real and righteous conscious people are growing more and more in numbers and unity every day. Give thanks. United We Stand. Let there be many more that get on this merry-go-around, and let it keep spinning out the ideas and possible hypothetical solutions. Who knows, maybe that hundredth monkey will realize all these wonderful positivities and potential solutions because you all put them here for posterity purposes. Maybe that monkey can make this all happen in a good foot way for the betterment of all aboard the good ship Earth.
Accolades to all you grand thinkers for all your wonderful tinkers and toys to ponder here.
From The Heart, bless.
I think we oughta ask Paul Krugman.
It's Wednesday, he's recharging his douche.
Me too.
I'm thinkin he'd say just print between zero & infinity and everything will be fine, just have everyone line up for the government cheese...kinda like what we've been doing...lol.
Could I get a -3% car loan, for like, 50 years? That seems to be the trend.
Sounds like fun.