Originally posted by KazetNagorraDon't the poor also benefit from the activities of government, in fact the justification is usually that the poor need the help.
Again, I'm not advocating taxing the rich out of jealousy or spite. People are free to do whatever they want with their disposable income. The main issue is that the tax is not only required for the good of society, but the rich also benefit as I have explained earlier. Do the rich not benefit from better infrastructure, lower crime, better labou ...[text shortened]... ety is far, far more inefficient than government as there is little incentive to reduce waste.
One group of beneficiaries gets direct financial aid, welfare, tax credits, negative taxation, and another group provides the resources to do these things. You can argue all day that somehow they benefit tangentially, however these benefits can't be measured.
On a philosophical level, if a society makes the moral case that taking from those who have and giving to those that don't is a moral action, it isn't much of a stretch for the poor to just eliminate the government as middle man.
Originally posted by KazetNagorraA VAT tax, or even a retail sales tax would be better than progressive individual income taxes.
[b]Actually, I favor business taxes over personal income taxes, or other forms of direct taxation (See Wealth of Nations, and original Constitutional prohibitions on direct taxation)
You are right, VAT is too low in the US. It's 19% here, and 25% in Sweden. VAT is a nice and efficient method of taxing, however you also need to redistrubute income ...[text shortened]... onal representation, which makes government much more accountable for what they do.[/b]
The problem is that government loves the power to manipulate and socially engineer via the tax code, and I couldn't countenance getting a VAT or sales tax without first repealing the 16th amendment.
You assert as if it is universally accepted, "however you also need to redistrubute income to maximize wealth". Redistribution is only accomplished by force. Redistribution is theft. You can make all the pragmatic arguments of the good it does, but they are all "the end justifies the means".
If I earned it, it's mine. If a multi billionaire earned it, it's his. Society has no claim on the earnings of others. Once the premise is accepted that to take from those who have excess and give to those in need by forced redistribution, there is no limit to the power of government to confiscate. The endgame is Zimbabwe, Cuba or the former Soviet Union.
Why do the ultra wealthy continue to work, produce, and earn? Bill Gates could have quit decades ago, bought an island and ruled as a benevolent dictator. Gates and others with great wealth recognize that they accumulated it by serving people, and they enjoy continuing to do just that.
Gates funds several philanthropic ventures that dwarf what he pays in taxes. And I don't care and have nothing to say about whatever excesses in which he decides to indulge. It's his money, and if he didn't contribute a dime, he'd still be doing more good with it than the government does with the portion they steal and redistribute.
Originally posted by no1marauderIt has the advantage of reaching anyone that buys goods or services, and it doesn't require a lot of personal record keeping, and invasive enforcement by government.
It's a consumption tax. Lower income people spend a higher proportion of their income and save less than higher income people (by necessity). Therefore, they effectively pay a higher rate; hence, the VAT is regressive.
No comes the conflict. On the one hand, the progressive tax redistributionist folks tell us the rich spend too much on junk they don't need. Then in conflict they say that a consumption tax is unfair to poor people who spend more of what they have, and that the rich will avoid consumption taxes. Government ought to benefit all, and all ought to have a stake in paying for services. When we can vote for someone else to pay for services we receive, we've gone way too far. The class warfare in American politics is evidence enough for me that we've gone way too far already.
Then there is the matter of incentives. If the poor man has to pay some taxes, and as he gets richer his tax burden is lighter, there is an incentive to work harder and smarter and get rich.
On the other hand, if as you become richer, the government grabs an ever bigger share of your earnings, the incentive is to back off and be content where you are, going to the mail box for your check, and getting the EITC at refund time.
Originally posted by whodeyYou make a really major point here that deserves repetition.
So if I were to want to give the children of Bangladesh a donation with the government as the Middle man only about 9 cents on the dollar would go to them. The rest goes God knows where.
Just like Social Security the rues is that the money is to go where it should. Never mind where the money actually goes. It is much like the TARP money recently dished ...[text shortened]... ernmental position. In fact, perhaps it is why they favored him. After all, he is one of them.
"It robs the giver of the feeling of giving and it robs the recipient of the gratitude of recieving the gift."
Governments are not compassionate. People are. Compassion is not stealing from the rich to provide for the poor. Compassion is displayed by people giving voluntarily of their own money, not being coerced to give by government.
Originally posted by KazetNagorraMy objection to Social Security is that it never was honest, and still is making promises it can't keep.
So your objection to social security is merely that it is not implemented efficiently enough? Again, the electoral system and the resulting lack of accountability is to blame.
It is a fraud!
Originally posted by no1marauderYou mean that those who are beneficiaries of government entitlements don't have to be grateful because government does the stealing for them?
Your rants regarding these issues are devoid of facts and disingenous.
People who receive entitlements shouldn't feel any more "grateful" than those who are able to amass great wealth because of the rules put in place by governments.
Originally posted by ScriabinI see your argument, that since taxation is legal, it can't be theft because theft is illegal.
Your point is not the one I was addressing. You raise an entirely reasonable, but different issue.
The Courts and the IRS consider any income you get to be taxable – regardless of whether or not it came from lawful sources. It won’t matter if you got your money from selling drugs, prostitution, gambling, or whatever. If you make money (however you make i ...[text shortened]... urisprudence, particularly with respect to the limits of state and local regulatory power.
In a purely legal sense that is true. We're addressing not only legal but moral issues here, and whether legal or not some taxation may be argued to be immoral, and so theft.
Yes the IRS doesn't care where income is derived. That has created another industry known as money laundering. You may find it hard to believe but the courts have ruled that drug dealers don't have to declare their income, as it amounts to a confession, whereas a factory rat must confess to his income via a tax return.
Confiscation of illegal income may be sympathetically appealing to those of us who disapprove of the illegal activity. Questioning the morality of the prohibition isn't out of order. The thread is on libertarianism which generally doesn't approve of prohibitions which don't violate the rights of another.
I agree on the imprtance of the current status and view of the Takings Clause, where prior to the recent SCOTUS decision, the taking had to be for a direct project of the government (road, city building, etc.) whereas in the Connecticut case the city took land and resold it to a commercial developer. In general, I think the Takings Clause has always been somewhat abused, and now it borders on tyranny.
The common thread in all of this is the tendency to use pragmatism as justification for law. The end can never justify the means.
Evil or good stand on their own, moral or immoral, and many immoral and evil things have had the force of the law behind them. Hundreds of millions of people in just the 20th century where murdered by their own governments. Legality was not in question, but morality was. Besides those murdered, millions have been enslaved, again a question not of legality but of morality. Evil is evil even when it is legal.
Originally posted by ScriabinGood. Then you agree with me that evil is not just unpleasantness or inconvenience. That trivializes it.
see http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Evil for etymology of the word:
The modern English word "evil" (Old English, yfel) and its current living cognates, such as the German Übel, are widely considered to come from a Proto-Germanic reconstructed form *Ubilaz, comparable to the Hittite huwapp-, ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European form *wap- and ...[text shortened]... which do not hesitate to discuss it among other evils as something humans cannot avoid.
Evil may in fact be legal and still be evil.
Originally posted by normbenignNo, I simply am able to use the common figure of speech 'a necessary evil' in the way it is normally used, which has nothing to do with what you are trying to turn it into. I already gave you a convenient substitute but you prefer to blather on about evil, as though Satan were in charge of inland revenue. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps she is ... But I don't like futile Humpty Dumpty conversations; please continue without me.
You equate things you don't like, are unpleasant with evil.
Evil is much more. Evil is morally reprehensible. It is violating basic human rights. Theft is evil. Not being polite may be not nice, but it isn't evil.