toldailytopic: Flat tax? Sales tax? Which might be a better option than the tradition

[chrysostom]

:doh: Yeah right. And we want death panels too. Brilliant.

You mean to say Catholics hate contraception, they want to
bury us alive in Catholic babies and have the taxpayers pay for
them. Its all a devious Papal plot, I tell you!

"every .... is sacred, every .... is great. If a .... is wasted, God
gets quite irate!"

now we know what is really bothering you

 

[Ecumenicist]

now we know what is really bothering you

If there was a "tongue in cheek" smilie, I would have used it.

 

[chrysostom]

If there was a "tongue in cheek" smilie, I would have used it.

you smile?

 

[Ecumenicist]

you smile?

 

[chrysostom]

grin and bear it

Obama is going to get a lot of republicans elected

 

[P8ntrDan]

Do you think the gov't can run on zero revenue?

Or do you think the gov't is going to raise money in some way other than taxes?

Bake Sale.

 

[The Graphite]

where does it say in the Bible that you need a Bible basis for everything that you do?

Thank you so much for so clearly abdicating and conceding the argument! You have no biblical basis for what you support.

The answer to your question is, of course, "No where."

Because, we don't necessarily need a biblical basis for doing things that are amoral. Do I wear my blue shirt, or my khaki shirt? Shall we consult Zephaniah? Of course not.

However, on matters if right and wrong, which certainly includes how to appropriately administer government and criminal justice, the only standard of right and wrong is God's holy scripture.

Or will you now have us believe that the structure of how you set up civil government is a totally amoral issue, and therefore we can set up any governmental system we personally prefer?

 

[Trumpetfolker]

@ tico

@ tico

Taxes are paid to cover the cost of government.
The cost of a government increases legitimately as the constituency of that government demands services.
It, also, increases illegitimately as the positions of government are used to distribute favors.
Legitimate costs of government are increased as assets of the constituency increase in criticality and vulnerability.
In other words, when a constituent puts an asset together which is very enviable, it is critical, and a corresponding service of protection is required to close the vulnerability.

The cost of protecting a vulnerable critical can be so high that the owner of the asset can not make profits fast enough to maintain it.
If the owner of that asset can get the.government to bear some of the cost for him, that cost is delivered to the rest of the constituency.
In other words, constituents who can't make enough profit to stay viable in a laissez faire economy must get rid of the laissez faire economy by getting the government to confiscate property of other constituents for no other reason than to keep a dying constituent alive.
A constituent can put together an asset large enough to provoke envy beyond the border of his government. Thus, criticality and vulnerability can increase necessary protective services beyond the capacity of any local government to sustain.
Thus, governments with more power must be used for confiscative action in order to pass the death of one constituent on to the rest. Do this often enough, and all the constituents become too dead to support anything.

Pr 14:31 He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.

Pr 22:16 He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.

Pr 28:3 A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.

The whole business of lobbyists is to get men in government to pass some of the death of the constituents that sent them on to the rest of the constituency.
Lobbyists are an expense that the poor can't afford. Therefore, it is not the poor who are passing their inviability (proneness for death) on to the rest through the government.
The poor can not afford to present viable candidates for public office. Therefore, the men who are deciding who will get services from the government do not owe allegiance to the voters.

Value Added Taxation can be a way to restore a laissez faire economy. By VAT, all the cost of the government required to protect a constituent's assets is passed on to the purchaser of that constituents product. Therefore, the government must provide an index by which the cost of the protection of an industry is presented.
For example, the cost of protecting an airline is different from the cost of protecting a radio station. If a person wanted to run an airline, he would buy a license (or concession, or franchise) the cost of the government made necessary by the number of planes he wanted to operate. He would pay his fair share of government by passing the cost of his license on to his patronage.
If the protection of a constituents assets exceeds the ability of that constituent and an unconfiscative government to protect, and, if that asset is lost, then, the constituent but dies economically. If the constituent wants insurance against that, the price of the insurance must include the cost of the increase of government required by the assets of the insurer.
The insurer has to get his license (or concession, or franchise) the same way the airline guy did.
That's the nature of laissez faire.

 

[chrysostom]

one of the arguments against the sales tax is that seniors who have paid income taxes all their life will now have pay taxes again on what they consume
which doesn't sound fair
but
who is responsible for the situation we are in now?
who is borrowing from their grandchildren?

 

[kmoney]

Here is an article about having a progressive tax.

Link

....

From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1% of America TRIPLED their after-tax percentage of our nation's total income, while the bottom 90% have seen their share drop over 20%.

That's a TRILLION dollars a year, one-seventh of America's total income, that went to the richest 1% while 90% of us went backwards.

But, many people ask, don't the very rich pay most of the taxes? Just federal income tax. And they pay less than 23% of their incomes in federal income tax. If state and local taxes, social security tax, and excise taxes are included, the lowest-earning half of America pays 24% of their incomes in taxes.

But isn't taxing the rich a form of socialism? Since 1980, if the average working family had received compensation based on its relative contribution to America's prosperity, it would be making an average of $45,000 a year instead of $35,000. Through 30 years of deregulation and financial maneuvering, the richest 1% have taken $10,000 a year from every American family. That's socialism in reverse.

But doesn't "income mobility" explain and mitigate the apparent inequities? In his book, "Intellectuals and Society" (Basic Books, 2009), Thomas Sowell claims that statements about inequality are "confusing statistical categories with flesh-and-blood human beings."

Sowell relies heavily on a 2007 U.S. Treasury Department report about income mobility that states "Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005." But he ignores the fact that nearly 9 out of 10 of those in the top 1% remained in the top quintile of earners over those ten years. They may have dropped out of the most elite 1% group, but they remained close. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

But that isn't even the main point. More significantly, our economy allows a tiny percentage of us to take an inordinate amount of money from society, at an increasing rate. Some people may have dropped out of this elite group, but those who have moved in are making even more! The result is a system in which one man (hedge fund manager John Paulson in 2007) can make more money than the total of the salaries of every police officer, firefighter, and public school teacher in Chicago, while another man stands hungry in the cold. And any attempt to fix the system is called socialism.

.....

:think: