posted
As expected, no bill for 1.8 million abortions, or what is asked for embryonic stem cell research, or what we have to invest to keep killing old people illegal.
Yesterday I was pondering the impact on having a choice about when your parents die on society. On bereavement leave from work places. Between Christmas and New years would be ideal because you see them one last time for the holidays, but they aren't on the new tax year. [/dystopian irony]
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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So far as I know, embryonic stem cell research is less than a billion dollars. And the government doesn't pay for abortions (at least I hope not)....I guess I don't get where your first paragraph links with the subject. Elaborate?
Eurip -
Ugh. If it were me, I'd enact a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts to aggressive shrink the budget and the national debt over the next ten years. I'd take a look at a national sales tax, a small one, say a half percent, on everything purchased in the US except for what you need to survive, in other words, you won't have to pay an extra tax on bread and water. Let's see what that does as far as revenue and then we'll look at raising it or lowering it as necessary.
Fix social security. Raise the retirement age and lower benefits. People shouldn't be expecting SS benefits to support them in their old age, it was never meant to. It was meant to supplement elderly people's income so they didn't live in poverty. We need to be focusing people on saving for retirement, not depending on government hand outs to support them in their old age. And on that note, people are living much longer than when the program was first concieved, meaning that money has to last longer, so let's cut that time back to what it was originally intended to cover.
Then we need to cut spending across the board. Cut foreign military aid, cut domestic military spending, by tenth right off the top, at the very least. Cut pork, cut tax giveaways, cut farm subsidies.
Find a way to fix healthcare in this country, and do it fast. The faster we all get on healthcare, the faster we can cut billions upon billions of dollars of waste from our economy.
We need to make the tax code leaner and easier to read, we need to cut spending, and in the short term, increase income. Let's get back on track before we spend more on anything else. Once we fix our finances, we can start to tackle the myriad of issues facing our country domestically.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Personally, I'd like to see SS go from something you get becuase you paid in to something you get because you've fallen below an income level and need it.
I intend to not need SS when I retire. But life happens, and nothing I do now can guarantee I'll have enough money to last me the rest of my life. My mom worked with a gal whose Dad headed up a company and had tons of money. But he got Alzheimers young and was in a nursing home for decades. The family is almost bankrupt now because of the medical bills. They thought they had enough money to be ok, but life happened.
I'd rather see SS used as a safety net to help the people who really need it. Like I learned in civics back in highschool.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lyr, I have a bit of a radical approach to tax; I'm laissez-faire capitalist and Objectivist (the first is a corollary the latter). Taxes frankly are immoral according to my system of morality; as are the many socialist benefits and wars they fund. Specifically, they are in conflict with our right to property. In an ideal free society, government services would be provided to citizens who pay for them voluntarily.
Of course, this will not happen any time soon. But that's where I'm coming from.
Since most of your changes are headed in that direction, I tend to agree with you.
Have you seen that documentary investigating the legality of income tax? There's actually no law which requires you to pay income tax, as such a law would technically be unconstitutional. It's just that the IRS will come knocking on your door if you don't.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I don't mind income tax at the moment. Personally I've seen enough evidence to believe a national sales tax would be a better solution, but taxes are the price we pay for a heck of a lot of benefits.
I've read enough history, of the US specifically, to know what happens when the government sits back and let's anything happen. It's that kind of lack of government help that caused the Depression. The rich, if given the opportunity, will amass so much wealth to themselves that regular people can't afford to buy the things the rich sell, and we collapse.
There've been taxes for at least the last 2,000 years, and they don't bother me so much, I just wish they were collected differently, and spent more wisely.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Objectivism doesn't have all the answers to providing government services in the absence of mandatory taxation. If revolution was declared today and America was an Objectivist nation tomorrow, it would most certainly collapse. But the right to property is a corollary of the objectively defined morality which is at the core of the philosophy. I wouldn't advocate abandoning tax any time in the near future, but that is the ideal I think we should work to.
As for the Depression, that is an area of history you're more familiar with than I am. But I do know that the lack of government involvement was not the only factor; these things can't be considered in a vacuum. And history likewise abounds with examples of government involvement resulting in economic ruin.
quote:I just wish they were collected differently, and spent more wisely.
posted
Euripides: having a philosophy is all well and good, but buying into ignorant lies is not.
There is an amendment to the Constitution that specifically allows the federal gov't to collect Income Tax. There are laws that have been passed to allow such taxation: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000001----000-.html (I just went straight to Cornell's US Code repository and clicked the obvious link).
It starts:
quote:There is hereby imposed on the taxable income of— (1) every married individual (as defined in section 7703) who makes a single return jointly with his spouse under section 6013, and (2) every surviving spouse (as defined in section 2 (a)), a tax determined in accordance with the following table:
And goes on in the same vein. It takes a real force of will to say that's not a law requiring you to pay income tax. If you want, I can dig up the laws which make it a crime to not pay.
Here's a nice quotation from the 7th circuit on the issue
quote:For the record, we note that the following beliefs, which are stock arguments of the tax protester movement, have not been, nor ever will be, considered 'objectively reasonable' in this circuit: "(1) the belief that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was improperly ratified and therefore never came into being; "(2) the belief that the Sixteenth Amendment is unconstitutional generally; "(3) the belief that the income tax violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment; "(4) the belief that the tax laws are unconstitutional; "(5) the belief that wages are not income and therefore are not subject to federal income tax laws; "(6) the belief that filing a tax return violates the privilege against self-incrimination; and "(7) the belief that Federal Reserve Notes do not constitute cash or income.
Btw, there's considerable debate about the Depression. Similar financial upsets had resulted in much shorter (and less damaging) periods of recession; the main identifiable difference is a vast increase in government social spending, particularly make-work. There's a strong argument that by creating a perverse incentive to engage in less productive activities, the government prolonged and deepened the problems of the depression.
And even if you don't buy that, the situations which lead to the initial causes of the depression were not created by a free market, but mostly by currency manipulation attempts from the US Central Bank as authorized by the US Government. Interest rates were kept artificially low in an attempt to prop up the British Pound, which led to an entirely expectable overvalued stock market boom.
If government monetary policy had been kept in check, the great depression would not have happened. People stretched too far for riches because the government created an artificial but unsustainable situation where that made sense. It was not a lack of government involvement, it was too much.
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posted
I'm sure the fact that there was little to no government oversight in the stock market and a lot of shady deals were going on didn't help matters.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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Nope, but those don't cause waves of bankruptcy to sweep the nation. Extremely overvalued stock markets that crash cause waves of bankruptcy to sweep the nation, and the primary cause of the incredible overvaluing was reckless government manipulation of interest rates (granted, macroeconomics was not as well developed then, so the government at least likely didn't believe that its manipulation of interest rates would have such affects on the stock market, but that doesn't make it any less the primary cause of the overvaluation).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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If you want, I can dig up the laws which make it a crime to not pay.
Not being snarky or anything, but could you please? I was under the impression that while yes, there is legislation stipulating income tax, the tax code explicitly states that it is "voluntary."
And just so that those who disagree with me on income tax (everyone, maybe) don't write off Objectivism, the documentary has nothing to do with the philosophy, and my reasoning on the morality of taxation is independent of the legal arguments put forward in it.
Edit to add: I stand corrected on my statement that the law would be unconstitutional. I overstepped my bounds; I should have said that I know of no legislation which makes income tax evasion illegal.
quote:Whoever, with intent to defraud the United States— . . . Refuses to pay any tax imposed by this chapter, or attempts in any manner to evade or defeat the tax or the payment thereof . . . shall, for each such offense, be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
quote:Originally posted by Euripides: And just so that those who disagree with me on income tax (everyone, maybe) don't write off Objectivism...
I think there are more people who agree with you on tax than agree with you on Objectivism, so you're probably safe there.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Thanks fugu. I regret making the statement without checking the source material properly; I thought there was a legal loophole somewhere (it was not my argument against tax).
quote:Originally posted by twinky:
quote:Originally posted by Euripides: And just so that those who disagree with me on income tax (everyone, maybe) don't write off Objectivism...
I think there are more people who agree with you on tax than agree with you on Objectivism, so you're probably safe there.
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