Realworld @ 91

I like your thinking. I generally prefer direct subsidies to tax breaks for investment. I think they are more focused and easier to end. I also agree that the wealth disparity is a serious issue, so since we are planning utopia, let’s have a tax on capital.

I’ve pondered for several decades (off and on) what we should tax, what we should subtract from the economy. Reading this thread has inspired me to consider something I said recently along with things being said in this thread.

I generally argue government should protect our freedom and in some cases empower us (education system, banking system, etc.) and govern bad or unwanted behaviors.

With regard to taxes the key fundamental question is “What do we want to tax?” Is it it consumption, investment, profits, all commercial activity (including employee pay)?

If we are to be free then perhaps a tax should be on something we want to govern, something harmful.

Maybe we should tax/govern the thing this blog has highlighted for some time (in discussions on the economy and money) — wealth disparity.

If you tax corporate wealth you harm productivity. If you tax the use of resources with a consumption tax you tell people NOT to consume, not to use, not to produce.

However, if you tax ‘excess personal income’, then you strike at the heart of the imbalance in wealth.

Is it equal treatment under the law to tax someone who makes $30 million a year, but not someone who makes $30 thousand a year? NO.

So, how do you do it?

I say we should all pay the same tax rate, but we should also provide a basic tax deduction (or perhaps set of deductions) so that cost of living isn’t taxed.

Example: income (of any kind) taxed at 35% with a deduction per person of $30,000.

What would be the revenue to the government? You’d have to adjust the numbers to ensure the government received enough revenue.

One would think that a 0% corporate tax rate would be good for business. The only problem would be where individuals self-incorporate to hid personal income or where people use corporate assets for personal use, also to hide personal wealth.

Do we really want to tax corporate activities? Not if we want commercial prosperity.

Do we want to tax poor people who live paycheck to paycheck? No.

What do we want to tax? That which causes society a problem should be hindered.

US Government estimate of cost of Iraq and Afghanistan wars: $2.4 trillion.

Amount of Social Security surplus bush inherited from Clinton: $2 trillion.

Honorable mention for this travesty goes to Congressional republicans, Alan Greenspan, US corporate media, and of course the 5 members of the US Supreme Court who foisted the bush disasters upon us.

… and if you want universal health care — we’d have the mother of all battles.

Here’s the thing: US Government programs in health care currently in existence already cost the same per capita as universal health care in Canada without providing service to all. I can’t say that the Canadian system is perfect, or even “great” – there is plenty of room for improvement – but it is certainly a “good” system. Why couldn’t universal health care in the US happen using existing funds plus startup/transition costs? What benefit to society does the 40% profit magin in health insurance serve? Sadly, I think the answer is politcal more than practical.

The current state of health care makes me uneasy when I visit friends and family in the US.

- Miles

p.s.: As a side note, one of the greatest pressures that the Canadian health care system faces is having a neighbour to the south where a doctor can easily make three times as much money for the same or fewer hours/week of work (not that doctors here are poorly paid).

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
Thomas Jefferson

Our current leaders have done a wonderful job!!

CitizenE @ 153
Keep it simple keep it sweet. People will understand………

Natural Selection, Corporate T(r)eason and “Executive OIL”

Sweet and simple, pro-war, anti war, we’re ripping off our children and grandchildren. Period.

James Joyce @ 146

Dodd has more knowledge of this time than he is letting on. His dad was the US German Ambassodor, remembers Helmet, executed by the NAZIS for his dissent and opposition to Hitler..

Dodd’s father, Paul, wasn’t German Ambassador. He was the Executive Attorney during the Nuremburg Trials, convicting a score of high-ranking Nazis and Concentration Camp officers for War Crimes.

Ironically, after he became Senator and served two terms, he was defeated by Prescott Bush in the next election that swept Ike into office.

My stupidity. However I still contend C. Dodd knows a hell of a lot more than he is letting on about how close we are to loosing the inherhent restrictions put on Government, by our Constitution, and how it is being systmatically undermined, under the color of law. Thanks for the “hockey puck” hitting my brain!!!!!

Dodd has more knowledge of this time than he is letting on. His dad was the US German Ambassodor, remembers Helmet, executed by the NAZIS for his dissent and opposition to Hitler..

Dodd’s father, Paul, wasn’t German Ambassador. He was the Executive Attorney during the Nuremburg Trials, convicting a score of high-ranking Nazis and Concentration Camp officers for War Crimes.

Ironically, after he became Senator and served two terms, he was defeated by Prescott Bush in the next election that swept Ike into office.

No doubt the tax code has a classist bias to it, but the Iraq war spending has something far more pernicious, which all of us need to consider. Americans as a whole whine a lot about their taxes, but to add to the world wide havoc we have created by our invasion and occupation of Iraq–the various and unending human tragedies–we as a nation are pinning the cost onto our children and grandchildren at interest. It is obscene.
Why the Democrats don’t demand as a rider to any war funding, a special across the board progressive income tax, which exempts soldiers and their families, and places a special value added tax on war profiteers, is beyond me. Let Bush veto it. Bring it before the nation at large; let the chips fall where they may. You want an effective anti war movement; go after people’s pocket books. In America, money talks; everything else is a heap of bs.

MLK and civil rights was all about money?? Money perpetuate BS, in the face of a reasoned merit based approach.

Tobacco money perpetuated the myth that butts do not cause cancer. Merit based reasoned common sense, disproved this claim that claimed the lives of million of Ameruicans unknowingly addicted to nicotine by the intentional and willful manipulation of the facts and disinformation, Sounds like Iraq and WMD, execept in this instance hey were caught fabricating uina much quicker period of time. And little is said. I’m not very religious, but Christ did use simple stories to make simple points. Keep it simple keep it sweet. People will understand………

Natural Selection, Corporate T(r)eason and “Executive OIL”

JF @ 114

OT – MSNBC.com Breaking News

Georgia top court orders underage-sex youth sentenced 10 years be freed

This is the Genarlow Wilson case.

thank goodness!
what an obscenity that case was.

Definitely. The judge did good! I heard during the Clinton impeachment from people in the know that many kids don’t consider oral sex as “Sex”…and that in many areas in the South it’s the preferred act as it isn’t “scr**wing”. There was one town where, despite the high number of Christian evangelicals there was a gonorrhea epidemic amongst churchgoing HS kids. It was scandalous, at least to their parents, who had no clue in the change of social mores.