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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (66492)	12/15/1999 12:39:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

X, trying to equate "fairness" with our current tax system is not only impossible but illogical. The current myriad of complexity built into our pathetic tax system guarantees that fairness is not a part of the equation. Is it fair, that in order to take advantage of the current tax loopholes the intelligent and wealthy, who can study and understand it's complexity, or hire someone to do it for them, have a huge advantage? Your elderly neighbors may be paying less in real estate taxes, but maybe they're paying far more in overall taxes (especially if you factor per capita income into the equation) when you consider they get hammered for simply working. Some of the best tax loopholes still available are the ones related to running a home based business. Something the elderly would be severely punished for participating in. If my neighbors were smart enough to have bought a home and lived where I just moved 30 years ago. I would say more power to them. Why would you feel better having the government take more of your neighbors money? Only three reasons come to my mind. 1. The government needs the additional revenue. 2. The government could invest and spend the money more wisely than your neighbor can. Or 3. My neighbors are not particularly likable and I want to see them suffer. I would submit that the government has all the money it needs to run an effective educational system. The problem isn't the amount of funding, but the systemic nature of waste built into our current monopolistic system. The CEO of Ford said it best in 1979. We could triple the salaries of every employee here at Ford tomorrow, but the quality of our product wouldn't change one bit. Tommorrow we could triple the salaries of teachers, administrators, and buss drivers, but the quality of education wouldn't change significantly. Because the root-cause is in the systemic nature of the system, not the amount of funding available. Perhaps if we tripled the salaries, there would be pockets of highly motivated intelligent people who would enter the field and make significant short term gains. However, eventually the system (like any completely socialistic, monopolistic system) will fall prey toward structural decay. It may take a little longer then current trends indicate, but eventually, that's what would happen. In other words, you have treated the symptom of the problem and not the real problem. The real problem is in the structure. A completely government monopolistic system (like the one we have today) eventually will resist change and create bureaucratic instruments of hierarchical relationships which will destroy the relationship between the system and the customer. That's what has happened in far too many places today. All across the land we see wonderfully educated people who work for the government in the delivery of knowledge. Yet so many feel helpless to effect meaningful change in the way that delivery takes place. Why? The system. Change the system by implementing vouchers or charter school programs and you will see significant lasting improvements in public education. Then destroy our current pathetically complex tax system, implement an across the board national sales tax and you may come close to your dream of fairness in taxation. Michael