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Pastimes : My House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (2749)	10/16/2002 4:25:02 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7689

Again, you are not reading the context. My comment followed the comment: "if one wishes to keep the gap between rich and poor at a level which will not prompt revolution and civil strife." That is the reason I was adducing for the observation that "it is important for those who are ruled to believe they are making headway from time to time. Nothing worse than an angry man holding a shovel..." I was not suggesting that the working poor had any reasonable chance of getting ahead. I did read the context. I just think high taxes keep people from getting ahead. Also I am more concerned about the absolute wealth of the poor and "working class" then I am of their wealth relative to the rich. I think the working poor do have a decent chance of getting ahead. Of course a lot of them will not do so but for many the oportunity is there if they work hard at it. The military gets about 3% of our GDP" Actually, a bit more. Thats correct. Thats why I said about. It is less then 4%. And when the economy starts picking up again it will probably go below 3. I can understand your desire not to impede investment, but certainly society requires a mechanism for alleviating human suffering, and for mitigating the most extreme exploitation. I understand the alleviating human suffering part, and would agree with the idea of support for people who really can't support themselves for some reason, but I'm not sure what specifically you are refering to when you talk about extreme exploitation. So would you favour the elimination of all income tax for a consumption tax, then...with necessaries of life having the most minimal tax attached? I'd like the fact that the cost and effort to comply with such a tax would be lower, and it would also probably help increase long term investment. I might support the idea but I am not yet 100% behind it. I don't think I agree with the idea that the overall tax burden should be highly progressive (with the rich paying not just more but a higher percentage) but I don't think it should be regessive (with the working poor or middle class paying a higher percentage then the rich). I would want something that was relativly flat. Consumption taxes tend to be regressive unless you make exceptions or lower rates for certain basic goods. But if you do that you complicate the scheme and reqire higher rates for other goods and services which encourages more effort to cheat. Also even if the consuption tax is flat the social security tax is not and a lot of federal tax money comes through the social security tax. I want the overall system to be flat not just one specific type of tax. "The fact that lower taxes help increase long term economic growth and also that it is wrong to seize a big chunk of someone's income or wealth even if they are rich." The former is not a cost benefit analysis of lower taxes but merely a simplistic distortion which ignores the drawbacks to lower taxes. For instance, with no taxes at all who would fund the police force? Thats why I say I want low taxes and not no taxes. And the latter of your statement refers to communism not capitalism. If tax rates are high you are seizing a large portion of someone income or wealth. The system may be capitalist but they still have no choice but to pay the tax or try to evade it illegally. Tim