Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (10553)	2/1/2006 6:22:06 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541778

When you think about it non-incrementally, income taxes inherently redistributes up given that there used to be no income tax at all and everything is up from there. That is one way of looking at it, and one that makes some sense, but not the way I would look at it. I would consider any combination of taxes and transfer program(s) to be redistributionist, and the bigger the combination is the more it is redistributionist. I don't see a shrink in the program as being anything but a reduction is redistribution. If you want to look at taxes in isolation from spending than taxes are also redistributionist in the sense that they redistribute money from the taxpayer to the government. Not the usual usage of the term but technically a correct one IMO. I think the term works best, and has its most clear application to, programs where there is an attempt to make one group richer at the expense of another by taking and then distributing wealth. Its esp. clear when the program contains its own separate tax, but even if it doesn't obviously a portion of the general tax revenue is re-distributed by any transfer program. Tim