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

To: TimF who wrote (31420)	11/10/2006 5:35:55 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541977

I don't think the government is shuffling resources from the bottom to the wealthy Neither do I. I stated the opposite. Which is why I thought you had not read my statement correctly. This is what I said: "I would much rather see the State concentrate on enhancing the economic ecosystem of the middle, than in enhancing the economic ecosystem of the top only to reshuffle a fraction of that to the bottom. The former leads to long term State health, while IMO, the latter leads to long term problems." Regarding this: Depending on exactly how you define "bulk" and "very few", I either disagree, or think that you inaccurately describe what is happening in our society. Well, the figures are a bit hard to nail down, I've seen data which varies between 25-50% of wealth in the hands of 1% of the population. I'd call 1% "very few". I agree that 50% is not yet “bulk” but give it another couple of decades and see. Something on the order of 35-40% of the population owns only 1% of the nations wealth. I'd call 35-40% a significant fraction and it is growing. It is well known that adjusted for inflation, the bottom 1/3rd is not doing so well. You might consider that the tax code is much more inclined to tax income than assets or even asset appreciation in many cases. Could this have something to do with the above trends?? And it was founded without all the class warfare and socialism lite of today. It was founded with freedom being a higher priority than it is today. Yes, under the mistaken idea that somehow this alone would ensure a good outcome. I completely fail to understand how anyone can assume that an ideal of any sort MUST work indefinitely into the future without any refinement which new data might suggest is useful. Wishes are not horses... Pick any other field of human understanding in the 1600's and ask yourself if the knowledge of that time still stands unmodified in any significant way today. What the relatively poor founding fathers of the USA did was leave a mature society where they were nearish the bottom, and establish a virgin society on a much more planar field (I'm neglecting here the fate of Native Americans of course) with the notion that freedom and hard work would build a better society. Clearly the USA has been a shining example of the virtues of their ideals, but surprise, ideology by itself does not ensure the desired outcome. If it did, Iraq would now be Paradise. The issue of wealth distribution/aggregation is entirely independent of anyone’s ideological wishes. It may well be the case that the freedom of laissez faire capitalism with protection from redistribution of wealth, just like barbaric totalitarianism produce somewhat similar results in this regard (while being very different in other ways. There is no Divine Guarantee that this is not the case. You might note that there are no prospective Governments with sufficient laissez faire policies to provide the required data, while we have had plenty of examples from the totalitarian side to collect that data. However, I think the USA already provides some useful data, and it will be interesting to follow its evolution. while an ever increasing fraction is very poor. That isn't true. If you remove all the government assistance they get at the expense of the more well off, they would qualify as very poor. No it isn't. Flat taxes, a national sales tax, or lower taxes, don't amount to "a John Gault world". What in your opinion does amount to a John Gault world? Only no taxes qualify? Republicans spend much of their political energy on trying to enable the Gault world Nonsense. They do nothing of the sort. Well, consider estate tax repeal as an example of such effort.

To: TimF who wrote (31420)	11/10/2006 6:20:50 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541977

>>Flat taxes, a national sales tax, or lower taxes, don't amount to "a John Gault world".<< Tim - I'm all for abolishing the income tax in favor of a national sales tax. I'd feel bad for people who make their living helping other people figure out what they owe the Feds each quarter or each year, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to administer and would probably result in increased revenues for the federal government without placing an undue burden on any one segment of the population. Not sure how Social Security and other payroll taxes could be handled, though. - Allen