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

To: quehubo who wrote (125402)	11/22/2009 10:19:00 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542139

I am not particularly fond of the 'we' and 'they' game, especially in a representative republic. But if you insist, I note that 'we' paid for 'your' fraudulent Iraq war...probably in excess of a trillion dollars by now. Yet you complain about something as basic as raising the level of health care for all citizens? Makes no sense at all. Either you don't understand basic concepts of democracy, or you are yearning for fascism.

To: quehubo who wrote (125402)	11/23/2009 5:32:24 AM
From: Travis_Bickle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542139

I agree with you, I'm going to end up subsidizing health insurance for someone who probably enjoys a higher standard of living than I do, given I'm a saver not a spender. A system where some people pay $30,000 a year for insurance while others pay nothing isn't sustainable.

To: quehubo who wrote (125402)	11/23/2009 7:47:38 AM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542139

One way I can see for paying for basic necessary health care, and at the same time create an environment for future health care cost control is to extend Medicare to everyone and pay for it with a new Federal consumption tax, such as sales or value added tax. This way, everybody pays something for their basic health care via the consumption tax. It further removes one of the competitive disadvantages of American based companies: the necessity to pay for the health care of their employees, unlike companies in other developed countries. Employers can still supplement Medicare for their employees, but it will be a much smaller cost. And everybody that wants can supplement their basic Medicare with private insurance out of their own pocket, as is done today.

To: quehubo who wrote (125402)	11/24/2009 1:41:44 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542139

Q, your "who pays taxes" chart compares only two variables; the percentage of the population at certain incomes and the percentage of the nation's total taxes that they pay. That simplistic comparison will always make it appear that the system is grossly unfair to the small percentage of people who pay a much higher percentage of the nation's total taxes. Most of the "it isn't fair to those who earn the money" charts are designed that way. But remember that we don't tax people, we tax dollars, so why don't they highlight the critical third variable; the amount of gross income earned at each level compared with the amount of the nation's total tax paid at that level? That should still be a disproportionate share since we have a progressive tax system but it will be dramatically less disproportionate than the binary chart you've referenced. In addition, the few charts I've seen that do show the critically important third variable use NET income versus gross income. That's misleading, however, since accounting tricks, depreciation write offs and other tax loopholes allow the very rich to reduce gross income far below their real spendable level of income. So if you happen to find a chart that uses all three variables to paint a picture of the "fairness" of the system, I'd think that would be a much better place to begin a discussion with respect to whether the basic American values that have driven our nominal tax policy for generations result in some kind of an unwarranted windfall for most of us and are grossly unfair to those of us at the very top income levels. Ed