Why are taxes related to social mobility? Unless you're suggesting actual redistribution of income from rich people to middle class people, anyway.
The only direct relation between government and social mobility in a non-socialist state really is in education spending, which I'd be all for more of, and infrastructure, which helps everyone and makes mobility easier simply by greasing the wheels of society in general. Everything else is either safety net, which has zero to do with social mobility (welfare certainly does not help you move up; it keeps you from moving up to some extent, the extent to be debated by various parties, but impossible to completely ignore), or general bureaucracy, which doesn't affect mobility one bit.
I would fully understand the argument that the rich should pay more because it is _fair_ that they do so. Not agree, at least fully, but understand. But that still has zero to do with social mobility, again unless you're suggesting actually directly redistributing significant amounts of money. I think you need to balance the 'fair' argument with the economic benefits (and I don't think I or anyone else should be making the argument that double taxation is unfair, either; that argument to the extent that it's made is not about fairness but about economics). Honestly the most logical 'fair' tax is a very high sliding scale consumption tax - think of MLB's luxury tax, for example. Add layers of sales tax that are based on total spending - this is trivial to do now, in the day of the credit card, and would have the benefit of not only moving tax to where it should be but also of allowing us to more easily affect consumer spending via tax policy.
<Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.
America produces more in industry now than at any time in the past. It just employs fewer people doing it, which is good. Those people can now be employed doing other things.
Long ago the majority of our population was employed solely in producing food. Then along came mechanized farming, and later pesticides. With pesticides one farmer could feed fifteen people. Many farmers were no longer needed. They went on to work in other sectors. This was an economic boon.
I come from the land of the ice and snow
From the rust belt where industry won't go
We're not talking about the same people.Originally Posted by Hauldren Collider
What about the manual laborers who simply cannot (for whatever reason) learn a trade? There used to be a place in society and the workforce for such people and increasingly there isn't. We (Canada shares in this problem) seem to be creating a permanent non-employable underclass.
Not everyone is like you, I and most posters at this forum. We are educated and reasonably intelligent (most of the time) with plenty of options available to us.
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
When have I ever done that?
Live in Sweden and compare it to the US. It is quite obvious if you were to actually do so. I know many people who live in other countries (even people who prefer the US for various reasons) who realize how ridiculous the US medical system is and various other measurements.
As usual, I will provide a scholarly link:
http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/wp/wp2011/wp1110.pdf
JM
Jon Miller-
I AM.CANADIAN
GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
A) Drop the illegal alien nativist BS. Open up immigration. Immigrants want to come here and have drive to make things happen unlike the slug 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. generation content Americans
B) Need to roll back regulations
c) Need to establish litigation caps
"Just puttin on the foil" - Jeff Hanson
“In a democracy, I realize you don’t need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.” - Jimmy Carter
(We should all welcome snoopy back to non-sports OT.)
Not true.
If you have a safety net, you are able to take the entrepreneurial risks that only wealthy people can normally take (they don't risk death taking, a poor person is.)
JM
Jon Miller-
I AM.CANADIAN
GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
Only while the draft is going on, and until I get frustrated enough with the moronic comments in some threads (not this one so far, hence why i'm posting in it) that I go away again
<Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.
If you have a safety net, why bother to take risks when you can just lie down on that safety net? Simplistically speaking, you're subsidizing poverty.
I come from the land of the ice and snow
From the rust belt where industry won't go
Definitely with you on a) and c), though I'm not sure how a) will necessarily fix what we are talking about here. b) is a bit to general; in some cases, no doubt, it would make sense; in others, it could (and likely would) be a ****ing disaster.
A-****ing-men.
"My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
"The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud
I was going to do that.
Good to see you snoopy.
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
ftfy
And yet people in poor countries tend to be vastly more entrepreneurial than those in wealthy countries.
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
:(){ :|:& };:
That is absolutely incorrect. The people taking those sorts of risks aren't qualifying for welfare, and even if they take a risk (say, an investment or taking a risky job or something) they generally have something to turn to to make money in need - for example, if I lost everything doing something stupid, I could easily work in retail and do fairly well for myself. In general, safety nets keep people from striving up, because they don't have to - if you HAVE to work to get food, you will. More importantly, though, safety nets from the government are a lot easier to rely on for a long time than more localized safety nets. If you were starving, temporarily, and couldn't get welfare, your family would probably feed you - but you'd feel really bad about it, right? You'd want to get back to work so you could make up for what they gave you, and pay it forward or whatever. Often not the case for the government, where there's not someone you personally know who a) makes you feel guilty and b) actually suffers for your need.
Further, a lot of the safety net is not direct money (ie, welfare/afdc) but is things like medicaid - which does not in any way contribute to social mobility, and solely serves to keep people alive who otherwise probably wouldn't be alive (as well as handling some of the costs our hospitals would otherwise pass on to the wealthier patients anyway, for indigent patients).
<Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.
Taking risks is exactly how Mitt Romney made his bed of money.
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
:(){ :|:& };:
Yes. I was countering reg's claim that people with a safety net don't take risks because they don't need to. We see rich people (businessmen such as Romney) taking risks all the time, despite the fact that they could just sit back and be rich.
Ever hear of the dot.com bust youngling?
We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced these murderers. - Martin Luther King Jr. Eulogy for the Martyred Children (1963)
It all comes out to how much total tax you pay. For those who believe in a progressive income tax there is no problem with taxing investment income as it just increases the total tax of those with high incomes. It really doesn't matter how you increase the tax for those with high incomes.
We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced these murderers. - Martin Luther King Jr. Eulogy for the Martyred Children (1963)
I'm really amused that the people who are most infuriated with the current deficit are the people who care the least about how little tax people who can afford to pay tax actually pay.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
It doesn't really count as risk when failure just means you'll have to settle for tens of millions not hundreds.
EVERYONE should pay more. Every ****ing one. Some people significantly more than others, but everyone is undertaxed in this country.
"My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
"The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud
Why not just make the government smaller and solve it without stealing more money?
I come from the land of the ice and snow
From the rust belt where industry won't go
Why not do both, because just doing one or the other isn't going the fix the deficit.
"My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
"The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud
Guynemer thinks opposition to taxes is nothing but stinginess, and not the fact that taxes dampen economic growth.
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
:(){ :|:& };:
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
There's far more to life, liberty, and happiness than GDP.
Last I checked, the US' economic growth outpaced Canada's...except our government isn't ridiculously in debt, doesn't carry obscene deficits, and Canadians are healthier and happier.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
Any other amazing insights into my psyche, Kreskin?
"My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
"The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud
Even a die hard liberal must admit that government will inevitably grow if left to its own devices, as people in any given department will always want more money for whatever their branch does - it's not even wrong of them, really; it's their job to advocate for their cause. Occasionally you must reduce the programs that exist, because creep must occur, and their will be too much spending on some programs.
Honestly, the simplest solution might be to have a twenty year limit on ANY spending, and require a full reconsideration of all budget items from scratch every twenty years or so. But that would require actual work on the part of our congressmen and women =/
<Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.
This is something you've said yourself in the past. I'm not doing a mind-reading here. If I am misremembering or mischaracterizing, I apologize.
Any other amazing insights into my psyche, Kreskin?
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
:(){ :|:& };:
I doubt it would work. We've seen what happens when Congress sets deadlines for itself. It finds a way around them.
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
:(){ :|:& };:
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