Al Sharpton - We Need to Pay Our Share

[Berzerker]

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone.

I thought Jesus was/is God.

[Berzerker]

Dom -

They don't choose Libertarianism because the system works, they choose it because its the best way for the greedy bastards to get even richer. And I say to HELL with that.

Gee, another mind reader. I chose libertarianism because I despise hypocrisy, and it is hypocritical to complain about being mugged on the street while asking politicians to mug your neighbors and call the theft "taxes". If stealing is wrong, it doesn't become right simply because the thieves outnumber the victims. And I sure as hell won't support stealing, "legal" or not. It has nothing to do with my personal wealth since I was a libertarian when I was homeless and when I was not. Either you believe in freedom or you don't, and claiming to believe in freedom only to pervert the meaning of the word to accomodate an anti-freedom ideology is dishonest.

In other countries where the Communists ARE the poor, they ARE starving.

They don't live under libertarian systems either.

[Dom Pedro II]

Berzerker - Sorry, perhaps I should've been more specific... the leadership of the Libertarian Party.

I was at a Libertarian training camp that they tried to pass off as a business education program and in it the guy actually said "Helping other people is bad." And one of the guy in this group was the Libertarian candidate for NJ and he drove home the same point...

I know there are Libertarian VOTERS out there who believe in it because it works.

And if you read my other post, you'll note that I believe in many of the Libertarian ideals even to extremes the Libertarians themselves don't suggest. I just don't like the motives of the leadership. From what I saw, I don't see any reason why they would uphold any of the principles other than the ones that will make them richer. But they ARE politicians, so what are we to expect.


And I think you took my earlier statement about Communists in other countries being poor out of context. I wasn't saying this in order to justify Communism, but rather that when you're sitting in a Lexus and you demand more money out of your own piggish greed, and you're starving in the streets, its two entirely different things.

Obviously, if they lived under a Libertarian.. or nearer to Libertarian system then what they have, they'd be better off.

[Berzerker]

Dom -

IAnd I think you took my earlier statement about Communists in other countries being poor out of context. I wasn't saying this in order to justify Communism, but rather that when you're sitting in a Lexus and you demand more money out of your own piggish greed, and you're starving in the streets, its two entirely different things.

Never said you were trying to justify communism, I read your posts and you aren't a communist. Just pointing out that the conditions in despotic regimes are not an indictment of libertarianism.

[Ben Kenobi]

I thought Jesus was/is God.

He is. The person calling him 'Good teacher' does not understand who Jesus is, hence Jesus clarifies, "don't call me good unless you think I am God. "

[Dom Pedro II]

Never said you were trying to justify communism, I read your posts and you aren't a communist. Just pointing out that the conditions in despotic regimes are not an indictment of libertarianism.

Never said they were, I was responding to what yavoon said about Communists being poor, and I said not in this country. In other countries, yes. Just stating a fact with no insinuations intended.

[Dom Pedro II]

He is. The person calling him 'Good teacher' does not understand who Jesus is, hence Jesus clarifies, "don't call me good unless you think I am God. "

And boy was THAT guy in for a surprise!

[DanS]

you pay more, you get more... the money the rich shell out help uphold a system that benefits them... and the poor... well, not so much. more like they're paying to support a system that represses them. The cops come to your house a lot faster if you live in one part of Englewood than in another... you're kids get a much better education at Bergen Academy (which is public) than at Ridgefield Park High... now, of course, you know not of the locations, but I hope you get the idea...

You pay more, you get more. Precisely.

The obvious answer is to have them pay into the system such that the government views them as a bread and butter constituency. Otherwise, you do have the Brazil problem that you detail.

[Berzerker]

Obiwan -

He is. The person calling him 'Good teacher' does not understand who Jesus is, hence Jesus clarifies, "don't call me good unless you think I am God. "

Jesus didn't say "call me good only if you think I'm God", he said:

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone."

Jesus was pointing out the inappropriateness of calling him good when only God is good. The question Jesus posed was a challenge to the student's presumption that Jesus was good, and the second part explains why the presumption is false, because "God alone" is good.

[Dr Strangelove]

Re: Al Sharpton - We Need to Pay Our Share

Originally posted by Berzerker
Of taxes. Now, why do these liberals who keep saying this want some people to pay "their share" of taxes while exempting so many other people from paying their share?
Yeah, you make $100,000 a year so your " share" is ~$50,000 or more, but if you make $15,000, your share is $0. Hmm... so much for paying our "share"...

This is a bogus, hypothetical situation. The tax on a $100,000 income is no where near $50,000.

[lightblue]

Considering that the distribution of wealth in most western countries consists of a very small hyper wealthy upper class, a slightly bigger rich class, a majority of people who can get by and significant number of people who struggle to provide their families with basic necessities.

This taxation proposal thing would result in the majority of the population being disadvantaged for the few compared to the current status. I'd suggest looking at what happened in the UK after the attempted introduction of the Poll Tax in 80's to see the probable outcome of any such action. And I'd wager this would be on a far greater scale. Chegitz might get his rise of the proletariat...

[Berzerker]

Strangelove -

This is a bogus, hypothetical situation. The tax on a $100,000 income is no where near $50,000.

And you have a medical degree? Do you understand what the word "hypothetical" means? A "hypothetical" tax rate doesn't need to be the actual tax rate, just hypothetical. Besides, this was what Al Sharpton was advocating - a %50 tax rate for rich people, so the "hypothetical" is relevant once he defines "rich" to include people making $100,000. Furthermore, you obviously missed the symbol ~ which means "about" or "roughly". And you're wrong anyway, Federal, state, and local taxes are ~ %50 on most "rich" people now if not more.

edit: And Sharpton wants that %50 tax rate to be the federal income tax rate, so that doesn't even include state and local taxes, federal sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc...

[Giant_Squid]

David (in response to something way back on page two that you've probably forgotten by now):

And I agree. Which is why I don't insist that everyone should pay the same dollar amount in taxes (well, again, other than $0, anyway). What you are doing is looking at discretionary income, and trying to determine the effects of various tax rates on that income. But the problem is, not everyone has the same amount of discretionary income - that is, due to debts, etc., someone who makes $100,000/year could have less money to spend after expenses than someone who makes $30,000/year. What you are doing, though, is that saying "by definition", anyone who makes six figures is rich, and can afford a proportionally higher amount of income. Let's take an example.
Person A makes $120,000/year - call it $10,000/month. Person B makes $36,000/year, or $3,000/month.
Your system says that Person A is automatically richer, and thus can afford to pay more in taxes, and thus SHOULD pay more in taxes out of "fairness".
But wait. Let's say that Person A is divorced, and has to pay alimony and child support. Let's say that when he was married, he and his wife bought a house that they could afford easily on a dual income (say, ~$3000/month), but after the divorce he was stuck with the house, paying for it on only one income. Stick in a car payment and food, clothing, gas, etc., and the guy is looking at a huge amount of money, BEFORE we even factor in taxes.
Person B, on the other hand, is just out of college, which he worked his way through on scholarships, grants, and a job. He lives in a small single bedroom apartment which costs $450/month, is unmarried, and has an older car he paid cash for, with his parents' help. That is, other than his apartment payment and food/clothing/gas, he has no real expenses.
In this scenario, who is better off, financially speaking? I think that it's fairly clear that Person B is much better off, in that he has no debt and very few expenses. Person A, even though he makes 3 times as much money, is riddled with debt and expenses, and has little money left over.
Obviously, a 50% tax rate is going to hurt Person A MORE than Person B. Probably a LOT more. Which brings us to the biggest problem with your system - in order to make it "work", we would have to look at the exact financial/lifestyle situation of EVERY SINGLE TAXPAYER. Privacy issues aside, this is simply impractical.
Now, let's apply my system to these same two people. In my system, there is a flat tax of, say, 15%. Person A is going to be fine with a 15% tax rate, and Person B not only won't starve, but will probably increase his financial stability, relative to Person A.
Of course, we'll run into issues where the 15% tax rate will be nothing more than peanuts to a billionaire, and will hurt him not in the slightest, while someone who makes only $20,000/year will be affected worse. However, this tax rate is designed so that no one starved - that is, the poorest of the poor can pay this tax rate, and still eat/live, as long as they are working. Granted, this system of taxation is not punitive towards rich people, and it doesn't redistribute wealth, but OTOH, it does not make unfounded assumptions and generalities about the financial status of people, based solely upon their income.
Now, which system sounds more fair to you, using any definition of fair you want?

Isn't this sort of the basis of the current system where basically everything you do from donating to charity to divorcing to pretty much down to sneezing shifts your tax burden one way or the other? I don't support this system as is because it's gotten to the point of absurdity, but there is something to be said for modifying taxes a bit to take account of special circumstances, and I certainly wouldn't recommend a simple graduated income tax where everyone earning X pays Y%.
Every system has some exceptions and some people who slip through the cracks so that it ends up being unfair. If one can minimize these through intelligent policies, and if the gain in the majority of cases when the system works as planned is greater than the loss in the few cases where it fails, then I would call it a step forward. It's my educated guess (although I would have to be an economist with a specialty in tax theory to make it anything better) that the number of seemingly-rich-but-really-poor people harmed by this system is going to be less than the number of obviously-and-blatantly-poor people harmed in a flat tax system, especially if it this carried out intelligently (someday, somewhere, there WILL be a government program that gets carried out intelligently, mark my words)

I suppose that depends on a number of things. Rich people don't tend to be very liquid in terms of assets - I doubt there is any billionaire in the world who could pony up $500 million in cash at any given moment. And don't try to bring non-liquid assets into the game - the poor person has to pay cash.

True, but this was a stupid example on my part (sorry!) since people don't actually pay from their savings, but rather from their income. So if a billionaire was earning $100 million per year, the government would withhold $50 million from their paycheck, which oughtn't to cause any trouble regarding liquid assets. Besides, if such a policy were to go into effect (actually, I don't know why I'm saying "if", we have a progressive income tax right now) the rich would make sure they had enough available assets to pay it.

[David Floyd]

GS,

I'll respond more later, but:

It's my educated guess (although I would have to be an economist with a specialty in tax theory to make it anything better) that the number of seemingly-rich-but-really-poor people harmed by this system is going to be less than the number of obviously-and-blatantly-poor people harmed in a flat tax system,

If we are setting the tax rate such that the person with the lowest income can survive, no one is really being harmed. We're simply applying the tax rate that we apply to the poorest person to everyone - what richer people pay in taxes doesn't harm the poorer people, after all.

[Ted Striker]

Al Sharpton is just one of those angry brothers using his own damn community by slapping down the race card every chance he gets.