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Of course workers pay the price, silly! The price customers pay is not influenced at all by what the workers are paid. They are two seperate demand curves and while they certainly reflective of one another they are not interchangeable. If the level of productivity with which I operate to meet market demand requires 100 workers I can hire them at the wage level I can afford to pay or not hire them and have unmet demand in the marketplace. In what we call the "long run", the price of the good or service will rise. More than likely what will happen is I will find ways to increase productivity with my fewer workers or a competitor has a comparative advantage (hint: maybe he operates in a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate) will enter the market to meet demand. There's nothing wrong with my math. If $1 is appropriated from my profits as income tax and in return I pay $1.01 less in salaries as a result of that tax burden, the effect is > 100% (101% in this example). The discussion was around corporate income tax, not gasoline taxes. The U.S. has the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the OECD http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1466.html. The US is fortunate to have a low tax rate on fuel, however I fail to see how that's justification for a confiscatorily (is that a word?) high corporate tax. Better luck on Tuesday!

My info doesn't break down the handouts, but you can start here:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Blog/ftsbs-large.jpg

Nothing wrong with getting a little help, I just can't stand a hypocrite.

Actually that isn't quite true, if you have children, mortgages etc, you can pay no income taxes.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/542.html

~32% didnt pay any in 2004. Or more accurately, they were refunded it.

California receives back $0.79 for every $1.00 it sends to Washington, making one of the ten biggest net contributors to the federal budget.

Alaska's infrastructure costs are staggering. After each winter, road crews scramble to rebuild large portions of highway damaged by frost heaves from the permafrost.

Likewise, consider the fact that the population density here is roughly 1 person per square mile, compared to over 1000 people/mile in New Jersey.

Given the state's low population density, combined with importance of the oil reserves, it's not really surprising that Alaska gets more tax money back than it spends.

Coincidentally, Alaska doesn't hold the crown for the most federal money received per tax dollar spent. That honor has gone to New Mexico every year since 1981. Take a look at the data yourself. If you want to complain about anything, complain about DC neighbors Maryland and Virginia swimming in federal cash.

Ok, then how about Alaska just keeping the hundreds of billions of Federal tax dollars that are continuously sucked out of it without even close to a reasonable quantity of reinvestment in federal funds? This isn't free money. This is trying to develop the state so it isn't just sucked dry by the lower 48. (There is a reason that there was a push for Alaska to secede from the union in 1972...)

Believe it or not the reason for federal funds is to do large projects that need to be done. Have you ever noticed all of that infrastructure that you rely on everyday? Federal funds at work. So you are using a museum as a comparison? Those sorts of things are kind of important but I fail to see anyone thinking that compares to this type of project. Job training programs? If there is a chance that the people involved will become taxpayers then hell yes, federal funds should be used.

The city in question is packed into the base of a mountain and the ocean. There are no roads that lead there. The only way to get there is by boat or by plane, and if you take a plane you will still have to take a boat to get to town.

I can understand why you would only want the available federal funds spent in your area. Being self centered is a fairly normal idea but that isn't the way it works. Alaska comprises 1/5th of the area of the US! Think about this. If you take the lower 48 and divide it into 4 pieces it would equal the the size of Alaska. And in all of that area there is less then 2,000 miles of road that can be categorized as "Highway". And this state shoulders an exceeding unfair percentage of the federal tax burden.

Federal funds for a bridge in this case is completely in line with the way federal transportation funds are SUPPOSED to be used. Find a different example if you want to showcase wasteful spending.

Please show what voodoo math you have done that shows Alaska pays hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal tax without receiving back similar (or greater funds). I can find absolutely no evidence of this phenomena you describe of Alaska being a tax burdened state. According to this paper Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 1981-2004, they have received more than their money back from the Federal government each year since 1985. This ratio has been increasing pretty much steadily each year since then, and in the final year of the paper 2004, they were the 2nd "best" state in this regard, and receive $1.87 for each dollar they spend. Combined with the fact that there is no state income tax, the lowest state & local tax burden of any state in the nation, residents receive around $1000 a year from the oil permanent fund (source), pay the lowest gasoline tax, don't have a general state sales tax, and land has even been given away to outsiders to encourage settlement (source) -- I would say that Alaskan residents are sitting pretty when it comes to taxes either state or federal.

Although if you can post any information that proves otherwise, I am game to see it.

I don't see how anyone can really defend this bridge. The residents don't want it, and even if they did they don't deserve $300 million specifically for it. Like the poster that lives in the city said, they are not even willing to foot 5% of the bill. I am all for Alaska getting its share of federal money, but this was a pork waste project for one of the grandfathers of pork diverting it from a city that needed it (although New Orleans is another city whose residents should rethink their choice of settlement).

If the residents don't like it, we can move each of them that aren't happy with the current land and buy them land elsewhere in Alaska with federal money, and still save a good portion of the $300 million.

You are so wrong, and I have the data to prove it.

California and New York both receive $0.79 in Federal funds for every dollar in federal taxes paid.

So I went and looked up the data for 2004 (the latest year the IRS has released data for.)

Here are the numbers.
The top 10% earned 3.049 trillion dollars and paid .567 trillion in taxes.
The bottom 90% earned 3.9 trillion dollars and paid .264 trillion in taxes.

For a total of .831 Trillion in paid taxes on a total of 6.949 trillion dollars earned. .567/.831 = 68.23% of all income taxes paid to the US by the top 10%. Leaving approximately 31.77% paid by the bottom 90%.

What about the top 1% though?

1.3 Trillion dollars went to the top 1% of Americans. They paid 306 billion in taxes, or 36.89% of all taxes.

1.3/6.949 = 18% of all money earned in the United States going to the top 1% leaving 82% of wealth going to the bottom 99%.

The bottom 99% pays .497 trillion dollars in taxes, 63.11% of all income taxes.

Source Table 1: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/250 .html

Alright, so I stand corrected on my numbers regarding tax burdens. However I must say that the minimum cost of living for those in the lowest 90th percentile is a far greater percentage of their income than it is for the wealthy in the top 10%. That the bottom 90% should be paying less, they need the money to survive.

As for the higher tax rate on the wealthy... Sure it must be awful to have to pay such high taxes when your wealth is being generated in part by the infrastructure you're paying taxes for. (Highways, roads, police, etc...)

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.htm l

Be careful when linking, if it comes out plain text and /. inserts a space for formatting reasons you end up with a harder time than necessary just to "click" a link. Use <URL:http://example.com/> to auto-link a URL (as per the comment instructions).

Hey, I'm just saying, if we can hand out money left and right to people who don't need it, why not to the people that do? Let's be consistent, either no handouts for anyone (in which case the little guy would have a better chance of not needing charity) or handouts for those that need it first.

The people who complain the loudest about the government teat are usually the ones suckling the most frantically. Did you vote for your senator because he can bring home the pork? Most Republican states take more federal funds than they spend in taxes, while most Democratic states pay more in taxes than they take in funds. Funny thing, that.

Don't believe me? Look it up yourself

"Nice little road system you got there that we paid for -- be a shame if you did something to piss us off and we stopped giving you money."

There, fixed that for you. FYI, Maine is one of the largest moocher states, taking in $1.40 in Federal benefits for every dollar paid in Federal Taxes. See here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.htm l

1. You seem to think that the poorest people in the society are idle.
There's this idea that many people in this country have that there's a giant slice of the population that's poor but living high off of free welfare checks. This goes back to those old "welfare queen" myths that Reagan used to go on about. The reality is that living poor is much harder, and blank check welfare doesn't really exist.
Consider this- if you are poor you are, statistically, paying more for food, paying more for credit, more subject to violence, probably less access to health care, the schools available to your children are terrible, etc. etc. This is often because of where you'll need to live if you're poor.

I know people involved in providing legal assistance to the poor, mostly people who've been cut off from public assistance or various other forms of aid in the drive to end welfare. For the most part (with a very occasional exception) these are people who are not lazy loafers, they're just people who have less money. They're not different from you and I.
You think a typical Public assistance recipient is someone living the high life who's only work is to collect their government check. A far more typical example is some 60 year old guy who worked for 40 years doing some physical labor and is at home living on SSI because he can't walk anymore, and then gets his benefits cut so the gov't can brag about how the numbers show they're cutting the public assistance rolls.

It is immoral, in my opinion, to place blame on the poor when you don't want to pay your taxes.

2. The canard about the "35%" of your paycheck
Many people on the right seem to think that a third of your paycheck goes towards welfare. This is manifestly, completely, totally false. There are many sources on the net where you can view the federal budget and its breakdown. Here's one , if you don't like it you can find many more online, the federal gov't publishes as well (I admit I don't have the patience for it). There's even a nice pie chart in the booklet you get each year from the IRS. You do not need to take my word for it. Please go look at one before you make unsubstantiated statements.
When you look at different presentations you also need to keep in mind what percentage is discretionary, can affect how the numbers appear. For example in this chart the 20% listed for health (which includes what you think of as all those poor people living high off the hog on welfare, also includes Medicare, a program which is not for the poor.

If you're worried about the percentage of your paycheck that disappears into the IRS I'd suggest you look at interest on the debt. 25 years of Republican tax-cuts (which of course never returned the promised revenue) have given us an enormous debt load (the federal deficit was around 1 trillion in 1980, it's now around 7 or 8). This means that something like 15% of your paycheck goes to paying off the interest on the credit card debt on the (historically recent) republican transfer of wealth to the rich. Merry Christmas.

I'd also like to point out that blaming the poor is a know-nothing response to what's been happening in our country.

The "pussification" business Is just dumb.

In a day and age when anyone can look up the raw data in minutes, there's no reason to accept someone else's word, including mine. The ideas you're spouting are based on urban myths.

I can understand how my somewhat intemperate comment would make it seem like I view urban residents as "lesser," but that's not how I see it -- my point is actually that they are the same. Especially with modern communications, rural and urban residents can largely do the same work. The issue is economic: people living in rural areas impose costs on society that those in urban areas don't. Most importantly, rural infrastructure, per capita served, is enormously more expensive. Rural communications, to date, have required subsidies in order to be provided at all (this may change as satellite communications grow). Rural life causes (again, per capita) more environmental damage than urban life, in most cases.

What I don't see is how rural residents create unique value to society, which urban residents are not capable of providing, and which justifies subsidizing those extra costs. The issue is not whether they contribute at all -- it's whether they contribute enough extra to justify something like the current Senate structure. While I've never lived in a rural area, I suspect the answer is no.

Let me reiterate that I don't have anything against people choosing to live in rural areas -- I just don't want to pay extra to subsidize them, as I do now, solely because they are making a lifestyle choice.

As for the size of the subsidies in question, here's some data at the state level, which is where the structure of the Senate is making a difference. My two home states are Washington and Massachusetts... in both cases, the Senate is instrumental in transferring our wealth to places like Alaska and West Virginia.

The reactions by mods and repliers to my documented points about hunger and military spending show just how the status quo of inverted values is enforced in America. The people replying in this thread will not go hungry, probably, as they can pay for Net connections and computers. They read Slashdot to brag about the toys they have, had, and want, indulging a technofetish that is the main male consumerism. Hungry Americans are mostly out of sight, in ghettoes (urban and otherwise), never put on the TV that passes for American consensus reality, and hiding in shame.

Meanwhile, how many of these people angrily denying their neighbors are hungry, that the fed shouldn't help the hungry to eat, are propped up by New York City in their Welfare States. Residents of these mainly rural/Western/Southern states pretend to a culture of "self-reliance", "independence" from the coastal "Blue" states they usually call "Communist" or worse. Yet Blue states like mine (NY) prop them up. Without our Federal corporate subsidies to them, they'd be starving, too. Their neighbors cut out of the Federal Welfare loop often are starving. And they suck money out of places like NYC, which clearly supports giving away money in socialistic "wealth redistribution", which we could instead reinvest locally. To help our neighbors, and improve our local economies.

Those Welfare States are the product of the post-WWII political economics. We needed to pour money into the "flyover states" to keep the country together in the Cold War. Someplace to keep our missiles. And then the Republicans taking over Congress immediately after the Cold War cranked up the subsidies cranked up the subsidies. Pork to their home states. And bait to attract immigration and population growth, even unsustainably. For the greater bribes from local "developers" that don't need local economic support when there's Federal subsidy. And because switching population growth from Blue to Red states means more Republican Representatives in the House, which also means more Red Electoral College ballots.

Compassionate Conservatism. Murdering turkeys and ignoring the poor.

You, an Alaskan, complaining about politicians trying to take your money and give it to someone else is a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black. I can't think of a single state currently that more exemplifies this thanks to this example. Even CA and NY don't have such ridiculous public works projects.

NY and CA? They're not the ones suckling at the Federal teat. The welfare states are the red states. All the states that vote for the tax cut President are the same ones that are putting us in debt. You want to know where the welfare checks go? It's the Bush backers.

Federal Taxes Paid vs. Spending Received by State

Typical liberal drivel without facts. Go look at http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1321.html and see that the Oil Companies (your favorite target) paid 41% income tax in 2005!!! Also look at http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,0 0.html which shows the corporations pay a LOT of FEDERAL tax, don't forget the Employment Taxes (i.e. Witholding) are also 50% paid by corporations and State Income Tax. Lots of taxes are treated by Accounting rule as an expense which affects profit, and not on the line that says Income Tax Paid. In addition when the corporation distributes dividends to investors that money is taxed at the individual level so it's DOUBLE taxation. Our military is hardly bloated, if it was bloated why would they still be recruiting and not letting people retire or calling back those they formerly let out? And don't attack the higher earners either, the top 50% of taxpayers pay 96% of income tax. Are you implying the US "Empire" is crumbling? LOL..far from it, we are the only super-power left. We don't have and never had an "empire", we had protection agreements (i.e. NATO) against communism which allowed US Troops in Foreign nations. That's not an empire, and with the fall of the Communists that foreign deployment has been cut back tremendously.

Bush 43 cannot claim much credit for this -- moving the tax burden up the scale is a trend that goes back as far as The Tax Foundation's charts show -- but he may be able to claim credit for increasing the bottom 50% earners' share of total Adjusted Gross Income, which had been steadily decreasing between 1980 and 2000. Surely doing that, while still reducing their tax burden, counts for something. (Judging from those AGI numbers, at least, overall income inequality has been DECREASING since 2000. Go figure.)

The bottom 50% of all federal tax payers pay only 3.5% of all federal income taxes. In essence one-half of America is paying to run America, while one-half pays nothing and gets all the benefits! In fact, the top 5% of tax payers pays more than 50% of all taxes collected; the top 1% pays more than one third of all taxes. The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $57,343) earned 64.9 percent of nation's income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (83.9 percent). See for example http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923085.html and http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html. Taxes paid by about 6 million filers (top 5%) covered more than what nearly 65 million "poor" people (bottom 50%) did.

What I would like to read an article about what the hell happened with the congressional hearing that was supposed to investigate Exxon Mobile? And we're subsidizing gasoline companies through preferential tax codes? Am I the only person wondering what is going on here?

We may all think that $223 million on a bridge to nowhere is a waste of money, but Alaska voters, the guys who keep putting Stevens back in office, think it's not an altogether horrible way to work down Alaska's federal tax deficit (more money paid in federal taxes than received in federal benefits).

That might be true if Alaska had a federal tax deficit, but they don't. According to The Tax Foundation, Alaska paid a total of about $4.1 billion in federal taxes in 2004 but received about $8.4 billion in federal spending. The only state to get a higher return on its tax dollars was New Mexico ($9.2 billion out and $19.9 back). A lot of that, of course, is precisely because Alaska's Congresscritters are so good at bringing home the pork.

Well, that is pretty good rhetoric but I would like to point out a couple of things.

You probably got your information from some place like http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/11.htm l .

Even though their spreadsheet lists Alabama, not Alaska, I will assume that is a typo. Their calculations include federal income taxes and federal expenditures. They do not include Federal taxes on natural resources, such as oil, nor do they account for the fact that well over half the people here are employed by the Federal Government, mostly DOD. Once you start including taxes on resources, the numbers begin changing rapidly.

So, the Federal dollars spent have become a rather big issue nationally. Oddly enough, it becomes most shrill when awareness of other pork barrel projects arise, such as the Big Dig for example in Boston. So be it. It would seem that Congress critters like to point to others when their hands are caught in the cookie jar - or freezer as the case may be.

Another consideration is that many Alaskans (Natives in particular) live in absolute poverty with no or little infrastructure (no running water, etc). So, quite a bit of Federal money is required to be spent to upgrade that infrastructure. Now, if you are libertarian or otherwise small government, your response may be "tough shit" they should move to a more populous area for more efficient utilization of infrastructure dollars. Many people here would agree. If you are leftist, and believe in the forced redistribution of wealth, then you can be happy that your tax dollars are at work to fulfill your dream.

At any rate, my post isn't to change anybody's mind but merely to point out that there are more factors than those usually considered. But then, that is usually the case with everything.

By the way, just so you know how Congress works, after the big stink about the money earmarked for the "bridge to nowhere", which isn't true but that is a discussion for another time, Congress removed the earmark. Alaska STILL GOT THE MONEY but WITHOUT the strings attached. And BOTH sides considered it a victory.

Blink blink... blink blink... Yeah, that's what I though too.

It looks like some of the most heavily Republican states are actually welfare states that pull in more tax dollars than they contribute and some of the most heavily Democratic states give way more than they get back. That's pretty damn ironic.

Here is the report from the Tax Foundation:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr139.pdf

Louisiana is the only entitlement state? The Red States are all Welfare States. And that's just the most superficial example of White Privilege.

So I'm not going to accept your "perspective", of an insurance adjuster in a devastated, but insured city who arrived only to work in the worst disaster. I'm not surprised a guy whose job is to save insurance companies as much money as possible returns from the biggest claimant ever without sympathy. I'm surprised only that you'd admit it, and have lost touch with sympathy so much that you'd think I'd respect your opinion as "fair" when your interest conflict is so clear.

BTW, 1/3 of those police officers deserted in the hurricane - and they weren't so great in "good times", either. As for Nagin, his reelection is part of what's still wrong with New Orleans. But that doesn't make the city deserve more destruction. It deserves more help.

Come on, Dude. These are basic simple blatantly obvious facts that a half second of thought would have enabled you to prove to yourself.

I just bought a condo in Chicago. To deliver electrical service to my place, the power company strings a wire from the line to my building (40 feet from the power line tops.) By stringing this one line they have provided service to *4* households...Now compare that to what is involved with getting power to you and the closest 3 households to you. Pretty freaking simple, isn't it? Substitute, Phone lines, cell phone service, etc. etc. etc. and you get the exact same qualitative results.

If you were to pay what it costs to deliver your power, then most likely *you wouldn't even have power because you couldn't afford it*. Now, the federal government has mandated that you shall get power and phone service and it shall be paid for by taxes, which people in rural areas don't even pay since they almost always get more back in tax dollars than they put out.

Our country is going bankrupt largely due to these leaches and their completely retarded voting choices, so we can't really afford to coddle them and pretend that what they do isn't already done far more efficiently without them.

You claim then, that the folks in Milwaukee and Chicago are subsidizing my utilities? Give me an unbiased source - not a vitriolic rant like you've just shown us, but something with real, unspun facts.You claim then, that the folks in Milwaukee and Chicago are subsidizing my utilities? Give me an unbiased source - not a vitriolic rant like you've just shown us, but something with real, unspun facts.

Come on, Dude. These are basic simple blatantly obvious facts that a half second of thought would have enabled you to prove to yourself. It's not rocket science. It's not even unclear, difficult or anything of the sort.

I just bought a condo in Chicago. To deliver electrical service to my place, the power company strings a wire from the line to my building (40 feet from the power line tops.) By stringing this one line they have provided service to *4* households.
To get the next building with 2-4 households, it's another drop from the power line. Same thing all up and down the entire neighborhood.
Now compare that to what is involved with getting power to you and the closest 3 households to you.

Pretty freaking simple, isn't it? Substitute, Phone lines, cell phone service, etc. etc. etc. and you get the exact same qualitative results.

If you were to pay what it costs to deliver your power, then most likely *you wouldn't even have power because you couldn't afford it*. Now, the federal government has mandated that you shall get power and phone service and it shall be paid for by taxes, which people in rural areas don't even pay since they almost always get more back in tax dollars than they put out.

Here is that data, which isn't trivially obvious like the utility issue.


By the way - farming subsidies? How does that factor into your argument (regarding the cost of people living away from cities) at all? Are the farmers supposed to move to the big city and grow the food in the middle of your concrete jungle? Or are we all just supposed to eat pigeons and wall mold?

It figures in because it's the same hypocritical socialist crap. If you want to be a socialist, then stand up, be a man, and admit it. The utterly morally bankrupt folks who swill at the trough while claiming to be gung ho capitalists are creating an incredible cognitive dissonance that is largely responsible for how fucked up this country is right now.

No, they aren't supposed to move into the city to grow food. They can grow it where they are and sell it at a fair market value which is far less than it's sold for now.

The common argument is that this would eliminate the family farm. Too fucking bad, I say. Factory farms already receive the bulk of these "family farm subsidies" because they're the ones who bought the laws.

Our country is going bankrupt largely due to these leaches and their completely retarded voting choices, so we can't really afford to coddle them and pretend that what they do isn't already done far more efficiently without them.

If they still want to live in the middle of nowhere, fine, but they can live at a level they can afford without picking my pocket in order to live above their means.

I'm not one of these radical free market rah rah rah types (Actually a lot of them tend to be the very leaches we're talking about). I think that having some sort of a safety net is good, but these types of subsidies do nothing but allow deluded people to continue living in their fantasy world of "self sufficiency" when they are nothing but welfare leaches. Let them get a taste of the real world that they created and fucked over and maybe they'll be capable of pulling their heads far enough out of their asses to get a breath of fresh air and start acting like sane decent human beings instead of the rabid faggot hating blame everybody for their problems except themselves type of whiny bitch which they have demonstrated themselves to be in recent years as the results of *their* choices are now starting to affect them.

What the hell are you talking about? NYC is the oldest and the largest city in America. It's absolutely sustainable. In fact, we sustain the rest of the country with our hard work. That Iowa farmer is getting back about $1.11 for every dollar they send to Washington, while I'm getting back about $0.72 - the rest goes to Iowa and the rest of the Welfare States we're subsidizing. Since we've got all the people, and they've got so few, we're supporting quite a lot of those freeloaders. They'd better be driving that F350 for me. Especially since my gas costs so much more than theirs, though mine comes right off the ship, right out of the NJ refinery, and theirs comes across the prairie in trucks, heating their homes through their endless winters. That prairie that NYC spent centuries populating through subsidies and management - that they're blowing in just a few generations.

High density living is certainly more energy efficient. Especially in NYC, where we are smarter, so we live more efficiently. Not only do we use mass transit and walk (look at how goddamn fat those Iowans are, on our welfare), but we prepare food centrally too, in restaurants, which are much more efficient in every phase.

And the trees I planted were planted in deforested areas where trees weren't growing on their own, though people had "let them" without results for years.

Who cares what credit you give? You've found one of the weirdest venues for homophobia I've seen, ornamented with being totally wrong about everything. I bet you voted for Bush. You have no business talking as if you had a clue about reproduction, energy, economics, New York City or anything else. Go entertain your friends with your ignorance - in NYC we don't have time for it.

That kind of retardo talk is why Congressmembers get lobbyists to write the laws. Senators, like other elected politicians, are good at only one thing: public "fundraising" (collecting corporate bribes). That gets them re/elected. Sitting politicians get reelected about 98% of the time, because the machine behind them can rig crazy-shaped districts to elect them by party registration.

Senators have it a little harder, because they are elected by their entire state. So they get the longest terms of any allowed, during which they can hand out public money as bribes to people in their state to stay popular.

Stevens is one of the worst. He's a Senator from the largest area state, with one of the smallest populations, a thousand frozen miles away from the rest of the US, so his people are spread so thin they don't talk to each other about him so much. His state economy is fairly simple, mostly a few fishing megacorps and oil gigacorps, But even so, Stevens gets $1.87 for Alaska from the rest of the country for every $1 Alaska sends to Washington DC - the second-fattest return in the country. Which builds things like a bridge to nowhere for his buddies who keep him reelected.

Stevens has to split the gig with Alaska's other Senator, who was appointed by her father, the governor. Of course they're all Republicans. Their cozy little team does a fantastic job, as measured by that return on their Federal investment.

It's just cruel that they're for hire by lobbyists outside Alaska who are such good writers that they can carve up the Internet for telcos, with a retard like Stevens speaking their lines and pulling the strings.

So maybe the rust belt should be fighting for these developments, but they can't overcome 1 issue - companies want to be close to their datacenter. It goes against the security mission, the cost justification, and just about everything else; but these always get built right next to corporate HQ or in some metropolitan area. Doh!

Nope, the rust belt is fscked because of legacy tax and political structures geared around dying heavy industries. If MI had the same tax, political and work structures as, say, Nevada, they might be able to do it.

The best location for colocation? Hmm.. Cross-reference power costs, distance to backbone peering, and corporate friendliness rankings... Maybe Wyoming, Tennessee, South Dakota?

Yeah, get corporations to give up their welfare. No chance. There is a chance to keep telecommuters paying for service demands they generate, by stopping or fixing the bills we're discussing.

As I've posted again and again in this thread, I'm not saying telecommuters have to pay the same amount of taxes as local workers - just not zero.

If you want to talk about NY getting a free lunch, I suggest you look at how much we pay to subsidize the rest of the country, especially places that offer less services. Which welfare state do you live in?

Tax Amnesty Day is the 3rd of June for 2006

Typical ./ reaction, hands wringing, Oh dear, Oh my!

Well, let me be the first then to suggest:

http://www.taxpayer.net/

http://www.taxfoundation.org/

http://www.concordcoalition.org/issues/scorecard/i ndex.html

Each spin a different way and I'm sure there's a few dozen more groups out there. One of which is bound to have a message that you agree with.

Ah Fear, what ever happened to Lee Ving anyway?

Link 1
Link 2

Don't worry, you've got less than 3 months to go before you've paid off government for 2006!

Concidering Tax Freedom Day won't be till mid April, we're already working for the government for free. And here you are wasting your time on /.!

But seriously... I would think this would be an interesting project. Peeps donate cycles and time to looking for ET signals, break factored codes, and any number of medical processing. Why not this? The government, in a this rare case, is putting the stuff out there for anyone to translate but if they just told us what it says, we would question their interpretation.

Close enough to invalidate your argument.

The upper two percent do not have to pay taxes?

According the The Tax Foundation the top two percent of taxpayers account for 16.77% of all adjusted gross income yet they pay 34.27% of all income taxes paid. The top five percent account for 31.18% of all adjusted gross income and they pay more than half of the total tax bill for all of us (54.36%).

STFU please.

That is pretty interesting rant as Louisiana, along with several other SE states, have taken back FAR MORE from the government than average.

Yeah, most red states do take in more Federal Revenue than they pay in taxes.

And they bitch the loudest about how Uncle Sam is picking their pocket, while those of us in California, New York, and other "blue states" pay for their roads, schools, and other federally-funded or subsidized programs.

Is the tax we pay per gallon of gas. The U.S. government has made more money on gas taxes than the oil companies have, even with "windfall profits".

The problem that I have with comments like this is that the extremely wealthy pay the majority of US income tax. Therefore, any change will affect them disproportionaly. Look at IRS data. Taypayers in the top 1%, as ranked by income, pay 34% of all federal income tax. The top 5% pays over 54% of all income tax. The top 10% pay 65% of all taxes. Compare this to the bottom 50% which pays only just over 3% of all income tax. The wealthy are paying their fair share.

>>...notion that you can have a civil society without taxes and that "taxation is theft" is just stupid beyond words.

Why must a civil society rely upon the enforced confiscation of others' wealth? As an argument, "Stupid beyond words" doesn't cut it.

>>Slippery slope is a logical fallacy.

Rubbish, there are plenty of "slippery slope" situations in the real world. For example, examine the history of the federal income tax from it's inception. Here, this might help - the 1913 IRS 1040:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/86626fd2c93c905 f88f2668d09b19b28.pdf

Note the percentage due and their income thresholds. Now scale what those thresholds would be in today's dollar value.

Likewise, there is still rent-control in New York City -- introduced as a temporary measure during World War II (to protect the families of the soldiers from "greedy landlords", you see).

The Spanish War took place more than a century ago, but we are still paying the tax introduced to finance it.

Relevant my behind... FCC will stay with us for the forever, especially with its newfound purpose of censoring profanity et al.

but don't let facts get in the way of your prejudices.

Amazon.com corporate headquarters

A large slice of Boeing

Washington Mutual corporate headquarters

The Port of Seattle, largest port in the state of Washington and one of the largest on the West Coast

The University of Washington, one of the largest research universities in the country

Harborview Medical Center, one of the best trauma centers in the country

The University of Washington Medical Center, one of the best research medical centers in the country

oh, and Starbucks has their corporate headquarters here too. That's just off the top of my head. So Seattle does pretty well since it's a nice place to live and work, much better than say Ephrata, or Winthrop or Twisp, or anywhere else east of the eastern King County line. In fact once you get outside of King County you're pretty much outside all of the major economic activity in the state of Washington. What major companies have headquarters in Olympia, or Bellingham, or Spokane or Vancouver? Hmmmmm, that would be none.

As far as road money goes well in the last ten years King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, the largest and most urban counties in the state generated about $1 billion in revenue for the 29 smallest counties in the state.

As far as cities being a drag on their states if that is the case then why is it that the most heavily urbanized states are also the ones who pay the most in federal taxes relative to the amount of federal spending. Hmmmm, could it be because the large cities in those states drive their economies in a way that you don't find in Bumfuck, MT?

The result?

Idiocy such as you just described.

Reverse that and you have a much more robust laboratory of the states and even laboratory of the counties localities with far more sovereignty, responsibility and capability of responding to their own problems.

When you combine the State Tax burden (where Massachusetts ranks #32) with the Federal Tax burden (where MA ranks #2 !) you get the total tax burden. Result: Massachusetts has the 4th highest tax burden in the US.

I imagine the Federal Tax burden differs from state to state depending on the cost of living and the amount of money people need to make to maintain equivalent living standards. For example, someone making $50,000 in Salt Lake City would have to make $89,000 to maintain their lifestyle in Boston. The MA resident would have the same standard of living as the UT resident, but is in a higher federal tax bracket and has to shell out a lot more $$ to Uncle Sam.

You might want to factor in that Massachussetts residents pay more in national taxes per service rendered by the government. Sofor every dollar of taxes paid we get 0.75 dollar worth of services. This is pretty common to "Blue states" as we do not have the support of the current administration.

Adding one third of national taxes to this score does infact make Massachussetts one of the worst tax places. But this is not due to their state policies, but due to Washington politics.

Here is a good page on all of MA taxes and how it compares nationally. Overall I agree that MA does a pretty good job.

(http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/35.ht ml)

As much as I disagree with you entirely... and I really mean the idea of wealth redistribution through taxation fucking infuriates me, your request for more interesting statistics is RIGHT on the dot!

From CA Commerce dept website:
- $1.4 Trillion Gross State Product
- Fifth largest economy in the world
- Largest state economy in the U.S.
- State's economy is 13% of GDP

Now, keep in mind that California has many EXTREMELY HIGH COST OF LIVING areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silcion Valley, etc. These areas are responsible for a lot of income, but are also very expensive to live in. The federal tax system doesn't properly adjust to that. Where I grew up, making $100,000 a year meant you MIGHT be able to afford having your own house if you managed your money well. Other places I've lived, $40,000 a year was good money, you could own your own house and car, etc, and of course the federal tax burden on such an income is significantly lower.

So, I personally feel that living in california is a higher tax burden, despite what all the statistics seem to say! But here is a great link with information on that:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/443.html
spreadsheet here
Now THEY say we pay 19.6% of the federal taxes, which ranks us as #10.

But, and here is the big difference, California doesn't get it's share of federal money. In 2002, California paid $58 billion more to Washington than it received. This includes federal salaries in california, grants, etc. California only got 77% of the money back in some way. This is probably mostly attributable to the large base of defense contractors and some major military bases.

$58B might not sound like a lot of money for such a large state, but keep in mind the total state taxes paid every year totals to only $130B. If california received that extra $14B the budget would be balanced again.

I strongly recommend you also read http://www.caltax.org/research/taxburdn.htm which does a great job of explaining why the simple tax burden measurements used above are terribly ineffective.

A typical "Rich" family
To sum it all up, a family of five making $100,000 in Los Angeles (at least the area I lived) would be lucky to be able to purchase a home. Let's estimate about $600,000 for a decent home. With a downpayment of $100,000 (which would take a real long time to save up while renting for $2-3K/month), and a mortgage at the current average of 5.30%, they could come away with a 30-year mortgage at $2776/month. Keep in mind this is paying almost exactly $1,000,000 for a $600,000 home. Now, because their income is so high ($100K, very wealthy) they can expect to be in the upper tax bracket. Not just federally, but state-wise. This is because california has a progressive tax system, where the wealthy people (and $100K is wealthy, isn't it?) pay the majority of the taxes, in terms of a percentage of their income! All said and done, this family would require a skillfull tax advisor to get their annual tax burden down to $40,000. So now they have $60,000 left, of which they would already be paying ~$3000/month for their house (homeowner's insurance, etc.). So that leaves...
$100,00 - $40,000 - $24,000 = $36,000

Now, I'm going to go ahead and PRETEND that they don't have to pay for their own medical insurance. Wealthy people should pay for the medical insurance of those who make under $100,000 a year, not the other way around, RIGHT?

So let's go ahead and say this family needs two vehicles, both costing approx $20,000. So let's do a loan for $40,000, assuming the national average of 6.51% for a 48month loan. This comes out to payments of approx $949/month for both vehi

As much as I disagree with you entirely... and I really mean the idea of wealth redistribution through taxation fucking infuriates me, your request for more interesting statistics is RIGHT on the dot!

From CA Commerce dept website:
- $1.4 Trillion Gross State Product
- Fifth largest economy in the world
- Largest state economy in the U.S.
- State's economy is 13% of GDP

Now, keep in mind that California has many EXTREMELY HIGH COST OF LIVING areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silcion Valley, etc. These areas are responsible for a lot of income, but are also very expensive to live in. The federal tax system doesn't properly adjust to that. Where I grew up, making $100,000 a year meant you MIGHT be able to afford having your own house if you managed your money well. Other places I've lived, $40,000 a year was good money, you could own your own house and car, etc, and of course the federal tax burden on such an income is significantly lower.

So, I personally feel that living in california is a higher tax burden, despite what all the statistics seem to say! But here is a great link with information on that:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/443.html
spreadsheet here
Now THEY say we pay 19.6% of the federal taxes, which ranks us as #10.

But, and here is the big difference, California doesn't get it's share of federal money. In 2002, California paid $58 billion more to Washington than it received. This includes federal salaries in california, grants, etc. California only got 77% of the money back in some way. This is probably mostly attributable to the large base of defense contractors and some major military bases.

$58B might not sound like a lot of money for such a large state, but keep in mind the total state taxes paid every year totals to only $130B. If california received that extra $14B the budget would be balanced again.

I strongly recommend you also read http://www.caltax.org/research/taxburdn.htm which does a great job of explaining why the simple tax burden measurements used above are terribly ineffective.

A typical "Rich" family
To sum it all up, a family of five making $100,000 in Los Angeles (at least the area I lived) would be lucky to be able to purchase a home. Let's estimate about $600,000 for a decent home. With a downpayment of $100,000 (which would take a real long time to save up while renting for $2-3K/month), and a mortgage at the current average of 5.30%, they could come away with a 30-year mortgage at $2776/month. Keep in mind this is paying almost exactly $1,000,000 for a $600,000 home. Now, because their income is so high ($100K, very wealthy) they can expect to be in the upper tax bracket. Not just federally, but state-wise. This is because california has a progressive tax system, where the wealthy people (and $100K is wealthy, isn't it?) pay the majority of the taxes, in terms of a percentage of their income! All said and done, this family would require a skillfull tax advisor to get their annual tax burden down to $40,000. So now they have $60,000 left, of which they would already be paying ~$3000/month for their house (homeowner's insurance, etc.). So that leaves...
$100,00 - $40,000 - $24,000 = $36,000

Now, I'm going to go ahead and PRETEND that they don't have to pay for their own medical insurance. Wealthy people should pay for the medical insurance of those who make under $100,000 a year, not the other way around, RIGHT?

So let's go ahead and say this family needs two vehicles, both costing approx $20,000. So let's do a loan for $40,000, assuming the national average of 6.51% for a 48month loan. This comes out to payments of approx $949/month for both vehi

taxing people in North Dakota and Virginia to pay for protection for people who built homes below sea level.

Funny that you should pick North Dakota as your first example. For every dollar that those badlands leeches pay in income taxes, they get back about TWO dollars in federal largesse.

Care to know which states really deserve to complain about their tax dollars being handed out to others? That would be Wisconsin, Delaware, New York, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Nevada, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and the most robbed of all, New Jersey.