Slashdot Mirror
FCC Rural Phone Subsidies Reach As High As $3,000 Per Line
jfruh writes "The FCC's Universal Service Fund has a noble goal: using a small fee on all U.S. landlines to subsidize universal phone coverage throughout the country. But a recent report reveals that this early 20th centuryy program's design is wildly at odds with 21st century realities: Its main effect now is that poor people living in urban areas are subsidizing rich people living in the country. The FCC says that it's already enacted reforms to combat some of the worst abuses in the report — like subsidies to rural areas that add up to $24,000 per line — but even the $3,000 per line cap now in place seems absurd."
If you or I claimed that sort of money falsely from the government they would claw it back and toss our sorry asses in jail if we didnt pay...Doubt this fait awaits the telcos.
Corpratisum For The Loss!
Start doing studies. It is simply not that expensive to run and maintain cable, not even in rural areas.
That's not unique to phones. It also applies to highways, minor airports, housing tax incentives, and a number of other "American Dream" elements that really have nothing to do with having a successful society.
...wildly at odds with 21st centaur realities:
THERE, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?
-timothy
"That's not unique to phones. It also applies to highways, minor airports, housing tax incentives, and a number of other "American Dream" elements that really have nothing to do with having a successful society."
So it's not socialism? Damn!
What did you learn in class today son?
--- "That poor people only live in cities, and that only rich people live in the country"
Much like other government regulations, these subsidies were written with certain assumptions that haven't been reassessed over the years. In this case, the assumption that a couple copper wires were the primary driving factor in whether someone had access to modern telecommunications. Today, wires aren't actually necessary in most cases in the first place. The land line for dedicated voice service at home is rapidly fading into obscurity, and even home access to Internet services in some rural areas is arguably losing the wires and transmitting to antennas or mobile devices where conventional wired broadband is unavailable.
I'm just having a really hard time seeing this subsidy as necessary in this day and age.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I have DSL and Phone... I tried to go down to just DSL, and they gave me a phone line and 25 minutes of long distance for $10 less /month than DSL only. They will be rolling out FTTH soon as well; and this is in a poor area, unemployment topped 15% a few years back.
It's rural areas being a drain on the nation's resources. They're anti-tax but demand huge government spending, just for them.
So the Universal Service Fund is very well funded but the balance in the "Move Closer if You Want 21st Century Infrastruction, You Rich Dumbass" or "MCIYTFCIYRD Fund" is still at a balance of $0. It turns out though that $0 is sufficient money to fund that program. They should really cancel the USF then, huh?
OK, you can keep your broadband. Us country folk will keep all the lumber, minerals, and produce.
You mean the poor people that get all their money back via tax returns and sometimes more with EIC? Middle class urban maybe.
To "subsidize" the government-provide items you listed, you need to pay taxes. By and large, the "urban poor" do not pay much in taxes (except perhaps local sales taxes or use fees). The only reason "subsidize" makes any sense in the original article is that many poor people pay for telecommunications services out of their own pockets.
Airports and housing incentives may not be necessary for rural areas, but a certain base level of road infrastructure is absolutely necessary. It even makes sense for urban areas to subsidize roads in rural areas.
After all, how the hell else is the food going to get from the fields to the cities?
- Cell phones don't reach everywhere. :-) ) a generalization.
- It's not just the rich that live in rural communities and it's not just the poor that live in urban communities, so poor people subsidizing the rich may or may not be true but is (generally
- It cost money to put phone lines in remote areas. Try pricing a 1/4 mile electrical run some time.
- It seems like the FCC is trying to control costs. It's not abnormal to scale back a little at a time to determine the results before problems get out of hand.
You say that, but you're only thinking of federal taxes. There's a huge poor tax in the form of things like sales tax, which hits basically every dollar poorer people see, but not the wealthier people in the world. I should also point out that while I'm an urban person, I'm not poor, and I pay quite typical income taxes.
OK, you can keep your broadband. Us country folk will keep all the lumber, minerals, and produce.
We'll also keep the oil, natural gas, and energy produced from Wind & Solar Farms....because NONE of that exists in the city.
Its main effect now is that poor people living in urban areas are subsidizing rich people living in the country.
Uhhh, I grew up way out in farm country in Ohio. I have lived in five different major metro areas. The people in the country are not rich. What kind of bullshit psy-ops lobby-funded advertising is this, and why is it being parroted blindly here? Let's just do a quick bullshit check. One web search, second hit, talks about a study done in Oregon:
In 2011, the (per capita personal income) in non-metro counties was $31,383 and in the metro counties it was $39,267; a difference of $7,884 (25 percent). The difference was due primarily to the difference in earnings from work.
Obviously that's just one data point, feel free to do more comprehensive research yourself. I'll tell you from personal experience; people in the country make less money on average than people in the city. This report is some assholes like the Koch brothers, a lobby called "Alliance for Generational Equity," trying to create infighting so they can drown the government in the bathtub. Let's not start being their lickspittle mouthpieces, parroting their easily debunked lies.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I really wish that the press releases of shadowy "think tanks" (and consulting firms, for that matter) were treated with a little less credulity and more scrutiny. This study was published by a group calling itself the "Alliance for Generational Equity". Who are these people and who do they represent? We don't know. I did some Googling to see if I could find out more about them, but didn't find much. No Wikipedia article, nothing on SourceWatch. Nothing about their funding sources appears to be public. How do we know this "think tank" isn't just another sockpuppet of the Koch Brothers?
I was able to find some information about Thomas Hazlett, one of the authors whose name is on the study. He's a professor at the GMU Law School, which is not an encouraging sign (that law school is a notorious den of right-wing crackpots). Hazlett is also against net neutrality. This man is not on your side; he's a shill for rich plutocrats. Listen to anything he has to say at your peril.
1. When having access to produce and livestock became a 'right'
2. Why people have to have foodstuffs that requires 90% or more of the country to pay for it because of where they choose to live
3. Why I should pay more because someone wants to live in an urban center where they can't make any food for themselves and don't have land for livestock.
4. Why they can't move
She's a double edged sword, pavement-dweller.
5. Why, after all of the above, if they don't have skills, can't live off the land, can't get a job, can't move, and are poor, we don't relocate them someplace else since they must already be living on the government dole. When you don't make your own way and don't contribute to society, you don't get to decide the rules that govern how you receive free money and other things.
That one is easy to answer:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Phone service is considered a critical infrastructural. as it should be. Or are you saying farmers shouldn't have access to 911.
1. When having a phone became a 'right'
It became a right when having a phone was a necessary step in getting a job, something we consider fundamentally necessary to taking part in modern society.
2. Why people have to have phone that requires 90% or more of the country to pay for it because of where they choose to live
Cart before horse problem. Their families lived there, then phones became necessary.
3. Why I should pay more because someone wants to live in a rural area where they can't make any money and don't have phone service. And where storms can bring down phone lines causing thousands of dollars in repair costs for a phone they don't pay for.
The same reason you pay more so someone else doesn't get robbed or shot. Enlightened self interest isn't a complex idea.
4. Why they can't move
Why don't you move to where they are to lower the cost per person of the line? Oh now moving is a huge onus to place on someone?
5. Why, after all of the above, if they don't have skills, can't live off the land, can't get a job, can't move, and are poor, we don't relocate them someplace else since they must already be living on the government dole. When you don't make your own way and don't contribute to society, you don't get to decide the rules that govern how you receive free money and other things.
Because they actually earn more than they cost, as part of a complex interconnected society, and their location may be important to maintaining the support network for the country's agricultural base? Who knows? You're criticizing totally anonymous people we don't even remotely know individually, which turns out to be easy.
You're thinking of income tax. There are lots of other taxes. Sales tax, gas tax, taxes on almost everything processed or imported. In the end, even if they get back 110% of what they paid in income taxes, they still paid some sort of tax.
Middle class does tend to get hit a little harder because we don't get that income tax back, but it's damn near impossible to pay zero taxes overall.
I'm not going to argue with you. "Transportation is a necessary element of a post-industrial society" is so obvious as to be incontestable.
But, urban areas do subsidize rural areas. I live in Kansas and it's amazing how remote and sparse humanity gets just 5 miles outside of the KC metro. There was a stat from I think the 2004 Prez election where, except for 2 exceptions (Texas and Colorado?), every red state was a net consumer of tax revenue and every blue state was a net producer.
When I riding my motorcycles over hundreds of miles through farmland where there's hardly any traffic and hardly any houses, you still see immaculately maintained roads, power lines, etc. No way that the 2-3 houses you might see on a one mile stretch are paying for that infrastructure out of their taxes. And as contradictory as it might seem, these are the communities that rail the most against Big Government. Every time we take a step towards giving these regions a taste of what the Free Market really means, Congressmen swoop in to reverse the effects.
As an example, we had price protections on crops (I think corn) that were repealed maybe 10 or so years ago. Prices immediately tanked and the distribution middlemen basically ate the profits (your food didn't get any cheaper). So, rather than cheering on the Free Market, Congress came back with new farmer subsidizes that in effect rewarded the distributors.
Now, I'm not against farmer subsidizes since they protect these guys from the wild variances of Mother Nature, but there needs to be some education process on that whole Government Bad motif.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Sales taxes in many states exclude food and clothing. Rich people will tend to pay more sales tax, depending on how much they consume. That's what we care about, right? We'd rather they invest their money.
OK, you can keep your broadband. Us country folk will keep all the lumber, minerals, and produce.
Yeah yeah, and we'll keep all the money, finished goods, and medicine(or at least the intellectual backing thereof). Or... it could be we live in a complex interconnected society, and every discussion of fairness doesn't need to slide into "well our subculture is better than yours".
Wealthy people don't pay sales tax?
Sales taxes in many states exclude food and clothing. Rich people will tend to pay more sales tax, depending on how much they consume. That's what we care about, right? We'd rather they invest their money.
In my state, it is half on food, and not reduced at all on clothing.
1. It's part of the national infrastructure, just like roads and electricity and the USPS (although that one is becoming a bit outdated). The more widespread communication is, the better the country as a whole becomes.
2. This is the same argument used against... everything. The country works because the masses subsidizes the niches. I'm sure you use plenty of things that are subsidized by people that don't use them. Got kids in a public school? Landowners subsidize that even if they don't have kids. Drive on a public road? People who don't own cars subsidize that. The list goes on.
3. People can't make money in rural areas? Apparently you have no concept of telecommuting, farming, logging, etc. As for the rest of 3, refer to 1.
4. Why don't you move? You're likely not living in the most efficient place possible either. Also, moving can be damned expensive. Personally, I live where I do because I enjoy the area
5. If you actually read the summary, you'd realize they're talking about rich people in the country being subsidized by poor people in the city. Maybe you should move to somewhere with better literacy rates, it might rub off on you. But hey, it explains your signature.
Certainly not to the same extent, no.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization, Washington families living at the federal poverty level pay 17 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, whereas the highest-income families pay 3 percent.
Interesting. Let's see what will happen.
Privacy is terrorism.
I don't have a problem paying to hook up farmers. I have a problem with subsidizing connections for vacation homes in Aspen, which is what we've been doing. Most farms were hooked up a long time ago, but of course the government programs don't go away once they've achieved their purpose.
I'm not at all in favor of government subsidies, but I just needed to point out that....well....I dunno what rural-rich they're talking about. Sure we have the occasional successful author or entrepreneur, but they're vastly outnumbered by those living in poverty. Rural poverty looks completely different from urban poverty, but it's poverty nonetheless.
Anybody paying for phone service pays for this subsidy via the USF. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund
It's also worth noting that because of the way that the poverty level is calculated, people that are in urban areas don't qualify when they would be pretty well off in more rural areas, if they were making the same amount of money. Which makes subsidies to the poor at the federal level disproportionately favor the freeloading states over the states that actually contribute to the pot of money being used to provide the subsidies.
After all, how the hell else is the food going to get from the fields to the cities?
Train or boat.
In the early 90s, an older couple in Eastern Kentucky decided to break down and pay for a landline telephone. GTE offered to drag them a line for $5000 or so (I forget the exact amount). Outraged, they appealed to the Kentucky Service Commission. The Commission discovered that GTE was going to have to pay almost $25k to get the line to them, and was already eating much more of the cost than could be demanded under the law. The couple chose not to get their phone line.
A friend of my father ran a lucrative contracting business that bid on GTE contracts. He kept mule drivers under contract, because they were often the only way to drag poles around certain parts of the Appalachians.
These days, this exact same couple would be able to pay $40 to $80 a month to get a cell phone. The tower will be a couple of hills over, with a microwave feed back to the home network and a small diesel generator on-site. For the cost of one phone line, an entire area can get phone and internet service.
The same economics are working in India and Africa. Excluding possibly power, there will be significant portions of the world that will never, ever be wired.
As a % of income, rich people pay maybe 1% sales tax, while poor people pay 5-10% sales tax or more.
Not true.
The rich do not become rich by spending. Sure it probably is true that a larger portion of expenditures are subject to sales tax for the wealthy. But, ultimately, a smaller portion of their income is spent rather than invested.
And no, I don't give a rat's ass about them investing their money. Especially given that there's no guarantee that the investments will benefit me or other Americans. And their tax rates are lower than they are for people that are less well off.
1. Never
2. They don't
3. There's wireless service (NOT cell phone service but wireless analog lines)
4. Why should they?
5. Are you a fucking retard? Did you even read the fucking SUMMARY? It says POOR PEOPLE are subsidizing the RICH.
I was responding to the implication that rural areas are a drain on resources, when clearly they provide substantial resources.
Easy, we ship the food in from overseas in exchange for things that we produce in urban areas. Or we use the railroads that are more cost effective anyways. Leaving the rural folks to actually pay their own way for the infrastructure that's primarily used by rural folks.
Honestly, this extreme level of arrogance and greed on the part of rural folks needs to stop. Service cuts disproportionately affect urban areas, even though urban tax payers contribute most of the money that pays for those services.
They said:
(except perhaps local sales taxes or use fees)
It's just that they didn't realize how much a percentage of the poor's income this represents (just about the same percentage as the sales tax rate itself).
Just another example of those slick country con-men taking advantage of good innocent city-folk.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
There's a difference between an unfair burden to subsidize the wealthy(which doesn't describe all of the use of this program) and considering those living in a region to be worthless. I don't really think that anyone was leveling that accusation. I grew up rural, became urban, and that's life. At least we can all agree that suburbs are worthless, right?
1. Having a phone is not a right, but is considered a modern necessity (for safety, if nothing else) ...Let me know how that works out. (Where are you going to get produce, food, minerals, building materials... obviously people need to live in rural areas). As for the corporations who are abusing this, I agree, they should not get to do what they are doing, and could very well move.
2. Just like with roads, everyone pays a little bit, because everyone might need to use it. Having nationwide infrastructure is a good thing. Nationwide doesn't mean just in the cities.
3. See 2. And 1. Being able to contact an ambulance/fire station is considered a basic necessity. Also, this is mostly targeted at waste and abuse in corporate users (who are just greedy).
4. Move where? Are you suggesting that cities and population centers can support the bulk of the populous?
5. Again, what good would relocation do? I agree that having families with a culture of living off government dole is not a good thing, but I'm not sure what moving them would do. Also, regardless of one's socioeconomic status, everyone has the right to vote, THAT is a fundamental right. How would you like it if someone said, for example: when you don't produce food, you have no say over the regulations regarding the production and transportation of foodstuffs. Having the USA degenerate even more into a caste system (more than it already is) is going to help absolutely nothing. Did you like India in the previous two centuries?
I can be more due to things like fixed registration fees, and the like.
Not every broken system is broken because of fraud.
As someone who lives in a rural area, even though I'm not rich, I can tell you that the quality of phone lines in rural areas are pretty much crap and you're better off going with a mobile phone. If the phone companies are being paid per active line, this whole thing will go away in a few years anyway.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
City folk will keep the factory made chain saws, mining equipment and farm equipment. Well, sell them to other countries, really. And buy your stuff from Canada.
The summary states that the program has devolved to poor people in urban areas subsidizing rich people in the country. While that may be true, Would not the rich people in urban areas also be subsidizing the poor people in the country? Last time I checked, urban areas had a lot of people of different classes and while there are definitely some wealthy people in the country, in the vast areas known as fly over country, the wealthy are far and few between. But, if you are talking about the rural areas of CA or NY, well, aren't those really the new suburbs?
It also works the other way around: rural folks subsidizing ridiculously overpriced housing, education, public safety, and other services that the "urban poor" use. Many of the "urban poor" are likely poor because they are "urban" in the first place. And what about the rural poor who really do need these subsidies?
That's the whole problem with all these "great society" programs: nobody really knows what the money should be spent on. Once you go down this road, you lose yourself in ever more complex and wasteful schemes of economic central planning, rent seeking, and outright corruption.
I always wonder about that.
Why do we make all kinds of stupid laws based on silly assumptions without some mechanism of review, or automatic expiration of those laws?
I think we would be better off if every single piece of legislation came up for review every 10 years or so.
And if it wasn't updated, or re-affirmed it should just expire.
Otherwise you get crazy shit like this, or rules about women not being allowed to drive a car while wearing a housecoat.
I have moved to where my cost of living is lower. And I don't see why I should be forced to subsidize other people who refuse to do so.
And how do you know that your lower cost of living doesn't reflect subsidies? I mean that's essentially impossible to say.
As a % of income, rich people pay maybe 1% sales tax, while poor people pay 5-10% sales tax or more.
% of income is a worthless metric. If your income is 95% spent on subsistence, even a 2% tax is onerous. If your income is spent 5% on subsistence and 95% on savings and non-essential expenses, even a 20% tax may not be onerous (except emotionally).
I hope no one needs help in figuring out which of the above are rich and which are poor.
By and large, the "urban poor" do not pay much in taxes (except perhaps local sales taxes or use fees).
That is a myth that has been propagated for years with absolutely no basis in fact. Here's the truth about it:
1. Most states have sales taxes, and urban poor pay those. Many states have income taxes too, and much of the urban poor pay those too, albeit at a lower rate than, say, a middle-class person living in the suburbs.
2. Most states also draw income from urban poor in the form of taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and by state-run lotteries, all of which are more popular in places where people are poor, miserable, and with no way out of their current situation.
3. Anyone who works pays federal Social Security and Medicare taxes on the first dollar they earn. The only people who don't pay that on every dollar they make are people earning well into the 6-figures.
4. Property taxes are paid indirectly by the urban poor: They pay rent to their landlords, who pay the tax. (Forget owning a house - these folks can't afford one)
5. Urban poor receive harsher punishment for criminal activity than anyone else, so the government gets some income from them in the form of fines and asset forfeiture. Of course, one could argue that they also cost the state the most in jail time.
The idea that the people you're calling "urban poor" are a bunch of lazy freeloaders that were acting as a money sink for the rest of society was invented in the 1970's. What the people who invented the idea meant by "urban poor", and "welfare queens", and a bunch of related terms was "n*****s". Some of the people who invoke that idea today mean exactly the same thing, even if they don't say that's what's motivating them.
I am officially gone from
1. When having a phone became a 'right'
2. Why people have to have phone that requires 90% or more of the country to pay for it because of where they choose to live
3. Why I should pay more because someone wants to live in a rural area where they can't make any money and don't have phone service. And where storms can bring down phone lines causing thousands of dollars in repair costs for a phone they don't pay for.
4. Why they can't move
5. Why, after all of the above, if they don't have skills, can't live off the land, can't get a job, can't move, and are poor, we don't relocate them someplace else since they must already be living on the government dole. When you don't make your own way and don't contribute to society, you don't get to decide the rules that govern how you receive free money and other things.
You're right. People should only have access to the resources and commodities that are naturally (via the land or free-market trade) present in their area. The government shouldn't get involved.
People in every city ever will LOVE paying 50 times the current price for things like food and water!
Woosh.
Driving around California for a few years, I've seen several kinds of rural people.
The Rural Rich do indeed exist. See that house up there on the hill? The one with the view of the valley/ocean/fields, etc? The guy in there is rich. He doesn't farm or ranch squat. If his surrounding land is suitable for ranching, it might be leased but you can usually be certain there's no dirt under the fingernails. It's usually a big house with a garage.
The same type of parcel might be occupied by an established ranching family, that may or may not be doing OK. The house is less nice, perhaps even "ramshackle". Appearances can be deceiving. Wealthy? Maybe (remember Sam Walton and his old pickup?). Maybe not. Some bad years in farming, and even the agricultural subsidies might not be enough. Loneliness, divorce, addiction. Next thing you know, it's a meth lab.
Next, the workers. The "hands". A lot, but not all, are from Mexico. Definitely not rich.
Then you've got Gringos doing this kind of thing too. They demand higher pay because they're legal... but get less work. Caretakers, general labor, carpentry, etc. The interesting thing about this is that a legal resident might be more likely to have an illegal house. The woods hide a multitude of sins.
Then I'm sure there are plenty of legal residents scraping by in service jobs, living in trailers on somebody's ranch or back up in the woods in perfectly legal housing. These are probably the closest to what you have in Ohio.
I'm sure there are plenty of people in Ohio who bought some land out in the middle of nowhere and put a McMansion on it too. These are the "rural rich", living right in amongst the rural poor. That's what they're talking about.
Bullshit. In the states I know about, food, clothing and rent are not taxed. There's not a whole hell of a lot "poor" people are buying that is not food, clothing, and rent. The exception would be a car. If they can even afford one at all, usually they have to make do with a used car 7-15 years old, and the sales tax on that is not very much. Gas has its own tax and is not really covered by "sales tax".
If we had the national so-called "fair tax" (a kind of consumption tax; i.e., sales tax), poor people would pay none at all, because the "prebate" would cover all their purchases, and actually it would give the really poor a surplus (subsidy).
But... reading the paper I smelled a preconceived agenda. The paper was sponsored by Americans for Generational Equity an ostensibly bipartisan group concerned with the fact that the "Pig in the Python" is getting closer to the snake's cloaca. And the group worries that said meal is (or soon will) be providing less nourishment than it takes to digest it. Read: The Boomers are greying and will suck the life out of the country before they become python excrement. Think of the children.
A look at the group's composition reveals a majority of Republican notables with a sprinkle of moderate Democrats. The FCC is a bipartisan body and fairly judicious by nature IMHO. I have to wonder what is really going on here. There are hundreds of more fruitful places to look fo WF&A. As for real waste? Check out the US military.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
I work for a telco. We're required by law to provide phone service to everyone... period. In some counties we're required by law to keep 911 service working regardless of if they residents even want a phone, or even if the building is abandoned! We've got houses on top of mountains, we've got houses at the bottom of the grand canyon on Indian reservations that require microwave dishes to link the bottom of the canyon with the top. Or techs have to hitch rides on helicopters to service some of these people. The vast majority of whom are not rich at all. Rich people like to live in the countryside around cities or small towns, not in the Appalachians where these subsidies have the greatest affect.
Not that all the government subsidies are perfect. The most recent, the Rural Broadband initiative, is total pork. But the standard tax on lines that allows rural customers to get basic phone service? No, that's probably one of the most important programs in US history. If hadn't been enacted most of the country (geographically) would still be without service. If they were to drop it all together, rural customers would get cutoff almost immediately. We're talking entire towns. And before you start talking about cellphones, how do you think all the cellphone providers get their data links for those towers? The phone companies.
Yeah? How you going to do all the bustling economic activity in the dark? The bulk of the hydro electric dams are out in the rural areas, as are fossil fueled power plants. Not to mention all your fresh water comes from rivers and aquifers generally supplied by rainfall in rural areas and mountains. Every city has an area around it that supplies basic necessities to keep the city alive. The larger the city, the further its tendrils have to reach to keep it running and livable.
If the complaint here is that rural areas are being unfairly subsidized, well that's fine, but... HELLO FARM BILL! The only reason urban areas have any affordable food available is because the government subsidizes farms to keep the cost of produce down.
The tax in question is imposed on the Telco's, and recovered by a fee they add each month on the phone bill. Legally, it is counted as a tax when the corporations pay it out, but called a fee when the individual actually pays it in. Anyone with a land line pays it, however poor they are. The EIC for a single person, at max, is $ 480. The fees the phone companies charge that subsidise the universal service charge are usually about $72 per year, so just having a land line phone would eat about 20% of that EIC you're invoking. Most single poor people do not even get all their witholding back - that's something that is much more possible if the poor person is raising a minor child or three. A single person can be well under the poverty level and still pay income taxes. As my example shows in part, other taxes may well mean the poor person is paying a good percentage of their income in taxes despite the EIC. Remember, to get the EIC, the person must work and thus have earned income. For more than 50% of the working poor, work translates to gas taxes for driving to work, plus vehicle liscence taxes. It can include state and local sales taxes of up to 10% (possible in California). Arguably, the rent most poor people pay includes covering the property taxes on the space they rent, (or their landlord is somehow willing to rent at a loss). You can beat $ 480 pretty easily, and it's quite likely for a single person making less than $10,000 to be a net tax payer. When you factor in the personal share of Social Security and Medicare, it's pretty frequent for a single person making 10K a year to be a net FEDERAL taxpayer.
You can also call some things a fee at one end to hide the fact they are taxes, and so falsely make it look like the poor are paying less taxes than they are. Then you can find some dumbass to parrot the false claim that the poor get all their money back via tax returns.
Who is John Cabal?
Sure, then those of us that live in more rural areas should also not have to contribute anything to your public transit costs, sanitation, or emergency services. Also, you can buy the reservoir water for your municipal water systems off of us, instead of having free use of these rural water supplies. Merchandise should also have to cost more, since the warehouses are in more rural areas where the land is cheap, too. And you don't get any benefit from the highways that run through the rural areas between cities, so you won't mind if you can't use them anymore, right? After all, if you needed water, you should just move to the rural area where it is. Right? Same with moving to where the food is, to where the warehouse is, etc?
It's foolish logic - we all benefit from spreading things around so that everyone gets to have them. We are better as a society when everyone has access to roads, electricity, food, water, and telephone. For all the things that are available and cheap to you in a city that you want to deny to the rural area, the rural area could turn around and deny the city things. Would you prefer gunpoint subsidies where the rural area refused to let the city have water unless the city paid for the rural telephone service?
We don't need highways? That's news to, like, the entire world.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That article was specifically addressing Washington state. While other states will also have a tax burden on the poor, it will vary from place to place.
Of course the rich pay local and sales taxes as well. The main point your are trying to make is that they may not have to buy as much of the taxed items to live comfortably. But almost everyone I know spends all of their money on something, and it is fairly difficult to find places to buy things now were you don't pay taxes. I will tell you that when I buy stuff in is a lot more than 3%! Of course, I'm not in the highest-income class you mention. Maybe the folks who spend their money on big Yachts and private Jets do.
Should we subsidize country poor? Sure. But you can buy and maintain a satellite phone more cheaply than $3000/line!
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
I can't help but think you don't know about many States, then.
I've lived in some where SOME foods are not taxed, but I've never lived in one where clothing was not taxed.
And I've never heard of one where "rent" was considered a "sale" and therefore taxable....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
That's only because we're already paying for all their food, which isn't taxed in any state. Civilized states (mostly the ones not NY) also don't tax clothing.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Logically, if a phone is a right and making people who already live there pay for the actual cost is wrong because they already lived there, shouldn't the government come up with a way to help people in expensive cities pay for their rent? In many gentrified neighborhoods, people are kicked out of their houses because when the neighborhood became hip, it became a desirable place to live and rents are raised.
This follows the same logic if you believe that housing is a right.
And the poor pay 0 federal tax, or even get a few grand back, while the "rich" (everyone who makes more than you) pay 10-40% of their income. So?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Then you should be railing against your state, or moving out.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Investments move the economy. I'm not sure why that is considered evil.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Florida has sales tax on services, such as storage rental.
Let's face it, this is a tax, to give money back to phone companies, to do a service that they would do in the first place anyways, if the government allowed market competition. Verizon - No, that area doesn't meet our 40% profit threshold; Joe's Phone Service - No problem, I can do that and still make money at 10% margin. But regulation keeps Joe from competing in that market, so the artificial forced alternative is no service. It's the same reason why everyone doesn't have at least 5 different options for high speed Internet access. A lot of the debate centers around copper line delivery. However, I have to wonder if what is being missed is subsidies toward satellite-based feeder services (Satellite to rural area to copper line to consumer). That would be a big capital expenditure and I could see a large dollar value on a line by line basis, if that was the delivery method. Still not an excuse for the subsidy in the first place, but it would explain the numbers.
If we had the national so-called "fair tax" (a kind of consumption tax; i.e., sales tax), poor people would pay none at all, because the "prebate" would cover all their purchases
It's funny, because the 'tax them but rebate them' crap is wide open to just removing the rebate and leaving them stuck in the lurch. And frankly we already do this this 'prebate' you talk about with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Which the GOP has been opposed to for decades. linky
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
As someone who lives in Colorado, I'd be very surprised if vacation homes in aspen were receiving this subsidy. Now, the mansions surrounding aspen....
1. Basic infrastructure was deemed important. Most infrastructure is tax-funded, but telecommunications happens to be a private industry now. Most of modern society involves being reachable in such a way.
2. It's not just people who choose where the live - that's a consequence.
3. Above-ground wire lines are still much cheaper than buried. Even when taking into account the cost of replacing poles after storms. These people pay for their phones. They just don't directly pay for the lines being built. Neither do you.
4. So you can have a larger apartment. And so they can have a large house on two acres for much less than you pay for your apartment. Maybe they're a successful farmer growing your food. You'd be paying the difference in higher food cost anyway if they had to pay a higher share for infrastructure.
5. Make up your mind - are they poor or are they rich? The poor don't always live off the government - that's actually a lot more common in/near the city. They just don't have much. But if they were, the cost of living is much lower so be glad they're not in the city.
The city is not for everyone. Nor should it be. Plenty of people want to live a good distance from the city. People there are friendlier than you are. The air is clean. Cost of living overall is lower. There's so much open space. The Internet brings you as close to the modern world as you need to be.
You know, I can't take responsibility for people who are foolish enough to play the lottery with their last dollar. That's not a tax, unless you want to consider it a tax on stupidity. Stop being stupid, and the tax is no longer levied. The PA lottery sends proceeds to programs for seniors, so if you proposed to eliminate it you'd be accused of ageism anyway. Government is the problem.
Guess who keeps raising the taxes on alcohol and tobacco? What was the first tax Obama raised when he came into office? Government is the problem.
Claiming that renters (there are renters outside the city, BTW) are paying property tax is also as dumb as claiming that when I take out a loan or use a credit card, I'm paying the bank's taxes. Again, if property taxes are too high and forcing up rents, guess whose fault that is again?
There is a cap on the SS tax because there's a cap on benefits. But I don't expect the Slashdot leftist to believe in fairness as much as the "fair share".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
only nit is the Soc Sec cap - it's not 'well into the 6 figures' but right about 106,000 I believe. So almost everybody in six figures doesn't pay as much as I (and I think you) believe they should.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Do you know what the problem with this statement is?
For the people that occupy the 60% - 98% level of income in the country, it simply isn't true. (People in the 60% - 98% level of income generally can't afford to run their lives off of tax-free muni bond interest or carried interest, which accounts for the majority of the tax shelters. People with that income level need a higher rate of return than that afforded by muni bond interest and less risky investments than those that yield carried interest in order to have enough for retirement.)
Do you know what the second problem with that statement is?
When that statement is made and policy is enacted because of it, it generally hammers the people in the 60% - 98% level of income, who (as illustrated above) are already paying a higher tax rate than those in the 0% - 60% level of income.
> 2. Most states also draw income from urban poor in the form of taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and by state-run lotteries
Cry me a river.
You just jumped the shark with that one.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, I moved to a more rural area. And I don't think I should have to contribute to that.
No, it's your logic that's foolish. "Spreading around" doesn't give people more, it gives people a lot less, and it discourages people from making rational choices.
I prefer no subsidies at all. I prefer that people pay for the actual cost of things, because that's the only way they are going to make sound economic decisions that help everybody be wealthier.
It's not considered evil. It's considered immune to a sales tax, or any other form of consumption tax.
"Capital gains" are taxed differently than "income". This leads to a situation where our tax policy ends up being quite regressive, in that the wealthy are paying lower tax rates than the poor. If this is truly what we want as a society, we should campaign to have the "income" tax brackets reflect this. However, I don't think you'd have much popular support for a policy that takes the tax brackets and flips them around so that the rate goes down as income goes up. That means that our tax policy is not only regressive, but it's also sufficiently misleading to have won the support of the electorate despite being against their own interests.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that investments are "evil". GP was merely stating that money that is invested is not spent, and therefore is not impacted by a sales tax. This is only "evil" if you believe that it is a moral imperative to pay sales tax. Reading comprehension FTW.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Official answer: $113,700.
I am officially gone from
The issue is not tax rates on food or clothing or housing. But the issue is phone (mobile or landline) and internet. Those have relatively high tax rates. And those are now "essential" to participate in our culture. Plus the tax rate doesn't depend on ones income level. So the poor are taxed more, as relates to their disposable income, on just what this article is about.
I've got news for you. The number of vacation homes is wildly dwarfed by real people actually living in the rural areas. It's a fraction of a percent of the cost and not worth worrying about.
The article itself is wildly inflammatory. 'Poor' urban people pay for 'rich' rural. Guess what, 'everybody' urban pays for 'everybody' rural. NYC funds quite a nice amount and I wouldn't call NYC'ers 'poor'. Sure some are, but not even a large percentage.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I'm not suggesting that people should be spending what money they have on lottery tickets, alcohol, or tobacco. I'm simply pointing out that they do, and that the effect is that they're paying taxes. The question of whether government was a problem or a solution wasn't in play, it was simply whether urban poor people pay taxes.
I am officially gone from
There's plenty of economic data on that. No, our lower cost of living doesn't reflect subsidies.
Furthermore, on balance, we pay a lot more to the federal government than we get back.
Really, you have acres of farm land in the middle of a city? or do you get subsidies (like the Farm Bill for instance) that keeps your cost of milk down?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Please travel more.
In my state clothing and prepared foods are taxed. Rent would include property tax, since that has to be paid by the landlord. Sales tax on cars here is the same as every other item.
Fair tax is a simple scheme to move taxation to the middle class. The rich would benefit greatly at my expense.
The original comment was very poor. The truth is that the "urban poor" do not pay much in the way of *federal* taxes (and the very lowest actually pay *negative* taxes.) (Also note that I don't necessarily personally begrudge them this.)
So, now, point-by-point:
1) Sales tax already covered by original post. Can't say I know much about the state income tax rates.
2) Alcohol, tobacco, and state-run lotteries are also optional. While poor people may exhibit greater tendencies to purchase these things, they are optional. They can choose not to be taxed in that fashion.
3) See the first statement here. The urban poor might have SS and Medicare taxes withheld on their paychecks, but it comes right back to them when they file their federal returns.
4) At least in Minnesota, renters can claim a property tax deduction based on the property tax they paid while renting, although this typically is pretty insignificant. However, most of the funding for public services in Minnesota comes from property taxes - schools, courts, police, fire, etc., so it seems to me that they have a vested interest in paying these taxes, more than any others.
5) Crime is also optional.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of huge income inequalities, either, but at the same time you need to get the facts right if we're going to have a rational discussion about how to fix the problem.
But almost everyone I know spends all of their money on something
Almost everyone you know is far from rich. A wealthy individual will invest a considerable proportion of their income instead of spending it. It's not that they're buying items exempt from sales tax; they're not buying things period.
A poor person spends all of their income. This necessarily prevents them from accumulating wealth, or becoming rich. The rich, by definition, did not spend all of their income, enabling them to accumulate wealth, or become rich. Any of the income that they didn't spend (i.e. any of the income that contributed towards their accumulated wealth) was not subject to sales tax or any other form of consumption tax.
A jurisdiction has a certain sales tax rate, say X%.
A poor person, Mr. A, spends all his money. X% of his net income goes towards sales tax.
An upper middle class person, Mr. B, spends half his money and invests the other half. X/2% of his net income goes towards sales tax.
A truly wealthy person, Mr. C, spends one percent of his money and invests the remainder. X/100% of his net income goes towards sales tax.
Why would we, as a society, support a tax that has a poor person paying 100 times more, as a percentage of his net income, than a truly wealthy person?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Neither. I have moved to a town with a low cost of living; it's big enough not to need rural or farm subsidies, and it's small enough not to have the enormous costs associated with big city living. Even though we clearly get screwed by all the subsidies that go to big metropolitan areas and rural areas, the cost of living and doing business still ends up being lower.
The farm bill doesn't keep anybody's cost of milk down, it increases it, because one of its features is price supports; that's in addition to the vast amounts of public funds that are wasted on it.
The good news is that since the rural population is so low, the total amount is small. In simple terms spending 24K on some undeserving phone line may not be fair but it doesn't mean anything if there a relatively few people receiving the subsidy. The bias for rural areas is built in the the US Constitution. Montana has the same number of Senators as New York. This may not be "fair" but fairness is a concept that applies to childish competitions not governments.
Start doing studies. It is simply not that expensive to run and maintain cable, not even in rural areas.
Where I live (semi-rural outskirts of a major metro) the labor to string cable costs $1/foot and burying cable costs $8/foot. (source is a comcast field engineer) My nearest neighbor lives 600 feet away and the length of the line between my house and then next one is about 1200 linear feet due to how the line is routed. For someone on a farm this could easily be 3000+ linear feet. So there is your $3000 right there without even getting into the cost of the wire itself, the switchgear, signal boosters, customer service, engineering and the rest.
Now I have no idea if the subsidies provided are appropriate to the actual cost but it is genuinely expensive to run cable to rural locations.
The AGE study on which TFA is based attacks the USF program by talking about "wasting" money of service to "wealthy" parts of the country without defining "waste", defining "wealthy" or how many of the customers being served through the USF are wealthy and where these areas are. Seems more like a political screed rather than an objective argument against a program that does not seem to getting much out of the money they spend.
The AGE article offers satellite voice/data as an alternative to subsidized landlines provided through USF, which is complete hogwash, unless USF is willing to subsidize the satellite service. I have a home in one of the areas in the top ten most subsidized (per line). I have a satellite internet connection (through Hughes), but I could not find any provider that could offer me phone service via satellite for less than $1800/year (no data service included). Data service would be another $60/month for 15,000 seconds (yes, seconds) up/down connectivity.
Using the satellite internet connection does not work very well as the latency on the circuit is usually over second. The distance a packet must travel from my dish, to geosynchronous orbit (22,000+ miles), down to the base station (another 22,000+ miles), through ground wires to the destination and then back again is almost 100,000 miles. Also, the power grid is completely stand alone and does not connect to any other power line, so it cannot be used.
And who's paying them ~$100,000 a year?
http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/26-2171390/alliance-generational-equity.aspx
Their web site www.truslseniors.org is down
Another question is, who the fuck is C. McClain Haddow, the guy who's running Alliance for Generational Equity?
http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/lobbying/client/alliance-for-generational-equity
Mother Jones has a hint.
The Artful Codger
Trashing the AARP with Grandma Green.
By Michael Scherer
July/August 2005 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/07/artful-codger
The real pedigree of the group Green represents is hidden under layers of PR and politics. The Seniors Coalition was cofounded in 1989 by conservative activist Dan C. Alexander Jr., three years after he was sent to prison for arranging construction kickbacks as an Alabama school-committee member. Today, its top outside lobbyist is C. McClain Haddow, a former Health and Human Services official who spent time in prison with Alexander for failing to file a timely ethics waiver when he gave his wife a government contract. Haddow has also lobbied for generic-drugs manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals.
The organization’s Washington activities regularly blur the needs of seniors with the agendas of corporate donors. After it took money from Microsoft in 1999, the coalition lobbied on antitrust litigation, and after it took money from Lottery.com in 2000, it lobbied on a bill that would restrict Internet gambling. Money also poured in from the American Petroleum Institute and the American Public Power Association—just as the coalition spoke out against the Kyoto Protocol and lower gas-mileage standards.
The Seniors Coalition is especially tied to the drug industry. PHRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s trade group, gave the organization $2.2 million between 1999 and 2000 (the only two years for which full financial disclosure is available). Other drug industry sources funneled the group an additional $300,000 during that time. But Tom Moore, the coalition’s chief operating officer, writes in an email that only 22 percent of his organization’s funding comes from industry, and that the group “retains its complete independence in developing [its] legislative agenda.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
There is some interest group behind this that is going to save a lot of money if they eliminated the Universal Service Fund (which has its pros and cons), and this outfit is crying crocodile tears over the urban poor. Or generational equity. I'd take them more seriously if they were up front with their real agenda.
They basically, (Cable/Phone)...should be at this point, running cable to regions, and setting up "local" towers. This would not necessarily be your normal cell service. But would be similar.
Basically, this way those in rural areas could get broadband internet. And IF there was an obstruction, the homeowner could erect an antenna and run a line into their home at their cost.
1. If someone is living somewhere without phone access, then the person calling them for the job also doesn't have a phone. If someone is living where there is phone service, the infrastructure already exists. If someone is living where there isn't phone access but the job isn't there, they will have to move. Not a valid reason.
2. Phones are not necessary in an area where there aren't any phones. Everyone is in the same boat. They didn't talk to anyone when they moved there, nothing has changed or needs to change.
3. I pay to protect ME, not someone else. When I pay for highway usage, I get a benefit from it. What benefit do I get from this so it's worth me paying for it?
4. I don't need to move, I have a phone. Why should I spend money to support someone if I don't get a benefit from it. I don't mind having the choice to do it, but I shouldn't have to do it if I don't get a benefit from it. And by 'I', that also means society improves because of it.
5. People lived and farmed for thousands of years without phones. Subsidizing farmer's phones decreases food costs, but increases other costs, so it's a net wash since everyone eats, and a large portion of the population have phones. I can choose what foods to buy based on what they cost. If costs rose, farmers would then be motivated to find appropriate communication methods to keep their costs down. Providing phones circumvents that process.
As we have seen in home and college subsidies, providing free money does not keep costs down. Instead, it interferes with the normal supply and demand process and increases prices. When insurance became prevalent and more people used health care, costs went up because the cost to the consumer was less and they could afford more, higher priced, procedures regardless of whether they were actually necessary or not. Such as putting a cast on a break v/s putting in a plate and paying for the accompanying physical therapy.
Government interference with markets usually has unforeseen consequences which are rarely beneficial. A valid exception is to prevent a monopoly from using it's ownership of a product to keep competitors out.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
re #5 it's an inflammatory article. rich and poor urban people subsidize rich and poor rural people. i.e. you need to subsidize the rural lines because it simply costs more per person because of density.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
ok, so you don't have farmland or livestock. i.e. you're getting subsidies because you'd be paying a shitload more for food if you had to do it yourself.
I know I would rather get 60% of $100,000 than 83% of $20,000.
What I don't understand is how people that have any sort of education beyond third grade can invert the injustice and call it fair.
No, farm subsidies have a small effect on lowering food prices, but a large effect on transferring wealth to farmers. This is a variation of the broken window fallacy. For example, subsidized corn ends up being used for purposes where there are better alternatives. Consumers are of course always going to need food, but they might choose a different mix in the absence of subsidies and use some of the wealth that went to domestic agriculture for other purposes.
If you think that a large percentage of urban development isn't subsidized as much if not more than rural development, you're either naive or stupid.
Yes, it costs more per capita to provide fair universal service to people in rural areas, but that's true of just about everything where there is an imbalance of coverage.
People and society are not a uniform, thin film covering a perfectly flat planet surface where everything can be evenly distributed at the same cost.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
The OP that was being responded to didn't distinguish like you are implying. If you want to make a different point fine, I can agree with that, but the original statement was: "It's rural areas being a drain on the nation's resources", to which the responses were largely fair and proper.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
I prefer that people pay for the actual cost of things ...
Oh, that'll be easy, once you find a way to account for and charge for all externalities. Until then, we're stuck with a hybrid system with regulation and externalities, with good parts and bad parts.
That's not unique to phones. It also applies to highways, minor airports, housing tax incentives, and a number of other "American Dream" elements that really have nothing to do with having a successful society.
I must be missing the joke or sarcasm here because otherwise this post makes no sense.
You can't have economical and reliable sources of food, fuel, raw materials of every kind. without a rural population to provide them.
You can't do it without transportation. Education.
Community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) is a modern example of what happens when people are forced to live in desperately over-crowded and very poor conditions. Housing matters, Sanitation matters. Nutrition matters, Recreation matters.
None of this has ever come cheap.
Claiming that renters (there are renters outside the city, BTW) are paying property tax is also as dumb as claiming that when I take out a loan or use a credit card,
You got this one wrong. You have to examine the incidence of taxation. The property owner has to pay taxes but he pays this by passing the cost on to the people renting the property. The actual tax incidence is on the renters, not the landlord. The amount of the tax is irrelevant in this case in determining who is the one ultimately burdened with the tax even if the amount of the tax is just one penny.
For the same reason this is why gasoline taxes are fundamentally a regressive tax (hurts the poor more than the rich). The oil companies do not absorb the cost, they merely pass it along to their customers, more of whom are poor than are wealthy.
There is a cap on the SS tax because there's a cap on benefits.
That would be a more credible argument if they amount paid in equaled the amount paid out in benefits to each beneficiary. Most beneficiaries receive more in payments than they pay to social security. And let's be frank, there is a cap on SS tax because the wealthy are a powerful lobby and have undue influence when it comes to financial legislation. Your argument is just some sugar to help get rid of the icky taste of reality.
Ha. HA! haahahha. You, my friend, are completely off your damn rocker. Federal taxes aren't limited to the damn income tax. It's completely clear that you've never looked a minimum wage pay stub in your life.
Especially since they get 83% of their first 20,000 too.
Ok, I have to totally withdraw the "I don't really think anyone was leveling that accusation" statement. I am not "everyone" and some douchebag was doing exactly that. I apologize.
I don't understand why urban areas have to subsidize rural areas at the expense of our priorities.
Just because someone is living in a rural area doesn't mean what they are doing is unimportant. Farms serve an incredibly important purpose and necessarily are located in rural areas. Just because they are rural doesn't mean they don't need to communicate with the rest of the world. Or did you think all that food that arrives in your comfy urban dwelling got there by magic? Nothing wrong with living in a city but let's not pretend that those who live in a remote area are any less deserving.
Here in Canada in certain businesses, like Banks and I believe phone lines, were the government has allowed or promoted a monopoly, they also force the companies to provide universal coverage.
It does not matter how much money you have, or where you live.
But if you are a bank in Canada, you are not allowed to just open up branches in the biggest cities and decide that it is not worth going in the small towns. If you are a Bank in Canada you need to provide your customers with universal money access.
And I assume some reasonable, affordable, limit is placed on phone line access as well.
It is not about taxing the slums to pay for 20 miles of cable to some country manor, it is about equality.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
. What the people who invented the idea meant by "urban poor", and "welfare queens", and a bunch of related terms was "n*****s".
"normals", "nancies", "nasties", "noogies"? If you're putting The Word That Must Not Be Said in quotes to indicate that it is not you saying it, why not just say the damn word.
every discussion of fairness doesn't need to slide into "well our subculture is better than yours".
Isn't that the whole point of subsidies? If rural lifestyles are not "better" than urban lifestyles, then why should money from urban taxpayers be used to pay people to live in rural areas? Personally, I think lifestyle subsidies are idiotic, but by democratic means we have collectively decided that some lifestyles are superior and need to be encouraged at the expense of others.
I was responding to the implication that rural areas are a drain on resources, when clearly they provide substantial resources.
Logic fail. Rural areas can provide substantial resources and still be a net drain.
if there is no difference in capital gains as opposed to income where is the incentive to invest in companies how would your employer do if it had much reduced access to capital would your job be viable?
As is comunications
Capital gains, when applied to stock market gains, means that a company's worth has increased by making more money, on which the company has been taxed. Thus, the money is being taxed twice, first at the corporate rate, then at the capital gains rate. That takes it out of your lying claim of "quite regressive."
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The Bell System was granted a monopoly under the condition that it provide universal service. This was a win-win; Bell Systems won because it became extremely wealthy, and people not in major urban hubs won because they got phone service. It's not that phone service is a right but that it is a part of the deal that was made.
I once read that upwards of 90% of farm subsidy checks are mailed to Washingon D.C. addresses.
1. When having a phone became a 'right'
When rapid communication became essential for doing business and for receiving emergency services.
(See also, when water and electricity became basic rights.)
2. Why people have to have phone that requires 90% or more of the country to pay for it because of where they choose to live
3. Why I should pay more because someone wants to live in a rural area where they can't make any money and don't have phone service. And where storms can bring down phone lines causing thousands of dollars in repair costs for a phone they don't pay for.
Same reason we gave them electricity. Not only is it a basic right in modern society, but we also want to encourage some people to live in sparsely populated land (e.g. farmers).
Rural taxpayers subsidize urban dwellers in ways that don't directly benefit them too -- public transit, highway maintenance, etc. In fact, per capita federal spending is higher in urban counties than in rural ones.
4. Why they can't move
Let me guess: You're the kind of person who wonders why people starving in Africa don't just move somewhere nice, aren't you? Is there even any reason to attempt to explain the economics and other reasons why someone might not want to or be able to move if you think this is an intelligent question
Hint: The cost of relocation isn't trivial -- especially for the people who might need it the most.
5. Why, after all of the above, if they don't have skills, can't live off the land, can't get a job, can't move, and are poor, we don't relocate them someplace else since they must already be living on the government dole. When you don't make your own way and don't contribute to society, you don't get to decide the rules that govern how you receive free money and other things.
Wow, that's an amazing and insulting list of assumptions. Who says that rural people "can't live off the land" and "can't get a job?" How is that relevant at all to getting telecom lines ran to them? Who says that they're "living on the government dole" just because we pay for infrastructure to reach them? I mean, if you're so high and mighty about your own ability to pay for infrastructure to be run to you yourself, then are you running on fiber right now? If not, why not?
I'm guessing you're just incredibly privileged and deluded that the benefits of society you enjoy are all a product of your hard labor. People who talk about other people not "contributing to society" often over-inflate their own contribution and ignore how many other people's backs they are carried on.
Also, it says a lot about you that you think people who aren't contributing enough should be rounded up and stripped of their freedoms. None of them good.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
And who's paying them ~$100,000 a year?
That was during an election year. Their most recent 990 says they only received $25,000 last year:
https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_11_EO/20-5283809_990EZ_201112.pdf
Their other web site is:
http://cahc.net/
The money is taxed much more than twice.
For a company's worth to increase, someone must've given them money. They must've earned that money to begin with. The money was taxed then as well. The money is taxed not twice, not three times, but continuously.
And that's not a problem. The problem is when a person (corporate or corporeal) is taxed twice.
The corporation is taxed on net income. The corporation is taxed once.
Stockholders are taxed for any dividend they receive from the corporation. They are taxed once as well.
If stockholders choose to sell stock (sell more than they buy), then any gains are taxed there. Once.
Going by your logic, the money is being taxed infinitely many times. First at the corporate rate, then at the capital gains rate, then at the sales tax rate (when investors spend it), then again at the corporate rate (when corporations make profits), forever, as long as it keeps circulating. While this is true, it's far from insightful. Nobody cares when "money" is taxed, they only care when they themselves are taxed.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
The guys producing the food win. As much as ag subsidies piss me off, a reliable food supply is the first order of business for any society.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Another logic fail is the idea that the rural areas aren't wholly reimbursed for their 'providing resources.' They certainly aren't 'providing resources' for free.
And, yet anther logic fail, probably the worst, is this idea that it's at all fair that one segment of society subsidize another segment of society. In this case, if one chooses to live far away from goods and services they happen to desire, others in society shouldn't be required to help them pay the extra costs necessary to provide those goods and services. If one makes their living farming or providing some other service that requires they live in a rural area, the added cost of goods and services incurred due to living in a rural area should be rolled into the cost of the good or service they provide. The bottom line is, if one can't afford to live comfortably in a given location, they shouldn't require their neighbor, through force of government, to help them pay for their living arrangements.
No, the reason that money from urban taxpayers was used to pay people to live in rural areas (an oversimplification, but still useful for addressing the point you were making) is because urban taxpayers need somebody to live in those rural areas and produce the things (such as food) that cannot be easily produced in urban areas. This particular subsidy was created because it was recognized that the utility of the telephone system was much greater if just about everyone had one than if there were vast areas where no one had telephone service.
That being said, I am not convinced that it was a good idea in the first place and lean towards getting rid of it now. I haven't studied the issue, but my default philosophy about government spending says that this is a bad idea and I don't have any facts which convincingly counter that.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
1) Punctuation would make your objection much clearer. I'm not sure if my other points actually address your objection or not, but I'm making a good faith effort.
2) If there is no difference in capital gains as opposed to income, the incentive to invest in companies would be to profit from the investment. Any tax rate short of 100% would preserve this incentive.
3) My employer would do it the same way he does now, as this company was built with no third party investment. Consequently, I don't see how this would impact the viability of my job.
Brief aside: What does your objection have to do with what I said? I didn't say that there should be no difference between "capital gains" and "income", I merely pointed out that there is such a difference.
P.S. I do believe that there should be a tax difference between "capital gains" and "income". I believe that capital gains ought to be taxed at a much higher rate than income, since income usually results from productive activity. Capital gains, not so much. I fully support modifying the tax code to incentivize productive behavior.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
"Capital gains" are taxed differently than "income". This leads to a situation where our tax policy ends up being quite regressive, in that the wealthy are paying lower tax rates than the poor.
That's simply not true: the lowest capital gains rate was 5%, and is now 10 or 15%. About half of people (well beyond the poor by any streatch) don't pay any income tax. Social Security is the one regressive tax (but then, the rich simply don't need it, at least not directly).
Personally, I want the income tax to simply vanish, as there's just no need for the government to know how much each citizen makes. Instead, have an x% tax on payroll, dividends, and capital gains equally (plus every other sort of gain).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Roads are supposed to be paid for by the gas tax collected when buying gas or diesel at the pump. So people that don't drive and don't use gas powered items don't help pay for the road. People with gas guzzlers or that commute a lot pay a lot more for the roads than other people.
You just described all recipients of government subsidies and welfare, both urban and rural. You've also highlighted the reason it's best we all pay for the resources we use. As Margaret Thatcher put it, eventually you run out of other people's money.
All taxes are regressive. Once we figure that out, then we can move forward with sane taxing policy. As long as people fail to realize taxes are regressive, and have a ton of unintended consequences, there will be stupid politicians suggesting more taxes for everyone as a way to solve societal problems with ineffective government programs.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The urban poor also need those highways, minor airports, housing tax incentives, and a number of other "American Dream" elements. They DO have something to do with having a successful society.
Highways and airports bring food from rural farms to the city. Otherwise, city dwellers would starve.
Housing tax incentives apply to urban buildings as much as rural ones. Section 8 is a tax "give back" to house someone who can't even cover the mortage. Landlords do not get them in general. The mortgage tax deduction only applies to a "primary residence".
As someone in upstate NY, I hate NYC. Mostly because their politics are pushy. However, they do pay for all of the stuff the rest of the state does use (well, Buffalo, Rochester and Albany contribute, but NYC and the surrounding metro area is more than half the population), so I'm not looking to get rid of them just yet.
You seem to have a strong desire to claim that things are legitimate just because we presently have them. that's not enough justification for an increasing number of citizens at this point. In fact, the article hurts your position more than it helps it.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Wealthy people can afford to avoid taxes, like sales taxes. In California, we have a fairly high sales tax, which has driven much of the commerce outside the state, and online. People shop online for everything simply to avoid paying almost 8% in taxes when they spend money.
Guess what else happens, businesses close, people lose their jobs. And liberals are dumbfounded why.
Taxes are a necessary evil, not a way to raise funds to correct the evils people see in society. IF you want to fix the evils in society, tax them. They will disappear, and you won't have to spend a dime of tax payer's money. My example, Cigarettes. Taxed in to oblivion, to the point where it is too damn expensive to smoke, and it disappears. Slowly, over time.
Wanna fix the "drug" problem and end the "drug war", legalize and tax drugs. We'll have all the money in the world to do whatever you want. Sin taxes can fund all the glorious projects we want, while reducing or eliminating the actual problems.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
And the rural areas subsidize the cities with cheap food.
Turnabout is fair play. Everyone has needs. Someone has to pay for them.
Or would you rather have the farmers charged full price for their land lines in exchange for a fair market price for the food they produce?
Trust me, you'd be paying a lot more in food costs than you would in subsidies.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The number of employees has very, very little to do with the amount of capital available. The number of employees is directly related to the number of employees needed to do the jobs that the company needs done.
The access to capital relates to how a company grows.
Honestly, I wish you supply side folks, would actually do some research and perhaps therapy, as investment dollars have very little to do with job growth.
Which part is not true? That the wealthy pay lower tax rates than the poor? Warren Buffet disagrees. Of course, there's some argument that Buffett is misleading us since his secretary might make more than the average secretary. However, it's safe to assume that she makes less than Warren himself. The fact that Buffett's tax burden is proportionally lower than his secretary's (which nobody is arguing is a false statement) is clear, inarguable proof that our tax code is (or at least has the potential to be) regressive. That capital gains tax used to be lower in the past has no bearing on this fact. That children and cripples don't pay income tax has no bearing on this fact. That Social Security withholding is also regressive has no bearing on this fact.
But speaking of falsehoods... Sure, half of people don't pay any income tax. This includes children, the disabled, the elderly, those on unemployment. Does it also include the working poor? The last time I worked a full time minimum wage job, less than a decade ago, I paid income tax. I paid federal and state income tax. I was making the minimum wage allowed by law. And yet I paid income tax. Explain to me how that is possible. Are you suggesting that about half of people are being paid less than minimum wage? Are you suggesting that about half of people make more than I was but were saddled with a lower tax rate? Are you suggesting that my accountant, TurboTax, somehow failed me, but somehow gets these great deals on taxes for everyone else?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
If we really wanted to be fully efficient then we would all work in cubicles (or the nearest equivalent for the job) and live in 8-to-a-room dormitories sharing with others who work alternate shifts so we can share a bed with them. Then to make sure nobody is a freeloader we need some compliance officers who are authorized to press anyone who looks like they might be a freeloader into service.
But that sounds like some sort of dystopic future doesn't it?
...subsidizing rich people. Isn't that what gov. has always been about?
You should do some research. I'm not surprised you posted this bullshit AC.
It's rather convenient that you're ignoring the top 2% with this, as they're the biggest part of the problem. Capital gains, which tops out at 15% as opposed to income tax which tops out at 39.6%. Now that might seem quite regressive, but the people who would be paying that top rate, make most of their money on capital gains typically, and are therefore paying the same tax rate as people making as little as $9k per year.
Those 60-98% that you're talking about, are still making a crapload more money than the bottom 59% are. And that 60-100% of incomes correspond to nearly all of the GDP.
I don't see how a fair tax would do much of anything except lower tax revenue (unless jacked up to a very high percentage). A much more fair tax would be a flat income tax (with capital gains counted as regular income) with a certain "poverty" base being exempt. example: 20K poverty line (I'm just spitballing) and 10% tax. person A made 20K and pays no taxes. person B made 25K, so 25K - 20K = 5K *.1 = $500 person B pays $500 taxes. person C made a million + a million in capital gains (income) so 2M - 20K = 1.98M * .1 = $198K person C pays $198K in taxes.
The highway trust fund was exhausted more than a decade ago. Maintenance expenditures now exceed all gas tax revenue let alone necessary reconstruction. General fund monies now subsidize highways and roads because congress is unwilling to raise the gas tax to re-stabilize the trust fund. Blame an irrational public that would rather draw debt or not fix the roads than see their gas taxes go up a nickel.
If everyone that you're complaining about did that, your COL wouldn't be low anymore.
A simple bing search suggests otherwise. On prominent example called out last time the farm bill was up for renewal was milk, the price of which would double as the current farm bill regulates the price of dairy products. Furthermore the food stamp program is part of the farm bill. Without which whole swaths of the populace would be unable to find sufficient calories to get through the day.
If everybody moves closer, then what will people eat? Some cities have abused zoning laws to send people to jail for growing what used to be called victory gardens.
The short-term rate scales exactly with the progressive income tax. The long-term rate is LOWER than the progressive income tax for the poor (as in it's more progressive), equalling it at the 25% bracket, and then remaining flat.
The most regressive tax we have is fuel tax. The well-off can afford the latest fuel efficient cars, $60,000 hybrid SUVs, and even $100,000+ electric cars with range and performance rivaling gas cars. The poor have whatever transportation they can afford, usually older and much less efficient. The rich family can afford the SUV with mileage in the 30s, while the poor one is stuck in the teens, paying twice as much tax. And the poor family is more likely to have it driven by a laborer who actually needs the interior and towing capacity.
Sales tax is flat. The rich buy more expensive things, so they pay more tax. However, I do understand that a certain level of purchasing is necessary for living, and would agree that the taxes resulting from that level of purchasing should be rebated back to all people. This way the less you make, the greater the tax relief you get relative to your income.
Make it difficult to operate a business in a rural area and the cost of food and other items will go up in the populated areas. It's as simple as that.
love is just extroverted narcissism
That isn't exactly true. Diminishing marginal utility means that the second dollar you spend on widespread communication is not as beneficial as the first, and so eventually the cost will outweigh the benefits.
There are good reasons to pay to educate children that don't apply to infrastructure in rural areas.
Why should they? They're already paying for the roads through store prices paid to truckers to bring products to stores, so why should they have to pay again through sales and property taxes? Isn't that double taxation?
I think you'll find that when it comes to conflicts between people who produce food, and wealthy concentrations of people and power, people who produced the food lost just about every kind of conflict. That's not because they're bad people or they are poor contributors to society, just that organization, manpower, and tech are really powerful.
The purpose of any tax should be to fund the minimum needed activities by the government. Trying to use it as a tool for social justice is fundamentally misguided. That's why I want a system where everyone pays the same rate on all kinds of income/gains (and most wouldn't need to interact with the IRS in any way at all).
And yet I paid income tax. Explain to me how that is possible
No mortgage? No little deductions running around the house? You just weren't living the tax-system approved lifestyle, were you now?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'd happily never accept another income tax return again if it would make assholes shut up about how I'm rape-murdering their tax dollars. Of course it wouldn't matter. If I drive on the same roads that the logging trucks drive on I'm a co-conspirator in unwillingly sodomizing farm bill subsidies.
At this point I'd be fine with not accepting a single federal dollar, just to make the James Kunstler's of the world shut up, but it wouldn't. Until my living in a rural area makes you money there will still be the assumption that I fuck my cousin, rape my daughter and smoke meth every night. Wait, that won't happen either. Rome's client states made them plenty of money, gave then an army/food and they were still thought of as subhuman waste. Everybody has got to be somebody's Hitler.
Meanwhile NYC gets to cart off their homeless to cities in rural states because the homeless person's ex-girlfriends, brother's, ex-wife's sister lives there. But what would I know? Back to fucking my goat.
Easy, we ship the food in from overseas in exchange for things that we produce in urban areas. Or we use the railroads that are more cost effective anyways. Leaving the rural folks to actually pay their own way for the infrastructure that's primarily used by rural folks.
Enjoy your extremely expensive and rotten produce. How will food get from farm to train? Or do you want a train track to every farm? That sounds pretty expensive. How will all the urban folk get to the beach? Their cottages? Or to other urban areas? It seems like you live in your mom's basement so I guess you just don't actually understand the value of infrastructure.
Don't want to pay for infrastructure? Would rather let another country pay it for you? Don't be too surprised when your countries falls to third world status.
They don't need subsidies. They can build the costs of rural life into the costs of their product.
Urban sales taxes arent subsidizing anything in rural areas...
If you have a problem with your local taxes, thats a local matter that has nothing to do with non-local people.
"His name was James Damore."
Not woosh, you idiot. He was making a sarcastic joke about the reversal of fortunes, and I was suggesting that the basis for that humor was off because it had nothing to do with what I said. It's like you can't even suss out basic context.
No, the reason that money from urban taxpayers was used to pay people to live in rural areas (an oversimplification, but still useful for addressing the point you were making) is because urban taxpayers need somebody to live in those rural areas and produce the things (such as food) that cannot be easily produced in urban areas.
That doesn't make any sense. Profit to provide for one's self and one's family provides all the motivation necessary for one to produce the needed goods and services in both an urban and rural setting. If those living in rural areas require more money to produce the goods and services they provide due to living in a rural area, they simply need to raise the cost of the goods and services they provide. Taxing those in urban areas for these purposes is completely unnecessary, which is why that isn't the reason farm subsidies exist. Farm subsidies exist as a form of protectionism from cheaper farm products produced elsewhere.
The same can be said about the higher cost of telephone service. The higher costs associated with telephone service and other goods and services provided to rural areas simply need be rolled into the cost of producing the goods and services those living in rural areas provide to others. Again, subsidized phone service for those living in rural areas is completely unnecessary.
You are right to be skeptical of government spending and of programs like these. Government is the perfect tool to unfairly force the will of one group on another, and, therefore, must be greatly limited and highly scrutinized in whatever it does -- especially, when taxing and spending the people's money. Your instincts are correct -- there was no justifiable reason to start these programs to begin with or to continue running them. It's just one of the many nails put in our economy's coffin by government.
If a reliable food supply is in demand, which it always will be, there will always be someone there willing to make money providing it. Even if there is in another country, which is the reason we have subsidies to begin with -- to protect our farm industry from cheaper farm products produced in other countries.
For most of human history, actually, organization, manpower, and "tech", such as it was, was the result of farming. Farming allowed higher population density, required better organization, and allowed society to support a few people with a job other than providing food. That really only started changing with the Enlightenment.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Milk isn't the only source of calories. Depending on income, some may need to look to cheaper alternatives for their calories, if the price of milk and other food items were to increase to their real, unsubsidized price. The swaths of populace will survive.
The food stamp program is a separate issue and need not be tide to farm subsidies, as many politicians would prefer they were. That way, each issue can be evaluated on its own merit, rather than the merit of the other issue.
So you're saying that these freeloading "47%", these welfare queens, can afford to buy real estate? The people Mitt Romney was demonizing behind closed doors weren't minorities, they were simply homeowners?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Meh. I see your point, but in some ways I have to agree with the GP.
My parents (and I) live in a fairly rural area (of a country in South America).
The *only* reason we have running water, electricity and phone service is because my parents and grandparents paid the electric, water, and phone companies to put in their cables and pipes.
Once they were in place other people were free to connect to it, because those companies still own the infrastructure.
It's incredibly unfair; but honestly, if you want to live way out in the boonies you should pay for it.
We enjoy living there, so we (or rather my parents) paid for it.
What are you talking about? Each producer in the market knows what all of those 'external' costs are -- they are called business expenses. The cost of production must be known, so that a suitable price can be set in order to turn a profit and make production of the good or service a worthwhile venture. That's why the uncertainty brought about by endless government taxes and regulations reek havoc on a market.
Indeed who the h*ll you they?
If you look at the website, available funding information, domain registration and anything at all about them you find that they have worked hard from the beginning to be completely obscure about who and what they are.
A look at the AGE website's "solutions outside of political parties and ideological partisanship" you find that their proposed solutions to health care costs are
Their Big Idea on energy costs? Not clear - it is simply to endorse whatever Matt Salmon (R-AZ) is proposing.
How to jump start the Jobs Crisis? Get this - expand the H-1 Visa Program and import more skilled foreign workers.
I could go on, but this "non-political": agenda is identical to those of the Chamber of Commerce, ALEC, and the numerous mouthpiece organizations of the Koch family, of which this clearly is one.
Oh, and about that study. What academic department and institution did it come from? Why the Economics Department of George Mason University.
The very department that has received $30 million from Charles Koch over the years, honoring him with a Doctorate in return, and hosts the Mercatus Center - an 'institute' with staff personally approved by Charles Koch and funded by him.
Check it out for youself
Astro-Turf by the truck load.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
This is BS. Here: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2012 and further here: http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-earners
Now since this is slashdot and no-one will RTFL anyway: summary of Federal 2010 tax data - the top 10% pays roughly 18.5% adjusted rate, while the entire bottom 50% pays approximately 2.37%. Further, the 25-50% quartile is only paying approximately 6.01%.
Also, per the second reference, the top 10% of the US pays more than 60% of the TOTAL tax income.
Now, think about that...10% paying more than 60% of the total revenue, with an adjusted rate more than 6x times the adjusted rate of the ENTIRE lower 50% of wage earners. Some of you need to think seriously about what it takes to put in the fair share. If someone really want fairness, let's go to a flat tax...EVERYONE pays 12% and be done with it...but that doesn't fit the meme, now does it.
You can't get a Federal Income tax return that is greater than what you paid. At best you pay zero income tax.
I once read a small boy with a purple crayon created a magical ship to sail the world!
People are taxed based on money. The money itself doesn't care.
You're the only one mentioning anything about 'evil', so you can just shut that strawman down right now.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Define "burden". I think you mean percentage.
However, when I argue for a flat tax where everyone carries the same "burden", I"m immediately marked as a regressive bastard.
PS: I'm willing to bet when you worked that full time minimum wage job, you got most of it back when you filed.
And liberals are dumbfounded why.
Fuck off, partisan douchebag. You aren't as enlightened as you think you are.
Money that is invested will indeed pay sales tax, when it is cashed out and spent, or do you suspect that money that is invested will stay invested forever, just being passed down from generation to generation?
That's only because we're already paying for all their food, which isn't taxed in any state.
Absolutely wrong. Try going to Idaho -- a nice red state.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
You seem to be quite focused on forwarding an agenda that has nothing to do with my posts. I'll get out of your way since you can apparently do that with any random /. post, regardless of content.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Do you have *anything* but strawman arguments? Can you point out anywhere in the GP's post that said any of the subsidized things in that list were not needed?
Does it bother you that of all the posts you have in this thread, not a single one has been either on-topic or factually correct? Do you even know what honest debate is?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
So why are you even talking about it?
Source, please? If you haven't studied the issue, then don't give speculation as assertion.
Despite your claim, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 explicitly states,
Seems to me the point is to ensure remote people get access, not to make the system have a higher utility overall.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
But... in the US... the people who produce the food ARE a place where wealth and power is concentrated. We romanticize the small family farm, but that's not where most of our food comes from.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Source, please?
Are you saying that rural areas subsidize development in urban areas?
Or are you simply stating that urban areas subsidize their own development, which would hardly be relevant to the argument?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I guess I'm going to have to keep posting this every couple of months until you brilliant urbanists catch up with the early nineteenth century on the economics of cities.
There's a book - a dry book, I'll grant, but a damned fine one - called Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. Its author, William Cronon, talks in an early chapter about the work of Johann Heinrich von Thünen. von Thünen recognized that cities function as concentrators of wealth that is fundamentally generated in their hinterlands, allowing specialists to turn the productive capacity of the land - food, energy, and raw materials - into everything from laws to technology. The wealth of a city is directly dependent on the productivity of its economic watershed. Chicago became an economic powerhouse because it was able to tap its hinterland more productively than other places - the prairie made building railroads less difficult and hence less expensive, while the availability of cheap water transport that allowed inexpensive trade via the Erie Canal allowed Chicago to tap into the markets of New York (and New York to tap into the productivity of the American Midwest - no small contribution to its rise as the preeminent city of the East Coast). Rail allowed transport of good across the gentle hill separating the Great Lakes and the Mississippi near Chicago. And so forth
In short, your cities depend on cheap West Virginia coal and Pennsylvania gas to power and heat themselves, dams in the Sierras to have enough water to drink, and farmers everywhere to be able to feed and clothe yourselves. Those roads you build at taxpayer expense in rural areas are convenient for the locals, it's true, but it's the city that primarily enjoys the benefit of decreased transport costs for its raw materials. It's hardly unusual for poor people to object to high taxes, especially when they understand that even taxes that are nominally spent on them - for roads, e.g. - will really end up in the pockets of a city guy who's friends with the politicians spending the money.
if there is no difference in capital gains as opposed to income where is the incentive to invest in companies
You incentive to invest is exactly the same. you invest in order to make more money. Option one is that you leave you money sitting in a bank account where it does nothing. Option two is to invest the money and then pay some percentage of taxes on the profits.
And no one in the history of ever has gotten the profits on their investments, looked at the taxes and wished that they had made $0 instead by not investing.
That is not necessarily the case. There are innumerable examples of companies whose stock price has gone up even though there has not been a comparable increase taxable corporate income. Stock price depends on a lot of factors, and taxed profits are but one small part.
If you were limiting discussion to dividend income, I could see your point, although I disagree with it... but it is clear from what you wrote that dividends are not what you're talking about.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
So? They control 77% of wealth in the US, and it's going up. Source: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Unless we want wealth (and ultimately, political power) to ultimately concentrate in the top few percent of people, we need to maintain a progressive tax rate to maintain any semblance of democratic society.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Or...flat tax everyone, and make aid to the poor completely separate from tax. Don't exempt anyone, but if you're only making $5K per year you get aid based on that divorced from your tax rate.
Is there a Godwin's law equivalent for bringing racism into the argument?
Also, can anyone tell me why, on #3 above, there is a limit at all?
There should be no cap on SS tax. This would solve the whole "SS is running out of money" issue immediately.
I believe in flat taxes, and I also don't see the logic in this limit.
A jurisdiction has a certain sales tax rate, say X%.
A poor person, Mr. A, spends all his money. X% of his net income goes towards sales tax.
An upper middle class person, Mr. B, spends half his money and invests the other half. X/2% of his net income goes towards sales tax.
A truly wealthy person, Mr. C, spends one percent of his money and invests the remainder. X/100% of his net income goes towards sales tax.
Why would we, as a society, support a tax that has a poor person paying 100 times more, as a percentage of his net income, than a truly wealthy person?
1% is an unrealistic number, the lowest I've seen is the ultra rich spending 3% of their money, so I've used that instead.
Well let's fill those numbers in, and fix your gaping holes -- I'm pulling numbers from Illinois State.
A jurisdiction has a certain sales tax rate, say 10% (Chicago, and 1% on food, magazines, etc).
A poor person, Mr. A, spends all his money ($10000). 100% ($10,000) of his net income goes towards sales tax, most of it toward. ($1000)
An upper middle class person, Mr. B, spends half his money ($100,000) and invests the other half. 100000* 1/2 ($50,000) of his net income goes towards sales tax. ($5,000) immediately.
A truly wealthy person, Mr. C, spends 3 percent of his money ($1,550,000) and invests the remainder. 1000000 * 3/100 ($46,500) of his net income goes towards sales tax ($4650) immediately.
That is sales tax. Now let's add in the State Tax.
A poor person, Mr. A, with income of $10,000 pays 0% of his income on state taxes. ($0)
A upper middle class person, Mr. B, with income of $100,000 pays 3% of his income on state taxes ($100,000-$4100 in deductions) = $2,877.
A truly wealthy person, Mr. C, with income of $1,550,000 pays 3% of his income on state taxes ($1,550,000 - $4100 in deductions) = $46,377.
Now let's do federal tax.
A poor person, Mr. A, with income of $10,000 pays 0% of his income on federal taxes. ($0 -- and in some cases he actually gets a refund...)
A upper middle class person, Mr. B, with income of $100,000 pays ~17-20% of his income on federal taxes ($17,000)
A truly wealthy person, Mr. C, with income of $1,550,000 pays 35% of his income on federal taxes ($542,500)
Now remember that investment income, well, on average it should have made ~9% last year.
A poor person, Mr. A, with no investment income pays 5% for capital gains ($0)
A upper middle class person, Mr. B, with investments of (($100,000- $2877 - $17000)/2) $40,061 pays 15% on the gains (9%) = $540
A upper middle class person, Mr. C, with investments of (($1,550,000 - $542,500 - $46,377)*97%) $932289 pays 20% on the gains (9%) = $16,781
Blah blah blah... I got bored of crunching numbers with fake bullshit assumptions. The ultra rich don't only spend 3% of their income. They would be spending less than the upper class, and that's ridiculous. The upper class don't invest half their income, most less upper middle class invest much less than 20%. I only kept the numbers I had already crunched (with obvious omissions) to show just how stupid your comparison really is, even with bogus assumptions. Not every tax needs to be based on how much you make. I don't want to hand my waitress a W-2 when I go out to eat so she can properly calculate my sales tax. That is just a ridiculous notion. WHY should a person who makes more pay a higher sales tax? Sales tax is a tax on stuff you buy -- not how much you made, or what you may or may not also buy this year. You just sound angry and bitter that you are poor, and damn this rich people, cause well... they are rich.
As a side note, the bottom 50% ($26415) in 1999 paid 4% of the federal income. 10 years later, the bottom 50% ($32,396) paid 2.25% of the federal income despite making 22% more, they contributed nearly half as much towards the total. The same isn't true for the top 1%. The amount they contributed actually went UP.
Just a minor fix:
A poor person, Mr. A, spends all his money ($10000). 100% ($10,000) of his net income goes towards sales tax, most of it toward. ($1000)
should have been:
A poor person, Mr. A, spends all his money ($10000). 50% ($5,000) of his net income goes towards food (1%), and 50% toward rent (0%) - $500
I love the suburbs. To each their own.
The bottom line is, if one can't afford to live comfortably in a given location, they shouldn't require their neighbor, through force of government, to help them pay for their living arrangements.
Remember that when major population centers demand rights to rural water resources.
http://www.americanbar.org/publications/state_local_law_news/2011_12/winter_2012/tri-state_water_war.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/local/central/texas-suing-nm-in-water-war
If Urban centers truly paid their fair share the rural areas wouldn't be considered net drains.
By the same token, the wealthy pay vastly more than the poor, even if it is at a vastly lower rate with respect to income. Why would we as a society punish a person (via tax) for being more productive? I can readily see why we would punish a person (via tax) for consuming more.
No sir ,It is reverse Robin Hood. (AKA Sheriff of Nottingham).
That's total bullshit. You get hit with capital gain taxes when you sell something for more than you paid for it. Buy low, sell high. For a stock, that means you bought stock from someone, and then sold it to someone else. Any money you gain came from the person you sold the stock to, and not the company that issued the stock. That money was not earned by the company that issued the stock and was not taxed at the corporate rate, but was earned by whoever bought the stock from you (and was taxed in accordance to however they earned that money).
Maybe you're thinking of dividends, which are payments made by the company that issued the stock and paid to the stock holders. However, that falls under a different set of tax rules than capital gains.
They could give every homeowner in my area free satellite service from one of several sources for what they are paying Sandwich Isles Communications in HI and still save big bucks: http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2013/05/29/19166-feds-crack-down-on-telecom-company-serving-native-hawaiians/
And that is what the Civil War was really about. Urban people and rural people fighting over our the power and money the government spends.
That is why I chose to qualify the word bipartisan with "ostensibly". But it would have been a misstatement to say 'Republican' because the AGE board does have a few blue dog democrats pasted on its genitals. But lest anybody misunderstand it is clear that the paper was commissioned by a right leaning group. And AC has provided an interesting link. The author clearly has an ongoing small government agenda. I guess you could call AGE just another shrink tank.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
The Universal Service Fund was placed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (along with other provisions) to codify the changes that had been made subsequent to the breakup of AT&T. The Communications Act of 1934 called for: “rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges” to “all the people of the United States.” This was paid for by AT&T charging extra for long distance service to subsidize rural service. So the concept and argument behind the USF goes back to the Communications Act of 1934. The reason I am talking about this issue is because if we are going to reach a correct decision about it, we need to address the arguments that will be used to defend it, not some straw man argument.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The argument is not mine, but it is the same basic argument which was the reason the Framers put the Postal Service in the Constitution. There is a certain logic to it and while I remain skeptical as to that logic there are places where the government intrudes its authority and spends its money that are more clearly at odds with good governance, and a healthy society, that this is an issue that can wait for another day. There is a lot of "low hanging fruit" still out there to address places where the government interferes in the market in ways that are more clearly harmful to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that this is an issue which should be addressed later (although if people want to talk about it and attempt to address it, they should get their facts straight and address the reasons that others are going to use to defend it).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Externality has a specific meaning in economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
That's what I'm talking about.
It's true, government has a history of unfairly using its power to confiscate and use the property of private citizens -- whether it be land, water, money, or any number of other resources. Your point simply adds to the greater point that government shouldn't force one citizen to pay for the goods and services provided to another citizen.
Having said all of that, I'd say it is a small minority of rural citizens that aren't fairly reimbursed for the resources they or their land provides -- certainly not enough to justify the large subsidies government doles out to them year after year. Farm subsidies are little more than government protection for an industry that can't compete in the global market. The result is that we all pay more for the same food produced much cheaper elsewhere in the world. Enough with the subterfuge . . .
Thanks for crunching the numbers. They show my point clearly. Mr. A has 10% of his income go to sales tax, while Mr. B has 5% of his income go to sales tax. Mr C has a whopping 0.3% of his income go to sales tax.
Of course, if we look at your 'minor fix', Mr. A only has 0.5% of his income going to sales tax [your minor fix itself is incorrect; 1% of $5000 is $50, not $500]). That's still nearly double the burden than Mr. C sees. Of course, you could argue that a 3% spend rate is unrealistic even for someone making $1.5M. Let's turn that up to a 5% spend rate, and now the truly wealthy have the same sales tax burden as the truly poor. How progressive. Even worse, Mr. B is stuck with 5% of his income going to sales tax. So now it's the upper middle class carrying the poor and the wealthy alike.
Your waitress / W-2 suggestion is a ridiculous notion, I agree. That's why I didn't suggest graduating sales tax based on individual income. I merely stated that sales tax is, in practice, a regressive tax. This is generally accepted as a truth in economics, and you can see from your own calculations why this is the case. I wasn't suggesting any ridiculous amendments to sales tax to make it less regressive. I was merely pointing out that it is regressive. I don't have any ideas for fixes, short of eliminating sales tax entirely, or having a negative sales tax (consumption subsidy). However, while more progressive (or less regressive), these approaches are full of other problems which are beyond the scope of this post.
Anyway, your federal income tax statistics are misleading. Looking at the time span of 1999-2009 is a lot like comparing apples and oranges. In 1999, the dot-com bubble was near its peak, and in 2009 the recession was still in full swing. Also, those statistics seem to suggest that tax policy has actually changed to give the poor a break, and to hit the wealthy harder. However, over the time span you mention (1999-2009), the top marginal income tax rate actually dropped from 39.6% to 35% (semi-gradually between 2001 and 2007). To be fair, the lowest bracket also dropped from 15% to 10%. I'm not sure how deductions changed, but that too could have benefited the poor. Your claim that "The same isn't true for the top 1%" is ambiguous.
Are you suggesting that in 2009, the top 1% were not making 22% more than they were in 1999? Let's look at the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay, over time. And let's check out
how much tax the truly wealthy pay today, compared to the past. And for some perspective, let's see how all of our tax rates have changed over the years. If what you say is true, and the income of the poor rose more than the income of the wealthy did, then at least we can say that it surely was not a result of changes in tax policy.
The fact that the tax rates on the truly wealthy decreased and their federal contribution increased could only mean that they made more money. Ordinarily, I'd be fine with that, but when 5% of the population already controls 60% of the wealth, I can't help but think that it's not good for society to further increase their share of the pie. Not because I begrudge them bigger yachts, but because I have a vested interest in living in a place where there is no insatiable demand for torches and pitchforks. If you think there is no limit to the degree of inequality that the ordinary person is willing to suffer, then you are a poor student of history.
Because someone's gotta pay for it, and you can't get blood from a stone?
If you expect to fund our enormous government with taxes on the poor, well, the math doesn't work.
Most of it, sure. But that still put me outside the "47% who pay no taxes", at minimum wage. I paid taxes. I call bullshit on the claim that the working poor pay no taxes, from personal experience.
Right, which is why Warren Buffet is cashing out his money and spending it, paying sales tax.
Or is it that he's actually giving an overwhelming majority of it to charity, where on average 3/4 of it will be skimmed off the top for "administrative expenses" by the already-wealthy middlemen along the way (who will pay income taxes on it before they invest it again), with as much as 1/4 of it ending up going to [sincerely] great causes like feeding starving kids in Bangladesh, or educating kids in Indonesia, or getting clean water for a village in Honduras, or handing out condoms in Lesotho. I'm not convinced that this money will be generating sales tax in the US any time soon.
Perhaps my view of the economy is a bit cynical. Perhaps it's because every time I've taken the effort to look, I've been disappointed by how clearly rigged everything is. Even if this relatively new trend of giving away one's fortune to charity hadn't caught on, we'd still be seeing wealth being bequeathed to heirs rather than simply spent. What percentage of J.P. Morgan's lifetime earnings were actually spent by him during his lifetime? What percentage of Andy Carnegie's lifetime earnings were actually spent by him during his lifetime? While they were both great philanthropists in their own right, they surely weren't great spenders. With respect to Carnegie:
he built Carnegie Hall, and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
How much sales tax did we see from all that?
The fact is farm subsidies were created to protect the farm industry from foreign competition, not encourage rural development.
What's your point? None of what you said justifies farm, telephone, or any other kind of subsidies for rural or any other kind of citizen. If your argument is that rural citizens aren't paid enough for what they produce, they simply need to raise the cost of their product. Alternatively, they could change to a profession with a higher profit margin.
Understood. Although, the purpose of farm and telephone subsidies, like most government subsidies, isn't to account for externalities, as related to economics. Farm subsidies are designed to protect the agricultural industry from foreign competition, which results in us paying higher prices for the same products that are produced much cheaper elsewhere in the world. Telephone subsidies are designed to socialize the cost of telephone service, which forces those who've chosen to live in a location with a low cost of service to subsidize those who've chosen to live in a location with a high cost of service.
As the OP pointed out, the market works best when each individual pays for their own products and services, regardless of any externalities.
Seems to me the point is to ensure remote people get access, not to make the system have a higher utility overall.
There are places in my town that aren't on the plan to get broadband in the next 10-year window. None of them are more than three miles from a decent fiber and many of them are low-income. So it'll be 2024 and they'll still only have dial-up (especially those on the north side of hills).
Meanwhile the telecomm companies are charging $30-$60K per mile of cable pull if those people want to get hooked up, thanks to their monopolies. Seems like cronyism as usual to me.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This one might just go away due to market pressures. USPS won't bring a package to my house, but UPS and FedEx are here several times a week. At this point, USPS has no cost advantage for packages, so I actively avoid them whenever possible. The cost curves show USPS becoming far more expensive than UPS or FedEx in the next few years, so I'm not sure who will use them for package shipping anymore.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's not thanks to the telecom monopolies that providing service in rural areas is expensive, it's just a simple fact. The rougher the terrain and the longer the distance, the more expensive it is to provide service. It's unfortunate, but it's no reason for the rest of us to subsidize the service for those who have chose to live in locations with a high cost for providing service. If telephone or broadband service is important to them, they will either pay the high cost or move to where service is cheaper. As an example, just because I like the beach, you shouldn't have to pay for me to live on the beach because I can't afford a beachfront property.
Oh, for christ sake. EVERYTHING connected with the government is "wide open to just removing" something (or adding something!) and making things worse. Fire is wide open to getting out of control. Maybe we should not use fire. Apologists for the shitty status quo always use arguments like this.
The EITC is not a prebate. It's not really even a rebate. It's what it says it is. A credit.
The fair tax prebate (Q&A #3) would be paid out monthly so those of limited means would not have to pay their sales tax and carry the burden while waiting for a rebate.
Whether or not you see it is not the issue. It is revenue neutral (5th Q&A). If you think a 23% consumption tax is "very high percentage", fine for you. Considering what it would replace, a lot of us do not consider it high.
Capital gains tax is double taxation, simple as that. If you think double taxation is just dandy, then the status quo works for you. Other than objecting to this, I think your suggestion is infinitely superior to what we have now. On economic analysis, 10% wouldn't do it. It would have to be much more than that to be revenue neutral. Also, this solution does not do anything to eliminate the burden of the IRS and its enforcement operations.
Your state's stupid policy of taxing clothing is acknowledged and noted. Property tax has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. It is not a sales tax. Of course cars are sales-taxed everywhere that I know of in sales-tax states. I already stated that and pointed out that it acts quite progressively.
Contrary to your utterly unfounded beliefs, the fair tax would eliminate federal tax entirely on the lower class, benefit the middle class to a significant extent, and come down hard on the upper class. But you can educate yourself much more efficiently than I could do for you.
Nor have I (as already plainly stated). Your point?
Oh, there are plenty of externalities that factor into rural subsidies. Just off the top of my head - agricultural stabilization, land conservation, agricultural independence (you think OPEC is bad? try it with food), education, emergency services, and keeping the agricultural markets informed and working.
This doesn't mean this particular program is useful, or that it hasn't outlived its usefulness, but it's not as simple as just throwing around the label 'socialism'.
um, american agriculture is corn and soybeans that are inedible when they are harvested.
You can't roll in all of your cost into the food you produce as there is a certain amount of price fixing caused by the government, but for good reason.
Before you go off on freemarket being good for farmers, some of the worse farm disasters were caused by farmers trying to compete with each-other so aggressively, they ruined the farmland. And I don't just mean one farm getting ruined, I mean nation wide.
Farm-land is somewhat of a limited resources and need a little bit of regulation.
My guru has me on a diet of only caviar do to complications to my chi. Apparently you insensitive poor people don't realize the strain of being rich and what it can do to you. I have to spend all of my hard earned money on caviar while you can subsist on McDonald's and ramen. Clearly with a diet like that you can afford a 20% tax
The point is that the price fixing and subsidization is unnecessary. If farmers can't make enough money to survive, they need simply roll the costs of farming into the final cost of their product, just like any other business. The reason for the government meddling is to protect the agricultural industry from foreign competition. The end result is US consumers spending more for the same food produced much cheaper elsewhere in the world.
Over-farming in earlier times happened due to ignorance on the part of both citizens and government. In fact, it was government policies that encouraged over-farming, not over-aggressive farmers. Most farmers have learned from past mistakes, as they would like to have a consistent income from year to year, rather than ruin their land by over-farming it. Like any industry, government has a role to play, but it is the farmer who has the most to lose through over-farming and other activities that would ruin the land.
You seem confused over the meaning of the term 'free market.' A free market doesn't require an absence of government. Rather, it means a market that is free from undue or unnecessary government intervention and influence. In fact, a free market requires government. In a free market, the government's role is primarily limited to keeping the market safe and free.
I'd much rather pay a few bucks more for internet and phone service to subsidize the roll out of broadband to country folk than have a pig farm 3 blocks away from my house.
Sure, there are many externalities that factor into any industry. If the externalities can be proven to have a great enough impact, then there should be motivation to find a way to assess the related costs, compensate the affected party, and adjust the price of the final product accordingly. Having said all of that, externalities are not justification for heavy government subsidization and suspension of the free market.
But still... you are talking about an issue you specifically said you haven't researched, and giving assertions as fact.
This is not a good way for anyone to approach and address arguments, or have any kind of informed discussion
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You misunderstood what I said. I said I have not studied whether this issue is a good idea or a bad idea. That is, I have not spent the time to see whether or not the arguments made for doing this overcome my default belief that it is a mistake for the government to fiddle with the marketplace. I have spent some time looking at reasoning used to make the decisions in the first place.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
many poor people pay for telecommunications services out of their own pockets.
That's becoming increasingly untrue. Anyone on food stamps now qualifies for subsidized or free telephone services under Federal programs.
In addition, at least in the Washington example the poor pay no sales tax on food, which makes up a great deal of most poor families' monthly budgets.
That's not true. Unprepared food is taxed in Idaho. I'm not aware of other states doing so, but I know that one for sure.
find a way to assess the related costs
For the most part, if that could be done, it wouldn't be an externality. Consider something like lead in gasoline - everyone is affected by it, but the distribution is unequal. Symptoms of the poison appear after decades, and are easily confused with other causes. There is really no way to quantify it or to assign it - that's an externality.
externalities are not justification for heavy government subsidization and suspension of the free market.
As some wise person once said, absolute statements tend to fail absolutely. Externalities can be justification for market intervention; we do it all the time. The leaded gasoline example works for this as well.
Good insights. I hadn't heard of Johann Heinrich von Thünen's hypothesis but it's certainly what I observe from here in the boonies. (Tho I'd say additionally, cities tend to grow in optimal locations for transportation and water resources, which in turn attracts the first and second tier agricultures. Maybe these optimal-for-cities locations function as rancher repellent. ;) )
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I'd have to agree with the parent post; farming/ranching is being squeezed out. It ultimately supports everything else, but get a couple tiers removed and people forget the importance of agriculture, and it becomes okay in their minds to urbanize good farmland and force out those smelly dairies and stockyards and sugar-beet refineries.
About 30 years ago someone researching the loss of arable land to urban sprawl concluded that about 50% of the best cropland has already been built over. It's only gotten worse since then. :(
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Pennsylvania has no sales tax on clothing, except for exotic types such as fur,
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Subsidizing rural citizens primarily benefits the city dwellers who enjoy lower prices for rurally generated staples. That is why building roads into sparsely populated areas makes sense. Cities make more money when costs of living are lower. Subsidies to rural areas lower the cost of living in cities.
I don't know why everyone doesn't just invent false statistics in an attempt to bolster their totally baseless statements.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Unfairness is fair
Help is wrongdoing
Greed is good
etc..
Omg you americans..
Highways? How fresh do you want your tomatoes? How long are you willing to wait for that UPS or FedEx delivery to get to your door? Just because the highway goes through a lot of countryside between Chicago and New York doesn't mean that the road is there just for the purpose of the rural countryside it goes thorugh.
Housing tax deduction? I wasn't aware that this was only allowed for rural housing?
In any case, what authority are you quoting about what is and is not part of a successful society?
Ok, I do agree that phone subsidies for Ted Turner's ranch and the old small airport are silly. And some year, it might be fixed. But remember that Congress just got around to removing a luxury tax on phones that was created during the Spanish-American war. So don't hold your breath.