My company has 6 full time employees, in addition to a few additional part time employees and freelancers. Assuming that each of us earned $50,000 that would mean my company needs to bring in at least $300,000 a year, just to cover salaries. Obviously, we're earning more than that. This means my company would be paying more in taxes under Obama's plan.
Um, surely expenses such as salaries and benefits are normally deductible? So if your company took in $300,000 and paid out $300,000 in salaries, it would not pay a penny in taxes?
Or, put another way, what would it mean for us to "win"? The answer to that is pretty revealing, esp. in how it relates to what you perceive as the reasons we went in in the first place.
No credits for platitudes such as "promote democracy and freedom" unless you define what you mean by "democracy" and "freedom."
Hmm. I agree with this to some extent. It annoys me when we are forcing people who make one valid choice (e.g. renting rather than buying) to subsidize people who make the other choice, particularly because I don't see that there are overall systemic benefits that adequately compensate the renter. But I do think it is a legitimate role of government to attempt to correct for externalities. The government might not do it well, but it is unclear whether the "free market" could do it at all.
The externalities associated with driving an SUV are particularly impactful. I have no problem in theory with allowing people to spend their discretionary income on an expensive car and extra fuel. But their "individual choice" is in reality harmful to all of us and to me directly. Their expenditures on fuel, even taking into account current taxes, do not fully compensate for the enormous environmental consequences of the extra pollution their SUV emits. Their squandering of a unique and finite global resource has enormous geopolitical consequences that will only escalate in the future. We are paying--I am paying--right now, to the tune of a trillion or so dollars, one such consequence in Iraq, and we'll keep on paying the interest on the debt used to finance that war for generations. How exactly is the SUV driver compensating the rest of us for that?
So yes, as far as I'm concerned, tax the cr*p out of gasoline, and use the proceeds to develop cleaner and sustainable energy. And/or tax fuel-guzzling and polluting vehicles directly (and repeatedly). Otherwise, when everything is factored in, we all are subsidizing the selfish and shortsighted choices of the SUV driver.
But perhaps we can agree on this point: if the SUV driver pays the FULL COST of their choices (including transaction costs associated with undoing the damage they wreak), and does not endanger or harm others with their behavior, the government probably should not be interfering with those choices. I would be shocked if that full cost (if it could be calculated accurately, which it can't) was not far more than $2/gallon.
An issue here, of course, is whether we can trust the government to use that $2 to address the externality. Probably we can't, at least not fully. But the higher gas price is in itself a disincentive to engage in the bad behavior, and I'm for that. And I cross my fingers that the next president (whichever one wins) will be able to realize their stated goals of making a meaningful investment in better energy choices.
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My company has 6 full time employees, in addition to a few additional part time employees and freelancers. Assuming that each of us earned $50,000 that would mean my company needs to bring in at least $300,000 a year, just to cover salaries. Obviously, we're earning more than that. This means my company would be paying more in taxes under Obama's plan.
Um, surely expenses such as salaries and benefits are normally deductible? So if your company took in $300,000 and paid out $300,000 in salaries, it would not pay a penny in taxes?
Or, put another way, what would it mean for us to "win"? The answer to that is pretty revealing, esp. in how it relates to what you perceive as the reasons we went in in the first place.
No credits for platitudes such as "promote democracy and freedom" unless you define what you mean by "democracy" and "freedom."
Hmm. I agree with this to some extent. It annoys me when we are forcing people who make one valid choice (e.g. renting rather than buying) to subsidize people who make the other choice, particularly because I don't see that there are overall systemic benefits that adequately compensate the renter. But I do think it is a legitimate role of government to attempt to correct for externalities. The government might not do it well, but it is unclear whether the "free market" could do it at all.
The externalities associated with driving an SUV are particularly impactful. I have no problem in theory with allowing people to spend their discretionary income on an expensive car and extra fuel. But their "individual choice" is in reality harmful to all of us and to me directly. Their expenditures on fuel, even taking into account current taxes, do not fully compensate for the enormous environmental consequences of the extra pollution their SUV emits. Their squandering of a unique and finite global resource has enormous geopolitical consequences that will only escalate in the future. We are paying--I am paying--right now, to the tune of a trillion or so dollars, one such consequence in Iraq, and we'll keep on paying the interest on the debt used to finance that war for generations. How exactly is the SUV driver compensating the rest of us for that?
So yes, as far as I'm concerned, tax the cr*p out of gasoline, and use the proceeds to develop cleaner and sustainable energy. And/or tax fuel-guzzling and polluting vehicles directly (and repeatedly). Otherwise, when everything is factored in, we all are subsidizing the selfish and shortsighted choices of the SUV driver.
But perhaps we can agree on this point: if the SUV driver pays the FULL COST of their choices (including transaction costs associated with undoing the damage they wreak), and does not endanger or harm others with their behavior, the government probably should not be interfering with those choices. I would be shocked if that full cost (if it could be calculated accurately, which it can't) was not far more than $2/gallon.
An issue here, of course, is whether we can trust the government to use that $2 to address the externality. Probably we can't, at least not fully. But the higher gas price is in itself a disincentive to engage in the bad behavior, and I'm for that. And I cross my fingers that the next president (whichever one wins) will be able to realize their stated goals of making a meaningful investment in better energy choices.