This from the guy who thinks the money to pay gas station attendents just magically appears.
Cause they couldn't charge for it in the gas, now could they?? Naw, its against the law!
I'm not sure which is worse- the politicians who believed this nonsense or that you still do- even though you have to pay more for gas than you would have otherwise.
IF it isn't worth your time going to Washintgon, the ONLY reason is washington has much higher gas taxes. Otherwise, being able to pump it yourself has got to be worth $0.10 a gallon.
You're the one who thinks the salaries for gas station attendents magically appears out of nowhere and isn't built into the price of gas.
That's just plain blunt headed stupidity.
And you think I'm not productive to society? What the hell do you think makes me so pissed about taxes? Seeing tens of thousands of my hard earned dollars wasted every year giving idiots like you a non-education, is a good start.
But thank you for standing behind the magic money theory-- I've never gotten a liberal to do it, they always say they don't but their math never adds up. (Another product of our fine educational system- idiots who can't add.)
In other words, you're proud of your ignorance of economics because your an environmentalist.
Well, poser environmentalist-- real environmentalists pay attention to science, and one of the most important sciences to environmentalism is economics.
Anyway, not only do you ignore basic economics, you say that your positions are totally based on what YOU want, not whats best for society-- which ok, and in fact supports my point.
Lets get rid of this taxation that only funds what the politically connected narrow mind idiots want and let everyone fund the things they want directly. That way everyone can get what tehy need and not be wasting their money on stuff that nobody wants (but was useful for getting someone elected at some point.)
I see, you're getting taken to the cleaners to keep politicians stocked up on whores and you think we should be too? Well we are, already.
Doesn't make it RIGHT.
Oh, and the government doesn't do SQUAT about pollution. Except lie about it and create more of it-- the biggest threat to the environment in this country is the government's bad management of it.
Ok, you havent' been here long enoguh to know that %50 of the state tax money goes into healthcare for people who could probably afford it anyway.
You think cause some people are rich they owe you something? Fuck that. They don't own you squat, even if they do drive a BMW.
Eyman is a crackpot, you say, yet his proposals are getting passed.
The state government has ALL THE MONEY IT NEEDS To do everyting in R51 but it went to us for more taxes anyway. Why is that?
Too many people like you who want to soak the rich and so they won't pay attention to the fact that the government is wasting money like crazy on crackpot stupid programs.
Oh, and you raise the taxes too much and your taxbase will leave.
We already are one of the highest taxed states in the nation.
And a nice thing about sales tax- it doesn't disproportionatly punish the poor, they buy LESS,jesus. Sales taxes are ones you can avoid by altering your lifestyle.
Income taxes don't care if your sister needs $100,000 to save the farm-- they take your money anyway and your sister looses the farm, and some welfare queen gets antoher case of dom perinion.
Re:Re : What about social costs ?
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You misunderstand- there are fewer companies because the taxes are way too high. The taxes are way to high because you're paying for health care for everyone.
I read an interesting example the other day- you go to a restaurant regularly, and you spend $6, now theres some extra stuff that you could get for $4 more, but you normally just spend the 6.
Yet you go with friends also on, say friday,s and the four of your are just going to split the tab evenly, yet you notice your friends get the $6 meal and they also get some of the $4 stuff, stickign you with a quarter of that stuff-- so the next weekend, when you go with your friends, you get the $10 meal, and everyone else does, so you all pay $10- -its fair, but is it really? You're paying %66 more than you normally would-- but you're forced to in order to get your fair share.
Now imagine if everyone in the restaurant split the check-- a hundered ways and that extra $4 is no big deal- its just $0.04 if you're the only one who gets it. But some people are gluttons and order lots of wine and so their checks are $40! Well, if you want your fair deal you have to consume as much as you can, otherwise you'll be subsidizing them, right?
That's what government taxation is-- there are people out there taking $80 meals and you're only getting the hamburger-- they have shown a "need" to drink mixed drinks all night, but you haven't so you just get the small meal-- yet you pay for their mixed drinks and thy pay for your hamburger and they get a much better deal!
When someone else is paying,you always use more.
The way to draw the line is REALLY frickkin easy-- just make everyone responsible for their own health care-- you don't smoke eat bad food and you pay less. You don't subsidize those who do.
And then since you want to help the WORTHY who need it, you GIVE to a charity-- if the charity wastes the money, you don't give to them and you give to another one. You are in control and the money is much more efficiently used.
The goernment, not only forces you to pay taxes to subsidize the drinking habits and later liver transplants of unemployed lazy people-- but it puts a gun to your head to make sure you do.
Get a libertarian socierty and not only will you have less poverty, you don't have to violate human rights to do it-- and the charity hospitals will be MUCH better.
Course people assume that if this were the case, nobody would give to charity, but that's silly. I haven't met someone yet who wouldn't help a charity in such a situation-- everyone cares. M any don't now because the government is already taking %50 off my income for this forced "charity".
The reason you should be bitter is its MORE TAXES.
The state of washington collects enough in taxes to build both light rail and the monorail, in their full configurations, WITHOUT raising taxes.
But to the state, the roads aren't an imporant part of government (when in truth they are one of the few) and so they'd rather spend %80 of their budget on Health insurance for non-workers and education.
Screw that-- the only legitimate use for state money is stuff that benefits EVERYONE, and the roads will grow the economy quite a lot. Spend it on the roads FIRST. Then spend it on education (but raise tuitions, damnit. World class college should not be virtually free.) And then if you have money left over spend it on extra health care.
The frigging state ran huge surpluses in the 90s, and what did they do with that money? SPENT IT ALL. Now that the economy is soft, they want to raise taxes.
Notice, they weren't refunding our taxes when they had the surpluses.
This is unacceptable fiscal irresponsibility.
Locke has to go, and so does virtually everyone in state government.
Lets get Tim Eyman in the governorship so we can start voting on EVERYTHING.
He'd better be for all the extra tax money we now are going to have to pay.
Gas taxes in washington state are the highest in the nation-- never mind that the state spends something like %5 of its budget on transportation.
They could double the transportion budget, cut other budgets by a small amount and not require any new taxes to pay for the monorail... but NO, that would be giving us our money's worth!
(And if you're wondering why the state budget should be involved when the monorail is seattle only-- well, the GAS tax is a state wide tax!)
Its absurd-- more government incompetence, and gullible voters who put up with it.
Luckily one other tax measure failed and one tax rollback measure succeeded.
The tide is turning.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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Yep, didn't think you knew squat about economics.
In the real world, even in THIS job market, employers are competitive in their compensation. Hell, average salary in this area is down $1,000 from a couple years ago, which is nothing. And that's average salary in IT.
IF you think Milton Friedman hasn't been proven in the real world- you're a reality ignoring socialist, and we can't expect you to be rational to begin with.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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Hey, I'm willing to pay for it-- except that I don't get any choice about whether I pay for good systems or broken down old wasteful ones that blow moeny.
Our defensive forces would be twice as strong if we didn't have a federal income tax, and instead had regoional national defense forces that people volunteered for (without giving up basic human rights as you do now) and trained for. This was the way it was meant to be, and it would produce a far larger defense agency in the end-- because all the people who are scared off by the armed forces now due to their draconian treatement of their slaves- would instead volunteer. And they'd also be able to work during the day and train part time- meaning we'd have a much larger army in total and a more effective one if needed.
OH, and we'd be a lot less likely to waste hundreds of billions on pointless wars, saving them for the important wars.
If we had such a rational system now, I'd join up AND buy it some howitzers, or part of a tank. Yeah, I could go in on a tank with some buddies.
BTW: Defense is %18 of the federal budget, welfare is %54.
Re:Re : What about social costs ?
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hat tax is important (if used correctly) because there is a social cost to burning gas. YOU pollute the air, YOU should pay the price to clean it.
Ha! That's a good one-- you guys have big air scrubbing plants up there that your gas taxes go to in order to clean the air? That's rich. Hell, in BC you don't even have sewage treatement plants-- Victoria and the whole of vancouver island just dumps their raw sewage into the ocean.
Who's paying the cost to clean all that ocean water?
In Canada, with the free health care system, this tax is particularly important. Why on earth should I pay a dime of my hard earned cash to heal smokers ? I don't smoke and I'm not prepared to pay for them.
Ah, the great lie of socialism-- you want free health care, but you don't want the other guy to get it! Which is why victoria is having town meetings trying to keep their doctors from leaving. (Yes, I visited victoria recently.)
How about that Big Mac issue ? Is that kind of food healthy for you ? If I eat only healthy food, I'm likely to pay a lot more money than anyone eating fatty BigMacs all day. Why should I pay more for social care because more and more people are getting sick or out of shape because they eat bad food ? Like it or not, in the long run, there is a social cost to eating unhealthy foods. If you want to do that, fine, but pay up. I sure as hell won't.
In other words, this "social care" idea is just a scam to try and force people to live the way you want to -- you take all their money to pay for health care you never deliver, and then take even more if they try to live their lives the way you want.
Why not get rid of this socialism bullshit- which is proven not to work- - and let people pay their own money for their insurance. In the US the insurance companies charge smokers more. But everyone gets good insurance.
Its none of your business whether I eat a bigmac and you have no moral right to charge me for the privilege of not conforming to YOUR idea of political correctness. That's flat out oppression. you might as well charge an extra black skin tax for black people because they don't conform to the skin color of most people.
Social cost my ass- you have just shown its about oppressing by taxing those you don't like, not about any "social cost".
The first thing you need to realize is that nobody owes society anything, and society doesn't owe them anything. There is no moral basis for this socialism-- it is merely the tool an oppressor uses to extract money from others, and the mind fuck that you have just displayed is what he uses to keep you in line.
Why aren't you lobbying for a jogging tax? Joggers are far more likely to have serious leg injuries in their old age than non-joggers, why should you have to pay for it? Unless you're a jogger, in which case you're going to lobby for a non-jogger tax because non-joggers are more likely to be overweight.
You wonder why there are fewer companies in canada, and a less robust economy and lots of unemployment? This is why.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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Yes, you guys are getting totally ripped off. And on top of that you have much higher income taxes.
This is why your economies are less energetic than the US's.
I thought the EU might be a good thing, but its starting to look like our federal government-- imposing regulation to protect some people while impacting the whole economy, and generally making it impossible for your economies to grow at a good clip.
This means your standard of living will start to slip. Its unfortunate.
It should have been open borders and common currency and that's it-- none of this federal government crap.
Being so close to the USSR and france, you'd think you'd have learned from those failures.
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No, he'd have a lot of trouble keeping that for himself because we all need to go out and spend that money on retirement annuities.
What would really happen is a bunch of companies would spring into existence, ADP and Paymaster would adjust their paycheck software, and employee s would be able to automatically redirect the extra %15 of their salary into a private annuity account.
Employers would be advertising this to the employees showing them how much better a deal they are getting than with social security, knowing that benefits help keep employees there, even if other companies offer the same benefit...
There'd be a whole growth sprut in the private insurance sector, those companies would start doing better, they'd have more float to invest, and thus they would put that money into the stock market, the stock market would start to go up...
It would have a huge positive impact on the economy-- every company would get a little more profitable and the whole economy would get a boost.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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None of you guys understand economics-- that explains your support for marxism.
Any employer who didn't pass this money along would have a hard time explaining to the employees why he isn't giving them a raise now that the taxes have gone away. Not all the employees are so stupid as you, many of them actually understand economics and know that money's coming to them.
Ah, I see- you guys think that the EMPLOYER is the one that pays that money, not you- because it doesn't show up on your paycheck! You're that stupid! It makes sense now-- since you think the EMPLOYER pays the moeny, that they won't have any reason to pass it on to you! So funny! Man, whew. People on slashdot who never went to college at all, huh? Well, that's not how economics work, especially in a market economy.
When the feds get a boost, they never pass it on, you're used to that. But emplyoers have to or they loose employees.
I actually explained this in the paragraph you quoted, but apparently you didn't read it.
Go read some milton friedman or david friedman and see how the world really works.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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You're delusional. Fact is that any employer would just take that theoretical difference and pocket it
If by "You're delusional" you mean "You understand economics" then yes. I cannot imagine the feds announcing that they are stopping the collection of these taxes and employers just whistling along pretending it didn't happen.
Any employer who did this would be at risk of loosing his employees to a company that didn't-- immediately all the other companies would be %20 more attractive. Who isn't willing to jump ship for an east %20 rise in pay, especially when your employer has just done this? No, its a zero sum situation for the employer-- they benefit MORE by passing the money along because they make the same profit and have happier employees.
The government may be inefficient, and it may be corrupt, but in the end it pays out reliably and consistently. That's more than any for-profit venture would do if given the chance to take over the potential market for either insurance.
Now this is a flat out lie. The government is corrupt and never NEVER pays out on social security, and never the fair amount owed on workmans comp or unemployement.
At the same time, there hasn't been an insurance company charged with this kind of fraud in the last 50 years. Insurance companies ALWAYS pay out these kinds of financial instruments. Hell, an insurance company that didn't pay out unemployment or social secuiryt could be sued for not only waht was owed, but damages. No, they ALWAYS pay out.
When was the last time anyone sued the government for not paying out their fair share of social security? Never gonna happen. Government is organized theft.
You just lied because you cannot handle the reality of the truth.
The outrage one should feel is that while the average American citizen gets only a 10% return on the near 50% of our income we pay into the system, the wealthiest members of our society see massive returns on the relatively tiny share of their money that they pay into the system.
Uh, can you back this up? I mean, really actually back it up. show that hte wealthy get more value in government services than the poor do.
You guys always make this claim, but you never back it up-- I think its just wishful thinking, as I've never seen a single fact to support it.
Also it goes contrary to your general socialist agenda-- you claim that the taxes are for redistribution to the poor and that is why we have a %400 tax increase for the rich compared to the poorer income tax payers. Yet now you claim the rich don't pay income tax?
By the way,you linked to corporate welfare-- which is tiny compared to individiual welfare. All welfare is wrong and both kinds should be abolished. And you linked to enron-- which is a really idiotic thing to claim. You say enron is benefiting from taxes? Enron is dead- it was caught in fraud and shut down. IT would have been cuaght earlier if Joseph Lieberman-- the marxist VP candidate- hadn't threatened to shut down the SEC if they went forward with accounting reforms many years ago, but you guys always ignore that, the truth hurts, don't it?
Yet Enron, pales in comparison to the trillions done in damage by social security. Nobody lost money in enron who didn't voluntarily risk it.
Everyone is FORCED To loose money in social security, yet you're happy with that.
Like I said, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
And you aren't paying attention.
FWIW, have you taken any economics classes in school? What level of math did you take? I'm curious because I have this hypothesis that liberals are people who never took serious math, or never took economics. Or is it both?
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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Thats an excellent point.
On the pie chart you referenced, it shows social security being bankrupt right this minute.
Since both pies represent the total budget- its a zero sum game, and 35 units come in, while 36 units go out, showing that even today the federal income taxes are subsidizing social security payments.
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Ever since the constitution was disassembled in 1913 allowing for a federal income tax, the government has been on a quick slide away from performing as intended.
It was intended to be a confederation of states (Even the constitution was immorally shoved down our throats and without the bill of rights nobody would have consented to creating a federal government-- they were just mistaken in thinking the constitution required a weak federal government.)
And actually it does, but the federal government, along with the two parties who have rigged the election system so that only they can win, has ignored the constitution and run roughshod over not only what was intended, but what it explicitly says.
I think it was stalin who said "It doesn't matter who they vote for, it matters who counts the votes". The authoritarians-- both stripes-- are the only ones allowed to count votes in this country.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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You've got it backwards- it didn't start that way-- it was pitched as an annuity style retirement plan, and NOT a fallback.
Since they have mismanaged the money so fraudulently they are now calling it a fallback- which is just changing the terms to cover thier irresponsibility.
When we're old enough to collect there will be lots of politically correct stuff about how only really poor people should be collecting social security and we made too much money in our lives (true for anyone with an average salary or above, they'll say) to really NEED social secuirty and so we should get nothing.
SS is a fraud, a scam and it will NEVER last to 2038 without raising lots of taxes and lowering the payments, that projection is optimistic at best becuase its functionally BANKRUPT Right this minute.
IT does not have the money to pay the people it owes now-- even with the reduced benefits.
And NOBODY is getting out of it what they put into it, let alone what they are OWED which is multiple times what they put into it. (Remember, the time value of money.)
It is the most blatent form of outright theft yet perpetrated by the federal government.
And it is inexcusable to support it. Those who do simply can't do math.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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Of course you can beat that kind of social security-- you can buy it on the open market with GUARANTEED benefits for a LOT less than the government is charging you for- and not guaranteeing to pay.
There is nothing the government gives in social security, that cannot be bought with traditional insurance, only much much cheaper.
IF the government wanted to help people- they would require you to invest that money in a commercial insurance plan, and thus they would help people a lot more-- the plans would be solvent, the benefits would be a lot richer and nobody would be complaining right now: I'd be reduced to the fine point of "Its a good idea, but why force people to do it".
No, the government just wants the money-- that's why they raid the social security fund regularly, that's why they DON'T invest the money, nad thats why its structured like a pyramid scheme to begin with-- if it really were insurance, they would have to invest the money and preserve the fund and the fund would have enough moeny to pay for decades even if nobody was paying into it because it would have decades of prior paymetns into it.
Right now the fund is insolvent-- it can't pay the next years benefits without the next years payments into it-- meaning it is BY DEFINITION bankrupt.
No private company could perpetuate a scam like this without the company being shut down and the people responsible put in jail for a long time.
But not only does the government defraud you-- they FORCE You to pay into this pyramid scheme.
Compared to this, Enron is a kid stealing $1 worth of candy-- yet all these people have their panties in a wad over enron, ignoring the trillion dollar fraud that is the social security pyramid.
Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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How can you claim that gas taxes are too low?
Back in feudal days, serfs had to pay thir land owners %5-%10 in tax. This caused an uprising and the creationg of the robin hood myth.
Yet here people pay %50 or more of their income in total taxes (including the other fees, and sales taxes.)
Of course the gas tax hits the poor more than it does the rich. But why should it be more, what possible reason can you have for that? The money that is collected now is wasted, as you pointed out, there is no moral authority justifying doubling what you spend on gas to begin with...
Or is it you just hate SUV drivers and so you want to punish them by raising the gas taxes? Even though you hit the poor people who can't afford newer more efficient cars even harder?
Oh, the fees you'll pay!
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The one that really gets me is a %5 tax on my phone bill to pay for WW2! WW2 has been over forever, but that tax put there to pay for it still is being collected.
Or the %20 in federal taxes added to airline tickets (one of which is the insulting 9/11 fee- a tragedy that wouldn't have occurred if the feds hadn't stopped pilots from carrying guns to prevent hijackings, and taken over airport security, ensuring poor security.)
Then there's the %50 fee on gas, that you never see because its built into the price- but is all tax. A brilliant deception because people all over hate oil companies for charging so much for gas, even though they aren't!
And in my state liquor is market up about %50, of course since the state owns all the stores where you can buy it, you never see this add on fee- its built into the price.
And lets not forget cigarettes-- a %50 markup in my state as well. But you don't see this fee because its built into the price. Another hidden tax. And people hate tobacco companies, hmm, noticing a trend.
Now the scum are starting to propose "vice" fees on fattening foots, so we can expect to pay an extra %50 for the privilege of buying a big mac that big momma government doesn't want you to eat?
Never mind the fees that you have to pay before you even get the money that you use to pay fees with!
The %15 taken out for social security-- you'll never see that money again.
The hidden income taxes that your employer "pays" but that you really are the one paying-- for instance unemployment insurance. (Let me buy it privately- I know I'll get a better deal! When they charge you four times as much as the service costs, how much of it is really taxes?)
Not to mention workers comp. I'm a programmer. Why do I have to pay workers comp-- again, let me keep my own damn money and I'll buy my own insurance and get a much better deal!
(And if you think its not your own money, the employer pays for it, you might be a liberal. This is an absurd distinction- every employer counts all these taxes in the total cost of employing you and so you must be worth more than that to the employer for them to hire you-- that is you have to earn all the money, plus their profit, to make it worth while to hire you. If they didn't have to pay so many fees, you would get more cash, because you'd still earn the same amount of profit for them that you do now.)
Even if you only make $36k a year- the average salary- you're paying half your income in taxes- and that's just direct. The things you buy, would be %30 or more cheaper if there wasn't a federal income tax, etc. (And the value of the services you get from the government? Less than %10 of what you pay in taxes-- thats how much you're being ripped off.)
AS they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
So I don't mind companies adding fees- if I don't like them, I can always refuse to do business with them, they need them anyway to cover the ever increasing tax burden they are being saddled with-- and that tax burden you don't get to opt out of if you don't like it.
At least let us invest our own social security money if we choose to-- there's no acceptable reason not to, unless it really is just a fund for the congress to raid whenever they want a raise.
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This from the guy who thinks the money to pay gas station attendents just magically appears.
Cause they couldn't charge for it in the gas, now could they?? Naw, its against the law!
I'm not sure which is worse- the politicians who believed this nonsense or that you still do- even though you have to pay more for gas than you would have otherwise.
IF it isn't worth your time going to Washintgon, the ONLY reason is washington has much higher gas taxes. Otherwise, being able to pump it yourself has got to be worth $0.10 a gallon.
Hay! You're funny.
You're the one who thinks the salaries for gas station attendents magically appears out of nowhere and isn't built into the price of gas.
That's just plain blunt headed stupidity.
And you think I'm not productive to society? What the hell do you think makes me so pissed about taxes? Seeing tens of thousands of my hard earned dollars wasted every year giving idiots like you a non-education, is a good start.
But thank you for standing behind the magic money theory-- I've never gotten a liberal to do it, they always say they don't but their math never adds up. (Another product of our fine educational system- idiots who can't add.)
Yep, you did show your prejudice.
Anyone who understands economics will NOT be a liberal.
That doesn't mean they buy the far right wing anti-human rights junk, though.
Anyone who DOES believe in it had better not vote democrat, though, after all 2/3 of them and their president voted to criminalize gay marriage.
If you knew economics, you'd be a republican or libertarian.
If you cared about human rights, you'd be a libertarian.
Thinking the democrats support human rights is pretty damn stupid-- George Bush has a better record on Gay rights than clinton does.
Either way, Libertarians are the only ones who really support them.
In other words, you're proud of your ignorance of economics because your an environmentalist.
Well, poser environmentalist-- real environmentalists pay attention to science, and one of the most important sciences to environmentalism is economics.
Anyway, not only do you ignore basic economics, you say that your positions are totally based on what YOU want, not whats best for society-- which ok, and in fact supports my point.
Lets get rid of this taxation that only funds what the politically connected narrow mind idiots want and let everyone fund the things they want directly. That way everyone can get what tehy need and not be wasting their money on stuff that nobody wants (but was useful for getting someone elected at some point.)
I see, you're getting taken to the cleaners to keep politicians stocked up on whores and you think we should be too? Well we are, already.
Doesn't make it RIGHT.
Oh, and the government doesn't do SQUAT about pollution. Except lie about it and create more of it-- the biggest threat to the environment in this country is the government's bad management of it.
Uh, but I suspect the constitution does not say it has to be %50 of the budget!
We have some platinum coated universities here-- they don't need taxpayer money.
What a startling and fundamental ignorance of economics this post represents.
Fucking liberals.
Yeah the gas station attendants salaries magically appear. The price of the gas does not take keeping them on the payroll into account, right?
No wonder you guys think governments should be allowed to force companies to charge less than cost for things (like electricity.)
Ok, you havent' been here long enoguh to know that %50 of the state tax money goes into healthcare for people who could probably afford it anyway.
You think cause some people are rich they owe you something? Fuck that. They don't own you squat, even if they do drive a BMW.
Eyman is a crackpot, you say, yet his proposals are getting passed.
The state government has ALL THE MONEY IT NEEDS To do everyting in R51 but it went to us for more taxes anyway. Why is that?
Too many people like you who want to soak the rich and so they won't pay attention to the fact that the government is wasting money like crazy on crackpot stupid programs.
Oh, and you raise the taxes too much and your taxbase will leave.
We already are one of the highest taxed states in the nation.
And a nice thing about sales tax- it doesn't disproportionatly punish the poor, they buy LESS,jesus. Sales taxes are ones you can avoid by altering your lifestyle.
Income taxes don't care if your sister needs $100,000 to save the farm-- they take your money anyway and your sister looses the farm, and some welfare queen gets antoher case of dom perinion.
You misunderstand- there are fewer companies because the taxes are way too high. The taxes are way to high because you're paying for health care for everyone.
I read an interesting example the other day- you go to a restaurant regularly, and you spend $6, now theres some extra stuff that you could get for $4 more, but you normally just spend the 6.
Yet you go with friends also on, say friday,s and the four of your are just going to split the tab evenly, yet you notice your friends get the $6 meal and they also get some of the $4 stuff, stickign you with a quarter of that stuff-- so the next weekend, when you go with your friends, you get the $10 meal, and everyone else does, so you all pay $10- -its fair, but is it really? You're paying %66 more than you normally would-- but you're forced to in order to get your fair share.
Now imagine if everyone in the restaurant split the check-- a hundered ways and that extra $4 is no big deal- its just $0.04 if you're the only one who gets it. But some people are gluttons and order lots of wine and so their checks are $40! Well, if you want your fair deal you have to consume as much as you can, otherwise you'll be subsidizing them, right?
That's what government taxation is-- there are people out there taking $80 meals and you're only getting the hamburger-- they have shown a "need" to drink mixed drinks all night, but you haven't so you just get the small meal-- yet you pay for their mixed drinks and thy pay for your hamburger and they get a much better deal!
When someone else is paying
The way to draw the line is REALLY frickkin easy-- just make everyone responsible for their own health care-- you don't smoke eat bad food and you pay less. You don't subsidize those who do.
And then since you want to help the WORTHY who need it, you GIVE to a charity-- if the charity wastes the money, you don't give to them and you give to another one. You are in control and the money is much more efficiently used.
The goernment, not only forces you to pay taxes to subsidize the drinking habits and later liver transplants of unemployed lazy people-- but it puts a gun to your head to make sure you do.
Get a libertarian socierty and not only will you have less poverty, you don't have to violate human rights to do it-- and the charity hospitals will be MUCH better.
Course people assume that if this were the case, nobody would give to charity, but that's silly. I haven't met someone yet who wouldn't help a charity in such a situation-- everyone cares. M any don't now because the government is already taking %50 off my income for this forced "charity".
Sorry, barter is already illegal.
Well, it is if you don't declare it to the IRS.
The reason you should be bitter is its MORE TAXES.
The state of washington collects enough in taxes to build both light rail and the monorail, in their full configurations, WITHOUT raising taxes.
But to the state, the roads aren't an imporant part of government (when in truth they are one of the few) and so they'd rather spend %80 of their budget on Health insurance for non-workers and education.
Screw that-- the only legitimate use for state money is stuff that benefits EVERYONE, and the roads will grow the economy quite a lot. Spend it on the roads FIRST. Then spend it on education (but raise tuitions, damnit. World class college should not be virtually free.) And then if you have money left over spend it on extra health care.
The frigging state ran huge surpluses in the 90s, and what did they do with that money? SPENT IT ALL. Now that the economy is soft, they want to raise taxes.
Notice, they weren't refunding our taxes when they had the surpluses.
This is unacceptable fiscal irresponsibility.
Locke has to go, and so does virtually everyone in state government.
Lets get Tim Eyman in the governorship so we can start voting on EVERYTHING.
He'd better be for all the extra tax money we now are going to have to pay.
Gas taxes in washington state are the highest in the nation-- never mind that the state spends something like %5 of its budget on transportation.
They could double the transportion budget, cut other budgets by a small amount and not require any new taxes to pay for the monorail... but NO, that would be giving us our money's worth!
(And if you're wondering why the state budget should be involved when the monorail is seattle only-- well, the GAS tax is a state wide tax!)
Its absurd-- more government incompetence, and gullible voters who put up with it.
Luckily one other tax measure failed and one tax rollback measure succeeded.
The tide is turning.
Yep, didn't think you knew squat about economics.
In the real world, even in THIS job market, employers are competitive in their compensation. Hell, average salary in this area is down $1,000 from a couple years ago, which is nothing. And that's average salary in IT.
IF you think Milton Friedman hasn't been proven in the real world- you're a reality ignoring socialist, and we can't expect you to be rational to begin with.
Hey, I'm willing to pay for it-- except that I don't get any choice about whether I pay for good systems or broken down old wasteful ones that blow moeny.
Our defensive forces would be twice as strong if we didn't have a federal income tax, and instead had regoional national defense forces that people volunteered for (without giving up basic human rights as you do now) and trained for. This was the way it was meant to be, and it would produce a far larger defense agency in the end-- because all the people who are scared off by the armed forces now due to their draconian treatement of their slaves- would instead volunteer. And they'd also be able to work during the day and train part time- meaning we'd have a much larger army in total and a more effective one if needed.
OH, and we'd be a lot less likely to waste hundreds of billions on pointless wars, saving them for the important wars.
If we had such a rational system now, I'd join up AND buy it some howitzers, or part of a tank. Yeah, I could go in on a tank with some buddies.
BTW: Defense is %18 of the federal budget, welfare is %54.
hat tax is important (if used correctly) because there is a social cost to burning gas. YOU pollute the air, YOU should pay the price to clean it.
Ha! That's a good one-- you guys have big air scrubbing plants up there that your gas taxes go to in order to clean the air? That's rich. Hell, in BC you don't even have sewage treatement plants-- Victoria and the whole of vancouver island just dumps their raw sewage into the ocean.
Who's paying the cost to clean all that ocean water?
In Canada, with the free health care system, this tax is particularly important. Why on earth should I pay a dime of my hard earned cash to heal smokers ? I don't smoke and I'm not prepared to pay for them.
Ah, the great lie of socialism-- you want free health care, but you don't want the other guy to get it! Which is why victoria is having town meetings trying to keep their doctors from leaving. (Yes, I visited victoria recently.)
How about that Big Mac issue ? Is that kind of food healthy for you ? If I eat only healthy food, I'm likely to pay a lot more money than anyone eating fatty BigMacs all day. Why should I pay more for social care because more and more people are getting sick or out of shape because they eat bad food ? Like it or not, in the long run, there is a social cost to eating unhealthy foods. If you want to do that, fine, but pay up. I sure as hell won't.
In other words, this "social care" idea is just a scam to try and force people to live the way you want to -- you take all their money to pay for health care you never deliver, and then take even more if they try to live their lives the way you want.
Why not get rid of this socialism bullshit- which is proven not to work- - and let people pay their own money for their insurance. In the US the insurance companies charge smokers more. But everyone gets good insurance.
Its none of your business whether I eat a bigmac and you have no moral right to charge me for the privilege of not conforming to YOUR idea of political correctness. That's flat out oppression. you might as well charge an extra black skin tax for black people because they don't conform to the skin color of most people.
Social cost my ass- you have just shown its about oppressing by taxing those you don't like, not about any "social cost".
The first thing you need to realize is that nobody owes society anything, and society doesn't owe them anything. There is no moral basis for this socialism-- it is merely the tool an oppressor uses to extract money from others, and the mind fuck that you have just displayed is what he uses to keep you in line.
Why aren't you lobbying for a jogging tax? Joggers are far more likely to have serious leg injuries in their old age than non-joggers, why should you have to pay for it? Unless you're a jogger, in which case you're going to lobby for a non-jogger tax because non-joggers are more likely to be overweight.
You wonder why there are fewer companies in canada, and a less robust economy and lots of unemployment? This is why.
Yes, you guys are getting totally ripped off. And on top of that you have much higher income taxes.
This is why your economies are less energetic than the US's.
I thought the EU might be a good thing, but its starting to look like our federal government-- imposing regulation to protect some people while impacting the whole economy, and generally making it impossible for your economies to grow at a good clip.
This means your standard of living will start to slip. Its unfortunate.
It should have been open borders and common currency and that's it-- none of this federal government crap.
Being so close to the USSR and france, you'd think you'd have learned from those failures.
No, he'd have a lot of trouble keeping that for himself because we all need to go out and spend that money on retirement annuities.
What would really happen is a bunch of companies would spring into existence, ADP and Paymaster would adjust their paycheck software, and employee s would be able to automatically redirect the extra %15 of their salary into a private annuity account.
Employers would be advertising this to the employees showing them how much better a deal they are getting than with social security, knowing that benefits help keep employees there, even if other companies offer the same benefit...
There'd be a whole growth sprut in the private insurance sector, those companies would start doing better, they'd have more float to invest, and thus they would put that money into the stock market, the stock market would start to go up...
It would have a huge positive impact on the economy-- every company would get a little more profitable and the whole economy would get a boost.
None of you guys understand economics-- that explains your support for marxism.
Any employer who didn't pass this money along would have a hard time explaining to the employees why he isn't giving them a raise now that the taxes have gone away. Not all the employees are so stupid as you, many of them actually understand economics and know that money's coming to them.
Ah, I see- you guys think that the EMPLOYER is the one that pays that money, not you- because it doesn't show up on your paycheck! You're that stupid! It makes sense now-- since you think the EMPLOYER pays the moeny, that they won't have any reason to pass it on to you! So funny! Man, whew. People on slashdot who never went to college at all, huh? Well, that's not how economics work, especially in a market economy.
When the feds get a boost, they never pass it on, you're used to that. But emplyoers have to or they loose employees.
I actually explained this in the paragraph you quoted, but apparently you didn't read it.
Go read some milton friedman or david friedman and see how the world really works.
You're delusional. Fact is that any employer would just take that theoretical difference and pocket it
,you linked to corporate welfare-- which is tiny compared to individiual welfare. All welfare is wrong and both kinds should be abolished. And you linked to enron-- which is a really idiotic thing to claim. You say enron is benefiting from taxes? Enron is dead- it was caught in fraud and shut down. IT would have been cuaght earlier if Joseph Lieberman-- the marxist VP candidate- hadn't threatened to shut down the SEC if they went forward with accounting reforms many years ago, but you guys always ignore that, the truth hurts, don't it?
If by "You're delusional" you mean "You understand economics" then yes. I cannot imagine the feds announcing that they are stopping the collection of these taxes and employers just whistling along pretending it didn't happen.
Any employer who did this would be at risk of loosing his employees to a company that didn't-- immediately all the other companies would be %20 more attractive. Who isn't willing to jump ship for an east %20 rise in pay, especially when your employer has just done this? No, its a zero sum situation for the employer-- they benefit MORE by passing the money along because they make the same profit and have happier employees.
The government may be inefficient, and it may be corrupt, but in the end it pays out reliably and consistently. That's more than any for-profit venture would do if given the chance to take over the potential market for either insurance.
Now this is a flat out lie. The government is corrupt and never NEVER pays out on social security, and never the fair amount owed on workmans comp or unemployement.
At the same time, there hasn't been an insurance company charged with this kind of fraud in the last 50 years. Insurance companies ALWAYS pay out these kinds of financial instruments. Hell, an insurance company that didn't pay out unemployment or social secuiryt could be sued for not only waht was owed, but damages. No, they ALWAYS pay out.
When was the last time anyone sued the government for not paying out their fair share of social security? Never gonna happen. Government is organized theft.
You just lied because you cannot handle the reality of the truth.
The outrage one should feel is that while the average American citizen gets only a 10% return on the near 50% of our income we pay into the system, the wealthiest members of our society see massive returns on the relatively tiny share of their money that they pay into the system.
Uh, can you back this up? I mean, really actually back it up. show that hte wealthy get more value in government services than the poor do.
You guys always make this claim, but you never back it up-- I think its just wishful thinking, as I've never seen a single fact to support it.
Also it goes contrary to your general socialist agenda-- you claim that the taxes are for redistribution to the poor and that is why we have a %400 tax increase for the rich compared to the poorer income tax payers. Yet now you claim the rich don't pay income tax?
By the way
Yet Enron, pales in comparison to the trillions done in damage by social security. Nobody lost money in enron who didn't voluntarily risk it.
Everyone is FORCED To loose money in social security, yet you're happy with that.
Like I said, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
And you aren't paying attention.
FWIW, have you taken any economics classes in school? What level of math did you take? I'm curious because I have this hypothesis that liberals are people who never took serious math, or never took economics. Or is it both?
Thats an excellent point.
On the pie chart you referenced, it shows social security being bankrupt right this minute.
Since both pies represent the total budget- its a zero sum game, and 35 units come in, while 36 units go out, showing that even today the federal income taxes are subsidizing social security payments.
Ever since the constitution was disassembled in 1913 allowing for a federal income tax, the government has been on a quick slide away from performing as intended.
It was intended to be a confederation of states (Even the constitution was immorally shoved down our throats and without the bill of rights nobody would have consented to creating a federal government-- they were just mistaken in thinking the constitution required a weak federal government.)
And actually it does, but the federal government, along with the two parties who have rigged the election system so that only they can win, has ignored the constitution and run roughshod over not only what was intended, but what it explicitly says.
I think it was stalin who said "It doesn't matter who they vote for, it matters who counts the votes". The authoritarians-- both stripes-- are the only ones allowed to count votes in this country.
You've got it backwards- it didn't start that way-- it was pitched as an annuity style retirement plan, and NOT a fallback.
Since they have mismanaged the money so fraudulently they are now calling it a fallback- which is just changing the terms to cover thier irresponsibility.
When we're old enough to collect there will be lots of politically correct stuff about how only really poor people should be collecting social security and we made too much money in our lives (true for anyone with an average salary or above, they'll say) to really NEED social secuirty and so we should get nothing.
SS is a fraud, a scam and it will NEVER last to 2038 without raising lots of taxes and lowering the payments, that projection is optimistic at best becuase its functionally BANKRUPT Right this minute.
IT does not have the money to pay the people it owes now-- even with the reduced benefits.
And NOBODY is getting out of it what they put into it, let alone what they are OWED which is multiple times what they put into it. (Remember, the time value of money.)
It is the most blatent form of outright theft yet perpetrated by the federal government.
And it is inexcusable to support it. Those who do simply can't do math.
Of course you can beat that kind of social security-- you can buy it on the open market with GUARANTEED benefits for a LOT less than the government is charging you for- and not guaranteeing to pay.
There is nothing the government gives in social security, that cannot be bought with traditional insurance, only much much cheaper.
IF the government wanted to help people- they would require you to invest that money in a commercial insurance plan, and thus they would help people a lot more-- the plans would be solvent, the benefits would be a lot richer and nobody would be complaining right now: I'd be reduced to the fine point of "Its a good idea, but why force people to do it".
No, the government just wants the money-- that's why they raid the social security fund regularly, that's why they DON'T invest the money, nad thats why its structured like a pyramid scheme to begin with-- if it really were insurance, they would have to invest the money and preserve the fund and the fund would have enough moeny to pay for decades even if nobody was paying into it because it would have decades of prior paymetns into it.
Right now the fund is insolvent-- it can't pay the next years benefits without the next years payments into it-- meaning it is BY DEFINITION bankrupt.
No private company could perpetuate a scam like this without the company being shut down and the people responsible put in jail for a long time.
But not only does the government defraud you-- they FORCE You to pay into this pyramid scheme.
Compared to this, Enron is a kid stealing $1 worth of candy-- yet all these people have their panties in a wad over enron, ignoring the trillion dollar fraud that is the social security pyramid.
How can you claim that gas taxes are too low?
Back in feudal days, serfs had to pay thir land owners %5-%10 in tax. This caused an uprising and the creationg of the robin hood myth.
Yet here people pay %50 or more of their income in total taxes (including the other fees, and sales taxes.)
Of course the gas tax hits the poor more than it does the rich. But why should it be more, what possible reason can you have for that? The money that is collected now is wasted, as you pointed out, there is no moral authority justifying doubling what you spend on gas to begin with...
Or is it you just hate SUV drivers and so you want to punish them by raising the gas taxes? Even though you hit the poor people who can't afford newer more efficient cars even harder?
The one that really gets me is a %5 tax on my phone bill to pay for WW2! WW2 has been over forever, but that tax put there to pay for it still is being collected.
Or the %20 in federal taxes added to airline tickets (one of which is the insulting 9/11 fee- a tragedy that wouldn't have occurred if the feds hadn't stopped pilots from carrying guns to prevent hijackings, and taken over airport security, ensuring poor security.)
Then there's the %50 fee on gas, that you never see because its built into the price- but is all tax. A brilliant deception because people all over hate oil companies for charging so much for gas, even though they aren't!
And in my state liquor is market up about %50, of course since the state owns all the stores where you can buy it, you never see this add on fee- its built into the price.
And lets not forget cigarettes-- a %50 markup in my state as well. But you don't see this fee because its built into the price. Another hidden tax. And people hate tobacco companies, hmm, noticing a trend.
Now the scum are starting to propose "vice" fees on fattening foots, so we can expect to pay an extra %50 for the privilege of buying a big mac that big momma government doesn't want you to eat?
Never mind the fees that you have to pay before you even get the money that you use to pay fees with!
The %15 taken out for social security-- you'll never see that money again.
The hidden income taxes that your employer "pays" but that you really are the one paying-- for instance unemployment insurance. (Let me buy it privately- I know I'll get a better deal! When they charge you four times as much as the service costs, how much of it is really taxes?)
Not to mention workers comp. I'm a programmer. Why do I have to pay workers comp-- again, let me keep my own damn money and I'll buy my own insurance and get a much better deal!
(And if you think its not your own money, the employer pays for it, you might be a liberal. This is an absurd distinction- every employer counts all these taxes in the total cost of employing you and so you must be worth more than that to the employer for them to hire you-- that is you have to earn all the money, plus their profit, to make it worth while to hire you. If they didn't have to pay so many fees, you would get more cash, because you'd still earn the same amount of profit for them that you do now.)
Even if you only make $36k a year- the average salary- you're paying half your income in taxes- and that's just direct. The things you buy, would be %30 or more cheaper if there wasn't a federal income tax, etc. (And the value of the services you get from the government? Less than %10 of what you pay in taxes-- thats how much you're being ripped off.)
AS they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
So I don't mind companies adding fees- if I don't like them, I can always refuse to do business with them, they need them anyway to cover the ever increasing tax burden they are being saddled with-- and that tax burden you don't get to opt out of if you don't like it.
At least let us invest our own social security money if we choose to-- there's no acceptable reason not to, unless it really is just a fund for the congress to raid whenever they want a raise.