Tax breaks are functionally government funding, aren't they?
No. Especially in cases like this, where the people in question don't pay any income tax anyway. But any time there's a reduction in a tax that someone has to pay, it's not "government funding that person." It's "taking less away from that person." If someone else has to now pay higher taxes, then it's not government funding, it's "that other guy now paying higher taxes funding." For example, nearly half the people in the country pay ZERO income taxes. A small percentage of the people in the country pay almost all the income taxes. When you decide to pay a university staffer (a "graduate student") with fake money so they can avoid paying taxes on their income, you're just asking someone else - maybe, a landscaper in Pennsylvania, or a woman in Florida who's struggling to grow her restaurant business, to pay it for them. In practice, it's highly paid professionals who actually pick up the tab for most everyone else. The "government" never does.
Let me guess. You wanted for president the woman who made herself a multi-millionaire many times over by selling political access while she and her husband held various jobs as public servants. That's YOUR idea of the right approach. No thanks.
Or they could use scholarships. Or, they could stop charging SOME students $80,000, and other students $10, and reduce tuition across the board. And pay actual value of what the grad students are doing. Or is it possible that the grad students aren't necessarily actually DOING anything worth $80,000?
I live in a deep blue state. CA and NY are giving their residents a federal tax break at my expense, because our state rates are lower than theirs. Not to take away the fun of your meme or anything.
No, it's not double taxation. The federal government is only taxing your income once. Your tax-hungry blue states really, really love to also tax them. They've been giving their high income people a discount on their federal taxes by passing those costs along to some guy installing mufflers who lives in a state that doesn't hit their residents so hard. High time that changed.
I like how you've made substantial points illustrating the ways in which the plan is worse than the current arrangement. Your points are so compelling! Let me guess, you've learned this form of communication by hanging out with your fellow liberals? Man, they've really taught you how to impress. Keep up the good work! You're exactly why the left lost nearly a thousand legislative seats under Obama, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the good will of millions of two-time Obama voters who walked away in disgust from a party that sounds just like you. Please, continue - right through the next couple of election cycles. Don't change a THING about how you make such lucid, detailed points about the strengths of your policy preferences. Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Or, the university that's using tens of hours of their time every month as staff paid for with free tuition could... start compensating them for that time with actual money, or lower tuition to a rational level for everybody and stop playing games by charging huge prices for some, and giving it away to others. A change they could make instantly, at any time.
Yeah, I'm a real asshole for pointing out that some students pay for tuition with income on which they got taxed, while these students DON'T pay for that same tuition and thus are getting the equivalent in income without paying that tax. Let me guess: you're a liberal. Anyone who points out basic reality to you is an asshole, right?
It's called tuition. Other students have to pay for it. These particular students don't. They get the valuable thing as compensation. That's taxable, but they've been getting away without paying taxes on it. Simple as that. I can tell you, personally, didn't get very far in school.
It's doesn't levy a tax. It stops pretending that when a large business (a university) gives you something valuable that other people have to pay for, that it isn't compensation.
Sure, a "lot" of people do. Of the billions of people who use computers and mobile devices. How many do you suppose have ANY idea what most of those words you just used mean, in context?
For the average person trying to decide whether to run some new support ticketing package on IIS or LAMP is thinking "free" as in beer, not free as in "I can get in and fork this web server library to suit my purposes." Most people have no more sense of whether or not their free-as-in-hackable module or plugin or OS is watching them or recording telemetry for their own good or not. And most them don't care, either. They just want it to work.
I know, right? Because a year ago when Obama was running the FCC, all of those neighborhoods had fiber to every door. And then Trump ripped it all out!
When have I ever said otherwise? That's the whole point. The difference is that we have a relentless parade of one-sided, partisan BS from a media/celebrity/entertainment complex that is overwhelmingly aligned to the party that lost nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, and the good will of millions of two-time Obama voters in the years and months leading up to the last election... and they're so tweaked that they've wasted all of that time energy and billions of dollars on such a atrocious performance be the party generally and by their awful choice of candidate in particular... and that non-stop crap from the CNN/NBC/NYT's of the world and their countless counterparts DOES earn some push-back. Because the hypocrisy on display is overwhelming. Calling them on it isn't the same as claiming the lack of any mis-deeds by anyone else, it's simply pointing out the endless, disingenuous hypocrisy on the part of those who essentially run the culture.
When I comment, it's to point out hypocrisy. Like yours.
You seem to think I should spend my time here running down a laundry list of every bad thing that everyone does so I can earn your patronizing approval for being endlessly whiny about everything in the appropriately SJW tone. No, I don't bother. In a world of billions of people, there are billions of things that deserve contempt. But because the majority of the media in this country, which has a powerful effect on our culture and discourse, is displaying an ugly form of irrational pandering towards people who are trying to sell a bundle of lies in order to deflect from their own bumbling political losses, I'm very happy to put that tiny portion of my week that it takes to type a few sentences responding to that hypocrisy. Your own deliberate projection (in place of EVER addressing substance) doesn't really need more commentary since it's a personal failing you can't shake off. You might want to seek some help, but you won't get it here.
So, let me get this straight: I criticize leftists thugs and totalitarians, which includes in a big way the conduct of the Russians for decades and STILL includes the Russians today (the willingness to use violence to suppress others is a common practice in Russia)... and that makes me a Russian troll? Hilarious.
The left's childish need (for lack of anything more constructive to say) to resort to "it's the Russians!" every time anyone points out things like the violent behavior of their own brown shirts, is really something to behold. Please, keep it up.
Found the person who doesn't have the intellectual honesty to actually address the perfectly valid points he made. Thanks for being a typical liberal. Please whine some more.
Well, that was horrible. Not nearly as bad as what socialists have done, of course, and are still doing to millions of people every day. But you're OK with large movements that are actually, systematically oppressing and killing people, just not with some idiots in bathrobes carrying tiki torches. Leftists in black masks being ACTUAL brown shirts and beating people on college campuses for walking to an event, that's OK, though, right? Right. Because you LIKE totalitarian thugs, as long as their YOUR totalitarian thugs.
And your lazy ad hominem and avoidance of the substance of the matter (see the specific examples I pointed out and your unwillingness to discuss them) shows how insincere you actually are on this. Have fun routinely throwing your votes away.
So... you should be very happy with Trump's first SCOTUS nominee - an embrace of proper constitutional checks and balances that no Democrat would ever want, and which makes some Republicans unhappy. Gorsuch is as close to your ideal as one is likely to ever see nominated. And with Trump's general posture towards clawing back from federal agencies their intrusive, abusive use of bloated regulatory power and similar instincts, vs a non-existent fantasy candidate that you'll never see elected, you really can't call it a disaster. He's annoying as hell, but that pendulum REALLY needed to swing the other way on some of this stuff. So be it.
Slashdot Mirror
Tax breaks are functionally government funding, aren't they?
No. Especially in cases like this, where the people in question don't pay any income tax anyway. But any time there's a reduction in a tax that someone has to pay, it's not "government funding that person." It's "taking less away from that person." If someone else has to now pay higher taxes, then it's not government funding, it's "that other guy now paying higher taxes funding." For example, nearly half the people in the country pay ZERO income taxes. A small percentage of the people in the country pay almost all the income taxes. When you decide to pay a university staffer (a "graduate student") with fake money so they can avoid paying taxes on their income, you're just asking someone else - maybe, a landscaper in Pennsylvania, or a woman in Florida who's struggling to grow her restaurant business, to pay it for them. In practice, it's highly paid professionals who actually pick up the tab for most everyone else. The "government" never does.
Let me guess. You wanted for president the woman who made herself a multi-millionaire many times over by selling political access while she and her husband held various jobs as public servants. That's YOUR idea of the right approach. No thanks.
Which argues for getting the government out of the business of grossly inflating tuition costs, as they're doing now.
Or they could use scholarships. Or, they could stop charging SOME students $80,000, and other students $10, and reduce tuition across the board. And pay actual value of what the grad students are doing. Or is it possible that the grad students aren't necessarily actually DOING anything worth $80,000?
I live in a deep blue state. CA and NY are giving their residents a federal tax break at my expense, because our state rates are lower than theirs. Not to take away the fun of your meme or anything.
No, it's not double taxation. The federal government is only taxing your income once. Your tax-hungry blue states really, really love to also tax them. They've been giving their high income people a discount on their federal taxes by passing those costs along to some guy installing mufflers who lives in a state that doesn't hit their residents so hard. High time that changed.
So, that guy down the street who's running a modest landscaping business and will come out thousands of dollars ahead every year, the hell with him?
I like how you've made substantial points illustrating the ways in which the plan is worse than the current arrangement. Your points are so compelling! Let me guess, you've learned this form of communication by hanging out with your fellow liberals? Man, they've really taught you how to impress. Keep up the good work! You're exactly why the left lost nearly a thousand legislative seats under Obama, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the good will of millions of two-time Obama voters who walked away in disgust from a party that sounds just like you. Please, continue - right through the next couple of election cycles. Don't change a THING about how you make such lucid, detailed points about the strengths of your policy preferences. Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Or, the university that's using tens of hours of their time every month as staff paid for with free tuition could ... start compensating them for that time with actual money, or lower tuition to a rational level for everybody and stop playing games by charging huge prices for some, and giving it away to others. A change they could make instantly, at any time.
Yeah, I'm a real asshole for pointing out that some students pay for tuition with income on which they got taxed, while these students DON'T pay for that same tuition and thus are getting the equivalent in income without paying that tax. Let me guess: you're a liberal. Anyone who points out basic reality to you is an asshole, right?
" that other people have to pay for, "
... i'll wait... ... ...
Um, proof?
thought so.
next?
It's called tuition. Other students have to pay for it. These particular students don't. They get the valuable thing as compensation. That's taxable, but they've been getting away without paying taxes on it. Simple as that. I can tell you, personally, didn't get very far in school.
Everything I hear about it is wrong.
Then consider reading outside of your echo chamber.
The question is, will they be standing up some of these towers in areas where neither they nor anyone else will ever run fiber?
It's doesn't levy a tax. It stops pretending that when a large business (a university) gives you something valuable that other people have to pay for, that it isn't compensation.
Sure, a "lot" of people do. Of the billions of people who use computers and mobile devices. How many do you suppose have ANY idea what most of those words you just used mean, in context?
For the average person trying to decide whether to run some new support ticketing package on IIS or LAMP is thinking "free" as in beer, not free as in "I can get in and fork this web server library to suit my purposes." Most people have no more sense of whether or not their free-as-in-hackable module or plugin or OS is watching them or recording telemetry for their own good or not. And most them don't care, either. They just want it to work.
I know, right? Because a year ago when Obama was running the FCC, all of those neighborhoods had fiber to every door. And then Trump ripped it all out!
Not only that, they used social engineering to cause the /. editors to forget how to write a plural possessive.
Nations', not nation's.
When have I ever said otherwise? That's the whole point. The difference is that we have a relentless parade of one-sided, partisan BS from a media/celebrity/entertainment complex that is overwhelmingly aligned to the party that lost nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, and the good will of millions of two-time Obama voters in the years and months leading up to the last election ... and they're so tweaked that they've wasted all of that time energy and billions of dollars on such a atrocious performance be the party generally and by their awful choice of candidate in particular ... and that non-stop crap from the CNN/NBC/NYT's of the world and their countless counterparts DOES earn some push-back. Because the hypocrisy on display is overwhelming. Calling them on it isn't the same as claiming the lack of any mis-deeds by anyone else, it's simply pointing out the endless, disingenuous hypocrisy on the part of those who essentially run the culture.
When I comment, it's to point out hypocrisy. Like yours.
You seem to think I should spend my time here running down a laundry list of every bad thing that everyone does so I can earn your patronizing approval for being endlessly whiny about everything in the appropriately SJW tone. No, I don't bother. In a world of billions of people, there are billions of things that deserve contempt. But because the majority of the media in this country, which has a powerful effect on our culture and discourse, is displaying an ugly form of irrational pandering towards people who are trying to sell a bundle of lies in order to deflect from their own bumbling political losses, I'm very happy to put that tiny portion of my week that it takes to type a few sentences responding to that hypocrisy. Your own deliberate projection (in place of EVER addressing substance) doesn't really need more commentary since it's a personal failing you can't shake off. You might want to seek some help, but you won't get it here.
So, let me get this straight: I criticize leftists thugs and totalitarians, which includes in a big way the conduct of the Russians for decades and STILL includes the Russians today (the willingness to use violence to suppress others is a common practice in Russia) ... and that makes me a Russian troll? Hilarious.
The left's childish need (for lack of anything more constructive to say) to resort to "it's the Russians!" every time anyone points out things like the violent behavior of their own brown shirts, is really something to behold. Please, keep it up.
Found the person who doesn't have the intellectual honesty to actually address the perfectly valid points he made. Thanks for being a typical liberal. Please whine some more.
Well, that was horrible. Not nearly as bad as what socialists have done, of course, and are still doing to millions of people every day. But you're OK with large movements that are actually, systematically oppressing and killing people, just not with some idiots in bathrobes carrying tiki torches. Leftists in black masks being ACTUAL brown shirts and beating people on college campuses for walking to an event, that's OK, though, right? Right. Because you LIKE totalitarian thugs, as long as their YOUR totalitarian thugs.
And your lazy ad hominem and avoidance of the substance of the matter (see the specific examples I pointed out and your unwillingness to discuss them) shows how insincere you actually are on this. Have fun routinely throwing your votes away.
So... you should be very happy with Trump's first SCOTUS nominee - an embrace of proper constitutional checks and balances that no Democrat would ever want, and which makes some Republicans unhappy. Gorsuch is as close to your ideal as one is likely to ever see nominated. And with Trump's general posture towards clawing back from federal agencies their intrusive, abusive use of bloated regulatory power and similar instincts, vs a non-existent fantasy candidate that you'll never see elected, you really can't call it a disaster. He's annoying as hell, but that pendulum REALLY needed to swing the other way on some of this stuff. So be it.