Taxes: Just about the most evil thing EVAH!!
The stupidity is just rampant in the Frank Knotts post I warned you away from reading yesterday. Basically Frank talks himself out of liking the SC’s APF ” Adequate Public Facilities” plan which very sensibly requires “developers to provide all needed improvements to roads and other infrastructure needs before or concurrent with the building of there developments.” Makes sense right? Wrong.
Turns out, AFP is really an evil insidious tax. Here is the DelawarePolitics logic.
Taxes are evil because taxes <i>take money out of my pocket (c)</i> that I could use to buy a new flat screen TV made in China. So instead of raising taxes it SEEMS like a good idea to make developers provide for infrastructure – but wait. THAT is a tax because they’ll charge me more if they have to pay for a traffic light, AND that will take money out of my pocket (c) that I could use to buy a flat screen TV made in China.
So we need to wait until magical unicorns come down from heaven and THEY will pay for our infrastructure because eveything else is an evil tax. – paraphrase by me
You see. Since taxes are evil and everything is a tax, we don’t have many options.
All this would be funny and a kind of freaky sideshow, IF IT WERE NOT MAINSTREAM REPUBLICAN THINKING. I mean the GOP has gone off its nut. If you don’t believe me take Art Downs’ word for it in the comment thread from that post.
Folks who believe that Big Goverment can solve all problems never found fault with a tax that they fancied someone else would pay. Quite often these economic illiterates appeal to other dullards with schemes to ‘tax business’. This only turns business into tax collectors as they pass the burden on to the consumer.
Good bye infrastructure. Good bye jobs. Good bye planning. Good bye quality of life. We can’t afford you because, in the end, you are all a tax.
Taxes are a price we pay for having a civilization. I suppose Republicans are anti-civilization now.
Damn roads.
Damn schools.
Damn police protection.
Damn fire protection.
I used to wonder if they really bought all the BS they laid down about taxes. I don’t wonder anymore. They mean it.
Also, GWB found a way not to raise taxes, just spend more than you bring in.
I don’t know about you but that doesn’t sound very Republican to me.
“I don’t know about you but that doesn’t sound very Republican to me.”
It’s not. GWB is a disgrace to the term “Republican.”
Why do I keep reading the title of this post as “Texas: Just about the most evil thing EVAH”
This headline got me to thinking about Evil which in turn made me realize that John McCain is not Grandpa Simpson, but Mermaid Man from Spongebob Square Pants.
Eeevol, Eeevol, Eeevol.
God, I crack myself up.
The greatest mistake we ever made is the Sixteenth Amendment. Prior to that, the federal government could impose no direct taxes save those based on population. Thus, no one could lobby Congress to tax other people: any tax passed would apply equally to everybody.
The income tax changed that. Now we can try to impose taxes on other people — usually the wealthy, but it certainly doesn’t always have to work that way — without having to worry about raising taxes on ourselves.
I have no objection to taxation in which everyone shares the burdens equally; I absolutely object to using the tax code for social engineering.
I have no objection to taxation in which everyone shares the burdens equally; I absolutely object to using the tax code for social engineering.
Depends what your definition of “equally” is. Liberals and fiscal conservatives (is there such a thing today or did Bush destroy that too?) have some differing opinions about that.
By social engineering you mean what?
“I have no objection to taxation in which everyone shares the burdens equally; I absolutely object to using the tax code for social engineering”
Took the words right out of my mouth.
The 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators)t did quite a bit of damage to the Country as well.
nemski,
I have a feeling he is not talking about progressive tax rates when he says equal.
Yeah, I hate the 14th, 15th and 19th amendments as well.
This country went to hell in a hand basket when we allowed coloreds, women and non property owners the right to vote.
Jason, must be the magical unicorn thing you were talking about.
Dana –
Which of these things do you think we should have not done; defeat Nazi Germany, put men on the moon, built I95, funded the military research that resulted in the internet?
Under the magical unicorn system there are no trade offs to make, but in the real world there are.
Military spending is a legitimate expenditure for any government Jason. I doubt anyone would say that the interstate highway system was not a legitimate federal expenditure either.
Social welfare programs at the federal level, and multiple federal agencies/bureacracies are an entirely different matter.
In totally unrelated news, but that I wanted to brag about to my new friends at DE Liberal, I made the front-page of dailyKos this morning. Yay me !
Just putting things in perspective. The tax burden in the US including both state and federal tax revolves around 33% (which means 33% of your overall income goes in taxes in average).
In most countries of Western Europe – who choose to finance education and health care – it hovers between 45% and 50%.
For all the bitching of conservatives, the US have made a choice of comparatively very low tax burden against leaving some fairly important functions of life up to people to fend for themselves.
We can argue whether it is fair. But let’s remember that, all in all, our taxes are among the lowest of all developped countries. And that we actually, as Jason said, accomplished quite a bit of cool stuff with them.
Jason330
Why are those things never mentioned when the Repuk’s always talk about lowering Taxes???
Why was my comment deleted ?
🙁
Benjamin, probably just caught in spam. It should be rescued…
Just remember folks it was the REPUK’s who fought FDR on lend lease
I think the spam filter was jealous I had been quoted on the front page of Daily Kos today.
JEALOUS
You rock! Gotta a link? I’d love to read what you said.
It is the pundit round-up of this morning
They use my comment on Chuck Todd’s account of Saddleback. You have the quote and if you follow the link to Chuck Todd’s blog First Read you will see the first comment she quotes and check out the name 🙂
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/17/7166/97493/526/569012
You are the man Ben. Great comment. I don;t know why it didn’t appear. Have I banned you by any chance? It happens so much that I loose track.
Kidding.
I should have known! I actually read that comment on kos this morning! Bravo!
Well my comment was bragging about this and comparing the level of taxation (comparatively low in the US) with the level of benefits (universal health care and education) between our country and Europe to point out that, regardless of conservative bitching, WE have a low level tax and a fairly thin level of governmental intervention already.
Jason wrote:
Exactly. I am talking about each citizen paying the exact same amount in taxes, whether that citizen be Donviti or Donald Trump.
I recognize that we’ll never return to those halcyon days, and that the best for which I could hope is a single percentage rate tax structure.
Mike W wrote:
Federal law requires that 90.5¢ of every dollar collected in the federal gasoline excise tax (currently 18.4¢ per gallon) be spent in the state in which it was collected. What you wind up with is a system where dollars are funneled to Washington, just to be sent straight back to the states, just with federal strings — and federal reporting and federal bureaucracy — attached. That’s just a ridiculous overhead expenditure, which actually builds nothing. It would be more efficient to reduce the federal excise tax to 1.7¢ per gallon, and let the states take the remaining 16.7¢ directly.
Ben, good job getting in on the first post on UpChuck’s blog. I was very suspicious about whether the candidates had been given the questions to review ahead of time. They were too quick to answer.
Dana – Interesting. I didn’t know that the taxes collected had to be spent in the state where they were collected. That means we’re basically sending that money directly to the Feds so they can get their hands on it and siphon off $$ before it gets used.
the best for which I could hope is a single percentage rate tax structure.
I’m ok with that as a liberal… provided the single rate is applied to all income including investment income and corporate income – and if the Treasury funds single-payer healthcare, old age pensions, and primary and higher education. And the single rate should be adjusted every year to pay all projected expenses, with any long-term debt accounted for according go GAAP.
That kind of single-rate tax would be great. It would make tax cuts easier too – Want to cut taxes? Easy, just cut the budget for next year and taxes automatically go down.
Anon – Who handles the healthcare treasury, old age pensions, and education expenses? The Federal Government? If anything they’ve proven over the last 100 yrs or so is that they’ll mismanage and piss away any money that’s supposed to go into a long-term treasury.
Old age pensions (social security) should be abolished at the federal level. If the people in certain states want to develop their own similar safety net systems they should be free to do so.
I want to keep the federal government as far away from healthcare and education as possible. Considering their importance to the nation we can’t afford to have the Feds responsible for them.
Good stuff anon. I’d love for investment income to get taxed. Right now we tax workers and leave the people who happen to be born wealthy basically untouched.
As far as Mike and the rest, the point of the post stands unchallenged. If yo want a civil society you need to pay taxes.
Otherwise we can all live in the woods like Ted Kazinski (sp?).
This GOP knee-jerk opposition to any and all taxes – especially ones that tax the exact right entity (like the APF) is just short-sighted and wrong.
Luckily there were no Republicans around when the country was founded or we’d all be pushing our good to market down rutted muddy cowpaths.
That is modern GOP style Republicans.
Why do I keep reading the title of this post as “Texas: Just about the most evil thing EVAH”
I want to make a joke joe, but I am afraid you would say I was making an ad hominem attack.
So I will refrain from saying you see Texas b/c you are polish
anon: If income is going to be taxed, I have no problem at all — and would prefer to see — all income taxed at the same rate. The idea of separate tax rates for different kinds of income, to encourage one thing and discourage another, is just as much social engineering as welfare spending.
Mike W…I will bet your parents are not opposed to Social Security and Medicare. For working class and middle class families if our parents and grandparents didnt have the safety net, you would be paying the exhoribant for profit health costs, they would be living with you, and you would be supporting them.
Thank God for FDR and his vision for America. He ended the depression by putting people to work on our infrastructure, he gave veterans a chance to go to college and created the middle class. It was the republican thieves the most wealthy (2%) who hate america’s working/middle class. They think themselves better cuz they got money. Their children are drug addicts and lazy living off their parents money with no compassion, no heart for anyone else. When we raise up all the poor and working poor we raise up America and make it a strong nation. I think you repukes want america to be a third world nation, making slaves of us all.
Actually my parents are just as opposed to Medicare and SS as I am. They agree with me that it’d be better to be able to keep the 8-10% that comes out of each paycheck for Social Security.
They realize that, while it will be there for them I, and the generation after me are getting fucked. We are getting our money taken from us, thrown into an insolvent bureaucratic black hole, with the promise that in 50 years we *might* get back a portion of what we paid in. Sounds like the worst investment plan ever if you ask me.
I’ve already started saving for retirement. I won’t rely on the government.
Do you guys realize how much of the Federal budget is swallowed up by Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? (of course we also have the national debt….)
BTW – my grandparents planned and saved. They’re not relying on Social Security payments.
butterfly . . . sorry, but that was a dumb question, how else was Mike going to answer that.
Do you guys realize how much of the Federal budget is swallowed up by Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? (of course we also have the national debt….)
Mike W, do you have any sense of reality? Seriously, what planet are you on currently. It’s not 1982 anymore. Clinton balance the budget and had a surplus. Your President started a war and we are in hock once again.