|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On November 10 2017 01:02 Liquid`Drone wrote:I was curious so I looked up differences in how taxes are spent for the US and Norway ![[image loading]](https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/10-4-17bud-f1.png) ![[image loading]](http://e24.vgc.no/drpublish/images/article/2013/06/26/20883859/1/default/732400.png) To translate the Norwegian number, that big, 40% number is social security. But we also spend 12.5% on education, and 16.8% on healthcare. Defense gets 3.21%. Environmental protection 1.6%, 2.9% on various cultural programs. 'Alminnelig offentlig tjenesteyting' I understand as a fancy phrase for 'bureaucracy' gets 9% (money well spent - norwegian bureaucracy is in my experience exceptionally functional), 'næringsøkonomiske formål' at 9.8% includes infrastructure spending, transportation etc. Some of these are in pretty stark contrast with the american numbers - especially education and defense. And tbh, if those numbers were swapped in Norway, I could see myself be less positive towards taxation - I'm super happy to pay for public education, which I see as pretty integral from a 'create a more equitable playing field' perspective, I'd be considerably less happy spending taxes on invasions of foreign lands.
That's going to be a distorted comparison because the upper chart only accounts for the federal budget and many folks pay large percentages of their overall tax burden to state and local entities, location depending. Many of the "best" states and places to live in the US are this way, in fact.
|
United States44194 Posts
I suspect that the US numbers you're looking at there Eri are just for the Federal budget. A lot of education spending is on a state and local level. The US has many, many layers of taxation, a half dozen in some places.
|
Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once.
To give you an example:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.html
They've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit.
YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year.
|
|
|
On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year.
What point are you trying to make, other than raging against an imperfect world?
|
United States44194 Posts
On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year.
So you earned 100,000 of the concept? Not 60,000? Why was 100,000 the correct amount of earnings?
|
On November 10 2017 00:46 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 00:40 KwarK wrote:On November 10 2017 00:35 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 10 2017 00:07 KwarK wrote:On November 10 2017 00:05 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 09 2017 03:58 KwarK wrote:On November 09 2017 03:54 ShoCkeyy wrote:
That tax plan they released looks good for me, but with the current tax plan, I'm getting fucked in taxes. I'm positive this year alone, I've paid 40% easily in taxes some how... And then they wonder why the "middle class" disappeared... A) Fix your withholding (or stop counting payroll taxes) B) The "middle class" hasn't disappeared. What happened was the working poor got fucked by changing economic conditions. C) Nobody paying 40% in taxes (incidentally the top bracket is 39.6% and that's marginal rate, not average rate, so even if you're paid a billion dollars in W-2 income you still won't hit exactly 39.6%) is getting fucked, what is happening is they're getting paid a fortune and only keeping half a fortune D) Cutting taxes can't be looked at in isolation, otherwise cutting taxes would always be good. Cut taxes means cut services, or increased borrowing. Either way you need to weigh that in too. If you gain $1,000 in reduced taxes and lose $2,000 in essential services which you now have to pay out of pocket you did not receive a tax cut. So I did the math, and it's actually like 30% that I'm being taken out. Then they have the nerve to say I still owe taxes when I do my income tax. This year alone, I haven't broke six figures yet, but I'm very close to, and I feel like I've only been paid half of what I made this year. And that's with taxes, I can't imagine how much more they would steal from me if I didn't have a 401k. I also gotta check on my withholding for sure. They're not stealing from you. Taxation isn't theft. Grow the hell up. Nah it's not theft to you, yet I worked harder than the shitty politicians that get paid with it and still try to fuck me over. The boston tea party happened for a reason, why do corps get tax breaks, while the people get fucked. And when I don't know where all my taxes are going, who knows maybe a secret operative that will get a green beret killed, while being requested to pay more than what I should be paying, I can consider it theft. I don't think it's about "growing the hell up", it's about seeing how shitty your government is being to the people. I don't mind paying for universal healthcare, but I know it's going to universal healthcare, yet our government doesn't care, and choose to ignore. You gotta also understand, I came from nothing, and having nothing, even lived on a the streets for a time in my life. While there are many useful things for taxes, they're definitely not being put to good use. Humour me for a minute. Imagine I were an alien who knew nothing about earth. Try to explain to me without reference to society as a whole why the correct amount of dollars you should receive for the work you do is 100,000, and not 50,000. What makes one amount "right" and any deduction from that amount "theft"? Theft is when the money shouldn't be spent. It doesn't matter what the right amount is, the difference is that in these "best places to live" everyone makes a fair standing living wage, while being charged almost the same in taxes. In the US, I have to pay more taxes because the rich people choose to not pay. I don't mind paying taxes to help the poor, I do mind when I'm paying taxes to help the rich.
Please stop using the word theft. It makes you sound like every other inbred mongrel who hate taxes for no other reason than some of it isn't being used on them (Which I know you're not, based on your previous answers). The word you're looking for is waste. It's fine to dislike what your taxes are being used for, just don't call it theft.
|
On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader is has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year.
As a fellow resident of a state full of politicians who don't think government "works" on a fundamental level, I sympathize with your cynicism aimed at tax and spend governance. Just look at what the Ricks of Michigan and Florida and the state apparatuses beneath them prioritize. Nevertheless, the problem in both cases deals in bad/stupid/craven politicians rather than any fundamentals, I think.
|
On November 10 2017 01:07 kollin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year. What point are you trying to make, other than raging against an imperfect world?
Because I'm actually paying twice out of pocket to a company that doesn't give a shit about their users? Also if you think state and local taxes go to "good use" you're so mistaken...
|
United States44194 Posts
On November 10 2017 01:11 ShoCkeyy wrote:
Because I'm actually paying twice out of pocket to a company that doesn't give a shit about their users? Also if you think state and local taxes go to "good use" you're so mistaken...
You're not really addressing my point. Why is 100,000 of dollars right and only receiving 60,000 of dollars while another party gets the 40,000 difference theft?
|
They go to various uses, some good, some bad. You don't get to pick and chose what you deem "good" on an individual basis.
Arguing that tax cuts for big companies are bad is totally fine, the way you do it tho...
|
On November 10 2017 01:17 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 01:09 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2017 00:46 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 10 2017 00:40 KwarK wrote:On November 10 2017 00:35 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 10 2017 00:07 KwarK wrote:On November 10 2017 00:05 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 09 2017 03:58 KwarK wrote:On November 09 2017 03:54 ShoCkeyy wrote:
That tax plan they released looks good for me, but with the current tax plan, I'm getting fucked in taxes. I'm positive this year alone, I've paid 40% easily in taxes some how... And then they wonder why the "middle class" disappeared... A) Fix your withholding (or stop counting payroll taxes) B) The "middle class" hasn't disappeared. What happened was the working poor got fucked by changing economic conditions. C) Nobody paying 40% in taxes (incidentally the top bracket is 39.6% and that's marginal rate, not average rate, so even if you're paid a billion dollars in W-2 income you still won't hit exactly 39.6%) is getting fucked, what is happening is they're getting paid a fortune and only keeping half a fortune D) Cutting taxes can't be looked at in isolation, otherwise cutting taxes would always be good. Cut taxes means cut services, or increased borrowing. Either way you need to weigh that in too. If you gain $1,000 in reduced taxes and lose $2,000 in essential services which you now have to pay out of pocket you did not receive a tax cut. So I did the math, and it's actually like 30% that I'm being taken out. Then they have the nerve to say I still owe taxes when I do my income tax. This year alone, I haven't broke six figures yet, but I'm very close to, and I feel like I've only been paid half of what I made this year. And that's with taxes, I can't imagine how much more they would steal from me if I didn't have a 401k. I also gotta check on my withholding for sure. They're not stealing from you. Taxation isn't theft. Grow the hell up. Nah it's not theft to you, yet I worked harder than the shitty politicians that get paid with it and still try to fuck me over. The boston tea party happened for a reason, why do corps get tax breaks, while the people get fucked. And when I don't know where all my taxes are going, who knows maybe a secret operative that will get a green beret killed, while being requested to pay more than what I should be paying, I can consider it theft. I don't think it's about "growing the hell up", it's about seeing how shitty your government is being to the people. I don't mind paying for universal healthcare, but I know it's going to universal healthcare, yet our government doesn't care, and choose to ignore. You gotta also understand, I came from nothing, and having nothing, even lived on a the streets for a time in my life. While there are many useful things for taxes, they're definitely not being put to good use. Humour me for a minute. Imagine I were an alien who knew nothing about earth. Try to explain to me without reference to society as a whole why the correct amount of dollars you should receive for the work you do is 100,000, and not 50,000. What makes one amount "right" and any deduction from that amount "theft"? Theft is when the money shouldn't be spent. It doesn't matter what the right amount is, the difference is that in these "best places to live" everyone makes a fair standing living wage, while being charged almost the same in taxes. In the US, I have to pay more taxes because the rich people choose to not pay. I don't mind paying taxes to help the poor, I do mind when I'm paying taxes to help the rich. Please stop using the word theft. It makes you sound like every other inbred mongrel who hate taxes for no other reason than some of it isn't being used on them (Which I know you're not, based on your previous answers). The word you're looking for is waste. It's fine to dislike what your taxes are being used for, just don't call it theft. But it's theft when local politicians use our local taxes to "build better infrastructure" that has taken almost 20 years to be built in order to line their pockets, and their friends pockets. It's a quite common theme down here in FL. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2583595/Former-Florida-mayor-kept-mistress-massive-cash-payments-Ponzi-schemer-friend-AND-wife-face-tax-evasion-charges.html(Around this time, some how the cities "savings" was going dry too.) https://www.local10.com/news/hialeah-mayor-convicted-of-making-false-statements-violating-ethics-ruleshttp://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/us/mayor-and-a-councilman-are-indicted-in-hialeah.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article125617409.html
Imagine, this is just a 20mile radius. Two different cities with corrupt politicians. I can't imagine how many more there are across the country.
|
On November 10 2017 01:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 01:11 ShoCkeyy wrote:
Because I'm actually paying twice out of pocket to a company that doesn't give a shit about their users? Also if you think state and local taxes go to "good use" you're so mistaken... You're not really addressing my point. Why is 100,000 of dollars right and only receiving 60,000 of dollars while another party gets the 40,000 difference theft?
It's not about taxing, it's about stealing our taxes, while I'm also paying for their benefit.
|
On November 10 2017 01:11 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 01:07 kollin wrote:On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year. What point are you trying to make, other than raging against an imperfect world? Because I'm actually paying twice out of pocket to a company that doesn't give a shit about their users? Also if you think state and local taxes go to "good use" you're so mistaken...
Right so...what? We should pay less taxes, more taxes, vote for different local/federal government?? What is your point beyond there's an imperfect system?
|
Norway28866 Posts
They are stealing our taxes is indeed a wholly different argument from the regular 'taxation is theft'. The first post was a bit clumsy (sounded like the latter) but complaining about government corruption is absolutely fair. My pro-taxation pov consistently hinges on my experience that the taxes are spent in a way that benefits all of society.
|
See if they used my local and state taxes to improve schools, I would be happy, but they don't. They don't use it to improve anything, so then, where do my taxes go, into companies, "projects" or should I say pockets? Aside from federal level. Cause the state definitely seems to be going downhill.
|
|
|
On November 10 2017 00:04 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 23:35 Danglars wrote:On November 09 2017 23:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
When the cutoff is at $11 million for a household, clearly you can still accumulate generational wealth. It's not like they take 100% beyond that either. (Tbh, I'd personally be kinda fine with that. :D Or it should probably also depend on how many beneficiaries there are, but I don't see the fairness or benefit from any individual being given more than $5 million for 'being in the same family as someone'. So maybe rather than calculating it based on the value of the estate, have the cutoff be decided by how much each recipient gets. )
I don't see the societal benefit from individuals being billionaires. I get 'they invest and create jobs', but I've never seen any compelling evidence that one individual holding 1 billion creates more, better jobs than 200 individuals holding $5 million does. (Or that there being one company valued at $1 billion is better for the economy than 200 companies worth $5 million). All the bipartisan talk about 'small business being the backbone of american economy' really doesn't seem to match up with policy geared towards benefiting small businesses (which must, naturally, come at the expense of big business). The way I see it, it's impossible to accumulate $1 billion without having massively underpaid workers helping your company thrive, and while I prefer methods like increased worker ownership or limiting CEO pay to X amounts of entry level pay over taxation as a means of redistribution, if you do allow CEOs to make 600 times entry level pay then the redistribution must be done through other means. And if people aren't taxed sufficiently during their life times, then it has to happen at death.
Everybody idealizes the meritocracy. But a meritocracy is incompatible with an aristocracy, the US can't pretend to be the former while enacting policies that benefit the latter. The wealth you've earned and has been taxed that the government allows you to give to your children and grandchildren ... Examining how much property individuals attain in terms of net societal benefit as compared to pay cap ... catching up on presumed inadequate taxation over their lives ... allowing CEOs to make X redistribution must be done. I shudder to think you're probably talking in good faith here. No individuals but only servants of societal benefit, no unjust policies but only the ends justify the means, and so transparently the politics of envy but without attendant shame. I really hate to think this may be what we're headed towards. You aren't being taxed when you die. Your children and grandchildren are being taxed for a sudden burst of income. If you just handed them 10 million dollars that would also be subject to tax. If you don't want to give your money to anyone, it isn't taxed. Of course, it also just goes directly to the government, but that's your choice.
The right of the deceased family man to dispose of his property in ways he sees fit is pretty inviolable for me. He or she earned it and was taxed on it and now it is his. The government's only interest should be to prevent gift workarounds for money exchanged for goods and services. You're buying all these assets with your after-tax income, and now these things are double taxed (or triple taxed or quadruple taxed depending on the financial asset) to bequeath it when you gain nothing.
I have to hand it to the redistributionists and collectivists though: if you do not have respect for someone's property, period, a lot of these arguments flow quite easily. Your stuff is really society's stuff, some of which they allow you to hold on to for the time being, and capable of being wealth taxed or otherwise redistributed according to the shifting moral justifications by the surrounding mob. That leads to absurdities like talking 100% estate taxes and pay caps for highly paid CEOs.
|
On November 10 2017 01:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
They are stealing our taxes is indeed a wholly different argument from the regular 'taxation is theft'. The first post was a bit clumsy (sounded like the latter) but complaining about government corruption is absolutely fair. My pro-taxation pov consistently hinges on my experience that the taxes are spent in a way that benefits all of society.
Yea, I tend to go off typing what my head is thinking before I probably make any kind of sense. Should stop that. It's just moment of discussion.
|
On November 10 2017 01:21 kollin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2017 01:11 ShoCkeyy wrote:On November 10 2017 01:07 kollin wrote:On November 10 2017 01:06 ShoCkeyy wrote:Your leader has you pay 40% of what you've earned protecting him for "overhead", while you have to pay for products made by the rich from your 60% to keep living. Then your leader takes the 40% he had you pay, and gives a percentage of that to the rich as well. So now you've paid the rich guy twice from your earnings, and the leader once. To give you an example: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/fl-bz-fpl-irma-cost-recovery-report-20170918-story.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181028296.htmlThey've been charging us "extra" for about 10 years now to prepare for the hurricanes. The hurricanes hit, and yet they weren't prepared, and are now charging us EVEN MORE to help costs... I would understand if they had the whole city back up with power in a week or less, but nah, there's still people without power. They treated their contractors from out of state like shit. YET NextEra Energy received $1,938,811,949 in government subsidies, and make almost 19 billion a year. What point are you trying to make, other than raging against an imperfect world? Because I'm actually paying twice out of pocket to a company that doesn't give a shit about their users? Also if you think state and local taxes go to "good use" you're so mistaken... Right so...what? We should pay less taxes, more taxes, vote for different local/federal government?? What is your point beyond there's an imperfect system?
There needs to be a better transparent way of seeing what our taxes is used for.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/4-24-17statetax.png)
