NRD:
When you filed your taxes this year, did you get a refund larger than the amount the government withheld from your paycheck?
If you were one of the 23.1 million tax filers who benefitted from federal government share-the-wealth schemes like the Earned Income Tax Credit, you were effectively put on welfare according to the Congressional Joint Tax Committee.
An incredible 15.5 million of these tax filers actually received more money in a refund than was paid in by either themselves or their employers through various payroll taxes.
These working Americans did not ask for a welfare handout, but the tax code is written to pay extra money to people who federal lawmakers have determined don’t make enough money on their own. In doing so, the federal government has created a whole new welfare class, a working welfare class.
Is it any wonder that John McKinnon reported in the Wall Street Journal, that the percentage of U.S. households owing no federal income tax climbed to 51 percent for 2009?
That’s right. A majority of U.S. households don’t pay any income tax. Is it any wonder why the mantra of taxing the rich has become the rallying cry of the left, and middle class tax cuts now means expanding the number of people who don’t have a stake in the cost of government?
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has been sounding the alarm about the dangers of the expanding number of Americans who don’t pay for the high cost of government services saying in a Bloomberg article, “Does it make any sense to have millions and millions of Americans desiring more government spending without the corresponding discipline that comes with the obligation to pay for this spending through income taxes?”
President Obama and Senator Harry Reid have already fired shots urging that the income tax rates be raised on those who are currently paying the majority of the tax burden with proposals to raise the highest marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent from its current 35 percent level.
And that is exactly the problem. When the majority of Americans don’t have skin in the government expenditure game and are net “takers” from the system, it enslaves those who pay the taxes to the whims of those who have government benefits lavished upon them.
It is natural to want to raise taxes on the guy who lives in the nice house down the street; the problem is that eventually the insatiable appetite for more government largesse ends up causing the politicians to knock on your door as the next nicest house on the street.
Fair tax or flat tax.
No voting if you don’t have skin in the game. Otherwise, you’ll almost always vote for other people’s money.
Of course, having waited so long to correct the problem, we’re now perhaps past the tipping point. Which, no worries. I’m sure Boehner and Cantor can carve a “conservative”-sounding platform out of socialism, provided we’re not classless enough to insist that they actually follow through on the shit they promise to do.
Because that’s just extremist.
I also think something Walter E. William’s suggested is worth considering.
Everybody get’s a vote. Income tax payers get multiple votes.
This is one wing of the “Working Families” that the Democrats embrace fondly as their pets. The other wing is the public employee union members. There is a common thread there though ignored generally by the media.
1 taxpayer = 1 vote
I like it.
And then there’s this in today’s McPaper: Tax Burden at all-time LOW
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2011-05-05-tax-cut-record-low_n.htm
No voting if you don’t have skin in the game.
ZOMG! U meanies, u raaacists! Nxt u’ll b wanting vtrs to sho pix id!
/leftist twit[ter]
Otherwise, you’re a chickentaxer!
I’m guessing that the rule won’t apply in this one instance.
Is it so politically unrealistic to think we can’t dramatically reform the US tax code? Some version of a minimal flat tax + a national consumption tax?
Then I recall, from articles like this one, that when the majority of Americans benefit from the current income tax scheme, I see that the answer is “yes.”
I find it ironic that the same people who think that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a basis for a viable economic policy ignores the reality that people act in their self interest, so of course we can’t count on a majority of people to dismantle a system that benefits them even if it is unfair/unworkable. Ben Affleck ain’t the Jesus Christ of tax code, and neither is anyone else apparently.
I’m sure the minimum wage workers and other lowly proles who provide you with much of the services you receive in this life would be happy to know you view them as subhuman parasites. Sure would be a shame if one of them spit in your Big Mac.
Why do you talk about “them” when you’re a subhuman parasite yourself, AJB?
From No voting if you don’t have skin in the game to subhuman parasites in one massive rhetorical leap! It’s that kind of logic that gets you a tenured gig teaching the skin-flute.
Uh oh, Jeff. Do NOT go to the McDonalds that AJB works at. He knows your face. Really, AJB you are the bottom of the barrel. Truly.
Do I think someone should be able to vote my taxes up when they don’t pay any themselves? No. Do I think they’re subhuman? No. Unless you think there is no difference. Obviously AJB does.
What an asswipe.
Someone connect the dots for AJB. I mean, people who don’t pay taxes should vote means … come one. I know you can work this one out.
Sure would be a shame if one of them spit in your Big Mac.
I don’t eat fast food. It’ll make you fat, don’t you know?
should = shouldn’t.
Sorry. I’m distracted by my chicken issue. One of the girls is eating the eggs. BAD CHICKEN.
…minimum wage workers…lowly proles…subhuman parasites.
The monster lets his mask slip, yet again. For all his talk about defending working people, he can’t hide the fact that he looks down on them and hates them. He’s the guy who keeps his NPR tote bag on the bus seat next to him, as a sort of shield against those he pretends to advocate for in the abstract.
Given attitudes such as this, I find it far less surprising that AJB and his fellow travelers work so hard to destroy the people who create the jobs where the “working people” can earn a living (modest though it may be), and to fill the few jobs which remain with illegal immigrants who have no legal footing to stand up for themselves. They can’t stomach the thought of people depending on their employers to reward them for their labor, instead of depending on the State to reward them for their votes.
I still find it maddening that clowns like AJB condescend to us, as though we were part of their little stable of voting pets. We’re on to you, worm. Take your faux concern someplace where the audience doesn’t see you for the wannabe plantation owner that you are.
“Tell me, where is sanity?”
Is this a good time to point out that anyone who draws a government paycheck is really paying taxes with other people’s money, and therefore on some level isn’t really a taxpayer (they do not generate any actual revenue for the government)? How many taxpayers are there really? Is it as low as 30% of the country? Is it even lower? Should only private-sector employees get to vote? Perhaps only property owners should get to vote.
Note that I recognize the need for government employees, and since my original desire many moons ago was to work in the defense industry, I would have been (obliquely) one of them. That doesn’t change the fact that they are paid by people working in the private sector, and their income tax is a bizarre re-distribution scheme of money flowing in and out and back in again.
Is that the same chicken that tried to return to the wild? She may not have recovered from that experience.
The Nanny State treats her voters like children. They get their own room, an allowance, a shiny “credit card” they can use at the grocery store, and endless pats on the head and assurances that they’re really, really good children and that Nanny loves them very much.
Thing is, children can’t vote.
AbjectlyJealousBoy also ignores that (at one time) minimum wage jobs were the province of teenagers – you know, the starter job, the apprenticeship, the way teens learned about life in the Real World as they matured to adulthood
and they don’t vote, either.
No, that chicken went through a change in life – became transgendered. A faux-rooster. Just like Cher’s daughter. Being the hater I am, instead of embracing her new life choice, I gave her away on Craigslist.
they do not generate any actual revenue for the government
Cranky I may partially disagree with you here. Do you really want government to make its legitimate services it provides citizens as “profit” making? For instance, should the government directly bill you for your share of the military plus tacking on a 30% markup (normal retail markup)?
Obviously a private lawyer getting paid by a client is providing something of value in his/her service. Is a government lawyer (say a prosecutor or public defender) drawing a salary paid by taxdollars not providing at least the same service as a private attorney?
I don’t believe that the government should turn a profit, but it’s still true that taxing government employees does not generate tax revenue. That is my actual point, though it was poorly delivered.
If one is going to start drawing lines on who gets to vote, how shall we do it?
Do government employees actually have skin in the game? That is cloudy. Are they often (not always, hello EPA, Dept of Education, etc) providing a necessary service at good value? I would say that’s probably true.
On an emotional level, I like the idea of limiting the vote to people who pay income taxes. The problem is, who makes up that group of people?
Line-drawing games are never easy if one is attempting to be as fair as possible. Hence, we have universal voting, even though the founders would likely not have agreed that was a good idea.
it’s still true that taxing government employees does not generate tax revenue
Hmmm… see this is what happens when taxes become disconnected from paying for government services and become a tool of rule.
Do government employees actually have skin in the game?
Sure … just because police officer Joe’s salary is drawn from taxpayers, he is only providing one part of legit gov. services … he still has to pay into the system that pays for courts and the military.
“Tell me, where is sanity?”
‘e’s on the radio immediately after Rush, ‘e is.
Cranky, your plan would have the effect of disenfranchising the military and I can’t support that.
Most of the working poor who fall into that 51% catagory do pay federal taxes. Payroll taxes. But it is couched as social security and medicare but then used for the general fund. But the people paying it think: “But it says social security and medicare. That is my money!”
Don’t you think the Dems intended it that way?
Officer Joe pays his taxes with other people’s tax money. I cannot see how this is in dispute. If officer Joe’s pay were cut the same amount as he pays in taxes, and then he wasn’t required to pay taxes, the net effect at the government level would be exactly the same from a tax revenue standpoint (barring overhead costs, which would decrease slightly I think). That is a simple fact. It has nothing to do with whether taxes are a tool of rule or not.
Officer Joe has more of a reason to want to keep taxes higher than I do, because if taxes get cut he might lose his job because there will not be money to pay him. How much that affects Officer Joe depends on Officer Joe. In some cases it may not matter, in others it might matter a lot.
Anyway, I don’t mean to come off as anti government employee. Some government is necessary. I’m speaking more to the ideas of who actually pays the income taxes in this country, and who we’re going to allow to vote if we’re going to limit voting. I would tend to have all who pay income taxes, including government employees (who, on paper at least, pay them), vote, but I can see an argument for private-sector employees only being allowed to vote, or property-owners only being allowed to vote (as it was in the beforetimes).
Scooter, I’d be happy if we adopted the Starship Troopers plan, where only those who served could vote. I wouldn’t be able to vote under that plan.
Perhaps we could start with the military, and add others into the mix.
Anyway, this is all moot until the country collapses under its own debt. After that, there may not be much left to vote on, but until then, everyone over 18 and alive (and sometimes dead) will continue to be able to vote. The best we can hope for is requiring an ID to vote, which may eliminate some of the fraud.
How much profit DOES the government make?
ISTM that if you were to look at the union thing (Davis Bacon) and the other kickbacks, tax rebates and subsidies to certain voting blocks, the government makes quite a lot of profit. It just doesn’t keep it in the bank. The rest is just transfer payments for voting appropriately which are exactly like K-1 distributions to S corp investors. S- Corps don’t pay taxes they distribute the profit to the investors who then pay taxes on their ‘fair share.’
The actual cost of government is probably 30% lower than what the budget shows is being paid out.
Speaking of government spending, I stayed up very late last night watching a documentary about the SR-71 on the Military Channel. That’s how I like to see my tax dollars spent, on awesome planes that kick ass. And bombs. I like stuff that blows up and scares lefties. Guns are cool, too, especially the smart ones that can explode the shell a meter after it passes through a concrete-block wall.
What I don’t like is paying people to screw with me. Paying an EPA employee who wants to limit my breathing because I’m contributing to global
warmingclimate change seems a bit counterproductive. All that happens is I get annoyed, and nothing gets blown up. What’s the point in that?I see no elegant solution for determining a fair calculation of who ultimately contributes to and who draws from from the treasury. There’s just no easy way of separating the honest cop from the social-work major who helps her ‘clients’ game the system for maximum benefits. Fortunately, we’ve reached the point where we no longer need to worry about the moochers voting themselves everyone else’s treasure, because we’re seeing those who produce the treasure voting not to produce any more of it.
Let AJB and his pets fight over the scraps. We can broadcast it a la The Running Man. Hell, if we put it on Pay-Per-View, we’ll have the first instance in recorded history that AJB added value to something.
Squid. The voice of reason, and your first source for torches and pitchforks.
I can’t help but think of Alexander Tytler’s quote:
Seems to me that the Obama canard regarding the bitter clingers being too stupid to, “vote in their economic interest”, is in play here.
Flat tax is what we need, a la Ryan perhaps?
And the Dems problem right now is they’re dangerously close to needing to move onto the houses of the folks they’ve been redistributing to, as there’s not enough rich folks to foot the bill alone. But they’re desperately trying to keep that under wraps until after Barack the first is re-elected…
cranky-d, there’s a quote from Heinlein in Starship Troopers that seems appropriate. He lists out all the positions that the MI refuses to waste troops on, and concludes: “Civilians are like beans and bullets; we buy ’em as needed for any job merely requiring skill and savvy.” All too often, the software company I work for provides skill sets that the government just flat doesn’t have. Or finds it cheaper to buy rather than provide pay and benefits. I still vote for smaller government, because, guess what, if we got the government out of our hair there would be more private sector business to go after. And what about excise taxes? tariffs? sales taxes? property taxes?
How about paying one dollar more in taxes than you receive in direct transfer payments in a given election cycle?