Tax rates should be returned to their original 1913 levels

George Plimpton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

He could try Mexico. I believe that cartel members outnumber the military there.

"Jim Wilkins" on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:44:45

-0400 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

At a local level, I can see this. It works. But there is a point where a community is too large to for all members to come together to meet and vote on each proposal. If memory serves, the Hutteries have found by experience, that when a colony is more than about 250 people, it is not possible for everyone to know everyone else's name. Thus, at about that level, they split the existing colony, and fond a new one. I can meet and debate with my fellow citizens over "local" issuers. But what about State wide issues? National Issues?

And the citizens of your state did all meet to debate and voted to set this policy? tat is my point, that while direct, participatory democracy works "locally", (for some values of "work"), there is a size limit which imposes a complexity of its own. Now, granted, currently we have problems resulting from governmental complexity for its own sake, but "Where three or four are gathered, there are factions."

pyotr

250? Do you know how big our legislature is? "The General Court is the fourth-largest English-speaking legislative body in the world,"

It's a BIG hall, and a long miserable crawl under the floor from the hatch in back to the speaker's platform to fix a broken wire. This is part of it:

a contentious public hearing can fill it:

I don't disagree, but we make it work in several towns of 20,000. Perhaps 50 - 100 citizens are interested (and vocal) enough to attend in person rather than watch from home on cable. There's a natural reluctance to speak to a crowd, but we are quiet and polite and the mike is halfway back in the auditorium, where it's less intimidating than speaking in front and facing the audience.

jsw

If what you say was true, it would be one thing. But it is something entirely different. I have not said you never cite anything. Go on try to find where I said that.

What i did say was that I do not accept your statements unless you can back them up with a cite.

In your fuzzy mind, you probably think I did say you never provide a cite. But i did not say that and challenge you to find a statement by me that says you never provide any cites.

=20 Dan

Your problem appears to be the English language.

"Rate" as you use it can be defined as "amount of a charge or payment relative to some basis".

If, as you have, define the rate as 10% then the rate doesn't change regardless of how much the taxable income is. You have defined it as

10% and 10% it remains.

Now, as for your assertion that the "effect" is a regressive is, to my experience, false. During the 20 years I spent in the U.S.A.F. it was noted that individuals seemed to spend approximately the same percentage of their salary as they were promoted up through the ranks and a fellow that saves say, 20% of his salary as an Airman Basic would likely be saving about the same percentage when he was a Master Sergeant while the fellow that frittered away his entire pay as an Airman Basic was still doing the same thing when he reached higher ranks.

The argument that the Master Sergeant has a salary of 10 times, or more, then the Airman Basic and therefore didn't "need" as large a portion of his salary didn't appear to apply, in real life.

That is not the issue I brought up. You just want to change the issue, because you are wrong in what you said. So you want to claim the issue is something which I said three times no less was not the issue.

Damn it . What you said was the rich pay a lower rate in a one rate system. And now you are changing and saying that the rate stays the same , but the effect is regressive. Why did you not say that in the first place? Taking a moment to read what you wiite before you hit send would help you a lot.

Not so much inelegant as flat wrong.

But why then did you say that the rich pay at a lower rate in a flat tax system?

But when you look into the proportional tax it is more complicated

I do not miss the big picture. I just happen to be able to see the big picture and the details at the same time. Seeing the details does not keep one from seeing the big picture unless you have a small mind.

=20 Cheers

I think I am a good judge of what is constitutional because I have read a number of Supreme Court decisions. I do not have a legal education, but my sister is a lawyer and a good friend of mine Robert B. Hill was also an attorney and was on Wilbur Mills staff. So I have benefited from associations with attorneys. One does not need to have a formal legal education to know something about law. For example I understand where property transactions are recorded.

=20 Dan

Or Somalia, where there is no pesky government.

The Parakeet certainly failed Shop class.

Can anyone here ever recall ANY questions or solutions he has ever made visa vias metalworking or ANY manual skill?

I certainly cannot.

Gunner

-- "Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

There's too much swarf in his bird feed. The closest he's ever come to metalworking was when the steel shavings in his head caused anurisims while they gave him that MRI for a brain tumor...

CA CAFR: Parks Dept. ?found? $54 million, $2.3 billion more now ?found;? full $600 billion next? Posted on July 28, 2012 by Carl Herman

For five weeks I journalistically hammered that California?s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) reveals $600 billion in surplus taxpayer assets, and the various local government agencies? CAFRs are data-sampled to total $8 trillion in surplus assets.

Last week, the California Parks and Recreation Department was found to be hiding $54 million in assets; more than twice their claimed $22 million budget deficit. This disclosure of fiduciary malfeasance led to the department director?s resignation, and the firing of the second-in-command.

Today, the San Jose Mercury News reports a total of $2.3 billion more was ?found? in 500 accounts.

Feel free to share the following:

Let?s summarize what we?ve documented so far about the data of California?s 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and what it means for the state?s 12 million households (22-minute television interview of my explanation here):

Officials and corporate media never remind taxpayers, but California holds $600 billion in taxpayer cash and investments ($50,000 non-disclosed assets per household).

California?s ~14,000 various government entities? CAFRs have a sampled-data total estimate of $8 trillion in surplus taxpayer assets ($650,000 non-disclosed assets per household). For examples, page 63 of L.A. County?s 2011 CAFR shows $66 billion in cash and investments; page 58 of the City of L.A. CAFR shows $38 billion.

The state?s $600 billion cash and investment fund is explained as designated for funding state pensions. The CAFR data show the opposite: $27 billion in pension cost receives only $1 billion income from $600 billion in withheld taxpayer assets.

Californians are taxed $19 billion to pay for pensions (95% of the public cost) while also losing $50,000 in assets the state withholds in cash and investments.

The $600 billion fund in cash and investments contributed 4% of the state?s $27 billion pension costs, but since 2008 has been ?managed? to cost taxpayers more than the net income it produces, in

2011 provided over twice the net income to its investment ?managers? than to California?s pensions, and the massive $68 billion increase in ?fair value? of stock ownership did not translate to significant pension funding.

Governor Brown is silent about the $600 billion in surplus cash and investments, claiming the $16 billion budget deficit can only be addressed by austerity ? massive funding cuts to our essential infrastructure ($16 billion is a 2.8% divestment of the fund).

So the natural question is if the state?s withholding of $600 billion in our cash and investments does not fund pensions, address a budget deficit, or prevent devastation to infrastructure, how can we best restructure the purpose and use of OUR MONEY for optimal public benefits?

I see three obvious solutions in monetary reform, public credit/banking, and this reform of CAFR-disclosed trillions in surplus taxpayer accounts.

-- "Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

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"Jim Wilkins" on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:02:11

-0400 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

I thought we were talking about participatory democracy? The sort where all the citizens meet and debate all the issues, before voting on them?

You were, I described a practical and functional compromise.

jsw

I also take exception to Froomkin.

You are not taking a much larger percentage of someone's income when they are poor with a proportional tax. If the proportional tax system has a threshold at which the tax starts, then you are taking a smaller percentage of a poor persons income.

For example say there is no tax on the first $20,000 of income and then there is a flat 10% tax. A poor person that makes say $ 30,000 a year would pay 10% of $10,000 or $1000. A rich person that makes $100,000 a year would pay 10% of $80,000 or $8,000 . So the poor person would pay 3.3 % in taxes and the rich person would pay 8 % in taxes.

So there it is in black and white numbers. Proof that you are wrong.

=20 Dan

"Jim Wilkins" on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 06:27:26

-0400 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

Oh, well ... if you're going to inject reality into the discussion, who knows where we'll wind up!

There is a pretty simple answer to this. The reason the rich get to keep more is that they earned more.

Even in your highly progressive tax system, the rich get to keep a much larger amount of money than the poor do.

The only tax system where the rich would not get to keep a much larger amount of money would be one where all money over say $15,000 would be taken by the government.

If the tax burden is much greater on the poor, why isn't

But the tax burden is not much greater on the poor. In actual dollars the tax burden is much greater on the rich.

The burden is the same as far as percentage goes but in

Not true. The rich pay more money in taxes in a proportional tax system. More money is a heavier burden.

They do not.

Dan