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| Astrophel Posts: 2426/2724 |
Originally posted by ElaraNo, I did skip that. It was late, I was tired and lazy. |
| Elara Posts: 7547/9736 |
I wish it only took $10 Billion to run the country! Astrophel, I am assuming you factored in that part of that population would be children not old enough to work and pay taxes, yes? I mean, even if a full third were underage, that leaves 200 million people... meaning it would take $50 per person a year to run the government. I'd totally pay $50 a year. Hell, they take more than that out of my checks per week! |
| Astrophel Posts: 2423/2724 |
Originally posted by Kaijin Surohm All your numbers are wildly inaccurate. Except possibly the one about poverty. If I'm going to be nice and work with your 10 billion number, there's individual people with far more than that. In fact, with our 2010 population estimate of over 300 million people, each one would have to pay a total of about 30 dollars a year. I pay more than that, and I work part time, about 20 hours a week, at only a little over minimum wage. If I"m going to be less charitable, our military budget alone was over 600 billion dollars in 2010. EDIT: Oh, wait, I did my math wrong. Just makes my point stronger, though. |
| Kaijin Surohm Posts: 1842/1852 |
I'll have to look to see if I can find the source again, but someone already crunched the numbers about Taxing, and properties.
Apparently it takes around 10 billion dollars a year to run the United States of America. Now, as of right now, more then 50% of Americans are below the mark, to be considered In Poverty. Now, with this in place, people had the notion of "Taxing the Rich". Well, there's also a problem with this. Yes, you can tax the rich, however, even if you take all their money, sell all their lands, and slowly work your way through the ranks, we wouldn't have it. By time you have taken every penny from every person in the country, sold their homes, and their materials, we'd just barely make enough to last us 1 year. But now that everything is sold, we're now at year 2, and have nothing. So basically, taxing is NOT the way we need to be going right now, but finding better, cheaper, and smarter ways to go about spending money, how it's spent, and finding out where it all goes. |
| Katana Posts: 3343/3649 |
Originally posted by Astrophel Exactly. But, trying to get that point across isn't working. The rich don't care that they can afford it. And obviously their lines of defense are working. Hence the idea of politics being opinions and wordplay. The same goal kept in mind, rather than continuing the bickering, find a way to organize and phrase it in such a way that it doesn't come across as "Hey, we're taking your money." (It's how I debate. Sometimes it takes seeing the opponent's point, or at least how and why they're wrapping their mind around it and what those outcomes are. Kinda a "know thy enemy" type of dealie.) but still gets something done. Points taken on the military, but like you also said, sticking with the one that's the most likely... Our education system is something we SHOULD be investing in. Like you said, how the hell can we be a competitive nation if we don't step it up? I mean, I don't want our children to have panic attacks over getting into certain high schools, but the pressure ought to be on! On the parents, the teachers, administrator, and the kids themselves! (That's just it, people always say the parents need to push their kids, teachers need to push the kids...the kids need to learn how to push THEMSELVES on top of it all. And our school system doesn't foster that!) It's still rare for exceptional intelligence the better prepared for it our instructors are, the less rare that will become. Which is a good thing. It shouldn't be an option, per se...more or less "Look, either we just call it a tax and expect you to trust us, OR, we make it perfectly clear and allow you to see step-by-step what the hell is going on." Grant it, there's a lot more thought in the space between now and that theorized moment. Is it unfair? I'm pretty sure it is. But there are a lot of things that are unfair out there. Wordplay. Back 'em into a corner where it's either A) we do this the easy way, or B) we make you look like a complete and total fucktard for not putting in your share of the effort. Kind alike the manual labor idea..someone's got to build it. Someone's got to do a little bit of everything. I still don't necessarily think that greed and corruption is a direct association with wealth. There are good and bad people of all shapes and sizes. But, that's why we have tax write-offs for good deeds. :p |
| Astrophel Posts: 2422/2724 |
Ultimately though, I think there's quite a bit that needs to be done that does need someone to pay higher taxes - and as I said in the other topic, the rich can far more easily afford it.
Well, raising taxes or reducing our overinflated "defense" budget. I'm just proposing the more likely solution. I'll elaborate on the overinflated nature of that in comment tags (view the HTML or quote my post in a reply to see it) The biggest one being that our schools fucking suck. I know, I should ease up on the flowery rhetoric.  I know not everyone's as quick to learn as me, but it took until high school for my teachers to catch up with the math I was doing in my spare time when I was six. My second-grade teacher (first of four) said she was unable to teach me anything. For the US to be competitive, our people need to be properly educated, and that's just not happening in a lot of places.
We should also get back to actually making shit instead of outsourcing our manufacturing and having an abundance of service jobs here. Nothing wrong with service jobs, but they can't support an economy alone. That, however, is less a matter of needing more taxes and perhaps more a matter of needing more regulation, as you said in the other topic. And people need to quit acting like manual labor is a horrible thing that must be avoided at all costs. It's an important part of the economy - someone has to build the shit. That's more a matter of attitudes than anything else though. Also, in response to your last point, I don't trust any system that lets people choose where their taxes go because that makes it far too difficult to plan around for budgeting. Transparency is fine, let them know, just don't let them decide. |
| Katana Posts: 3341/3649 |
Dull title but whatever...You're going to have to check out the immigration thread to see my quoted post in full context, but the part Astrophel quoted directly pertains to this topic.
http://xeogaming.org/thread.php?pid=155425&r=1#155425 Now, originally, I left my opinions on taxing to my original quote for the sake of sticking to the original topic. For the sake of THIS topic, the key phrase is my last line in my statement. I am not attacking anyone here, nor am I calling Astrophel out to "battle". If he didn't read my post like that, he wouldn't have added his input, which I think, is the best summary of the point of view I've heard. For the sake of keeping this from being a 10 page essay, I'll leave it at this for now: put the focus on the actual issues these "taxes" will cover. Think outside the box. "Just for the sake of taking it" is how it easily comes across. Having more reason to elaborate here, my take on it is, work around that. Change the focus. I'll go into it more later, but I'm REALLY making an effort to work on this "rambling thing" I do. Don't just take the money in taxes and say "Trust me, it's going toward the greater good." Make it more interactive! Like the outsourcing idea. To address Astrophel though, YES, 2k from someone making 20k a year is A LOT more than 2k coming from someone making 200k a year. But whether we like it or not, most of those making that 200k a year will always have something to scream and holler about, and obviously, there will be others who will look at those 200k people and say "bring it, we're still going to oppose you." But it's still a back and forth argument, and nothing is getting done. My general approach to politics in general has turned into "Get Shit Done" **shrugs** And whether your point of view, or mine, or anyone else's may be agreeable, it's not working. Fighting for higher or lower taxes is getting us nothing but opposition and bickering. There's pros and cons to everything, and the cons are screaming the loudest. Those in power either aren't hearing or they're just flat out not trying. Any new idea coming from myself, or anyone else might sound completely ridiculous, especially from the ground level. But if it gets people paying attention, and the cogs turning in the minds of those who can take "ridiculous" and turn it into something that gets done, then so be it. **shrugs** I think you're right. But it's not working. I want to take it further. (edit: That "new idea" I was referring to was only briefly mentioned here. Making it more "interactive." combatting those who don't want the government to collect so they can distribute for the good of the country, who don't trust it. To say "Okay fine. So we're going to find a way to specifically apply the money you are taxed to *insert dealie here*, that way you see exactly where it's going and what it's doing." **shrugs** I think people have a right to that anyway. In theory, that's how taxing is supposed to work anyway, but it doesn't...something I'll elaborate more upon in another post. Again, working on the rambling.  ) |
