Forbes' flat tax

[JoeEllison]

Was everyone up until 1930 too stupid to realize the importance of these types of programs?

In part, yes. The other part is that the most powerful among us know that it is in their best interest to suppress the general welfare as much as possible. Keeping people poor and unhealthy keeps them "in their place." Notice that the middle class only came to its greatest strength thanks to the reforms of the 1930s-1960s. The illogic of your position is that the facts point to social reforms contributing to the advances in America from the 1930s onwards, and rolling those programs back will most likely have the effect of rolling back our progress as well. If you want to go back to 80 hour weeks for subsistence pay in order to finance the robber barons(or if you actually are a robber baron in training) then by all means, sabotage America's social programs.

 

[drkitten]

Yea, I guess we could sit here and argue for days about what the Constitution meant by "general welfare", but I for one do not believe it meant things like national healthcare, welfare, and federalized "insurance" programs - especially since all of these were instituted within the last century (exception being national healthcare which will be here by Nov. anyhow).

One other thing. You do not pay for them "because I don't know what the future will bring"...you pay for them because you do not have a choice.

Ah, yes. another libertarian.

You live in a political world, where the rules are created anew when people discuss on a regular basis what they want to government to do. Whether you like it or not.

So, no, I'm not going to argue about what the "general welfare" clause means, because it's irrelevant. It's a red herring, and one that YOU brought up. The (US) constitution gives the states the power to provide any services they see fit and to tax it in any way they see fit, so you've got no basis at all to complain about ANY scheme of taxation under constitutional law. If California --- by which read, the people of the state of California, through their representatives -- decides that "general welfare" requires state-subsidized cable TV to all citizens, to be paid for by a tax on junk food, that's perfectly acceptable from a legal point of view.

If you disagree -- well, that's what the political process is for. But you don't have the right to hold the entire rest of the state at bay by simply saying "it's not fair to me." That's not what fairness means and it's not how politics works.

 

[Almo]

That was well put. I thought so anyway.