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Romney Will Explode the Debt By Trillions

Debt Explosion

Can it be stopped by anyone? We'll see...
 
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rcfieldz said:
Can it be stopped by anyone? We'll see...
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Well, yeah. CBO predicted that the debt would be paid off by now if George Bush hadn't passed two massive tax cuts and put two massive wars on the credit card.

Oh, and then tanked the economy through lax oversight.

So what does Romney propose? Deregulate financial markets, pass a giant tax cut for the rich, and a likely war with Iran.

Sounds like it just might work this time!
 
BenBurch said:
Income is already redistributed - to the rich. They get a vastly disproportionate share of the commons,
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Or they use their proportionate share of the commons to build wealth, start payrolls, and provide products/services others find give value for the cost of acquistion.

and a vastly disproportionate share of the services of government.
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At least by the IRS and other taxing authorities. Beyond that, what?
 
AlBell said:
I'm not pushing for non-progressive taxation, just noting that the bottom 48% don't pay IRS tax.

The current structure is plenty progressive imo, and Jan.1 the people actually hurt will be middle class taxpayers, not the wealthy.
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The Federal Income Tax is progressive (although not as progressive as I would like), but there are plenty of regressive taxes in the mix as well, such as Social Security and sales taxes. Add them all together, and we have a de facto flat tax rate in the US. The GOP is looking to keep the regressive taxes, and flatten out the progressive taxes, giving an overall advantage to the rich. That’s why the constant drumbeat about half of Americans not paying Federal Income tax is so deceptive. While technically true, by leaving out all the other taxes people pay, it creates a false impression that the poor are not contributing and the rich are getting an unfair deal.
 
stevea said:
What extra burden do I impose on society if I work 50% longer or develop skills to earn 50% more per hour ?
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lomiller said:
You stand to lose more if you if the infrastructure those jobs depend on do not exist.
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That doesn't provide an answer to the question. A wealthy individual losing more under some condition does not equate to that individual imposing a greater burden on the state/society by having made more.

Even based on some forward-looking expected probability of them losing more, there would be no higher burden unless the state proposed to compensate them proportional to what their wealth/income was, which states don't.
 
stevea said:
1Then I didn't understand your claim. Wherei s the evidence for this claim ? did I miss a post ?

2I don't accept proof by lack of counterexample. No - you made the positive assertion and YOU have the burden of providing evidence.

3That study shows "a link" (correlation) not causation as you imply.. There is a nice vid somewhere (sorry I'll have to dig) of a Swedish economist arguing that Sweden is not a model for the US, since their very high tax rates and services are only possible b/c they had a very homogeneous population so trust and avoidance of personal greed over concern for others is more prevalent. So pretty easy to see how the chain of causation *might* be that more homogeneous population leads to progressive taxation and more happiness. If that's the case then it won't necessarily work well here nor produce happiness.

4Then you'll be really unhappy when you chase off productive people and cripple growth with your policies and make us all poor.

5No not confusion. My example shows that a far less progress tax results in this case in better outcomes. I doubt there is literally any non-progressive income tax since no one bothers to tax the indigent.

6No we don't need to spend so much on military. We should IMO cut mil spending to below half it's current value. Having said that I have to admit this will not solve the budget crisis, nor come close. It will keep the Reptards and the Libtards alike from wasting so much on interventions.

7Why - I see no argument and no evidence on that point. Refer me to a previous post if you wish.

8No - your redistribution is very clear in the case where you design a tax code to equalize outcomes - and that seems to be exactly what you seek. Definition,

9"be a be a billionaire" is a status of wealth, not income, and we are discussing income tax - right ? Obviously if a progressive the tax hits 100% then that defines a top income. In fact any effort to make additional income will stop well below the 100% rate when the return for effort is no longer acceptable. The old soviet union was rife with examples.

10As an aside, Income (or other) taxes rates on capital gains define limits on expected risk adjusted returns that are acceptable. So higher cap gains taxes make investors more risk averse and reduce the positive aspects of risk taking in commerce.

11I think you have a great plan if poverty and low growth are the goals.
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  1. Social progress happens in part by looking at what works and what doesn't work. Even if it is only correlation, all evidence to date points to progressive tax rates as being the only viable option. They are by and large negatively correlated to dysfunctional societies and vice versa.
  2. You need to learn what negative correlation is. In the face of evidence, and both correlation and negative correlation serve as evidence. The fallacy of correlation = causation occurs when correlation is asserted as proof of causation. Negative correlation can be a bit more substantive. If you say X causes Y but there is not even a correlation of X causing Y then you've got a problem. You've got not Y.
  3. I don't deny that there are other models to explain the data. There is a geocentric model that explains the observations of the planets. It just doesn't explain it as well as the heliocentric model. But the point is that progressive taxation is negatively correlated to dysfunctional societies. And there is an explanatory model to explain why.
  4. My NIC is "RandFan" in deference to Ayn Rand, As a life long conservative I've no plans of chasing off any wealth producers and there is no evidence that what I call for will. In fact, there is ample correlation evidence that it won't. There are rich people in Denmark and Sweden and other progressive nations that have not "run off".
  5. So long as you are on board with a progressive tax I'm fine with that. We just need to work on the details.
  6. Cool
  7. I will adjust my claim to simply say that it is the only system we know that works as well as it does. We have no successful counter examples and it's likely because they don't work. Your own counter example is of a progressive tax, so why argue this point?
  8. No one is advocating a 100% tax anymore than you are advocating 0%
  9. I'm absolutely fine with that definition. The problem is the equivocation of the word ant the attempt to dishonestly link it to Marxism. The two are very, very different. By the way, using that definition, then public education, the military, any govt services are, BY DEFINITION, wealth redistribution. And if you support any of those you to are in support of wealth redistribution and following the logic in question, you are a Marxist.
  10. I support lowered interest rates on capital gains.
  11. My plan is currently in place in modern liberal democracies around the world and doing quite nicely, thank you.
 
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lomiller said:
[ . . . ] would it be fair for insurance companies to charge everyone the same regardless of the value of their property? Of course not.
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It wouldn't if policy holders are entitled to claim proportional to the value of their property. If they all got the same payout in the event of loss regardless, then it would be fair from the perspective of equality of payment versus expected benefit.
 
Francesca R said:
That doesn't provide an answer to the question. A wealthy individual losing more under some condition does not equate to that individual imposing a greater burden on the state/society by having made more.

Even based on some forward-looking expected probability of them losing more, there would be no higher burden unless the state proposed to compensate them proportional to what their wealth/income was, which states don't.
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I don't agree that there is a greater burden. I also think it demonstrable that incentive spurs investment, innovation, more work, etc.. The problem becomes when it's assumed that any and all incentive is always better. Even in the worst of societies people will bust their butts to get ahead. As Buffett has said, if there is an opportunity to get ahead there will always be individuals willing to take risk for that opportunity.

Given that any advantageous social policy like increased or reduced taxation will reach a point of diminishing returns, the question becomes, when do the burdens of taxation and regulation result in less return and not more? I don't know. But I know this, the answer isn't forever screaming, "lower taxes".

Sorry if that was OT from your sub thread, I was agreeing with you but took the opportunity to make a side point.
 
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AlBell said:
I'm not pushing for non-progressive taxation, just noting that the bottom 48% don't pay IRS tax.

The current structure is plenty progressive imo, and Jan.1 the people actually hurt will be middle class taxpayers, not the wealthy.
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Not even close to progressive enough, sorry. The very rich are parasites whose wealth costs so much to protect that they are a drain on the nation beyond their contributions.
 
RandFan said:
I don't agree that there is a greater burden. [ . . . ] Sorry if that was OT from your sub thread, I was agreeing with you but took the opportunity to make a side point.
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I wasn't really arguing that there is not a greater burden, but that it does not (cannot) come from the observation of what they stand to lose.
 
BenBurch said:
The very rich are parasites whose wealth costs so much to protect that they are a drain on the nation beyond their contributions.
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Let's suppose that it costs more to protect (however that's defined) $1bn than $1,000.

I believe it is a reasonable assumption that via economies of scale, it does not cost a million times as much, but a substantially smaller multiple.

Therefore using the logic that it costs more to protect more wealth, the implication would seem to point to regressive tax bands, not progressive ones.
 
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Francesca R said:
That doesn't provide an answer to the question. A wealthy individual losing more under some condition does not equate to that individual imposing a greater burden on the state/society by having made more.
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No one had ever suggested the wealthy create a greater burden, so why should anyone answer questions about it?

The argument from the beginning was that the wealthy reap a higher percentage of the overall wealth that come from a country the sophisticated infrastructure these tax dollars pay for. steavea didn’t have a response for this so he tried to change the subject.
 
Thanks for the confirmation. Since you placed a comment as a reply to a question, I presumed you thought you were answering it. Never mind.
 
lomiller said:
The argument from the beginning was that the wealthy reap a higher percentage of the overall wealth that come from a country the sophisticated infrastructure these tax dollars pay for. steavea didn’t have a response for this so he tried to change the subject.
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The association between the reaper and the country with the infrastructure is an argument for progressive tax insofar as the latter is a cause of the former, and subject to diminishing returns.

In other words the wealthy reaper is not only able to extract more common (state-financed or owned) resources to gain their wealth, but they extract it in increasing amounts for each $ they make. Such as, someone earning $50K consumes $10K of state resource, but someone making $100K consumes more than $20K. Do you believe that is the case?
 
Francesca R said:
Thanks for the confirmation. Since you placed a comment as a reply to a question, I presumed you thought you were answering it. Never mind.
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On reading back I may have slightly mischaracterized the flow of the discussion. His question was actually addressed at a paragraph where I talked about defence spending and how it’s a form of insurance for infrastructure and social systems that allow that wealth. As such it’s entirely fair for those with the most wealth as risk to pay a larger share of the cost of protecting that wealth. To my thinking this is not an additional burden, but closer to a cost of doing business.

There are possibly other benefits to a powerful military, historically being able to project your will on other nations is a way to enrich your own, but not many people will readily admit this is what their military is doing.


Francesca R said:
The association between the reaper and the country with the infrastructure is an argument for progressive tax insofar as the latter is a cause of the former, and subject to diminishing returns.

In other words the wealthy reaper is not only able to extract more common (state-financed or owned) resources to gain their wealth, but they extract it in increasing amounts for each $ they make. Such as, someone earning $50K consumes $10K of state resource, but someone making $100K consumes more than $20K. Do you believe that is the case?
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“Consume” perhaps isn’t the best description for this since we are basically talking about things that approximate public goods.

The issue I see is that a large portion of the benefits and also external to the direct consumption. For example a country with a good education system and a well educated population, other things being equal, should generate more wealth over the long term. While it’s the people who receive this education who are the direct consumers of the service when you look at where the wealth ends up when a country becomes richer much of it needs up in the hands f the wealth who were not necessarily the direct consumers.

I still don’t think additional burden is a good description for the people who receive such spin off benefits.
 
Francesca R said:
The association between the reaper and the country with the infrastructure is an argument for progressive tax insofar as the latter is a cause of the former, and subject to diminishing returns.

In other words the wealthy reaper is not only able to extract more common (state-financed or owned) resources to gain their wealth, but they extract it in increasing amounts for each $ they make. Such as, someone earning $50K consumes $10K of state resource, but someone making $100K consumes more than $20K. Do you believe that is the case?
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Again, I'm OT as to this discussion but I wanted to make a point, personally I'm more interested in the pragmatic argument. What are the conditions optimum to motivate entrepreneurs, investors, bankers and business people and also provide social services to care for and improve the lives and the opportunities of the disadvantaged? As an evolved social species I don't think that the question can be answered in a vacuum. Society is a dynamic and citizens are possessed of empathy so, for many if not most of us, our well-being is invested in the well-being of our fellow citizens. Further, given human variation, diversity and given probability theory it is to bite ones nose to ignore such a large segment of the talent pool as the disadvantaged.

I think most of these questions of "fairness" are far too narrow. As stated I'm a fan of Rand, and also of Adam Smith (also Locke, Hume, Hobbes and others). I think the protection of property rights, both real and abstract, to be fundamental to the flourishing of that society. But obviously, in a society, they cannot be absolute. It is simply unreasonable to assume that Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would have had the very same opportunities living in Somalia as they had in America. It's unreasonable to think that a society cannot be run without any communal contribution from individuals. But to also be sure, it was very much the benefits of living in a capitalist society that valued the contributions of both individual and the market place.

Asking if a progressive tax is fair without consideration of any and all indirect and returned benefit to the tax payer of that tax is akin to asking what exactly are the effects of a butterfly flapping its wings while refusing to entertain any and all possibilities of chaos theory. In truth, in a chaotic system such as an economy of 700M people improving the lives of the disadvantaged can have profound positive effects for most of the people living in that society.

That is a fundamental blind-spot of conservative philosophy IMO. One which causes a great deal of dissonance and offers little in way of rebuttal. And, setting aside the ad hoc nature of self analysis for a moment, is why after nearly 50 years I am no longer a conservative.
 
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RandFan said:
Asking if a progressive tax is fair without consideration of any and all indirect and returned benefit to the tax payer of that tax is akin to asking what exactly are the effects of a butterfly flapping its wings while refusing to entertain any and all possibilities of chaos theory. In truth, in a chaotic system such as an economy of 700M people improving the lives of the disadvantaged can have profound positive effects for most of the people living in that society.

That is a fundamental blind-spot of conservative philosophy IMO. One which causes a great deal of dissonance and offers little in way of rebuttal. And, setting aside the ad hoc nature of self analysis for a moment, is why after nearly 50 years I am no longer a conservative.
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In the US “Conservative” has come to mean a bizarre mix of religious fanaticism and Austrian Economics which in general completely discounts externalities, both positive and negative.
 
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