College-educated professionals could doom progressive politics 28

[drawoh]

Here is an interesting article on Salon.com...

College-educated professionals could doom progressive politics

--
JHG

 

[JohnRBaker]

Talk about your load of crap... At least professionals don't deify the rich since they know exactly how wealth is obtained, not like the sheep who watch Faux News and consistently vote against their own self-interests. The best example of what I mean is when they interview some middle-aged, blue-collar guy who barely managed to finish high school and he's asked what he thinks about the 'death tax' (AKA 'inheritance taxes') and the pavlovian response is that they're 100% against it since they don't want their grandkids to someday having to send all their inheritance money to Washington. Do these people really understand the limits that have to be reached before the first dollar of someone's inheritance is even subject to the so-called 'death tax'?

Another favorite it the idea of a 'flat tax', again, without thinking, many people just think it's a great idea without any introspection as to exactly how are the shortfalls caused by a flat-tax would have to be made-up. By definition, it would not be on incomes, but rather on sales and other consumption taxes which are the most regressive that there is. And while we're at it, the idea of a national sales tax is often supported by individuals who have no idea how this would shift the tax burden onto people just like themselves and off the backs of the rich who tend to spend their money where it would not be subject to taxes like that either because they've managed to buy enough influence in Washington that any tax law changes will ultimately benefit themselves and others in similar financial positions or they would simply spend it overseas where they could avoid any Washington or locally imposed taxes, like they are aren't already doing it now.

What many people fail to understand is what Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr so clearly stated:

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure" the same.

I fear that failure to acknowledge this by both the citizens and the leaders of our nation will eventually spell the end of our society as we know it.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[IRstuff]

"failure to acknowledge this by both the citizens and the leaders of our nation will eventually spell the end of our society as we know it"

I suspect that the "leaders" are well-aware of this and are using it to their full advantage. It's pretty clear that there is a sizable portion of the 1% that absolutely intend to maintain the current status quo.

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[CajunCenturion]

==> By definition, it would not be on incomes, but rather on sales and other consumption taxes which are the most regressive that there is.
That's not true. One proposal for a flat tax is based entirely on income. And that is separate and distinct from the idea of a national sales tax.

==> but rather on sales and other consumption taxes which are the most regressive that there is.
Also not true. A regressive tax is one where the tax rate decreases as the amount being taxed increases. In a flat tax, the tax rate is constant; therefore, it is neither a regressive tax nor a progressive tax. It's a flat tax.

That being said, it's true that flat taxes would likely place a higher tax burdens on those with less spending power - because a higher percentage of their overall spending power goes towards taxes - that doesn't make the tax regressive.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[TomDOT]

A flat tax with a large personal exemption (say, first $35,000 in income) would be very progressive.

 

[zdas04]

The only way to fix this is to reduce the size (and cost) of the Federal government back to those functions authorized by the Constitution (not many). At that point the cost of the federal government becomes a fraction of a percent of GDP and nearly any tax scheme will be reasonably painless. The reason that people talk about this so much is that the Federal Government is approaching 50% of GDP. Untenable spending. Untenable taxation. Untenable interference in our lives.

At this point someone always says "what about the activities that you would eliminate?". My response is that nothing ever seems to get eliminated, needed functions just move to a different level. Eliminate the Department of Education (please)? Education becomes a state/county/city/school district function and improves. Every federal mandate in education has hurt some segment of students. Good deeds just don't go unpunished. Make the pain retail instead of wholesale. Let it vary from state to state, county to county, school to school. Same with federal unemployment, same with health care, same with energy, transportation, Indian affairs, and welfare.

Flat tax does not even begin to solve the Unconstitutional run-away spending by the Federal Government. The only reason that there are Loopholes that let John Kerry avoid most taxes is that our beloved Congress passed laws that provided those loopholes.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[JohnRBaker]

...it's true that flat taxes would likely place a higher tax burdens on those with less spending power - because a higher percentage of their overall spending power goes towards taxes - that doesn't make the tax regressive.

But the effect would be exactly the same as if it were.

And let's not overlook what I wrote right after the part of my post that you did quote:

"...the idea of a national sales tax is often supported by individuals who have no idea how this would shift the tax burden onto people just like themselves and off the backs of the rich who tend to spend their money where it would not be subject to taxes like that either because they've managed to buy enough influence in Washington that any tax law changes will ultimately benefit themselves and others in similar financial positions..."

With things like the 'Citizens United' decision or the upcoming case of 'McCutcheon v. FEC', which has the potenital to be even more destructive to our democracy as it would allow people like the Koch brothers and the Sheldon Adelson's of the world to spend ten's, if not hundred's, of millions to DIRECTLY influence elections at all levels of our society, there is no way that these people will ever allow meaningful tax reform to take place that does not have them coming out even further ahead than they are now or would eventually be, if the status quo was maintained. That's why the SECOND part of that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr quote is so important and yet is so often overlooked or people being aware that it was even said, and that it that we not only need to support the achieving of a "civilized society", but that we must also "insure" that it be maintained. With the current wealth inequity as it stands today and how it's only getting worse, we are headed toward disaster as a free society. And getting back to those low-information voters, particularly those who only get their 'news' from places Faux News and/or who listen to only the Hannity's or Limbough's of the world, they have been convinced that IF the wealthy in this country are allowed to hang-on to just a BIT MORE of their money, that it will somehow miraculously trickle-down to them and their children. But the reality is that you don't want to look up as that 'trickle' is really nothing more than a 'tinkle' and that's all that you're ever going to get from the 1%.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[IRstuff]

2013 GDP = $16.5T
2013 Federal spending = $3.5T --> 20.8% of GDP

"as it would allow people like the Koch brothers and the Sheldon Adelson's of the world to spend ten's, if not hundred's, of millions to DIRECTLY influence elections at all levels of our society"

BTDT:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/11/americans-for-prosperity-helped-churn-koch-linked-money.html

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/charts-map-koch-brothers-2012-spending

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[JohnRBaker]

And that was just donations to 501(c)(4) groups who can not give money directly to a candidate nor coordinate their efforts with an individual candidate, so the money does not go directly into the campaign accounts (or their pockets) of individual candidates. However, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiff in the 'McCutcheon v. FEC' case, this could all change. It's possible that if the 5 conservative justices rule once again that 'money' is 'speech', as they did in 'Citizens United', then they could remove campaign limitations altogether for the candidates themselves, which is currently limited to an individual giving only $2,600 per candidate, per election cycle, with a maximum of $48,600 combined for all the candidates that an individual could contribute to in one election cycle. However, if the court removes this limitation, which is what the plaintiff in the case, Shaun McCutcheon, is demanding claiming that his 1st Amendment right of 'free speech' is being violated, then there would be nothing stopping people like the Koch brothers from simply writing million dollar checks directly to virtual any and all the candidates that they think would do their bidding. And with $62 billion to work with, they could make multimillionaires out of every member of Congress, every Governor, every state legislator in the country, and they would hardly notice the outflow.

I don't think this is the America that the Founding Fathers had in mind nor the thousands of Americans who've given their lives in defence of the Constitution and the freedom and liberty that it promised our citizens.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[IRstuff]

But we have the best government money can buy ;-)

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[bridgebuster]

"it would allow people like the Koch brothers and the Sheldon Adelson's of the world to spend ten's, if not hundred's, of millions to DIRECTLY influence elections at all levels of our society"

on a different note, why is it wrong for he Koch Brothers to donate to political causes but OK for George Soros and similar ilk to do the same? Oh that's right, George Soros is a progressive; that makes everything OK.

 

[CajunCenturion]

It's perfectly okay to redefine terms, disparage the bias in others while pretending to be objective, and criticize the 'other' side from doing things while ignoring the same things from your own side. As long as it fits with your agenda, feel free to make it all up. It's all partisan defecation.

==> I don't think this is the America that the Founding Fathers had in mind nor the thousands of Americans who've given their lives in defence of the Constitution and the freedom and liberty that it promised our citizens.
==> But we have the best government money can buy
I agree with both points. However, if were to scale back the federal government in scope, reach, and power back to what it was and only doing those things as designed by the Founding Fathers, there wouldn't be such a great desire to buy it. We're the ones to blame for that. We've given up so much power, authority, reach, and control to the government that we've made the government an asset worth buying precisely because of its power, authority, reach, and control. The more control the government has, the less freedoms the people have.

Rather than further limiting the freedoms of the people by telling them what they can buy and how much they can spend, take that power and control away from the government and give it back to the people. Scale the government back to it's fundamental design and roles envisioned by those very same Founding Fathers. Restricting the government to only its Constitutional obligations while fully honoring all the Constitutional restrictions over the government makes the government far less worth buying.

I don't expect anyone who prefers big powerful centralized governments to agree, but it's not hard to recognize that the more power and control you yield to an institution, the more inviting you make that institution to corruption. And if you're being honest, you'll see that the corruption is fully rampant on both sides of the isle.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[JohnRBaker]

And if America had but a single religion, we all had the same ethnic and racial backgrounds, equal levels of educational opportunities and access to quality healthcare, we could also avoid a lot of what you call "...corruption...on both sides of the isle." if there would even be any "isle".

But if you think that we should simply allow the states to take care of everything, how long do you really think that we would remain the UNITED States of America?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[zdas04]

JohnRBaker,
Did you even read Cajun's post or did you just skip to a a recognizable sound byte and attack it? Everyone benefits from shifting government activities to the smallest entity that can handle them. Education is only ever facilitated by individual teachers--community oversight makes sense, Federal oversight makes zero sense, state oversight is kind of a gray area. Assistance to the "underprivilaged" (whatever that means) is best provided by community organizations. The Federal Government does all of these things horribly. Nothing in those statements even remotely implies that one is looking for "a single religion, we all had the same ethnic and racial backgrounds, ..." That is in no way required. The diversity of our country is its greatest strength.

The point of those of us that truly want the Federal Government scaled back to only those functions that can be found to have been authorized by the Constitution is to encourage the diversity of America to flourish. If Massachusetts feels that it is appropriate for the state to provide health care and I was to agree that that is a crucial service then I could move to Massachusetts (if too many people do that then jobs get scarce and other issues begin controlling the discourse). If Wyoming feels that the tax payer is better served by keeping their money and acquiring health care on their own if they feel they need it and I were to agree with that position then I could move to Wyoming. If New Mexico has a health care system that I don't like and changing it is important to me and I live in New Mexico then I should become politically active on the subject and try to change the law. Choice. The current federal government is so big, so entrenched, and so corrupt that grassroots efforts are simply mud on the thieves boots.

Moving these functions to states, counties, cities, communities doesn't remove the potential for graft, but it certainly lowers the magnitude. Nobody can steal a trillion dollars at one time from a billion dollar budget. Nobody can steal a billion dollars at one time from a million dollar budget. It no longer makes economic sense to spend $200 million fighting for a house seat when you probably can't steal enough in 2 years to recover your expenditures. Scaling back the Federal Government simply converts the graft from wholesale to retail.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> But if you think that we should simply allow the states to take care of everything,
I didn't say we should allow the states to take care of everything. I said nothing of the sort. What it my post are you trying to spin to claim that what's I said?

==> how long do you really think that we would remain the UNITED States of America?
For quite a while - much, much longer than we're going to last on our present increasingly divisive course.


Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[JohnRBaker]

I hope we're all still around in say 15 or 20 years so we can see if America evolves even further toward becoming an oligarchy. I'm not putting a lot hope on things getting better, not with what's happening down at those local government levels you seem to have so much confidence in. Like voter suppression, gerrymandering, promoting the destruction of public education, establishing 'Right to work for less' states, etc. But at least someone was correct a few posts back about us getting exactly the government that we're paying for. So if you donate $50 dollars to you favorite candidate and the Koch brothers contribute a million to their favorite, exactly WHO'S government are we going to get?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> I hope we're all still around in say 15 or 20 years so we can see if America evolves even further toward becoming an oligarchy. I'm not putting a lot hope on things getting better
We're already an oligarchy, and yes it is getting worse. It's not going to get any better as long as we continue to centralize power. To reverse the trend, decentralize power. Oligarchies don't work when power is distributed.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[IRstuff]

"Everyone benefits from shifting government activities to the smallest entity that can handle them. Education is only ever facilitated by individual teachers--community oversight makes sense, Federal oversight makes zero sense, state oversight is kind of a gray area. "

This would be the path to utter incongruity in education, since almost no one wants to teach the same core subjects to the same level, without being forced to. While localization might have been plausible even as late as the 1960's, today's mobile society demands that someone with a high school education in, say, Georgia, will have gotten the same education from, say, California.

SAT, ACT, AP, and IB are all national or international standards that everyone has been forced to adhere to, just so that they can make semi-plausible comparisons between college applicants from anywhere in the world. The end result of this is that an AP Physics student in Georgia gets roughly the same level of physics as someone in California.

TTFN
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[bridgebuster]

"And if America had but a single religion, we all had the same ethnic and racial backgrounds, equal levels of educational opportunities and access to quality healthcare, we could also avoid a lot of what you call "...corruption...on both sides of the isle." if there would even be any "isle"". That's not true; history has proven that.

Lincoln was a great believer in subsidiarity: Solving problems at the level closest to the problem. As a society we're losing sight of this, which explains why we can't solve many of our social and financial problems. Unfortunately the current resident of Illinois who resides at 1600 doesn't put much stock in subsidiarity; unlike two other presidents from that state.

So if you donate $50 dollars to you favorite candidate and the Koch brothers contribute a million... Then George Soros will counter with $2 Million.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Then George Soros will counter with $2 Million.
That's just as bad. Make it so that the value of what Soros or Koch wants to buy is not worth $2M. They won't spend it if it's not worth it.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein