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That's better than what I usually see. It's still not quite good enough though. You can't take other situations into consideration, such as medical expenses, student loans, etc.

Yes, it limits it less. That is because the sales tax taxes a lot less because it only taxes consumption. To make up for it, it has to be pretty high. This discourages consumer spending because people don't want to pay the taxes. It also encourages people to buy stuff elsewhere to avoid taxes. Income tax doesn't have to be as high because it taxes everything with only certain exceptions. It also eliminates the need to send people periodic rebates.

No, that has nothing to do with the marginal rate. The marginal rate would affect few or none of his employees. It also doesn't affect capitol gains, which are taxed at a lower rate then other income.

The less "consideration" the better. Get all the tax loopholes and BS out of the system and free up the lawyers to get a real job. We are wasting so much time on IRS crap.

But if you're not taxing people's income they'll have more to spend, so they'll spend more. It's a wash. The point though is to stop giving imports an unfair advantage, and get rid of all the 401k, IRA garbage and all the related loopholes. Again, such a waste of time it's just insane.

Also I think you misunderstand what marginal rate is in this context. Everyone pays a "marginal rate", that's just the % tax on the last dollar earned.

So in other words, Fv(k the poor. That is the big philosophical problem with your whole ideology. Conservatives seem to have this idea that everyone is the same, they were born with the same strengths and the same opportunities and they CHOOSE to be lazy bastards, or whatever problem they display.
Sorry but that is incorrect. Some people have little opportunity because of how poor their family is, some people are born with various mental problems. NOBODY chooses to be like that. When your car won't start you don't see it as some kind of immorality or character flaw. You try to see what is wrong with it. It's the same with people. People can have all sorts of things wrong with them. They can have a lousy education because they live in a poor area (IE the only place they can afford to live) due to low tax revenue because of how little income the residents have.



Wrong, if you are not taxing people's income they will just start out with more. There is NO incentive to spend. The only incentive to spend is necessity. I agree on the imports. As for IRA and 401K, those tax incentives are to encourage people to save for retirement because social security is pretty minimal. People need to save. If they don't have this money they will be soaking up a lot more tax money. That is odd that you make that point. I have NEVER debated with a conservative who said that. Conservatives usually want people to save money and provide for themselves.



Oh I see what you mean. What I am talking about is usually called the alternative minimum tax nowadays. It is the rate that only the money you earn over a certain amount is taxed at. So when you get over a certain level you end up in the highest bracket, but then there is this higher rate that just the money earned above this other higher level is taxed at.

A large government "prebate" in the flat tax plan is essentially a welfare payment, but without all the IRS loophole consideration BS. I would think you would be all in favor of it. Your ideological rant seems out of context - perhaps you misunderstood something somewhere.

Having more money available (that wasn't taken from your income as tax) is an incentive to spend. It's also an incentive to save. Both are good - you need a balance.

A prebate is not the best idea. Some people will need more help than others (independent of income). I agree loopholes are a problem, but they poor don't qualify for them. Considering different circumstances and deciding what should and shouldn't count as income is important. That way you don't offer too much help to some and too little to others.
My rant was not out of context. I am addressing what seems to be the underlying difference. Your position only makes sense in the context I mentioned.

No, having more money does not make you spend it. It is not incentive to save it either. It is neutral. It has no bearing on what you do once you have the money because it happened BEFORE the fact. Only things that happen conditionally depending on what you do, have any affect on what you do with it.

There are plenty of things that do affect it, like consumption or sin taxes, interest rates, certain tax credits, etc. The Biggest factor however is not having enough money. Then you HAVE to spend it all. There is no choice.

Beyond education and health care, I would not be against not helping the poor out for things that were "beyond their control", whatever that actually means, genetic differences I guess.

I agree that the tax code should be simple. You shouldnt have to encourage people to save for retirement. If not starving when you are 80 is not enough encouragement after they have a decent education, then they deserve to starve.

Incentives should come from the desire to not fail at life. If you can't figure that out on your own, then there is something very wrong.

I don't see why there can't be a balanced tax package, income/sales/whatever else you wna tto throw in. These could be flat rates and you could set them to be whatever you need to fund educating and caring for all the people in your society. If, after meeting that stipulation, people end up completely unbalanced in income (which I don't think would be the cause but I admit it could be) then you must just accept that is the way it is.

It's not fair to tax rich people more just because they have had greater success at life, often times because they are actually harder workers and better innovators for society. You can't fix genetic differences in a fair way, so we shouldn't try. There will always be inequality, that is just the way it is.

People have all sorts of problems. I am surprised you view this as a character issue. People have general instinctive behaviors. When they behave counter to this, there is something wrong in the brain somewhere. It can be genetic or environmental. Free will is just an illusion. Everything can be broken down to the reactions of subatomic particles. This is philosophical determinism. If you could know about everything in the universe and apply physical laws, you could predict the future. However we have this illusion due to scientific indeterminism. This just means that it is not possible to have all that information. Those aforementioned particles also happen to be us, and we have minds that are aware of self. So from a third person perspective everything happens according to physical laws. However from our point of view it seems as though we do have free will. We do have to go along with the illusion to a point, just because many situations call for pragmatism.

If everyone made a fair wage, then it wouldn't be fair to tax the rich more. However with the current situation it is unavoidable. Inequality is fine. The only thing I am advocating is helping with bare necessities. There is also the problem of our consumer base which is propped up by credit (aka money that does not exist). Without more money in the hands of the consumer base, we can't support the economy.

So people should follow their natural tendencies to be racist? I really dislike the word instinctive here because it makes it sound like no thought was involved, in which case you would accept animal behavior in humans as "right" and civilized behavior as "wrong".



Well I agree free will is an illusion in some sense. It would seem that no alternative to me typing this next word exists simply because of the fact that I typed it and it must be the case that something caused me to type it; were it not for the configuration of the atoms in me and around me to be the cause of that action, then I don't know what could have caused it.

Having said that, it doesn't mean you could predict the future. If you look at something like quantum mechanics you would only be able to get an idea of the future possibilities. Compounding that over many such "particles", the number of outcomes would rapidly reach toward infinity, which would give you zero knowledge of the future in the subatomic sense.



Well I would never argue that things do NOT happen according to physical laws. To me it is quite apparent that whatever is "free" about our will is very murky. I guess I agree with the above but do not see how it is very relevant.




I agree with assistance for bare necessities. I hope I didnt impress otherwise. Perhaps we disagree on entitlement to bare necessities. I don't want to give people material bare necessities, just the means to get them as well as is realistic. I am not against temporary reeducation/boarding expenses run by the state, but if someone is looking for work for a few years with no progress, they have to go. In my view, if generations of families have been poor, there is probably a reason, or just bad luck. Unfortunately, luck runs deep in the workings of the cosmos so we will have a hard time removing that part of the equation. I would be willing to sacrifice a few as lost to the system rather than build a system to lose none and make everyone worse off. In this sense I am more utilitarian. You will always have some people living extravagantly off the top and some people dying at the bottom.

It really seems as though modern societies have created systems where generations of people feel entitled to be "propped up" by the society. An example of this are individuals who have circa 8 children... even if they "support" them they are not really supporting them because there are unreflected costs to existing in society. For example, expanding infrastructure to harder to manage scales. It's as though these people think that sense they are born in a rich society they will be supported. It's similar to why people shouldnt be allowed to kill themselves, it costs a lot to invest in an individual, and their value is very high so to lose them is for the rest of society to absorb a huge cost. People should realize that to be in a society is a business deal where they get something out when they put something in. "Liberty" in a "society" is a fundamentally flawed idea. You belong to the society and the society belongs to you. Thinking about it differently is irrational.

If you want to go live in some uninhabited forest alone, then you can do anything you want.

Well, the bill passed today so lets see what happens.

That's absurd. If you have more money from lower income taxes, you can either spend it or save it. There's no other option unless you want to throw it away.

Yeah, but people will spend, regardless of how much they have. But if they have more money from less taxes, hopefully they will be smart and save it.

People need to be more frugal with their money, including the government.

Well, I guess this thread is moot anyway. Obama care passed the house, and I don't see the Senate shutting it down. What I do see is a lot of Democrats getting tossed out of office this November. 37 States are suing the FedGovt right now for unconstitutionality of this bill.
Tim

Perhaps people will tire of both republicans and democrats and go with a 3rd party! Oh wait...this is America...dagnabit

The real joke about states suing the federal govt is that many of these states are the ones that would not be afloat without assistance from the federal govt.

I love how things are "socialist" and un-American whenever they aren't help you out.