Taxes!

[Marlin]

This email was going around...pretty much sums it up for me:


Put me in charge . . ..

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for
Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans,
blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want
steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women
Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test
recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and
piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get
tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks?
You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your
"home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be
inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your
own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or
you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of
trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We
will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo
and speakers and put that money toward the common good.

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of
the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before
you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem,"
consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for
doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least
attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system
rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will
voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Government
welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Now, if you have the guts - PASS IT ON...

[Osteomata]

Marlin,
In some cases I have questioned your facts, usually suggesting that you have cherry picked or exaggerated, but even that is not my primary objection. My repeated position is that you draw overbroad and distortive conclusions from limited data, and claim causes to behavior or national trends that are not necessarily correlated, much less proven. Without going back to the first page of posts, (where you may recall we were actually talking about tax rates and burden and I provided quite a number of links), just picking one minor example from recent comments: the "psychology is a BA not a BS" statement, turns out to be at best a half truth, given that it is a BS some places, BA others, and in some colleges they offer both options. I cop to being a civil libertarian, and caught between a respect for free market power and an belief in occasional market failure, as well as a concern about societal stability if we do not have a social safety net. If that is rampant bleeding heart progressive, then either you are dramatically shoving my stated positions to the left inside your head, or you do not actually know what a bleeding heart progressive leftist wants in the way of policy and legislation.

If the below poem sums up your beliefs rather than being merely a cutesy caricature of them, then I think we can pretty much home in on my problem with your perspective:

This email was going around...pretty much sums it up for me:

Put me in charge . . ..

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for
Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans,
blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want
steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Time is money. You want all these free loaders to have a job, but you want to forcibly limit their ability to prepare meals quick by giving them some sort of conscript allowance of food. You have effectively mandated a much larger dedication of resources that works against employment. This is the least of it though...

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women
Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test
recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and
piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get
tats and piercings, then get a job.

Because government controlled and mandated sterilization is such a democratic ideal. And here I previously spoofed your views with what I thought at the time was an over the top suggestion that we should be testing them for nicotine and alcohol use as well. Turns out very little is beyond your dream of government control, so long as its applied to others. God forbid anyone should have a beer or a smoke. And yoru Cultural Purity police will no soubt have a nice set of approved piercing locations, and conduct adequate inspections that will not at all be intrusive and demeaning. Hey, maybe we can have the TSA do it? Cause travel is voluntary too! So why limit their porno scanners to those that can afford a plane ticket, lets get to strip searching the poor and photgraphing their low class tats! Oh yes of course the poem ends with a CYA "I'm not a complete tool because its all voluntary" sentence. Right. Freaking medical care when your child is sick, when you have an abscess, or food poisoning, cause having those things happen is all voluntary too. Your distrust of government evaporates when presented the opportunity to apply extreme authoritarian measures against the poor. How libertarian. Such concepts are exactly why libertarians have a bad name in some circles, the "I got mine" view of the world.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks?
You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your
"home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be
inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your
own place.

Ditto my last. Maybe you can come up with a cool name and set of uniforms for this inspection enforcement crew. Once again, where is your distrust of government? Did you not argue against fascist thugs or something when it came to CPS?

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or
you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of
trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We
will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo
and speakers and put that money toward the common good.

Pure cultural chauvinism tinged with race baiting. Let The State determine which legal products you may own, second class citizen! I have a series of detailed and convoluted regulations concerning all products, made after a multi-million dollar study of "things poor people waste money on." Your tires are 1/4 to narrow, and the shine on those rims exceed 25 lux, Officer, confiscate these so he has to buy new tires! That is how we teach the poor good choices!

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of
the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before
you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem,"
consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for
doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

CYA catchall justification for a style of government that i would hope most will find not merely uncomfortable, but reprehensible.

AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will
voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Government
welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Now, if you have the guts - PASS IT ON...

Oh yes! Disenfranchisement! Maybe a poll tax and literacy tests formulated by a select committee in each neighborhood too? It all sounds so vaguely familiar. Maybe we will need a sort of community based organization to help enforce it. Might have to wear disguises though. But the policy is brilliant, because this way we make sure that the landed gentry can control all future laws as well!

You have jumped the shark.

[Marlin]

Now we are getting somewhere. Our current system is not working. I have been giving them money, in exchange for nothing, for generations, yet they are still poor. So obviously that does not work. My way, or rather, my proposed way is too extreme. I acknowledge that. When you barter, you never start at your lowest price, then you have nowhere to go. In the spirit of bipartisanship, you have to leave something to give. So, I will give up nicotine,alcohol, and tats tracking. In exchange, I want to limit what food they can buy. It takes 15-20 minutes to heat a frozen pizza. It takes about the same to cook some rice or beans and some beef or chicken. The very idea that I am limiting their employment time because I am taking away the convenience of prepared meals is in the least, ludicrous. Even if they work 9 hours a day, that leaves 15 left. 1.5 hours of total cooking for the meals is more than enough.
I am also willing to give up mandatory sterilization, but I will downgrade it to "incentive based contraception". You get your tubes tied, we give you 500 bucks. You get snipped, we give you 500 bucks.
As for the barracks, not gonna budge on that. You want to live under my roof, you can live by my rules. At this point, they have proved that they cannot make good decisions on their own and they need guidance. Remember, this is all for long term recipients. If you are down on your luck and lose your job or whatnot, you get 3-6 months to bounce back. We can negotiate the time length later.
You can do whatever you want, as long as you pave your own way. Don't expect others to do it for you. Just because you are in America does not mean you are entitled to all of the wants that are out there. It just means you are entitled to have the chance to earn those wants.
I am not racist, if you make them sell their 22s, which costs thousands by the way, you can take some of that money to give them OEM wheels and tires and still have cash left over. We will also take the "trailer trash" big mud tires and do the same deal. All is fair....although I have to admite I have never seen a "rent a mud tire" store, yet there are 3 "rent a wheel stores" within 10 miles of where I sit right now. I went in one last week to get a box to ship RickOKC a wheel. I had to dig through their boxes to find an 18" rim box. They had one. All the others were 20s or bigger. Go figure, anecdotal I suppose.
As far as government control, I realize that the government is not likely to ever give up its powers. You're right, its a fine line between regulation and tyranny. There would not be gangs going door to door inspecting your tats and whatnot. That would only be if you are long term aid recipient. There must be repercussions for your actions. We are not talking about a screw up one time, this is more along the lines of "3 strikes your out".
See, I am willing to compromise. I am sure we can meet in the middle somewhere, and we can all be unhappily happy.

[Osteomata]

It is not "compromise" if you start your debate with utterly ludicrous positions and abandon some of the more absurd and tangential of them, leaving a massive core of crazy. You aren't compromising, you are insisting on gross authoritarianism, and continuing a view of those less fortunate (i.e., the poor, the unemployed, and the working poor) characterized by by disdain, disgust, and something close to apparent hatred. Further, you are actually making these programs unnecessarily complex, and therefor costly and prone to government abuse through petty beauracracy. Compared to your program, a straight and unrestricted cash payment would be vastly superior.

As for the time thing: Hey, guess what you can do while the pizza is heating? OTHER THINGS. Guess what you can do while cooking rice or beans or all the "from scratch" stuff you now require? A lot less. This is but a tiny example. The point is that things add up. The bus takes three or more times as long as the car due to wait time, transfers, and stops. Food is more expensive if you can't get to the big box stores and have to shop at the bodega. It takes up part of the day to get to the office where you have your brown shirts checking tats, drug testing, checking off pay stubs, and reviewing all those regulations to see if you are allowed to buy item X. Working a government road crew precludes the search for another job. All you have done with your proposals is put up barriers and inefficiency.

To pretend that the sum of your restrictions are merely reasonable is a joke. Fortunately, I don't need to "compromise" with you because your positions are unworkable and beyond unrealistic. I can worry about what actual policy and legislation is proposed and works it way to a floor vote. I can worry instead about the much more helpful discussion about important entitlement program reform, such as increasing the SS age, adjusting the SS annual cost of living formula, means testing Medicare, etc. These are realistic non-draconian ideas that are not part of someone's authoritarian the-poor-are-scum fantasy world.

Now we are getting somewhere. Our current system is not working. I have been giving them money, in exchange for nothing, for generations, yet they are still poor. So obviously that does not work. My way, or rather, my proposed way is too extreme. I acknowledge that. When you barter, you never start at your lowest price, then you have nowhere to go. In the spirit of bipartisanship, you have to leave something to give. So, I will give up nicotine,alcohol, and tats tracking. In exchange, I want to limit what food they can buy. It takes 15-20 minutes to heat a frozen pizza. It takes about the same to cook some rice or beans and some beef or chicken. The very idea that I am limiting their employment time because I am taking away the convenience of prepared meals is in the least, ludicrous. Even if they work 9 hours a day, that leaves 15 left. 1.5 hours of total cooking for the meals is more than enough.
I am also willing to give up mandatory sterilization, but I will downgrade it to "incentive based contraception". You get your tubes tied, we give you 500 bucks. You get snipped, we give you 500 bucks.
As for the barracks, not gonna budge on that. You want to live under my roof, you can live by my rules. At this point, they have proved that they cannot make good decisions on their own and they need guidance. Remember, this is all for long term recipients. If you are down on your luck and lose your job or whatnot, you get 3-6 months to bounce back. We can negotiate the time length later.
You can do whatever you want, as long as you pave your own way. Don't expect others to do it for you. Just because you are in America does not mean you are entitled to all of the wants that are out there. It just means you are entitled to have the chance to earn those wants.
I am not racist, if you make them sell their 22s, which costs thousands by the way, you can take some of that money to give them OEM wheels and tires and still have cash left over. We will also take the "trailer trash" big mud tires and do the same deal. All is fair....although I have to admite I have never seen a "rent a mud tire" store, yet there are 3 "rent a wheel stores" within 10 miles of where I sit right now. I went in one last week to get a box to ship RickOKC a wheel. I had to dig through their boxes to find an 18" rim box. They had one. All the others were 20s or bigger. Go figure, anecdotal I suppose.
As far as government control, I realize that the government is not likely to ever give up its powers. You're right, its a fine line between regulation and tyranny. There would not be gangs going door to door inspecting your tats and whatnot. That would only be if you are long term aid recipient. There must be repercussions for your actions. We are not talking about a screw up one time, this is more along the lines of "3 strikes your out".
See, I am willing to compromise. I am sure we can meet in the middle somewhere, and we can all be unhappily happy.

[Marlin]

We still have not addressed the important part. What are we going to do about the millions of illegals and generational poor. Throwing money at them does not help. It actually encourages them to do less.
As for SS and whatnot, I agree, we have already established that, but that has nothing to do with the poor. SS is supposed to be a guarantee in exchange for a lifetime of payments of which I have no choice but to make. Those who do not contribute to SS should not be able to withdraw from SS.

I took a minute to think about what you wrote. About how my proposed (well, not mine, just an entertaining email that highlights the frustration of some fiscally conservative American taxpayers) would be too expensive. Does that mean you think the stimulus bill and bail outs should have been scrapped? We could have given every taxpaying citizen 200-500K dollars. That would have solved our entire economy problem! All homes could be owned or at least not foreclosed, new car sales would skyrocket, those in "dead" areas would have the money to move and so on. Instead, we gave it to DB car companies who couldn't manage their way out a paper bag, and to banks that are...well....thieves. It went to feed the red tape state government monsters. I am now on the hook for 50K in taxes just to pay off the deficit, and I have not a damn thing to show for it.

[Marlin]

On lighter note, but just as serious, what is your take on all of our "wars". Those things are sucking down some bucks as well. Just curious on your thoughts.

[Scott Harness]

IMHO...there hasn't been a "real" war since WWII everything since then has been a police action, sticking our nose in other countries busness...or "conspiracy alert"...the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX making money...which is good for the economy
Don't get me started LOL Look at a map of our bases. We have circled the Middle East. When push comes to shove, WE have our hands on the spigot!
We still have bases in Japan and Germany...WHY!
Why do we drag these things out? If we really wanted to WIN,We could blow these countries off the face of the earth. sad but true

[Osteomata]

That's what you call a lighter note? heh. Short version:
An extraordinary waste of national blood and treasure that has screwed us economically and drastically hurt our future foreign relations for decades to come. If we had set out to custom design a foreign policy with the specific goal of turning Iran into the regional dominant power while simultaneously expanding the pool of militant islamicists and terrorists, you could find no better policy than the one we pursued during the first decade of this millennium. In this area, I am distinctly influenced by a paleo conservative philosophy.

On lighter note, but just as serious, what is your take on all of our "wars". Those things are sucking down some bucks as well. Just curious on your thoughts.

[Osteomata]

We still have not addressed the important part. What are we going to do about the millions of illegals and generational poor. Throwing money at them does not help. It actually encourages them to do less.

Our discussions probably suffer from the rapid and frequent subject changes, and I doubt bringing the highly contentious issue of immigration back into the picture will do anything but obscure the already wide subject matter. As to generational poor, back in the early portions of this thread I mentioned that the national poverty rate has fell steadily, and did so during a period in which welfare type programs were coming into effect and expanding. IIRC, the current poverty percentage has held steady at 14% for several decades. It has not worsened, so it is arguable that this is not, inf fact, the important part of the economic debate surrounding entitlements. I still contend that programs aimed at the poor pale in comparison to the problems of the elderly, SS and Medicare. You are nibbling at the edges.

I took a minute to think about what you wrote. About how my proposed (well, not mine, just an entertaining email that highlights the frustration of some fiscally conservative American taxpayers) would be too expensive. Does that mean you think the stimulus bill and bail outs should have been scrapped? We could have given every taxpaying citizen 200-500K dollars. That would have solved our entire economy problem! All homes could be owned or at least not foreclosed, new car sales would skyrocket, those in "dead" areas would have the money to move and so on. Instead, we gave it to DB car companies who couldn't manage their way out a paper bag, and to banks that are...well....thieves. It went to feed the red tape state government monsters. I am now on the hook for 50K in taxes just to pay off the deficit, and I have not a damn thing to show for it.

I don't get your math. Total bail out plus stimulus is $4.6T, of which about $2.6 has been recovered as it was provided in the way of temp loans. Even if I assume ALL of it was a total give away/loss, that adds up to $15K per person, but I think $6,500 is more realistic. Not a trivial amount, but perhaps you can elaborate on how you achieve a result 30 times the one my calculator is giving me.

My view on the bailouts: I am worried about the moral hazard of private profit with public risk, but confess that the issue is so complex and beyond my limited understanding of the economics involved. After some discussions with a number of very smart and conservative people connected in some way to the issues, I was surprised by their vehement support for the bailouts as absolutely necessary in a time of total crisis in order to avert global economic meltdown, despite their otherwise fiscal conservative nature.

As to the stimulus, I am agnostic. I just don't know. I have tried to understand some of the principles involved, but economics written by economists bores the tears out of me, and I have had to get it second hand from those who can make it accessible. Suffice to say that I have enough doubt about the issues to respect the Keynesians that insist that deficit spending during recession is a rational course, but worry very much that we will lack the maturity to offset it with surpluses during boom times. I think the safest bet is that whatever long term fiscal package that we end up with, it does not entail big cuts or tax increases until 2013 so as not to further endanger the very fragile recovery.

[Marlin]

IIRC, the current poverty percentage has held steady at 14% for several decades. I believe that number only applies to registered US citizens. Does it take into account the non-legals?I still contend that programs aimed at the poor pale in comparison to the problems of the elderly, SS and Medicare. You are nibbling at the edges.
These edges I am nibbling at are going to become the entire pie here in about 30 years. Perhaps its time to not plan ahead vice knee jerking when its too late.


I don't get your math. Total bail out plus stimulus is $4.6T, of which about $2.6 has been recovered as it was provided in the way of temp loans. Even if I assume ALL of it was a total give away/loss, that adds up to $15K per person, but I think $6,500 is more realistic. Not a trivial amount, but perhaps you can elaborate on how you achieve a result 30 times the one my calculator is giving me.
You are right, I used 10^15 vice 10^12. I used 136 million tax returns, based on the 2008 data on the IRS site. That was the newest they had.
My view on the bailouts: I am worried about the moral hazard of private profit with public risk, but confess that the issue is so complex and beyond my limited understanding of the economics involved. After some discussions with a number of very smart and conservative people connected in some way to the issues, I was surprised by their vehement support for the bailouts as absolutely necessary in a time of total crisis in order to avert global economic meltdown, despite their otherwise fiscal conservative nature.
My concern is, we had to put down trillions to keep these companies alive, because they are too big to fail. Yet they are still too big to fail, as a matter of fact, some of them got even bigger. What happens next time? I guess we are the safety net for big companies? Did we learn anything?
As to the stimulus, I am agnostic. I just don't know. I have tried to understand some of the principles involved, but economics written by economists bores the tears out of me, and I have had to get it second hand from those who can make it accessible. Suffice to say that I have enough doubt about the issues to respect the Keynesians that insist that deficit spending during recession is a rational course, but worry very much that we will lack the maturity to offset it with surpluses during boom times. I think the safest bet is that whatever long term fiscal package that we end up with, it does not entail big cuts or tax increases until 2013 so as not to further endanger the very fragile recovery.

*sigh*, I too get lost in the myriad of "sciences" involved. I sometimes look at a dollar bill, and realize that it is really worth nothing. At the end of the day, it has no value. Its much the same as a Babe Ruth rookie card. Beckett can say its worth 1 million dollars, but its really only worth what someone will pay for it. That is all anything is ever worth. So what happens if the world stops accepting the dollar bill? We keep printing more, that makes it worth even less. How is printing more money the solution? Spending money we don't have only postpones the inevitable.

I actually have to go back to work tomorrow,so I will have much less time to get on here than I did the last few days I know we have jumped around a lot, but it gave me something to do, something that is free. It also prevents me from doing something dumb to the RS, like drilling holes in the roof for a roof rack.

[Ebenezr]

This email was going around...pretty much sums it up for me:


Put me in charge . . ..

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for
Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans,
blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want
steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women
Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test
recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and
piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get
tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks?
You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your
"home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be
inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your
own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or
you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of
trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We
will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo
and speakers and put that money toward the common good.

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of
the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before
you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem,"
consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for
doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least
attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system
rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will
voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Government
welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Now, if you have the guts - PASS IT ON...

And furthermore remember what John Smith said at Jamestown: "If you don't work you don't eat!!"