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[The Mechanical Man]

We have many broken systems. If they were fixed, redistribution of the wealth wouldn't be necessary.

Because the systems, when working, redistribute the wealth by their very own selves.

It would give people the ability to redistribute the wealth themselves. They (obviously) do not have the ability to do so right now.

[Blargityblarg]

We have many broken systems. If they were fixed, redistribution of the wealth wouldn't be necessary.

Because the systems, when working, redistribute the wealth by their very own selves.

It would give people the ability to redistribute the wealth themselves. They (obviously) do not have the ability to do so right now.

Isn't that exactly what we're trying to facilitate? Taxes on the rich subsidising social mobility via welfare and safety nets?

[Leafsnail]

Oh and as far as tax rates goes, while I don't think it's fair that some of the wealthy do not pay as much in taxes, it isn't fair for them to pay more, either. I honestly never understand why a flat tax rate across all classes is considered a bad idea.

It would cause one of a ridiculous deficit increase or the pushing over the line into starvation of many lower income workers, depending on the rate set.  How can you not see why moving the tax burden from people who can afford to pay it towards people who have no means to do so is a bad idea?

[The Mechanical Man]

It would cause one of a ridiculous deficit increase or the pushing over the line into starvation of many lower income workers, depending on the rate set.  How can you not see why moving the tax burden from people who can afford to pay it towards people who have no means to do so is a bad idea?

I believe I need to clarify; I understand it is impossible right now, but I support a flat rate as a principle. It's not fair for one person to pay more (as a percentage) than another, and that just makes sense. So perhaps I need to rephrase- I consider it a good idea from a philosophical and fundamental point of view rather than a realistic one. I don't understand why people disagree with it from a philosophical standpoint- why they would instead want taxation inequality ideally.


EDIT: Oh, and couldn't deficit increases be curbed by a reduced budget? A low tax rate would eliminate the need to spend a lot of money in certain areas (that the government spends a lot of money on right now). But of course, nobody likes to reduce the budget.

[mainiac]

But taxing the rich is not the best way to solve the problem. We should be fixing current problems and loopholes in the system rather than just raising taxes. And no matter what you do, there will always be a "1%". It's the result of a capitalistic system- there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers. Unfortunately it happens to be the best system we have right now. The focus should be on making the game fair to play and getting rid of the cheating.

You see you say this but there are other countries where they try this and they get along just fine.  Sweden for instance.  Or how about Canada which just passed us in average wealth but passed us in median wealth decades ago.  So don't say that it isn't the way to solve the problem because it does actually solve the problem.

[The Mechanical Man]

But taxing the rich is not the best way to solve the problem. We should be fixing current problems and loopholes in the system rather than just raising taxes. And no matter what you do, there will always be a "1%". It's the result of a capitalistic system- there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers. Unfortunately it happens to be the best system we have right now. The focus should be on making the game fair to play and getting rid of the cheating.

You see you say this but there are other countries where they try this and they get along just fine.  Sweden for instance.  Or how about Canada which just passed us in average wealth but passed us in median wealth decades ago.  So don't say that it isn't the way to solve the problem because it does actually solve the problem.

They have very different systems of government and law than we do- it isn't just about taxing the rich. So I don't think it's fair to say that Canada's wealth is 100% from taxing the rich. There are a million different factors that affect these things besides taxes.


EDIT: And I said it wasn't the "best way". I didn't say it wasn't a way, I just don't think it's the best one.

EDIT EDIT: According to Wikipedia (it's always right!) in 2007 the US was #2 in median household income. Canada was #7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

Unless you're talking about a different statistic.

[Descan]

Yeah, bitches up here be wealthy as shit.

Awww yeeeeah.

[mainiac]

EDIT: Oh, and couldn't deficit increases be curbed by a reduced budget? A low tax rate would eliminate the need to spend a lot of money in certain areas (that the government spends a lot of money on right now). But of course, nobody likes to reduce the budget.

Wow, reduce the deficit by making the government less efficient without hurting anybody, nobody ever had that idea before... 

We've had people committed to this idea setting policy in this country for 30 years now.  All the low hanging fruit was plucked long, long ago.  If you want to actually make the government more efficient you need to do some sort of major reform like nationalizing the healthcare system to control costs.

Here is a handy graph that gives you a look at what you are talking about trimming.  Note that non-defense discretionary spending is only 530 billion... compared to a 1000 billion dollar deficit.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/03/discretionary_spending_interactive.html

So when people tell you they want to make government more efficient to close the deficit one of these three things are true:
1) They will completely cancel a huge part of the federal government like disbanding the military or ending social security
2) They don't know what they are talking about
3) They are lying

edit: forgot the link

[Descan]

It's very simple.

Y'all need to cut spending ENTIRELY for two years.

Use EVERY SINGLE PENNY to pay back your deficit.

Then start up again, better this time.

IT'S FOOL PROOF.

[scriver]

I believe I need to clarify; I understand it is impossible right now, but I support a flat rate as a principle. It's not fair for one person to pay more (as a percentage) than another, and that just makes sense. So perhaps I need to rephrase- I consider it a good idea from a philosophical and fundamental point of view rather than a realistic one. I don't understand why people disagree with it from a philosophical standpoint- why they would instead want taxation inequality ideally.

Because in practice, a flat tax rate will always translate to taxing the poor harder than the rich.

[The Mechanical Man]

Here is a handy graph that gives you a look at what you are talking about trimming.  Note that non-defense discretionary spending is only 530 billion... compared to a 1000 billion dollar deficit.

So when people tell you they want to make government more efficient to close the deficit one of these three things are true:
1) They will completely cancel a huge part of the federal government like disbanding the military or ending social security
2) They don't know what they are talking about
3) They are lying

There are many areas in which the government can simply step out and let private enterprise run things. It's been more cost effective in many cases in which this has already occured.

What then do you advocate to fix the deficit or budget?

You're either going to raise taxes (which will of course end up hurting growth in almost every scenario, and actually wouldn't bring in a ton of new revenue anyways), cut government spending, or a mix of both. There literally is no other option.

[mainiac]

There are many areas in which the government can simply step out and let private enterprise run things. It's been more cost effective in many cases in which this has already occured.

No, there really aren't.  The government got out of those areas long ago.  Actually look at the federal budget sometime man.  Tell me the specific things you think are so easy to cut and then look at what a tiny part of the budget they are.

And you are talking about a part of the budget that amounts to 520 billion dollars.  You can not cut 1 trillion from 520 billion.  It simply does not work.  Even if you cut every last cent and forced congress to hitchhike to washington where they would legislate in the dark that would leave 480 billion dollar gap.

[alway]

What then do you advocate to fix the deficit or budget?

For starters, regulate the financial industry much more strictly. The blame for our current economic mess, as well as that of Europe, can be placed almost entirely on a lack of effective regulators. And that's only if we're feeling generous; the financial industry at this point appears to be fundamentally broken and rotten to the core. We may even be better off regulating much of it out of existence. They siphon trillions from the economy while doing nothing but shuffling numbers. Then when it breaks, governments are forced to siphon even more money to them.
Second, tax corporations much more for holding large cash reserves. Currently, corporations are sitting on record levels of cash reserves. If they aren't spending it on hiring new workers and/or increasing wages of their current workers, it does the economy no good. Increasing taxes for those unspent reserves will either convince them to start or make funds available for programs which do benefit both society and the economy.

What we are currently seeing is an increasing concentration of wealth; workers get less, corporations stockpile more. This leads to weak consumer spending, as the workers make up the bulk of said consumer spending. Weak consumer spending means the economy goes in the crapper, as our economy's foundation is consumer spending. At which point, everyone suffers.

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2012/03/14/apples-stash-leads-as-us-companies.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States

[mainiac]

If we restored the economy to full employment through treasury run quantitative easing, i.e. the platinum coin option (which would cost nothing but would piss off republicans), repealed the Bush tax cuts entirely and repealed the Bush effort to privitize medicare through medicare part D (which is more expensive) and finished the pull out from afganistan and Iraq, we wouldn't have a budget deficit.

[Leafsnail]

EDIT: Oh, and couldn't deficit increases be curbed by a reduced budget? A low tax rate would eliminate the need to spend a lot of money in certain areas (that the government spends a lot of money on right now). But of course, nobody likes to reduce the budget.

Short of maybe completely scrapping the military I don't think that is possible.  In any case the sudden mass unemployment caused by doing that is not likely to be helpful to the economy or the deficit, especially if you also canned social security.