Please Ban SDM

[sandmann]

Trae, thanks for referencing my tax plan

As for the rest of you guys, you all take one piece of Andy's statement and miscronstrue it into some desire for anarchy. That's not what he's saying at all. He doesn't want to eliminate taxes. He just wants to choose what he puts them towards. I don't agree with this, but I do agree with a smaller government, so I see where he's coming from.

The reason I don't agree with it is because people can't be trusted with their own money. If you could choose where your money went, don't you think Muslims would suddenly 'donate' to programs in their favor, blacks to minority-related programs, nerds to NASA, etc? Most people would forget basic necessities like roadwork and things that they don't even know the government does. But of course, the biggest hit would be the defense budget. Think about it; right now, a large portion of the population 'hates' Bush and his defense policies; right when he needed it the most, his budget would have been cut dramatically because of people 'choosing' to withdraw their tax funding from the program.

I also have lots of issues with welfare; handing out freebies to people out of work will NOT motivate them to find a job. Major reforms must be made, ie, set a time limit, etc.

Anyways, I think you guys just need to go a bit easier on Andy. He may have offended a number of us in the religion thread, but that's past us now. Plus, it's pretty funny how he calls Moose 'Jimmy.'

[Brig]

Digby came up with the selective tax idea. I don't think that's what Andy was getting at. It seems he only feels that essential services (roads, police, whatever can't be done better by private orgs.) should be taxed for.

There's nothing wrong with taxing the very rich more than others.

[Bjorn Keizers]

[Maf54]

[Brig]

[James S]

You just swung to the other side of the political coordinate plane, Brig

[Brig]

How so?

[Alexander]

[Brig]

[sandmann]

My father loses over half of his income to taxes every year. He's not taxed to the point where he's poor, but it is unfair in the purest sense of the word.

That being said, I realize there is no other option besides taxing the rich more than the poor. It's just one of those truths that has to exist. I remember having a discussion about the graduated income tax with RICoder. He was fervently against it. While I think it's unfair, I also think it is necessity, just like communism is fair but ultimately impossible.

[Brig]

My taxes would be aimed primarily at upper level business management, where salaries can be obscenely large. And then, only those companies that have a lot of low-skill employees. If they rely on fewer employees, they'd be taxed less. The point is to keep the low-skilled and unemployed job pool healthy. The companies that benefit most from that demographic, should pay a larger portion of the services those people use. One could tax the company, but that could lead to job cuts.

Communism punishes the succesful. I don't like it.

I'm trying to cut down on my long ass posts, so I leave out specifics.

BTW, James, I consider my personal view on politics the reasoned approach. I don't let adherence to any specific philosophy override my good sense. So if I can't be fit into a political box, that's why.

[Maf54]

Communism doesn't punish the succesful it just doesn't reward them.

[Brig]

If they take away what the succesful deserve, that's a punishment.

[sandmann]

My father is the CEO of a law firm. How would you tax him, as he employs a relatively small number of unskilled workers (it's a very large law firm, but the ratio of unskilled to skilled workers is comparatively low)?[/code]

[Brig]