[Vision2020] CNN Breaking News

Thu Aug 11 14:41:42 PDT 2011

"The vast majority of tax dollars go to benefitting the wealthiest of
Americans".  

Really?  Where is this data?   (And I don't mean a HuffPost blog post...
I would be wanting to read some real raw data...)  The wealthiest of
Americans don't qualify for welfare, yet they are taxed for it.... the
wealthiest of Americans are more likely to opt for private schooling,
but still must pay the taxes for public schools.  (To an extreme degree,
the HIGHER the income level you go the LESS likely you are to have more
(or any) children... but yet the taxes are there... )... but I don't
want to digress too far...

Admittedly, I should have been a little more clear in where my opinions
lie:  I am in strong favor of a FLAT % TAX based upon RETAIL
CONSUMPTION.  This is the FAIREST way to ensure that everyone is paying
their "fair share" of taxes... whether it be the super-wealthy, or
whether it be super-poor.  Close ALL other loop holes and tax
advantages.  (Some call this a "national sales tax", but I shy away from
that definition, as it leaves room for a VAT, which I am NOT in favor
of).  

WEALTH is MEANINGLESS without CONSUMPTION... if Bill Gates/Warren Buffet
(or choose your favorite uber-rich mogul) decided to simply sit on their
piles of money, never spending a dime of it and living a life WELL below
their means, then their wealth has NO WORTH or MEANING.  (Insert images
of Ebenezer Scrooge).  It's only when money is being spent (or consumed)
that it has any value at all...

The wealthiest of Americans tend to consume more than the most "average"
of Americans... that's why a flat consumption tax is the FAIREST way to
go about making sure that everyone is paying their fair share.  A
CONSUMPTION tax means that if you SPEND MORE, you pay more... and if you
spend less (even if it's because you HAVE less to spend), you pay less.
(And if your statement of "vast majority of tax dollars go to
benefitting the wealthiest of Americans" actually IS true?  So be it...
the wealthiest of Americans are also paying the most into the tax
melting pot... also making that relationship FAIR).

As a (sort of) aside.... one of the core thoughts that seem to
consistently leak through during discussions with the liberal viewpoint
is an underlying assumption anyone wealthier than they are must have
"gotten away with something", or that to make more money translates to
something improper or unethical, or that the MORE money someone has
made, a "LESS advantaged someone" had to be created as a result (falsely
assuming that wealth is a finite resource, and therefore the MORE one
person has the LESS another person is left with)...  

Even Obama's famous gaff  "... I do believe that after a certain point
you've made enough money..." demonstrates this line of general thinking
among the left.

When presented with this thought, the liberal/progressive typically
recoils in horror... "Oh, NO!  Of COURSE NOT!  I just want everyone to
pay their fair share!"... but FAIR SHARE means EVERYONE pays their
taxes... not just the middle class... (leaving out the poor AND the
rich).... EVERYONE... 

Now, rarely does anyone come out and directly SAY they just want to
PUNISH the rich, of course... and when pressed to explain their opinion,
the reply generally follows that they want the rich to simply "pony up
their fair share", but in their mind, the word "fair" translates to what
a person is REDUCED TO through taxation, not necessarily what a person
PAYS in taxes.   ("Hey, he has 10 widgets and I only have 1 widget...
that's not FAIR!  He should have to give up more of his widgets!")

As far as your last comment "the people with 90% of the resources pay
90% of the taxes... wouldn't that be fair?"

Well... no.  Now, even though statistically this doesn't match (90% of
the resources doesn't equal top 10% of the population), you want the top
10% of the wealthiest Americans to pay 90% of the taxes due in this
nation?  

First... this was last tried in the 70's...  (I believe the top marginal
tax rate in 1979 was something like 70%, with plans to go even higher to
dig the US out of their recession...)

But... let me use different words in your sentence:  

Let's change your statement of "the people with 90% of the resources pay
90% of the taxes" 

to 

"the people with 90% of the [strength] [do] 90% of the [labor]."  

Does this still sound fair?  Let's let the STRONGEST people in our
society do the vast majority of the work while the rest sit back and
simply reap the benefits of their effort.  

Sounds like a form slavery.  And (to a degree) it is.  Society would be
effectively STEALING 90% of the revenue from the top 10% of the wage
earners in this country... living off the backs of someone else's
efforts.

So... no... having the top wage earners pay the bulk of the taxes
doesn't sound like it's fair at all to me.

Now... of course we're going to disagree, and that's fine (I can't
imagine for the life of me that I've swayed opinion on this front)...
but at the very least stop using the word FAIR in the context of making
SOME people pay MORE and SOME people pay less.  That's not FAIR, that's
BIAS based on income... nearly the exact OPPOSITE of FAIR.

To quote Indigo in "Princess Bride":  'You keep on using that word... I
do not believe it means what you think it means...'

Jay

From: Donovan Arnold [mailto:donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 11:51 AM
To: Jay Borden; lfalen at turbonet.com; thansen at moscow.com
Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] CNN Breaking News

Jay,

The fundamental problem with the flat tax theory is that it assumes
everyone benefits equally from the government. The vast majority of tax
dollars go to benefiting the wealthiest of Americans, not the average US
citizen. Further, if the bottom 25% of households had to pay a tax equal
in percentage as the wealthiest 5% in order to balance the budget they
would have to resort to crime to survive because of the poor wages,
limited hours, and no benefits or health care they get from employers
who have all the wealth.

How about instead, the people with 90% of the resources pay 90% of the
taxes, wouldn't that be fair too, Jay?

Donovan Arnold 

From: Jay Borden <jborden at datawedge.com>
To: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com; lfalen at turbonet.com;
thansen at moscow.com
Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Monday, August 8, 2011 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] CNN Breaking News

There are a variety of reasons persons flocked to the New World... The
Georgia colony, for example, was established as a refuge for those
sentenced to debtor's prison, and as a colony where the 'poor and
destitute' could find a new start.  (The British aristocracy felt that
getting rid of these folks would relieve their burden from the crown).

If we're talking about every person paying their fair share, then I'm
all for an across the board flat tax.... Poor, middle class, and wealthy
alike.  That's what FAIR means.

Jay

Sent from my Android phone... So ignore the typpos

Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Actually Roger, this country was built on slave labor and the abundance
of natural resources the native peoples kept well preserved and
protected for thousands of years.

Taxing wealthier people who use and benefit most from the government is
not stealing from them. It is making them pay their fair share.

Donovan Arnold

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