The Economist - "Inequality or middle incomes: which matters more?"

What other part of Article 1 Section 8 is relevant to this discussion in your mind? Or are you really hanging your argument on the fact that there is obviously more text to that section of the Constitution than the bit about levying taxes?

 

Geez...

Here's the part you think doesn't apply to you: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes," Note the COLLECT

And here's the part that lets them do lots of other stuff: "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"

And here's the final nail: "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

When you are born here you inherit both the rights and responsibilities of your citizenship by your birth.
When one immigrates or visits one promises to abide by our laws.

There really are parts of the Constitution beyond the 2nd.

 

You statists always justify taxes by bringing up roads, police, and fire departments, all of which are pretty reasonable. But you really mean SO much more. Lots of reasons why you need to harm people by taking their money by force.

 

So that speaks to what Congress CAN do - but it still does not talk about my responsibility as a citizen. It still does not lay out what I must do and what I will recieve. I also do not see my signature anywhere on that document....so someone else was able to sign away my rights for me simply because I was born? Quite the concept...I mean...that kind of thinking would justify Slavery of every kind in every part of the world.

Ahh - so simply by being born I am bound and my rights subjugated. Sounds good - why is Slavery illegal again?

 

1)Taxes, as an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar
2) to express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income as in the case of the progressive income and estate taxes
3) to express public policy in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups
4) to isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security

 

Wait, what?

You think that rules and laws shouldn't apply to you because you haven't expressly agreed to be subject to them?

 

Yet taxes harm everyone who has to pay them. If it didn't, they wouldn't need to be forced. They would gladly volunteer.

 

Because, in very large groups, compulsory cooperation yields greater productivity than voluntary cooperation. It's just human nature.

 

It's hard for people to enumerate the benefits they get from paying taxes, even if you got a daily readout of the benefits you received. In a voluntary system, even if everyone could see all of the benefits they get from taxes and virtually everyone saw the benefit, there is still an incentive to cheat so you have more money relative to others.

For example, do you think that anyone that owns a business thinks that dumping deadly chemicals into a river is good? Yet we still have laws and have to enforce it, even though everyone knows it's bad. By your logic, if it's good people will do it and if it's bad people won't.
Thus, even if everyone could be convinced of the "good" that taxes provide doesn't mean everyone would do it, because it's always easier to see the benefits you get from not contributing than the good from contributing.

 

Impossible. Forcing someone to use their money for something other than their highest desired end reduces their well-being. Do that across a large group, and you reduce everyone's well-being.

 

No. That's not my logic.

I said that people want to use their scarce means to achieve their desired ends. If you take their means by force and spend it on something they don't want, you are making them worse off than had they been able to use those means to achieve the ends they most preferred.

 

I mean "We the people..."

If you've a problem with that then possibly Somalia or someplace similar would suit your needs better.

 

Not sure why you don't understand the part about making laws to enforce the powers but when ideology becomes theology that is what you get.

It's called the "rule of law."

Of course, if you don't like it there's always Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan and other places where can make that choice.

 

Somalia?? They're dead last as far as limited government, secure property rights, individual liberty, and freer markets.

According to the 2016 State of World Liberty Index, the 10 most libertarian countries are:

• New Zealand
• Switzerland
• Canada
• Australia
• Ireland
• Finland
• Netherlands
• Denmark
• Chile
• Luxembourg

 

All those countries have laws you'd have to obey INCLUDING paying taxes. Since you're only willing to obey laws you've agreed to obey I'm pretty sure Somalia, Syria, and Afghanistan are you best choices to live a life "free" from government interference.

 

All of those countries have the same. Telling a libertarian to move to Somalia is no different than we libertarians telling you authoritarians to move to North Korea.

 

My problem with taxes is how so much money is wasted. Government is inefficient, entirely too large and pays for so much stuff it shouldn't. The other thing is our entire education system starting at least with high school through college is completely broken and a rip off. Universities are among the most corrupt businesses around in the US.

 

The threads topic title:
The Economist - "Inequality or middle incomes: which matters more?"
My first thoughts reading that were "inequality in what way?", "to who?", "where?", and "why?"

When a large group of people are assembled at random together, in what ways are equal?
If they are separated into subgroups based on education level, would the members of each group then be equals?
Would separating the subgroups based on other criteria result in the members of each group being equals?
What kind of equality should there exist between different groups?

 

A Google search finds no results for a "Replicant party".
A Google search on the definition of the word 'Replicant' results in the following:
noun
noun: replicant; plural noun: replicants

1. (in science fiction) a genetically engineered or artificial being created as an exact replica of a particular human being.

 

SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHALLENGE

Better that it be inefficient than it does nothing at all.

The US has one of the highest crime rates of any developed economy. When that happens, any sociologist will underline the fact that its socio-economic model is dysfunctional. Something is very, very wrong in the land of milk and honey.

And that something is the way some people feel they must commit a crime to be able to live as others do. It's as simple as that.

The challenge therefore is rectifying the problem of wild Income Disparity that exists. And it is not the Replicant Party that will change America's socio-economic dynamic one iota. It's only concern is maintaining the status-quo of upper-income taxation for "its people".

And, to that end, it willingly allows a mentally deranged individual like Donald Dork arrive at the summit of power in the US. God help an America that no longer knows how to help itself ...

 

I disagree. Inefficient tax dollars is completely wasted money. It's not spent on anything, it's not providing a business anything. Inefficient tax dollars is our biggest problem. All wasted tax takes away from the person that could have spent that money, and thus been sales taxed again, instead it's wasted and lost. Inefficiency is the biggest problem with tax dollars. Wasted tax dollars could be spent in the actual economy.

 

Most economists understand the loss of opportunity costs. I can't think of a bigger institution that loses so much opportunity costs.

 

Hint: See what I did? I quoted your remark.

That is the ONLY way on this forum to understand whom you are addressing in a reply.

 

OUR HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Well done!

The Replicants always make the mistake of "choosing" what parts of the Constitution they support, forgetting other elements that are equally important if not more.

And as far as "Welfare" is concerned, let's look at its dictionary meanings:

• The health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group.
  
  
• Statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need.

The American Right are more attuned to the second-meaning, and they like to call them handouts.

To the discussion of which I'd like to add a fundamental piece of psychology in the form of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (first formulated in the early 1940s):

Those two bottom layers, which constitute the "foundation" of any society on earth, are crucial to a people that aspire to obtaining all the levels above. If one thinks those bottom two levels should be more-or-less "free, gratis and for nothing", then so what? Where's the harm?

They are crucial to life-support in this day and age of ours. Besides, if the Physiological Needs are not assured then people will obtain them in any other manner necessary including crime or war ...

 

Your words put into my mouth.

Those are the countries with the most limited government, most secure property rights, greatest individual liberty, and freest markets. The most libertarian countries.