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Originally Posted by Skerlnik
Generally, the vast majority do, to my understanding, quietly and consistently. It's primariliy the rich who desire a lowering, and do most of the evasion of their just due. People making $14,000/year generally don't have offshore account managers or shelters in the Caymans.
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Through the earned income credit and current tax system a person making $14k a year will not only qualify for federal and state living assistance, but also have 100% of their income taxes returned to them every year. They do NOT pay the same percentage because they don't make enough money to qualify for taxation.
I agree, the poor, middle class, upper middle class, and mildly rich don't have the capacity to create off-shore accounts or launder their money, but why do you suppose the ultra-rich do that? Could it be because they're taxed heavily enough to piss them off to the point of moving their money out of the country? How does this help the domestic economy (that is, losing millions if not billions of dollars to offshore banks)?
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Because you are not an island unto yourself, and have some degree of obligation to your society. We're only as strong as out weakest links, and I certainly don't begrudge my taxes going to help those less fortunate.
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You lost me right there.
I am not an island unto myself and so I don't get to decide that all citizens should be taxed the same rate, but
you are allowed to decide that you don't have a problem with social spending and unequal taxation? You're right, we do live in a society, but the only obligation we have to it is to respect the rights of others and collectively pay for items of collective benefit (like fire trucks and roads). Anything beyond that is generosity, and state-coerced generosity is theft, plain and simple.
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It almost sounds as if you are far more concerned with righteous punishment of the poor, rather than a desire to get them back on track and contributing. I don't like, and don't support "piling on".
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Who's punishing them? I simply want them to pay the same percentage of their income that I do to pay for the services THEY use. It has nothing to do with malice, but has an awful lot to do with legal equality.
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They generally do. But, I suspect you've never had to be on the public dole, so you may not have the same frame of reference as to what it's actually like, and how hard it can be to get off it and back to the upwardly moble track, which is supposed to be the goal. (For the record, I haven't, myself)
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I've never been on the public dole because I've been working since I was 15 and paying taxes since I was 16. I worked my way through college, got my commission, used my military benefits to pay for law school (I don't practice though, no money in it anymore), and now I work for a living to keep my wife (who also works her *** off) and I in the style to which we've become accustomed. There is something wrong with a man's character when he can be "ok" with accepting public funds for his private use, and when you've got generations of people on public assistance, it demonstrates the total lack of effectiveness inherent in those programs aimed at "helping". You want to help the poor? Treat them as your equal, give them some self-esteem, and make them earn it like the rest of us.
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I understand not liking people getting "something for nothing", but when we get to the point where we start to begrudge people food and housing assistance, we have to ask what kind of society we are, morally.
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I'm in favor of private charitible contributions, I oppose STATE welfare programs. If you have to force people via taxation to be generous, then your society is no more altruistic than one in which the poor are starving in the street (though more legally unequal and potentially tyrannical). I make a point of giving away some of my good fortune every year (Dave Ramsey says its virtuous, I agree) but it's always to charities that benefit the sick, or the young. Sorry, grown men and women without handicap who made bad choices deserve neither help nor sympathy, they deserve a kick in the *** that their parents failed to provide.
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I think most people consider the reestablishment of debtor's prisons or indentured servitude to be a step backward.
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Hyperbole is not flattering sir. Since defaulting on one's debts is tantamount theft, I am torn on the reestablishment of the debtor's prison, but current bankruptcy laws are certainly far too liberal in their scope. If you borrow money, you must pay it back, period. Indentured servitude should always remain legal as a right of association. Lest you forget, indentured servantitude is always voluntary (as involuntary servitude has another name).