Paying a "fair share"

At the interest rate savings is paying, a tax may deplete savings. I would just keep mine in my safe.

 

I suspect the term "idle wealth" just means "wealth", with the "idle" tacked on to make it sound like it ought to be taken away by the government.

 

The more voters become dependent on government the more government those voters will demand.

We have millions of people around the world starving, without water and sewer, without health care, etc., mostly in developing nations, and apparently those governments are not capable of creating a better situation. Seems to me in the USA we are heading in the same direction and it's only a matter of time before more and more people in the USA lose government support...

 

Most countries suffering in poverty are those without rule of law and protected property rights. The less our property rights are protected, the worse our country gets. Too many people are dependent and apathetic to socialist programs that redistribute property. The government is clouding Americans ability to distinguish what is truly theirs. This has gone generational. Now people actually believe they are entitled to future Americans liberty and prosperity.

 

I think that is exactly right:



They've let themselves be suckered into RW propaganda BS while more and more of our nation's income and wealth has been redistributed to the richest few.

 

More like progressive welfare programs and Ponzi schemes.

 

Given that the share of the nation's income and wealth the 1% are getting has doubled to about 20% and 40% since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution, it doesn't look like it's been those progressive programs at all.

 

US wages rank among the top countries in the world. Why aren't your collectivist societies beating us?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/

 

Better idea; remove taxpayer paid vacations for politicians.

 

So now your saying "progressive welfare programs" have made the US a top wage earning nation?

 

So the top 1% contribute 40% towards the nation's total income. Why is this a problem? You would prefer that they contribute less and that the nation had a lower total income?

 

No, I'm saying free market capitalism(despite government roadblocks) has produced prosperity, but social programs have caused poverty, dependency and wealth disparity among the lower earners and freeloaders.

 

If the principle role of government, according to minimal governmentalists, is to protect the lives and private property of the citizenry, the oligarchs would be contributing a far higher share.

The value of a "life" is not quantitatively or qualitatively measurable. All are equal in that respect.

That leaves property, and since the commonweal is owned equally by all Americans, private property is the determinant of one's dependence upon government.

Not only do the extremely wealth take far greater advantage of the nation's infrastructure, financial regulation, trade agreements, etc. than does the poor in accruing their personal wealth, the police, fire, and other municipal services, as well as the US military are paid to protect and defend the vastly greater private property and personal resources of the rich.

A multi-billionaire thus consumes far, far more of the nation's resources since he has acquired far, far more for the government to protect and defend. And, it follows that the increasing concentration of wealth in the pockets of the few demands that they contribute proportionally.

Their much heavier dependence upon the State causes one to question why they are paying far less than their fair share, and those with much, much less to protect and defend are footing the bill for them.

 

Again, hogwash. It is fact that the wealthy pay the lions share of taxes. It is also fact that the lower 40% pay little or no federal tax. Yes, the rich should pay more, but not more by percentage.

 

No, you only pretend to support free markets, you are actually a government welfare, subsidy lover. Being a clever guy, you have ways of confusing and concealing this fact. You do this by pretending there is a difference between cash giveaways and public goods giveaways. As an example, if government taxes the poor in order to give a landowner $10,000 in cash you would not support that; you might say something like “that is dirty-rotten socialism”. But if government taxes the poor working people and instead of giving that money directly to the landowner it spends the money to build a road so that the landowner can charge higher rents, then you do support that. It doesn't really matter if government gives the landowner the cash directly or uses it to provide infrastructure so the landowner can charge more rent, in either case the people being taxed are poorer and the landowner is made richer. You like to pretend that when government spends the money on infrastructure to make landowners richer it is somehow less socialistic than if government just gave them the cash.

As you know, I want government to charge landowners full market value for the infrastructure and services that are provided for their benefit … if you want to call that socialism then I guess that is your right, even though it is technically wrong.

As far as this being a state and local issue I agree in general. But I would have federal government safeguard individual rights from redistributionists like yourself, by forbidding states and local governments from using taxes which burden production and trade – which would force those governments to use land value taxation because it is the only tax capable of providing enough revenue without creating those burdens.

 

The cost of the government services to protect and defend private property and to further its accrual is at a far lower proportional rate for the wealthiest, an enormous percentage of the private wealth being protected being theirs. Nor does their adjusted gross income, even as their tax accountants take advantage of arcane tax loopholes, include income that those in the top 1% make from tax-exempt investments.

The top 1% hold 40% of the private wealth, their acquisition of it being facilitated, insured and guarded by the government in a system that caters to their acquisitive desires, yet they contribute nowhere near the 40% of the cost of all the government services they require and consume. I.e., Profit derived from interstate commerce depends, among other governmental services, the government building and maintaining a costly interstate highway system, vital to the accrual of wealth for an elite few.

The average American might find it a convenience on those occasions that he uses it, and so might eliminate it if he had a line item veto, but it must serve corporate interests and their executives and boards of directors every day, so the average American must foot the bill for it disproportionally.

The conservative approach would be to assess user fees based upon the profits derived from use of this government-provided asset, and all others. If 90% of the property being protected by police, law enforcement agencies in general, and the US military is in the possession of an elite few, they should pay at a comparable disproportionate right for the services they thereby disproportionately consume.

 

Besides, it is the right to own property that government is instituted to protect and not the property itself. One person's right to own property is no more valuable than any other.

This is common sleight of hand employed by progressives to justify a progressive tax system.

 

You are the one employing the sleight of hand by claiming that landownership is a right. Rights are inherent, they do not have to be purchased or gifted. If landownership were a right then every individual would be appropriated some land at birth. Landownership is not a right, it is a privilege of excluding others from the land that nature provided.

If it is a freedom which only a few enjoy, at the expense of others, then it is a privilege – e.g., landownership. If it is a freedom which is equal to all, only then it is a right. You are confusing the two terms to justify tyranny. Pretending that the government is protecting some imaginary right instead of the property itself is just total hogwash, as it cannot do one without doing the other, making the distinction redundant and deceptive.

 

Without the legal concept of ownership we would live in chaos, each person taking resources from others. Ownership of scarce, rivalrous resources allows them to be used without perpetual conflict.

 

Then structure the system so that the citizens of the community are the owners in common, each with equal shares. Government can collect the land rent and pay dividends to the owners. Every individual is guaranteed the right to use what nature provided (they can spend their dividend to purchase that equal right) and it solves the problem of ownership.

 

That's a false comparison.

Just because I do not chose to own a hammer, doesn't mean I do not have the right to own a hammer. Now replace "a hammer" with "land".

Just because I do not have the financial resources to own Porshe 911 does not mean I do not have the right to own a Porsche 911. Now replace "a Porsche 911" with "land".

There is no difference. No one is appropriated hammers or Porsche 911 at birth but that does not mean the right to own those items do not exist. Ownership of those items excludes use by others, but does not make it at all a privilege.nature provide both the Hammer and the Porshe as well, as that is where the material come from to create those item. Thus, land ownership is no different than any other form of ownership.

And the only fair tax is no tax, and that includes land taxation as well. It is barbaric and backwards and the concept come from a cave.

 

No....that gives the deciding factor off all land rents to government, basically concentrating too much power to control all land (for all intents and purposes) into the hands of a very few. No matter what terminology is used to describe it, with the system you endorse government owns all the land simply because they can control who can use it. The concept off all land being controlled and exclusivity doled out via rent is far, far too dangerous a concept. To think that it would not be severely abused is utopian.

 

Are you suggesting that the federal government take ownership of (confiscate) all real and personal property and then rent it out to the citizens? I'm not at all in favor of that. I don't see why the government has the right to own my (or anyone else's) property.

 

Very well said. Kudos.

 

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