Thursday, April 17, 2008
anti-tax?
Listening to the "cut taxes" crowd is a lot like listening to my kids whine about having to clean the living room. Cooperation and sharing are hallmarks of civilization, and the selfishness displayed in the rejection of participating in this civilization, simply because they want to keep "their money", is one of the primary reasons for the decline of America. If you worry about government waste, the answer is not to cut taxes, but to cut waste.
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14 comments:
Dave-
I'd very much like to engage you on this post but want to get it out up front that it is all in the interest of discourse and debate (civil and comitus). This video is bias and misleading as all hell and is literally in my back yard, and have been doing some number crunching here, being that is in my home state and direct best interest to do so. [do the math that is] I try to keep the political stuff off of my site, prefer the abstract and notational side over there. But I think I can provide some insight to the anti-tax rage here in MN, and will not be citing websites and statistics - I'll be using receipts, tax bills (state and local), trunk highway funding formulations and disbusements, and the like. May we have this conversation?
I'm willing to engage. My safe word will be "whimper".
I'd like to say also that I'm fully aware that the video is biased. Isnt everything?
But the point of using the video still stands (so far - maybe you can knock it down): Americans are, overall, selfish and immature.
United We Stand, Divided We Fall. How much more divided can one get than the Me Generation has taken us?
I have no safe words, I'll stick it out, no worries. Let's also agree to avoid the insults of republican and democrat, eh? Will engage in the a.m - great movie on right now, "White Cargo" from 1942...
before I get into a breakdown of how the tax increases in MN are driving up unemployment rates and driving down the standard of living, I think you've got the Me Generation thing spot on, I see the issue not so much as being selfish and immature but more a case of beligerent ignorance and that when that ignorance is challenged it's defended to the hilt and the challenger is then called a hater or disrespectful, or a litany of other distractionary tags that the defender of ones ego is misusing in the first place - to protect their fragile little ego that is placed on a higher pedestal than the greater good. (I'm also going to try to keep it to a paragraph at a time, you know how wordy I can get)
Is it the tax increases killing MN jobs, or is it employers leaving the state?
The tax thing reminds me of the game that's played with sports stadiums - pay for our profit, or we'll take the jobs away. While I understand the gain that can come with tax cuts, I also realize that it can be taken too far.
Plus, I have a very strong dislike of being blackmailed into paying to make some already rich guy wealthier.
it's employers leaving the state due to tax increases on anyone who wants to do business in the state. Constantly raising the corporate tax hits the little corporation just as hard, the mom and pops as well as the major corporations. LLC is required and the tax code makes no distinction. Why put a facility in MN when you can put one in SD? Why would a merged airline want to keep a hub in MN when the rate in GA is much lower? The jobs and the hub then go to GA. Stadiums? Let's not co-mingle the issue of lower tax incentives for biz to operate with bonding and corporate welfare. Similar but not the same. Pohlad can kiss my ass with the stadium we are building him - that stadium and other little pork projects that lead to the 12.5 % I pay on anything I buy downtown are driving the customers and biz out of there as well. Pay for your own damn stadium Carl. Our tax cuts are not driving anything away, we keep raising our taxes for a number of reasons and the standard of living is falling in direct relation.
looking at this video again, what is getting me is the class envy thing. Let's look at one tax for the sake of arguement - capital gains tax. Tax the rich theory at it's political grand-standing-est. Tax those damned stockholders for investing and realizing a benefit for risk, how dare they. Here's the problem - in an effort to try to find parity by placing an increased tax on capital gains (that is emotionally easy to peg the rich with exclusivity on) you have now just put the smackdown on anyone, including little guys like me and much of the middle class who take the time to provide for our golden years by choosing our own stocks instead of relying on our employer to make that decision for us. You have just wiped out our ability to take our money out of one company and put it into another by jacking any percentile gain and giving it to the big uncle, jacked our reward for taking the risk and wiped out any motive to reinvest or protest bad decisions by the CEO by taking our money elsewhere for whatever reason. Dig?
All of the things that make America worth living in are because of our society. The laws, the culture, the customs, etc. But none of these things come for free.
Here would be my question: Who benefits most from the system in America? Is it not reasonable for those who benefit most to pay the most back into the system? I think can guarantee you that corporate leaders and major stockholders gain far more than welfare queens.
I cannot speak about the tax situation in MN (not knowing anything about it), but when I wrote the post I was mostly thinking in terms of income tax (which a lot of anti-taxers count on, I'll bet). I suspect, though, that things are no different there than anywhere else - the folks in the middle, who make a comfortable living, but actually work hard for that comfort, are the ones bearing a disproportionate amount of the burden. Look at these numbers. Notice who has the highest tax rates. The problem is not the tax, but its weight on the middle rather than the top earners.
And dont think that the top earners, corporate and personal, arent aware of this. They've used their money and influence to jigger the system. Take a look at the marginal tax rate over the years. Notice how in 1982 the marginal tax rate was lowered almost twenty points, but applied to a much lower income level also. That was the Reagan Revolution, and it's led to the a relative income stagnation for all but the top 1% of the nation since then, with a growing gap between the haves and the havenots.
Trickle-down economics, the policy of making things easiest for the wealthiest with the idea that they'll then spend more for the benefit of the rest of us doesnt work (and why would it; seriously, I mean it's never worked in the centuries preceding the Reagan era, why should it have worked now?)
What's the solution? I dont know, but I think more progressive taxes, including business and corporate gains might be a good start. The standard of living is not falling due to tax increases, the standard of living is falling because the bulk of the economic gains in the last couple of decades have gone only to the one-percenters, while insurance, healthcare and higher education costs have risen, as well as the cost of doing any business with the government (from licenses and permits to requests for paperwork required by other government agencies), crushing the ordinary person under a mountain of extra expenses.
Much of this is due to a conservative idea that is little discussed but easily visible once you are aware of it: the pay-as-you-go philosophy of government. This is the idea that only those who get the benefits should pay for it, which is why Republicans hate public schools and love toll-roads (that, and their endless money-making potential). Look around, and you'll see its effects everywhere in government, and hear its echo in every arguement. And while there's nothing wrong with expecting people to take care of themselves, one of the hallmarks of a successful civilization is the care that it takes of its less "fortunate" members. It seems to me that America is headed towards a Mexican-style oligarchy, with the government, its policies and its revenues devoted only to increasing (or maintaining) the wealth and power of a priviledged few.
That's all I've got for now, it's bed time.
G'back to sleep...I'm just making a sammich. Ni-night!
I’d not intended on going in this direction, but with an opening line like that, it reminds me of the importance of getting the government out of the defining what culture is or determining through state funding what our culture is. The quality (subjective, sometimes) and market value as well as collective perceptual value of the arts has been directly and proportionally damaged by providing for the arts - the meddling in the arts, of taxpayer provision and concern.
The statement that our society is what makes America worth living in; the laws, culture, customs and their cost is not something that’s collective price should be managed by a centralized authority. A thriving culture and its customs specifically need to be able to grow by the tensions within the specific participants of the many unique cultures and communities of custom and specific regional or local demand of both cultural and market demand. All of these localized and region specific cultures are what create the Greater American Culture, the vastness and variety of it’s geography and the variety of the residents and their unique regional practices. This is why it’s a hoot to take a couple of weeks driving across the country, it used to be more enjoyable, there was more variety in the peoples cultural make-up from the Deep South to the Upper Great Lakes to the Desert Southwest to The New England States. The tax rate and it’s damage to the cultural qualities of any given localized area and it’s residents on the whole is actually a three pronged attack. First in the homogenization that occurs when a centralized authority determines the quality and content of the cultural institutions content that it provides the public. Eliminating all federal arts funding would allow for increased state and local investment, public and private in the demands of developing more region specific cultural institutions AND individuals – not either/or.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that as the federal funding of the arts has increased the number of individuals sponsoring the careers of local artists of merit has declined – direct patronage of the arts has fallen drastically. The practice of an individual patron or gallery paying the rent on the studio and the materials for an aspiring painter or sculptor in hopes of return for investment has fallen off to the point of non-existent. The model has changed and this has created a weaker monoculture not a collection of vibrant sub-cultures, an army of mediocre painters and sculptors at best instead of producing real stand-outs in their fields. Art classes in the public school system has long abandoned the Atelier methods and practices, as well as a thorough grounding in the study of the masterworks or even the placement of contemporary pieces in context to the larger collective history of ‘art’. The public funding of arts on the K-12 level has done damage to our ability as a nation to produce standout artists of any field by catering to all on a diminished (but equal out of the insistence of a (or the establishing of a) median skill level across the populace. (This is not saying all art teachers suck, there are standout teachers and/or programs out there; I’m speaking generally and out of direct observation, and specifically about arts instruction in public schools. Anecdotal evidence provided on demand) Aspiring young artists down to the youngest in age, it can be argued, are better educated and trained by individuals (practitioners of local cultural note – this also provides income for the individual artists to supplement the income by teaching. Other legislation than tax code preventing that, though, in the public schools.) and programs funded by private and corporate charitable giving. Not every kid is going to be exposed equally – what’s the big deal – not all kids have an interest or ability or desire, I don’t think the proportion of interested to disinterested has shifted from where it is now from any other point in history. If someone’s got the creative fire at an early age, they will find a way to work it out – we as artists are compulsive from an early age like that; there’s always something that will leave a mark on something, an object that can be bent…this is just my faith in the drive of the true creative spirit speaking.
Second; much of the support of the arts that the state and the fed provide is support either by tax benefits is the Non-Profit Organization, that are starting to realize that are not really needed by the local community out of lack of interest; but often produce cultural blowback by being so out of touch with actual community demands and desires, and are still consuming this subsidized support. Wasteful spending?
Yes.
Third; the wealthy and corporations DO actually spend more in private localized cultural institutions when they have more individual and corporate income to put back into the home state of their physical plant. In the forms of direct giving, volunteerism, grants, endowments, sponsored exhibitions, civic events and more. Where trickle-down economics is actually directly applicable, as ethically corrupt as it may appear on the face, bigger and more private parties equals more working musicians, dancers, and other performers as well as more caterers, valets, drivers, lighting techs, piano tuners and every imaginable support and logistics worker out there. Hey, don’t tell the media – some of us like our gigs. (I could go off on a related but different angle on the blowback suffered the arts by anti-smoking legislation, a ‘progressive’ bit of legislative initiative, in the reduction of stages and gig income in the music and theater communities. How legislation is bad for the romance in culture, but that’s another tangent) On another civic level, and once again this is observational – compare the amount of public sculpture in two cities - Minneapolis and Houston. (this would take an extensive survey and research to ‘prove’ on-line, but it can be done. I did a physical survey in late January while on a courier trip down there) Houston has a noticeably large amount of public sculpture, whereas Minneapolis there’s not so much the presence. The state and local tax structures of the two cities are drastically different; and I’d be willing to bet some ethereal electronic bet that a majority of the public sculpture was commissioned or paid for by private foundational dollars. Hell, it’s even effected our international cultural exchanges – we just lost the Norwegian Embassy here but they’re keeping the one in Houston, go figure. (wink-wink)
It’s not just the dollars or tax system that is producing this, it’s government involving itself in the business of culture, government going anywhere near culture at any level from education to censorship to direct funding to any or all involvement on any level in regards to culture or the arts.
Hmmm. Well, when I said "culture" I wasnt actually thinking of the Arts, more about general trends in thinking and belief. You know, the Protestant Work Ethic, the disdain towards recieving handouts, the desire to improve oneself, the distrust of Authority; stuff like that.
Personally, if I was going to blame anything for the decline in the atelier method it wouldnt be government funding, but a result of art fashion (abstract art "needs" no traditional skills, nor does conceptual art) combining with our obsession for the New and Extreme, plus photography having removed one of the major purposes that painting and drawing traditionally filled.
Still, I think that reading your words, I smell a Libertarian, and while I respect the desire to do for yourself, Libertarianism has always struck me as Anarchy, with Roads. Ever read Ursula K. LeGuin's book "The Dispossessed"? That's a form of anarchy I could get behind.
Libertarianism seems fine to me out in places like west Texas, or maybe the woods of the far north, but I dont think it's really practisable in cities, where people pile up upon each other and the butterfly effect accompanies everything you do. Government, and government regulation are the cost of our population, because millions of people simply cannot live together in such small areas without a lot of rules modifying their interactions. And those rules, and the accompanying infrastructure, cost money. You cannot escape the cost unless you escape the people, and there are few places left to do that. So the question becomes, what do you do with that money?
Anti-tax people are like conservatives, in that you need them to balance out the people doing the taxing (or the liberals*) in order to hit some sort of balance. My problem with the anti-tax crowd is that they dont seem to be paying any attention to waste, but simply saying that "taxes are bad" without any other plan other than to cut them. Nobody likes taxes, but a society the size of ours will disintegrate without them and the services they provide. The question should not be whether to pay, but what to pay for.
And here's where I think at least some of the anti-tax crowd has a hidden agenda. You've heard the term "starve the beast", and if you listen to those who engage in such talk, you'll find that "the beast" is not the military-industrial machine, or corporate subsidies in the form of massive tax breaks for certain companies, or contracts awarded to companies connected with campaign donors.
No, they want to get rid of welfare for the poor, public schools (of all levels) and social services designed (basically) to reduce human suffering (however badly it may do it, that's the goal - if it's not working right the solution should be to fix the means, not snuff out the goal).
I find this morally reprehensible, because however much some of the poor may deserve to be poor (see the second sentance and consider the lack of it in some of the population), it does our culture, and our national soul, little good to simply starve them out. Education should be the key to changing the culture of some the poor, but it's going to be hard and expensive and take generations (my wife teaches in Dallas, and while you can lead a kid to knowledge, you cant make him think, which is the problem with NCLB, another hidden agenda program). But it will pay off in the long run, and if we can invest money in industry, why cant we invest money in people?
I have to go to work now, though I'm not sure I'm done.
* please dont conflate taxation and liberals - BushCo pretty much puts the lie to that one, as does any party that makes military costs half the money we spend.
The assertion that the anti-tax crowd does not seek to cut waste, simply cut taxes is just simply an assumption and a poor one at that. Let’s look at everybody’s fave – roads – as our example. W just had an $0.08 per gallon tax increase for ‘transportation’. Now, I’ll tell you that I’m the biggest advocate for roads and infrastructure that you could hope to find. Build it all I say and devote a MASSIVE percentile of the budget to do it, all of it – roads, rail, moving sidewalks, personal jet packs, and rocket day-trips to the moon. (a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my drift) Fund the living hell out of infrastructure. That falls under the providing for the general welfare bit – welfare and the general welfare are two very different things. But back to the point; one of the major beefs with the tax increase for transportation was that instead of raising the tax, a restructuring of the trunk highway funding formula could/would have done more for transportation than raising the gas tax. Reform before tax increases is a common mantra of us anti-tax types; and there’s part of the problem right there – the tag, ‘anti-tax crowd’ It implies that we see no need for taxes at all, sure we do – but let’s get some responsible spending practices put in place before we start throwing more money at the leaks to clog the leaks.
With the roads, case in point – I have this brand spanking new road right outside my front door. Gorgeous road, really, all smooth and freshly painted bike lanes, they fixed the alley entrances, real bang up job. Here’s the thing, we didn’t really need that new road. Five blocks down, now THEY need a new road, jeeze do they need a new road. Now before the city and state came in to build us that nice new road that we didn’t really need there were a series of meetings with residents who brought this very point up – “Hey Mr. City Engineer and Ms. Council Woman, why we getting a new road when five blocks down they REALLY need a new road? Why not fix theirs first?” We were then told that it’s a complicated formula involving city. county, state, and federal dollars and that there were a number of other variables that go into this so you’re going to get a new road so pick one of these six layouts or we’ll pick one for you.
Right about the time they were finishing up my brand new street a bridge fell down a couple miles away. Now I’m sure that the cost of 15 blocks of city street with sewer and water upgrades would have made a dent in the cost of a new or more adequately maintained bridge. The problem is in the funding formulation. The roads with the highest 25% of lane-mile usage are getting about 25% of the transportation funding from dollars currently available. Once again, why not look at the formula and inefficiencies before raising taxes across the board first? Wouldn’t even involve the threat of cutting funding for transportation or any other program out there. Meanwhile I drive off on a fresh new road to work every morning so…
The reduction of human suffering bit…kind of a head-scratcher but not really at the same time – and I think it’s just as simple as this is where our general approaches differ at this point – I find no good coming from the idea of government alleviating the pain of existence. I see centralized decision making and administration of a unified national standard of behavior or set of practices or standard of living as that which is most detrimental to a communities soul, to a communities culture or cultural identity, and that it has always been this collection of smaller thriving unique community souls and culture are what the larger National soul and culture have always been made up of.
Social services may be intended or basically designed to reduce human suffering; but unfortunately history has borne out time and time again how overreaching attempts by a centralized authority only end up creating more suffering and adverse situations than they solve. From the failed housing projects in NY and Chicago and other cities (just two of the most notable where these buildings have finally been demolished) to welfare reform in states like Illinois and more notably Wisconsin for the effectiveness of the reforms on both urban and rural poverty, to farm subsidies that pay farmers to both grow corn and not grow corn (see where that’s gotten us) and that in some instances govt intervention in charitable practices has actually hurt the poor that the charity has sought to help (food shelves are coming to mind here, specifically produce. State and local regulation preventing the distribution of surplus or irregular produce to food banks. I’m going to have to look these up, I know there are cases – the point being that even charity gets all mucked up when govt starts getting involved – more get the charity, but what are they getting? Hell, I’ll go so far as to say that local recycling initiatives (mandates and regulations) have hurt the revenue potential of the indigent class by making it a misdemeanor to take the contents of someone else’s recycling bin because they are denying the city revenue. Social assistance for the poor should come in the form of non-prohibition of industriousness as well if not more so than increased direct tax expenditure in the form of welfare to the individual, the corporation, or the market sector. Let the poor compete unfettered and their conditions improve at a more rapid pace that if they are subsidized into submission and complacency. Government subsidy of poverty with the double whammy of government regulation of the market and industrial devises that take people from poverty into the middle class and from the middle class to some point beyond then slam the lid shut with increased governmental taxation to support the repressive subsidy and regulation and enforcement and you end up with this slide into a gulag nation of drear and hopelessness.
State taxes going up are sometimes a direct result of the Fed cutting funding on many things the states take for granted and they are cut for programs that are ingrained into society.
The states don't want to hit the public in general so they go after the business sector. CA drove businesses out for much the same reasons I have mentioned..tax the corporations, not the individuals. People vote in elections, corporations vote by leaving town.
Just wanted to toss that out there gents, if I can join i the discussion. ;)
This quote struck me-with increased governmental taxation to support the repressive subsidy and regulation and enforcement and you end up with this slide into a gulag nation of drear and hopelessness.- Seems your a big fan of capitalism, no problem there, it just shows that, I think, that you believe we should have less taxation on those at the top of the economic foodchain.
Wages have stagnated yet the top one percent have been making some major cash. How is that equitable?
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