Unwonted said:
Communism has been given plenty of chances. Let's try a market with less government involvement for once.[/B]
For once? This is its second time around! You remember when California had those energy supply issues back in 2000? And it was determined that it was because the privatized utility companies were purposely running undercapacity to drive up prices? I mean, I've studied economics, mind you. I know that electric companies are regulated to run overcapacity and underpriced for the equilibrium price for maximized profit, so to know that the privatized utilities were doing that is unsurprising. In fact, this happened back in the 1890s, prior to them being regulated. And the same thing happened in 2000 as it did in 1890. Human nature hasn't changed in 110 years. I think Ayn Rand would agree. Are you willing to pay more for your utility bills with a cut in service/reliability? Because that's what the capitalist model prescribes for our public utilities.
So you're saying...rich people pay only 8% of taxes and poor people pay 92%? How does that happen when they're taxed 40%?
Allow me to clarify:
Corporations in 1950s supplied 90% of the *tax base.* That is, they weren't assessed 90% in taxes, per se, but the sum that they collectively contributed in taxes amounted to 90% of all the revenues the federal government took in. I mean, I guess someone had to pay for Eisenhower's Interstate Highway system, right? In fact, that 90% figure doesn't even include individual taxation at all, wealthy or poor or otherwise. Corporations have, essentially, conned their way into now contributing only 8% of the *tax base,* despite having most of the money in this country. I think we're suffering, as a result, and that's probably why we're borrowing en masse to pay for this war in Iraq. I mean, the "war on terrorism" isn't paid on tax cuts, now are they?
Stop being so hyperbolic. It stops when they pay the same percentage as the poor.
Nothing?
I say that, because lower income levels already get all their federal taxes back in refunds. Even then, their official tax rate is set at 8%. Do you think that rich people pay a full 35% in taxes? Mind you, 35% is set only for the wealthiest. The middle class pays 25%, officially, before all the tax write-offs.
I mean, do you really think this will run our nation effectively? I'm sorry...it won't. And we're already trumpeting the shift in our economy from full-time labor to part-time/contract labor. "Be your own boss"! Well, that's merely an excuse to stop providing health benefits.
Want to start talking capitalism, when it comes to American health care? It's completely non-competitive, and insurance has only served to bloat it to the point that "supply-and-demand" is non-existent. We've probably developed a health care system that demand so much money to operate that this is probably the kind of health care system that would have economically developed naturally 200-300 years from now. So with our shift to part-time/contract/freelance labor, we have a handful of options:
1) Keep things as they are and let more and more people have no health care at all.
2) Kill insurance completely and let health care float on "supply and demand." That alone will gut billions out of health care, since no one can afford it as-is.
3) Nationalize health care, which will, of course, rely on more taxation.
4) Re-regulate to force companies to provide health care to permanent part-time labor that cannot rely on spousal health care.
5) Re-regulate to put a cap all costs associated with health care, from the cost of prescription drugs to the cost that hospitals charge insurance companies.
6) Have the federal government contribute money to buy health care for those who currently do not qualify for it in the private sector, while continuing to have companies provide it to their full-time employees.
7) Or (my personal favorite), develop a major tax hike for corporations to pay for all their employees that they underpay/don't provide benefits for (like Wal-Mart), and make them exempt from that tax completely if they comply by providing benefits for all their employees.
Go grab your lawyer or call the cops if it's illegal.
A private individual has no jurisdiction to sue on those grounds. It's up to state AGs or the Justice Department or the IRS to pursue it. Calling the cops will get you laughed at.
Expect "crudeness" in response to rude comments like the one you posted that had nothing to do with the topic at-hand.
They won't once big Cali businesses move there
The reason CA generates more wealth than it eats? Big corporations. Not less people on welfare. There is more money given to government program recipients than any southern state.
So California businesses move to a low-tax state. But then they don't generate enough taxes, due to that low-tax rate, and Southern states consistently suck up more federal money than they contribute.
Anyway, I was being purposely sardonic. California does have problems, and I am very much concerned with the levels of illegal immigration in California. That sucks off of the tax base quite a bit, as well. I'm also not supportive of endless welfare, but "effective welfare." I guess that's a matter of opinion, of course, but let me give you an example of what I deem to be "ineffective welfare reform":
In Michigan, former Republican Gov. Engler instituted a "welfare-to-work" program. That, in itself, is not a bad idea. However, the way it was implemented, it actually made a lot of them worse off by forcing them to work long hours in places like shopping malls for low wages, while letting their children run wild. Lack of parenting, as such, will lead to a new generation of delinquents and welfare recipients.
In the 21st century, however, our biggest problem is that we need fewer and fewer people to run global markets. And with more and more people, we're going to have to deal with issues of permanent unemployment or permanent under-employment. Merely telling people to "go to college" makes the problem worse, because then it makes college degrees increasingly worthless and we'll just develop large groups of over-educated unemployed people. There's no easy answers, really.
There are more lazy people in CA than in most of the south, believe me.
I'll have to take your word for it.
Hey, that's capitalism. "Survival of the fittest." Economic Darwinism. It's not inhumane; the "invisible hand" of supply-and-demand will weed out the undesirable and reward the desirable, right?
That's my point. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either lower taxes, at the expense of services, or you go in massive economic debt, like we're currently doing.
It's easy to cry "tax cut," when you think you don't get anything out of it. In fact, we take a lot of it for granted, and out of the industrialized nations, we have extremely low taxes.
Melon
