[karajorma]

This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate

You are assuming this isn't exactly what happened.

[Aesaar]

This needs to be read by anyone who thinks Obama's a big government spender.

I'm not too fond of Obama, but I think he's the lesser of two evils here.  Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter, since I'm not American.

[BlueFlames]

This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate

You are assuming this isn't exactly what happened.

My mother did exactly that, back in the 1970's.  In that respect, I think she might deserve some credit for Nixon, but don't tell her I said that. 

The problem is, when it gets done en masse, instead of winding up with a selection of candidates that the members of each party feel are their best, you wind up with the candidates that the members of the opposing party think are the worst.  In other words, instead of choosing from a selection of the best (or at least high-tier) candidates, during the general election, you're left choosing from a selection of the worst.

Consider an alternative, though:  Instead of registering with the other party to vote for the worst candidate, what about registering with the party you oppose to vote for the primary candidate, on their ballot, with whom you most agree?  Done in large enough numbers, instead of getting bad candidates, you get a general election ballot full of moderates and begin moving the parties toward the political center.  (If done by too many people, though, the parties just switch positions and continue on out to opposite extreme that they had been previously pursuing.)

It would be interesting to see a study conducted to determine how often either sort of primary-sabotage happens and if it is having any noticeable effect on the outcome of primaries.

[Mort]

This needs to be read by anyone who thinks Obama's a big government spender.

I'm not too fond of Obama, but I think he's the lesser of two evils here.  Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter, since I'm not American.

Numbers? Facts? These aren't god-given and are therefore invalid. Socialist scum!

[z64555]

This needs to be read by anyone who thinks Obama's a big government spender.

I'm not too fond of Obama, but I think he's the lesser of two evils here.  Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter, since I'm not American.

[sarcasm]Numbers? Facts? These aren't god-given and are therefore invalid. Socialist scum![/sarcasm]

There, FTFY.

[redsniper]

It's my deepest hope that the entire GOP is doing all of this ironically and that most of the party isn't this insane or out of touch with reality.

I have some bad news for you...

[SypheDMar]

This whole primaries thing is a fascinating foreign concept to me, but it seems to me that if I had to register with a party to vote in their primary, I'd register for the party who I didn't want to win in order to troll their primary for the worst possible candidate - assuming your party doesn't select bat**** insane candidates.

That's what happened in Michigan!

That's also why Ohio forces registered voters for a party (as determined by previous year's voting record) to only vote intra party so long as the voter casts a ballot for an election of some sort. I don't know the details too well to be honest. Ballotpedia may/may not explain it better.

Michigan example: It's a potentially close election if the moderate in a primary wins for Republicans and Democrats. Because anyone can vote in any primary, the Republicans vote for an extremist Democrat in the primary, and because of the influx of Republican voters, that Democrat wins the primary. During the election, the Democrat, being the extremist that he is, is unpopular with mainstream Michigan and loses the election.

Ohio example*: You voted Democrat for an election. Next year, you want to be Republican and want to vote in the Republican primary. Because you voted Democrat the year before, the system says "Screw you. You can only vote Democrat this year or not at all for the primary." You opted to not vote in the primary nor the election. When you want to vote again in a primary some years later, you can choose whichever party you want because you didn't vote the year before.

*Details may be wrong.

[jr2]

Just to toss in some conversation here, when I saw the ad about Mitt Romney paying 14% tax, and middle-class probably paying more, I actually thought "great, so the middle class needs a tax break", vs. "RAAAAGE!  I R jealous of you, wealthy pig!"  14% doesn't seem a bad figure. 

However that being said, my opinion on loopholes:  Erase them.  No more loopholes.  NONE.  Pay your f***ing taxes.

If your income is so low that you are at or below the cost of living in your area, then maybe do progressive tax right down to 0% tax, just so the poor / fixed income ppls aren't being kicked in the teeth.

I'm also not against welfare / foodstamps / etc if you actually need it, but if you're just trolling the system, well, screw you.  Of course, determining who is actually trolling the system is hard, as trolls will just lie, and it's harder when the job market sucks and the unemployment rate is 15% (Yes, you have to count those who aren't looking for jobs any more in order to get an accurate unemployment rate, I don't know what this **** is about only counting the people who are still looking for work as unemployed.)

Spending can be used to jump start an economy if done right, but I don't really know if anyone's really nailed this.  Raising taxes?  I don't think that will get you too far.  Think.  The rich will shuffle some numbers and nothing will change.  The upper middle class will become mid-to lower middle class, as their extra income goes to the government.  The lower class won't change.  So, in other words, the government gets more money.  What do you think they will actually do with it?  Something ill-advised and ineffective, targeted at their special interest groups back home, for their next election campaign, no doubt.  Of course, a tax increase in the form of closed loopholes would be nice.. as long as it's accompanied by a tax cut for some (IIRC, the middle class tax that someone living in NY State would end up paying is like 49.~%... this is unacceptable, where does the government think it gets off eating half of someone's income??  IDC if they are Bill Gates, that's just wrong.  As wrong as a billionaire paying between 0 and 5 % (unless we were just well enough off that the flat tax rate was 5% or something, I suppose that'd be fair as long as everyone was being taxed the same at that point, but I don't see that being logistically possible).

[Aardwolf]

It's hardly a "loophole"; it's Bush II's "tax cuts".


bit of a tangent:
Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 90%, and nothing bad came of it. So if you want to use the interstate highway system, you should have to pay Eisenhower-era % taxes

[jr2]

 Wonderful.  So, to get in the top tier, how much did you have to make?  OK, what's 10% of that?  Why (if I was that rich) would I bother?  What's the point of making all that wealth, just to have the government take it away and use it as they see fit?  Instead, I could probably keep more money by making only 20% of what I would be making at the start of this hypothetical situation, and paying taxes on that.  Yes?  So, in other words, you are punishing those who were successful at generating the most wealth, and encouraging them to either make less, find loopholes, or outright hide their money.

Didn't the Russians move to a 13% flat tax rate and actually experience a net gain in tax revenue, as the wealthy and corporations found it cheaper to just pay their taxes, rather than trying to avoid them?

[z64555]

Wonderful.  So, to get in the top tier, how much did you have to make?  OK, what's 10% of that?  Why (if I was that rich) would I bother?  What's the point of making all that wealth, just to have the government take it away and use it as they see fit?  Instead, I could probably keep more money by making only 20% of what I would be making at the start of this hypothetical situation, and paying taxes on that.  Yes?  So, in other words, you are punishing those who were successful at generating the most wealth, and encouraging them to either make less, find loopholes, or outright hide their money.

This is something that I noticed during SimCity when playing with the tax rates... when I rose the taxes for the $$$ citizens, they where less inclined to flock to my cities (as well as the higher-tech companies and businesses). Whenever I tried to mimic the U.S. federal income tax rates, my cities would end up stalling after the 5th year or so... However. Whenever I tried reversing it, such as 10.2%, 10.1%, 10% ($, $$, and $$$ respectively), my cities had a boon of income and would flurish.

This reason this happened was due to the fact that there's a population gradient that goes from $ to $$$, with $ being the most populous. By having an inverse tax gradient, it encouraged the little $ sims to work hard and educate themselves, pushing themselves into the $$ and $$$ brackets and overall reducing the population gradient to be more or less uniform (i.e. 34% $, 33% $$, and 33% $$$ of total population).

Granted, there's a whole bunch more variables in the real world than with the simulators, but I don't see a reason why City, State, and/or Federal government can't experiment with the idea over 10 to 20 years or so. Note: the differences between tax brackets should be really, really minor. As in, it shouldn't gouge the poor and middle-class bracket's wallets, but rather reflect on how many/much services are being provided by the government(s) (roads, public schools, power, etc.). The cost of these services should therefore dictate the tax rates, and the net sum of the cost of said services and the net income from taxes should be barely above $0 per tax period.

[karajorma]

I always found that with a high tax rate I could build the kind of city my sims wanted to live in, and as a result I had high growth and in fact found the game too easy most of the time.


The "Well they'll take their business elsewhere/won't work as hard" argument is bollocks. If the government is taxing 90% of your 300 million a year salary you're still going to be making more than 40-50 million a year (tax brackets, remember!). If that's so little you don't want to work hard, **** you. Market forces mean that there will be someone willing to work harder for only 30 million a year. Cause that's still a ****load of money.

[redsniper]

It's not 90% of your total income, it's just 90% of the income that's in the highest bracket. So you'd be paying 90% on everything beyond like $300,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Federal_income_tax_rates

[Ghostavo]

Wonderful.  So, to get in the top tier, how much did you have to make?  OK, what's 10% of that?  Why (if I was that rich) would I bother?  What's the point of making all that wealth, just to have the government take it away and use it as they see fit?  Instead, I could probably keep more money by making only 20% of what I would be making at the start of this hypothetical situation, and paying taxes on that.  Yes?  So, in other words, you are punishing those who were successful at generating the most wealth, and encouraging them to either make less, find loopholes, or outright hide their money.

The fact that despite the higher taxes, the people with the most wealth would still earn more probably has something to do with that...

[Nuke]

It's hardly a "loophole"; it's Bush II's "tax cuts".


bit of a tangent:
Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 90%, and nothing bad came of it. So if you want to use the interstate highway system, you should have to pay Eisenhower-era % taxes

i dont like eisenhower. he had a standing order that all cats on the whitehouse lawn be shot on site. that genocidal bastard.

[jr2]

The fact that despite the higher taxes, the people with the most wealth would still earn more probably has something to do with that...

Yes, ok, but regardless, taxes are supposed to be for paying the government for the services / governing that they provide.  Why the **** should the rich pay for themselves and 3,000 others????  It's their money.  Theirs.  Not the government's, not the poor's.  I can see that they need to provide for more given that they have a lot of... assets, and the government needs to govern them and all of those assets, but how does "you have a lot of stuff, so I can take a lot of stuff" get justified?  How?  That's called stealing.  Pay your taxes, 14% of $1,000,000,000 (billion) is 140 million ****ing dollars. That's the ENTIRE INCOME {not tax paid, entire INCOME} of 3,154 AVERAGE US households, PAID.IN.TAXES.TO.THE.GOVERNMENT if someone making $1 billion was taxed at 14%.

Do you see the small little problem here?  Where the **** does the money/work-time go?  Basically, one person, making $1 billion, is sending the government, the working equivalent of 3,000+ average US households' worth of work, full-time, one year {{at 14%}}.  You think that's enough?

90% tax would put that number at 20,275 (20 thousand)

Think about this a little, then tell me you wouldn't get a little motivated to hide some of that if the government just came in and took 20 thousand work-years away from you.  The fact that you have 2,000 (two thousand) years left is overshadowed by the fact that the government just took 10 times that amount from you.

Is the world ending?  Is the country in danger (WW3)?  Then the government has no business doing this ****.


Sorry for the French (language).

EDIT: And sorry for the maths errors.  Fixx0red, I think.  Figures based on average income of $44,389, in 2004

Edit 2: Also fixed the fonts. Italics and bold add more than enough emphasis without this trend catching on. Thanks - Fineus

[The E]

Been reading Ayn Rand again, have we?

I think, however, that you are not going far enough. Why should someone with a high income pay the same tax rate as those less fortunate? After all, as your income grows, your dependence on state-run services lessens, wouldn't it be therefore logical to lessen the relative tax load on the rich? After all, that would give them the opportunity to reinvest more of their money so that wealth trickles down the various strata of society, would it not?

[engage serious mode]

Yeah, no. You want the wealthy to become even more wealthy. You want the gap between the people just scraping by and those who can wipe their asses with diamond-encrusted towels to increase even more.

I'm sorry, but how brainwashed do you have to be to be in favour of a policy that will never, ever be relevant for you (unless, of course, you manage to break through the glass ceiling separating the middle class from the upper levels), and that will only serve to create an environment (in the legal and social sense) that is functionally identical to ye olde aristocracy?

[Polpolion]

*snip, lol*

The 16th amendment has been around for barely shy of 100 years, by continuing to live here you implicitly agree to these terms. If you want to repeal the amendment please explain how this will improve socio-economic mobility in the US. If you can't do that you are perfectly free to seek refuge from the IRS in one of the many beautiful nations that do not collect income taxes. If you are rich enough for your argument to make any amount of sense this will not affect your quality of life.

Do you see the small little problem here?  Where the **** does the money/work-time go?  Basically, one person, making $1 billion, is sending the government, the working equivalent of 3,000+ average US households' worth of work, full-time, one year {{at 14%}}.  You think that's enough?

90% tax would put that number at 20,275 (20 thousand)

Think about this a little, then tell me you wouldn't get a little motivated to hide some of that if the government just came in and took 20 thousand work-years away from you.  The fact that you have 2,000 (two thousand) years left is overshadowed by the fact that the government just took 10 times that amount from you.

I'm quoting this because it's hilarious how you think the kind of person that makes 1,000,000,000USD/year works anywhere near as hard as the kind of person that works at the grocery store full time.

edit2: Just to clarify, it's because it's literally impossible for one person to work 20,275 worker-years. A dude at your typical piss-**** job will make less than $20000/year. If we define how hard to work to be your hourly wage then it's clear that the guy making $1,000,000,000/year is working 50,000 times harder than the guy with the awful job. So if we get all of our CEOs to work in construction sites for a day they'll be able to do what would take a normal worker 50 years. But this isn't the case, you don't always make money based on how hard you work, you don't always deserve the money you get, etc. This is what happens when individuals take credit for something a group did.

[BlueFlames]

First of all:

[quote with cleverly altered date]
{size=12pt}
{b}CAPS!{/b}
[inappropriate, mid-sentence end-punctuation]
{b}{i}{/b}{/i}{/b}
{/size}

None of these things enhance your credibility, and when applied to an entire post or every other sentence, they lose the effect of emphasis, for which you're trying to use them.  In fact, their overuse, in making your post more difficult to read, will lead more people to ignore it.

Then the government has no business doing this ****.

Actually, the government not only has business doing this ****, but an obligation to do this ****.  You see, the government is formed of representatives, elected by citizens.  Those citizens have made it quite clear to their representatives that they want certain services guaranteed.  Those services must be paid for, and therefore the government must raise revenue.

Before you launch into another rant about pork-barrel spending bleeding the wealthy of their dollars, maybe read up on how tax dollars are actually spent.

That's the ENTIRE INCOME {not tax paid, entire INCOME} of 3,154 AVERAGE US households.

Are you suggesting that someone bringing in a billion dollars of taxable income per year is doing the work or contributing an equivilant amount to society (before taxes) of 22,528 average US households?  Likewise, does that mean that someone working a full-time, minimum-wage job is a third of a person?  Be careful, when you create false equivilancies, or they might get turned around on you.

Been reading Ayn Rand again, have we?

Tenuous link to topic:  The Catholic church recently called out Paul Ryan for his long-standing office policy of making Ayn Rand's work required reading among his Congressional staff.  Because the GOP fancies itself the party of God (or at least religiously conservative Christians), within twenty-four hours, he had publicly disowned Ayn Rand's formulation of objectivism, on sole basis of her having been an atheist, yet somehow managed to do so without changing any of his economic policy positions.  Methinks he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.

[Colonol Dekker]

This topic is too numbers, and politics heavy....

I'mma step out now.