patrick.net

I say....abolish ALL taxes...yes, all of them..Income, corporate, sales, property, capital gains...everything.

Institute a National VAT of 15-20%. Based on recent GDP numbers, that should be about revenue neutral.

The more you consume, the more VAT you pay. Wanna save money? consume less.

The tax code will end up being a single 8.5x11 page and single spaced at that.

If you are a company "doing business" in the continental US, you collect VAT.

The tax revenue goes to the Federal govt and the states apply for their share from the Feds. But thinking about it further..why should we have different govts anyway?

Abolish all state and local govts. Make them Feds. Single jurisdiction, single law.

Oh and rename the country to United America. Lose the "States of". (I'm just kidding about the name but everything else, I'm serious about.)

state says

umm, tpb, i hate to tell you this but not filling your tank up all the way does not mean you spend less on gas. the only way to spend less on gas is to not drive as much

Sure it does in this day and age where profits are measured by minutes not days and weeks.
By not dropping $70 dollars at one pop in the Greedy ass speculators pockets, the inertia of the Idiot Herd soon gets bored. Thus bringing gas down way down far down in the long run. I don't expect this Oil cat and mouse game to last much longer. THE PEOPLE wont have it.

state says

maybe you should drive less???

i dunno guys, gas in europe costs 8 bucks a gallon and yet somehow they survive

You are aware Europe isn't "A" country, but many countries.
Many small countries many smaller than Duval County Florida, which encompasses all of Jacksonville, the largest City in the US.

More over Europe did...

You know what? Fuck Europe, and fuck $100 Oil, YOU can't have it.
You Greedy asses, go get a REAL job. If I can screw you over, by manipulating the Fickle lemmings into thinking people are driving far less, and spending far less by only putting in enough gas for a day or two, and doing the bulk of shopping down the street at Mom and Pop shops, or online. Then that's what I'll do. It obviously works and I'm not the only one doing it.
and that little piggie went wheeee wheee wheee all the way home, when the Profit report came out.

Income taxes today are lower than they were under Reagan, and yet Chris thinks taxes are too high.

You answered 25 out of 33 correctly — 75.76 %

I'd think some of the questions had nothing to do with Civics and were more Opinions. Also the wording on some questions were ridiculous.

Incorrect Answers

Question: What was the main issue in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858?

Well I disagree:"This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. "-Abraham Lincoln

Question: The Bill of Rights explicitly prohibits:

DOH!

Question: In 1935 and 1936 the Supreme Court declared that important parts of the New Deal were unconstitutional. President Roosevelt responded by threatening to:

Question: What was the source of the following phrase: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”?

Question: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that:

Well why don't we dig them up and Ask them?

Question: A flood-control levee (or National Defense) is considered a public good because:

That's not what Obama has been saying.

Question: The Puritans:

Question: International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?

I stand by my assertion. I was around in the Regan Years.

The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%

That doesn't surprise me at all.
So how did you do, Shrenk?

MJ says

income

Stick to the sections you do enjoy then. I'd say that, at least from my perspective, half of this duet has it's facts straight and the rest are all Bachmann-Palin acolytes.

For example, the "facts" about income tax are untrue...we had income taxes during the Civil war, the Papal States had them and the Han dynasty had them.

That's the problem with Glennbeckistan---facts are indeed pesky.

I got 32 out of 33. Missed the philosopher's question. Too bad I didn't read TOT's gimme of the answers first. Now what? Do I get a gold star?

uestion: What was the main issue in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858?
Your Answer: Is slavery morally wrong?
Correct Answer: Would slavery be allowed to expand to new territories?

***D'oh, that was my first answer, but I changed to the broader choice as I wasn't 100% about it ***

Question: If taxes equal government spending, then:
Your Answer: government debt is zero
Correct Answer: tax per person equals government spending per person on average

Sorry, I'm right on this - If government only spends what it takes in, then there would be no debt!

Question: International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?
Your Answer: a decrease in a nation’s economic growth in the long term
Correct Answer: an increase in a nation’s productivity

Importing goods from abroad does not NECESSARILY help a nation's productivity. That's a THEORY with BOTH positive and negative evidence for and against.

Question: Name one right or freedom guaranteed by the first amendment.
Your Answer: Right to bear arms
Correct Answer: Religion

DUH! Did not read this well enough, I lept to the answer without reading to the end of the question. I do like my guns.

Question: A progressive tax:
Your Answer: encourages more investment from those with higher incomes
Correct Answer: requires those with higher incomes to pay a higher ratio of taxes to income

A higher tax encourages people to plow money back into their investment in the form of machinery, training, etc, as they would rather delay taking profits until later (when taxes might be lower or the gains amplified over time) rather than pay high rates today, esp. if they already have plenty of money to spend.

There is strong evidence for this, when the cap gains was adjusted in 1986, there was an all time record selling of investments, which quickly returned to normal.

Question: The United States Electoral College:
Your Answer: is otherwise known as the U.S. Congress
Correct: is constitutionally mandated

BOTH answers are correct. The electoral college IS Congress AND Constitutionally mandated.

There was a mild bit of Free Trade/Free Markets bias here. Free Trade and Free Markets are NOT explicitly guaranteed in the constitution, BTW. In fact, Tariffs are the ONLY explicitly mentioned source of Federal Income in the unamended, original Constitution.

While I was thinking about this, I found a great movie about the MPAA, called "This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated".

Check it out! It's on Netflixx.

The MPAA has no guidelines, has a secret identity review board, and does not allow filmmakers to compare their films with other films. In other words, "How can you give my movie, which features no violence and just one fully-clothed lesbian make-out scene an NC-17, when you gave American Pie that has a ton of partial and full nudity and a guy with his naked butt in the air trusting into a pie, an R?" cannot be argued by filmmakers when appealing the Rating.

HousingWatcher says

Income taxes today are lower than they were under Reagan, and yet Chris thinks taxes are too high.

I don't remember Reagan being a benchmark or being part of this conversation.

state says

ChrisLA says

private sector trickling down entire supply chain of businesses.

supply side/trick down economics has been disproven over and over and yet you still believe this.

Thats because I live this side of business. I don't care if someone wrote a fancy paper being a devils advocate, in reality supply side chain does trickle.

"in reality supply side chain does trickle."

And it has done a GREAT job hasn't it, with 9% unemployment, right?

What are the three branches of government?

a) executive, legislative, judicial - real answer.

c) bureaucratic, military, industry - more in line with todays reality.

ChrisLA says

What are the three branches of government?
a) executive, legislative, judicial - real answer.
c) bureaucratic, military, industry - more in line with todays reality.

Haha, yeah agreed.

I think though that I would put "corporate" rather than "industry". The word industry indicates that goods are actually being produced, and a lot of the financial/banking corporations do not actually produce anything.

thunderlips11 says

While I was thinking about this, I found a great movie about the MPAA, called “This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated”.

Check it out! It’s on Netflixx.

It is worth watching. No surprise that the MPAA has easier standards for the studios than the independents.

Thanks to such newer media players such as Netflix (patting themselves on the back) the MPAA and the studios are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

HousingWatcher says

“in reality supply side chain does trickle.”
And it has done a GREAT job hasn’t it, with 9% unemployment, right?

They take it out and we'll have a much higher unemployment. 9% although is high, could be a lot higher if government starts taxing us more and spending via unproductive endeavors.

The less money is in a private sector, and/or the less efficient the money is, the less the private sector will grow or even worth may shrink instead of grow (as of lately).

Cook County resident says

Thanks to such newer media players such as Netflix (patting themselves on the back) the MPAA and the studios are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

What's cool about the movie, in the credits it was partially financed and marketed by Netflixx.

It's a great service, and long overdue.

What's the point of a "poll test"? It's just another way to justify denying people their voting rights.

Excellent! Amazon should be taxed so California can fund our schools and much needed services. All big business need to pay their fair share.

shrekgrinch says

Economically, fascism’s main difference between socialism and capitalism via the vehicle of corporatism is thus: Ownership remains in private hands but is so heavily regulated & controlled by the State so that said ‘ownership’ could even be considered meaningless in the extreme.

That's incorrect. In a fascist state, the government does not regulate corporations. Instead, the government gives corporations the right to do whatever they please. Corporations have all the rights and the people are subservient to the corporations and function literally as a mere item on the income statement; that is, an expense that is to be minimized or eliminated altogether. In a fascist state, people have no rights and exist to obey orders from the corporation they work in. if you do not work, then you should be dead as you are not producing.

Since the corporations have all the rights, people are also subject to the whims and racism of the "management"/dictators. The "corporate culture" is extended out towards society.

It was Mussolini that coined the term "fascism". When reporters asked him what that word meant, he just said, "the corporate state".

IG Farbin, in Nazi Germany, was the largest corporation at the time. They produced the Zyklon B gas that was used in concentration camps.

shrekgrinch says

Fascists also are big on practicing autarky (or autarchy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autarky

I think that North Korea is the only surviving modern example of an autarkic economy. The Japanese practiced it prior to the Meiji Restoration, I believe.

That's false. It merely reinforces the right-wing lie that fascism and socialism/communism are 2 sides of the same coin. Fascism and socialism/communism are separate and distinct and are polar opposites.

It's yet another stupid move by our legislature. If Amazon follows through with their threat (which I'd expect and hope any internet company should do to any org trying to regulate the interwebs) about 10,000 small business owners in our state will be screwed.

After that folks like myself will find another way around it.

We are like a boiling frog (although I guess maybe it's not true about the frogs).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

For many right wingers, since 2000 or so, it's been starting to feel like a nice tranquil hot tub. Ahhhhhhh.

state says

maybe you should drive less???

It isn't joy rides. Office is 50 miles away.

I'm not in any position to move either. Downside of being stuck to to area.

shrekgrinch says

Again, why should they? They don’t get any government services that those who pay sales tax in California get from Sacramento/local governments.

been saying the same thing.

I think a lot of people just don't get the point of taxes. They are ok with being taxes just for the sake of being taxed. They forget why taxes are there in the first place.

Just because I do occasional business with people Washington does not mean I should pay Washington state taxes. Their police, firefighters, teachers, etc... aren't going to help me.

leoj707 says

ChrisLA says

What are the three branches of government?

a) executive, legislative, judicial - real answer.

c) bureaucratic, military, industry - more in line with todays reality.

Haha, yeah agreed.
I think though that I would put “corporate” rather than “industry”. The word industry indicates that goods are actually being produced, and a lot of the financial/banking corporations do not actually produce anything.
Cute Ganesha

Here is the other one:

Free enterprise or capitalism exists insofar as:

1) experts managing the nation’s commerce are appointed by elected officials - How our government works lately.

2) individual citizens create, exchange, and control goods and resources - What it should be.

shrekgrinch says

Mother Muckraker says
What’s the point of a “poll test”? It’s just another way to justify denying people their voting rights.
Given the number of uneducated morons voting, that’s a good thing.

I thought you liked to vote though Shrek?

But the latest slowdown signs, unwelcome as they are, point toward a bit of relief from the commodity scourge. Already we have seen indications that U.S. demand for gasoline has been softened by pump prices near $4 a gallon, with the MasterCard index of gasoline demand consistently showing 1% or so declines in recent months.

So far, pump prices have fallen less than half as much as the cost of the crude oil that gasoline is refined from, as producers run off existing stocks and keep an eye peeled for new supply shocks.

But if the U.S. economy keeps sputtering and the world can avoid another Middle East flare-up, it is likely that gasoline prices will weaken further – which could put a bit more cash in pocketbooks in the second half.

Thank I'll ratchet down to no more than $10 a pop at the pump.

Just two and a half measly Gallons each visit. I'm sure I can get these numbers do better.
Nobody deserves that much Profit off the Gas I put in my tank or the Oil the Arabs pull out of the ground, and only value at $30 a barrel. It's the Greedy ass fuckwads here in the states that think they are "ENTITLED" to it.

Burn baby Burn...

[TOT fanning the flames with the JOBS report just released today]
Stick around there will be marshmallows.

"9% although is high, could be a lot higher if government starts taxing us more and spending via unproductive endeavors."

You right. Thank goodness the unofficial U6 unemployment rate is not 16%. Thank goodness the govt. is not taxing the sh*t out of us or we woud certainly have 16% U6 unemployment. Oh wait, we have that now.

Peak unemployment during Eisenhower, when the top tax rate was 91%, was 7%. So yes, taxes destroy jobs. All hail supply side economics.

ChrisLA says

for me alone it costs around 500/month, my wife about half of that. ~40% of income is taxes, $750 on gas monthly. At this rate I haven’t bought anything yet or fed my family and already lost a huge chunk of my income. Lovely how this system works.

This is insane. Unless you in some very special circumstances (debris hauling business or something like that) , this can only mean you are driving too much, driving a very wrong kind of vehicle, driving extremely inefficiently, or maybe all three.

it was a different time. stagflation was running amok during Carters term. Tax code still had so many loopholes that you could make a million and pay less taxes than someone making 20,000. China and Europe wasn't kicking our butt either in manufacturing yet.

ChrisLA says

I’ve spent roughly 500 on gas last month. It is insane.

Why? How much did you pay for your car(s)? For insurance?

Or may be you think a piece of iron should cost more than the energy to operate it?

ChrisLA says

state says
It isn’t joy rides. Office is 50 miles away.
I’m not in any position to move either. Downside of being stuck to to area.

being stuck to to area. What's this? One can't allow to be stuck to an area.

ChrisLA says

we are doing the same. it is just insane how much it costs now. for me alone it costs around 500/month, my wife about half of that. ~40% of income is taxes, $750 on gas monthly. At this rate I haven’t bought anything yet or fed my family and already lost a huge chunk of my income. Lovely how this system works.

It makes no sense. 50mi to office is just 100 round trip. Assuming 22 business days it's 2200 miles a month. To burn $500 a month you need a dinosaur that makes 18mpg on freeway.

kc6zlv says

So how is California going to go about enforcing a California State Law on a business in another state?

This happens all the time now in inter-State commerce. Also this happens under reciprocal agreements between States who have State residents who work over state lines in another state.

Where I come from originally, Illinois, we were required by State Law to pay "the Illinois difference" when we bought something out of State. Does anyone actually do it? No. You have to keep receipts and you have to figure out how much you owe on your own. You report it on your Illinois Income Tax form and pay the difference. The only time this really got enforced, in my experience, was on big purchases like a car. In Illinois, what mattered most was that you are an Illinois Resident and as an Illinois Resident you are subject to Illinois sales taxes wherever you purchase anything. The neighboring states usually had lower sales taxes (not by much). So Illinois figured that enforcement was much too expensive on small ticket items when you are talking about a 1% difference.

The law already exists that if you are a resident of the State where the online company is located, you must pay your sales tax to your State. Many sites already charge sales taxes for all States. Amazon doesn't. Now they will be forced to do this as more States get wise to the sales tax revenues that they are missing as commerce continues to grow online and shrink in real physical brick and mortar stores.

I don't see the problem here. Once this becomes a universal practice, there won't be any cost disadvantage. As a resident of the State of California you are already legally obligated to pay your sales tax, and I believe you are, even if you buy something from out of State. If I'm not mistaken, the Franchise Tax Board already has a form to submit with your State Income Taxes for this express purpose.

If Amazon and all the other online stores collected the sales tax for us, it would be much easier to comply with the current law as it is. This would be a service to the customer. And it would recoup the sales taxes lost because online retailers are causing physical real brick and mortar stores to close at an increasing rate and commerce is happening online more and more.

Right now Amazon and the rest have an unfair price advantage over the physical brick and mortar stores that must collect sales tax. That's one reason for the huge move of commerce from physical stores to online stores. Many things are cheaper online if you eliminate sales tax. Why should Amazon or any online store continue to enjoy an unfair price advantage? They are competing with the physical brick and mortar stores. Aren't the wing nuts around here supposed to be all for "competition" as the solution to every economic problem? Oh, that's right. Competition is the solution only if you can get an unfair tax or price advantage by moving your business out of State or out of the country. I keep forgetting about that.

Stop whining. Those of us who shop online have been tax dodging for years. This was going to happen eventually once government caught up with the technology.

Taxpayer says

If you go to eat a burger, your bill doesn’t depend on your income. Asking people to pay 3% of their income towards SS is like saying your burger cost is 3 % of your daily income. Some people will be asked to pay $3 and some people will be asked to pay $300 - to eat the same burger. Makes no sense at all.

Buying burgers and paying taxes are two different transactions, last time I checked. Both transactions have different rules and laws applied to them.

Purchases of items customarily carry a flat price that everyone pays.

Taxes can be levied paid in percentage of value, price, income, etc. or a flat fee per transaction. This is the way it's always been throughout history, when a civilization had mathematics that included both fractional and interger operations.

The argument you make is null.

sarcasm

thunderlips11 says

Since the official title for the NSDAP was the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, therefore the Nazis must have been Socialist in the same vein as a French or Swedish party with the word “Social” or “Socialism” was Socialist!

So are the following political parties actually "Christian" by virtue of their names?

Christian Democratic Union, Armenia
Belarusian Christian Democracy, Belarus
Federal Christian Democrats, Belgium
Bulgarian Christian Coalition, Bulgaria
Estonian Christian Democrats, Estonia
Christian-Democratic Movement, Georgia (The country, not the State)
Party of Bible-abiding Christians, Germany
Christian Democratic Union, Germany
Christian Democratic Union, Latvia
Lithuanian Christian Democrats, Lithuania
Christian-Democratic People's Party, Moldova (Oh noes! A Commie Christian political party! Say it ain't so!)
ChristianUnion, Switzerland
Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party, Romania (Peasants can form a political party? Not in my America!)
Christian Democratic Union, Ukraine
Christian Peoples Alliance, UK

???

I don't know how this can be true because so many of those political party names have the name "Democratic" or "Democrats" in them. We all know that the Democratic Party and the Democrats are Satanic and definitely not Christian, don't we?

/sarcasm

thunderlips11 says

Yep, my sarcasm button was on. Previous post amended.

Me too. And, me too. :-)

Taxpayer says

That is also why 2 of the biggest govt expenditures (medicare , SS) are for the benefit of the poor (votebank).

Um, no... They benefit not just the poor but also the middle class. Or at least they benefit what was the middle class that is sliding into a class called "the working poor."

Taxpayer says

Everyone should pay the proportionate cost according to their benefits.

That's how it works now for at least two kinds of government run insurance programs. We pay a percentage in unemployment insurance and social security insurance based on our incomes. When we go to collect unemployment benefits and social security benefits, our benefit payments are based on a percentage of our incomes directly proportional to what we paid as a percentage of our incomes.

Medicare Insurance is an exception.

Taxpayer says

Your health insurance doesn’t depend on your income.

Not necessarily true if you try to buy individual private health insurance. And it isn't necessarily true for employer sponsored health insurance.

Individual private health insurance premiums fluctuate by geographic region and even by credit score besides the health and age of the individual. Credit score is somewhat connected to income. And premiums are charged per individual case on various factors that don't necessarily include the condition of one's body.

Employer sponsored health insurance benefits and premiums can be based on income. Many employers have tiered health insurance plans. If you are a worker bee, you have the tier selected for the worker bees. If you are a middle level manager, you have the tier selected for middle level managers. If you are in upper management, you have the tier selected for upper level managers. If you are CEO, then you may be in a class all by yourself. We all know that the higher up you are on the flow chart of a workplace, the more income you have. Therefore, those who earn the most pay be paying less for better benefits because they get the platinum packages that the plebs who are worker bees can't access.

Similarly, employers often have tiered retirement plans. They are based on your position. Pay and therefore income is also based on your position. Usually the higher on the flow chart, the higher the pay/income, the better the retirement plan, the larger the payments into the retirement plan, etc.

Taxpayer says

The closest analogy to SS is health insurance.

Social Security Insurance is vastly different to health insurance. These are apples and oranges. To compare the two is meaningless.

Taxpayer says

Anyway, discussing about taxes is a distraction.

No, it's not. Instead of insurance premiums, we pay taxes for government run insurance plans. In the governmental sector taxes are our premiums. Premiums and taxes are not directly comparable either. To compare the two are almost meaningless.

"That is also why 2 of the biggest govt expenditures (medicare , SS) are for the benefit of the poor (votebank)."

Um, no. Medicare and SS go to everyone regardless of income. Warren Buffett gets a SS check and Medicare. The only entitlement that is only for the poor is Medicaid.