Grover Norquist and the Republicans have betrayed the US military!

[Deleted]

Except that's not what you talk about. You talk about gutting the government and entirealy redoing our system of governance.

No. It's not feasible to redo it entirely. I'm simply stating which parts of the government are bad and for what reason.

And I have a formal education in politics so you can bite me.

Well that doesn't mean you're knowledgeable about economics does it?

Your wrong because your perspective is wrong. Because you have "all the comforts" while demanding that people shouldn't have them.

I think your perception of Finland is very skewed. The welfare state certainly isn't free, we pay for them in other ways.

Overall tax rate, income, payroll etc.

"etc." ? Pretty important to know what exactly that is. Mostly interested how the total tax burden on the US economy has developed. If you only mean wage related taxes have gone down, then ok.

[the1skate]

This is getting stupid. You're the board austrian. Your views are austrian. When you express your views youre bringing up austrian economics.

Can we get back to Norquist and how he sank the debt commission?

Was he even mentioned in that article beside in the title?

[Sunseeker]

No. It's not feasible to redo it entirely. I'm simply stating which parts of the government are bad and for what reason.

Using bad reasoning and poor historical context. Your arguments generally rely on how many times you've said "obviously".

Well that doesn't mean you're knowledgeable about economics does it?

Doesn't make you very knowledgeable about politics does it?
...I could do this tit-for-tat all day BTW.

I think your perception of Finland is very skewed. The welfare state certainly isn't free, we pay for them in other ways.

yes you have significantly higher income, sales and other taxes. I'm well aware of that. But that isn't my point: Is it or is it not working quite well?
Maybe you could tell me how much your higher education cost?
Or maybe you could tell me how much you paid for your last hospital visit(out of pocket costs only)?
Or maybe you could tell me what the quality of your roads are like?
Or perhaps you'd like to talk about your various public transportation systems, their quality and their technological levels?

[Wells]

Was he even mentioned in that article beside in the title?

If you follow the news you'll know Norquist was behind the push to get revenue off the table entirely.

He was often called the 13th committee member.

Isn't this graph incomplete though? These are income tax rates right? Does it include the lowering of the capital gains taxes, etc?

Its all federal taxes.

[Sunseeker]

Was he even mentioned in that article beside in the title?

Yes, by Democrats quoting Republicans who claimed they "made a promise" to Grover(which can be attested to by how many senators and representatives have signed his "pledge", this is public information) that they would oppose ANY and ALL tax increases.

[Deleted]

Our tax burdens have gone down since the Bush tax cuts. It's not so much the rates as it is the enormous amount of deductions that went along with it, too. We gotta stop doing those, they're obfuscating the problem, and making it so difficult to understand what's fair for each given income level.

Yes you need the effective tax rates as well as remember corporate tax.

And I agree. Close loopholes. Then bring down taxes across the board to reflect the increased taxation caused by removal of loopholes.

[Deleted]

yes you have significantly higher income, sales and other taxes. I'm well aware of that. But that isn't my point: Is it or is it not working quite well?

It's working well relative to other nations in Europe, yes. Why? Because we were fiscally sound. We didn't spend like idiots with massive deficits.

But if the US would try to emulate Finland, it would fail massively. US has proven itself to be poor at handling most government programs, with massive spending as a result.

[Wells]

It would be interesting to see a graph similar to yours that breaks it down even further, such as how much of the average tax rate applies to capital gains, etc.

I may be showing my ineptness, but I assume this graph considers average tax rate to be amount paid/income, right? I wonder what it would look like if it was calculated as amount paid/AGI. That would give us a good indicator of how much deductions play into this, right?

Yes. Its effective tax rate as percentage of yearly gains. So capital gains is in there too. Tax rates on paper are pretty meaningless.

I'm all for simplifying the tax rate. Things like tax cuts based on dependents or higher educational pursuits are good things of course but the system could be simplified. Once we do that we can see what the tax rates are like and adjust accordingly.

---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 10:26 PM ----------

It's working well relative to other nations in Europe, yes. Why? Because we were fiscally sound. We didn't spend like idiots with massive deficits.

But if the US would try to emulate Finland, it would fail massively. US has proven itself to be poor at handling most government programs, with massive spending as a result.

Our social programs are routinely poison pilled by people who want them to fail. So yeah a system doesn't work well when half the people running it want it to go down.

[Dacien]

Well the bottom line for me is that I believe government has it in their best interest to make people dependent upon them, thus making it easier to part those people from their money. They then provide mediocre services while giving themselves eye-popping salaries and pensions, not to mention perks of government like legalized insider trading, which they prosecute the private sector for. Hell, even that cop who pepper sprayed those UC Davis students made $110,000 a year.

Grover Norquist stands as a bulwark against this by working to starve the beast.

[Wells]

Well the bottom line for me is that I believe government has it in their best interest to make people dependent upon them, thus making it easier to part those people from their money. They then provide mediocre services while giving themselves eye-popping salaries and pensions, not to mention perks of government like legalized insider trading, which they prosecute the private sector for. Hell, even that cop who pepper sprayed those UC Davis students made $110,000 a year.

Grover Norquist stands as a bulwark against this by working to starve the beast.

Norquist stands for ineffectual government, not small government. The people he works for don't want small government. They want a large inept and corrupt one they can use to their ends.

You're acting like he's a libertarian but he's a neo-liberal in sheep's clothing.

[Sunseeker]

It's working well relative to other nations in Europe, yes. Why? Because we were fiscally sound. We didn't spend like idiots with massive deficits.

But if the US would try to emulate Finland, it would fail massively. US has proven itself to be poor at handling most government programs, with massive spending as a result.

That I believe is the fault of our political system. When you have folks who will say "NO" even when it is actively damaging the country just because they made some deal with some random guy, that's where the problem stands. And I'm not saying Democrats are immune to this either. We a simply too divided and because of that we flip flop between "spend" and "dont spend" that the systems the government created are either flooded with money or they're starved for it.

Proper spending cuts will come from when we cut the bloat and even the flow, not from eliminating entire sections of government.

[Wells]

You're better at scouring for information than I am, Wells, so I'd love it if you could find some kind of chart that shows the effective tax rate based on total income, compared to the effective tax rate based on adjusted gross income(deductions)...if we subtract one from the other we should be able to see the clear impact that deductions have on our tax liability.

I'm a little busy at the moment. I had that other one on hand.

[Sunseeker]

Grover Norquist stands as a bulwark against this by working to starve the beast.

Do you HAVE to idolize every conservative who gets their 15 minutes of fame? Last week it was Cain, now it's Grover.

Grover isn't standing as a bulwark to anything, he's not starving the beast. He's killing the nation though absolutist, illogical rhetoric and uncompromising policy. We cannot have a functioning country and government without compromise. ANYONE who stands in the way of rational compromise is a threat to the security and strength of the USA.

[Deleted]

Our social programs are routinely poison pilled by people who want them to fail. So yeah a system doesn't work well when half the people running it want it to go down.

They're poison pilled by people who want to turn the program into a cash cow for some special interest group. Same happens in Finland but everything we do is so much more local.

Every democratic decision is so much more democratic because it's done so much closer to the people. You can't do that with a Federal Government overseeing 300 million people as well as with a Government overseeing a people only 1,7% size of the US.

EU tried to oversee multiple nations, and failed totally.

[Dacien]

Do you HAVE to idolize every conservative who gets their 15 minutes of fame? Last week it was Cain, now it's Grover.

Grover isn't standing as a bulwark to anything, he's not starving the beast. He's killing the nation though absolutist, illogical rhetoric and uncompromising policy. We cannot have a functioning country and government without compromise. ANYONE who stands in the way of rational compromise is a threat to the security and strength of the USA.

Norquist has been on my radar for a year or so now.

I liked Norquist before it was cool. I'm a political hipster!

[Wells]

They're poison pilled by people who want to turn the program into a cash cow for some special interest group.

The point stands.

[the1skate]

Overall tax rate, income, payroll etc.

What's important to note is how much more the top tax rate has dropped as compared to everyone else. This is the kind of thing that pisses off liberals and contributes to the current wealth disparity.

Most american's taxes have gone down by 3-5% since 1985. The top 1%'s has gone down 10%.

And yet according to the chart the top 1% are still paying a rate 7x higher than the bottom 50%. Why be pissed off that they pay 7 times as much of their income in taxes than I do? Doesn't make sense to me.

[Dacien]

Do you HAVE to idolize every conservative who gets their 15 minutes of fame? Last week it was Cain, now it's Grover.

Grover isn't standing as a bulwark to anything, he's not starving the beast. He's killing the nation though absolutist, illogical rhetoric and uncompromising policy. We cannot have a functioning country and government without compromise. ANYONE who stands in the way of rational compromise is a threat to the security and strength of the USA.

If one way is the right way, you fight for it.

[Wells]

And yet according to the chart the top 1% are still paying a rate 7x higher than the bottom 50%. Why be pissed off that they pay 7 times as much of their income in taxes than I do? Doesn't make sense to me.

Funny, because progressive taxation dates back prior to Adam Smith. I'm not going to bother going down that far.

---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 10:35 PM ----------

Compromise assumes both sides are wrong.

Compromise assumes both sides have a right to their share in governing.

Which they do.

[Dacien]

Compromise assumes both sides have a right to their share in governing.

Which they do.

That was a poorly thought out sentence. You're quick!