The giant Ponzi scheme that is Florida

[Samuel]

There's also the problem that Florida is going to almost entirely disappear into the sea, within our lifetimes. All those new, abandoned houses, soon to be swallowed up.

It won't be that bad- as long as the sea level doesn't go more than 2 meters, most of what will disappear are the barrier islands and the Everglads. Of course, that causes it own problems as they help protect against storms.

[squidman001]

Another thing to point out is that Tourism isn't the only factor fueling our economy. Florida produces a large amount of citrus and other crops. For example, going by this Department of Agriculture link, Florida produced 79.6% of the United State's oranges alone in 2007.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Implementing such a tax in Washington State would be a lot simpler and more politically feasable than a full income tax and I wonder if it isn't being considered.

Even the federal income tax laws disproportionately harm people who save and invest their money, and compounding that by hitting ONLY people who save and invest doesn't strike me as being great policy when virtually every politician has agreed that we should encourage saving and discourage consumption. I can actually see a lot of problems with something like that that might make responsible legislatures really leery of implementing such a scheme.

Saving to most average people doesn't mean investment... The two were conflated only by the upper middle class yuppie set, really. I encountered this one graduate student he's still eagerly playing the market with inheirited wealth or whatever and could just stare blankly and not muster coherent words when he told me that now was the time for me to invest. Of course that might be a personal thing; I'm not desperate to try and have a lot of money to live off of during a retirement, just enough to get through some hard times and handle future adoptions and sending children to college, etc, because I fully intend to work until the age of 95 in some capacity or another (no idle fancy, that, my father is still working at 91).

There are certain kinds of investments I'd make, but really, if I had enough money to make them, I would not be bothered by the minor issue of a couple percent in tax. The issue is that Snohomish County has hit 9.9% unemployment without the latest Boeing layoffs factored in, the rest of the state is at 7.8%, and Snohomish county--one of the big three in the Seattle metro--is probably a bellweather as to where things are headed here. In the circumstances, however, even now a state income tax is simply impossible; it's the third rail of Washington politics. The question of how to make up a billion a year does need to be asked, though, and that's one possibility. What's more likely is that the state will raise the sales tax by a percentage point or two, and follow it with corresponding gas tax and property tax hikes.

[Master of Ossus]

Implementing such a tax in Washington State would be a lot simpler and more politically feasable than a full income tax and I wonder if it isn't being considered.

Even the federal income tax laws disproportionately harm people who save and invest their money, and compounding that by hitting ONLY people who save and invest doesn't strike me as being great policy when virtually every politician has agreed that we should encourage saving and discourage consumption. I can actually see a lot of problems with something like that that might make responsible legislatures really leery of implementing such a scheme.

Saving to most average people doesn't mean investment... The two were conflated only by the upper middle class yuppie set, really. I encountered this one graduate student he's still eagerly playing the market with inheirited wealth or whatever and could just stare blankly and not muster coherent words when he told me that now was the time for me to invest. Of course that might be a personal thing; I'm not desperate to try and have a lot of money to live off of during a retirement, just enough to get through some hard times and handle future adoptions and sending children to college, etc, because I fully intend to work until the age of 95 in some capacity or another (no idle fancy, that, my father is still working at 91).

There are certain kinds of investments I'd make, but really, if I had enough money to make them, I would not be bothered by the minor issue of a couple percent in tax. The issue is that Snohomish County has hit 9.9% unemployment without the latest Boeing layoffs factored in, the rest of the state is at 7.8%, and Snohomish county--one of the big three in the Seattle metro--is probably a bellweather as to where things are headed here. In the circumstances, however, even now a state income tax is simply impossible; it's the third rail of Washington politics. The question of how to make up a billion a year does need to be asked, though, and that's one possibility. What's more likely is that the state will raise the sales tax by a percentage point or two, and follow it with corresponding gas tax and property tax hikes.

First of all, I never claimed in my post that savings and investment are the same thing--indeed, I believe that I used them both as preconditions for all of the issues that raising income taxes creates. However, they do happen to be functionally identical unless you're putting money under your mattress, and that is not a behavior that everyone outside of yuppies engages in.

Finally, I never claimed that this would be a disincentive to savings or investment (although, thinking about it, it probably will at the margin). What I said is that the impact of an income tax is disproportionately felt by them--an unreasonable outcome because we are trying to encourage people to save and invest and discourage consumption.