Master of Ossus rants about American IncomeTax

[KrauserKrauser]

I definitely understand MoO's stance on this issue. Obama is going to decrease taxes on 3/4 of the population and increase on 1/4 of the population. MoO believes that if there is going to be any tax increase, everyone should feel the pain, not just one certain segment. I empathize with that statement and in a perfect world, would agree that this would be the case.

Broom and DW's point that the income tax only argument is a bit disengenious as the poor do pay into the system via the US system of taxation and this is only one tax, which an increase in for the poor would result in the lowest returns from in any case. Up their share a significant margin and you have created no massive difference. I would propose that were you to be sharing the pain, go for an increase in consumption taxes via sales tax, etc. that the poor currently do pay into and really can't avoid for the most part.

Wealthier people, I would think, would more concerned with his proposed increases to the Captial Gains rate, which will stymie investment which I would think would be a much greater concern in a staggering economy.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I definitely understand MoO's stance on this issue. Obama is going to decrease taxes on 3/4 of the population and increase on 1/4 of the population. MoO believes that if there is going to be any tax increase, everyone should feel the pain, not just one certain segment.

Why?

I empathize with that statement

Why?

and in a perfect world, would agree that this would be the case.

Next time you want to use "and in a perfect world" to self-effacingly try to justify untenable positions, replace "perfect world" with "ridiculous, imaginary, meaningless world" in your head, and just don't bother.

Broom and DW's point that the income tax only argument is a bit disengenious as the poor do pay into the system via the US system of taxation and this is only one tax, which an increase in for the poor would result in the lowest returns from in any case. Up their share a significant margin and you have created no massive difference. I would propose that were you to be sharing the pain, go for an increase in consumption taxes via sales tax, etc. that the poor currently do pay into and really can't avoid for the most part.

Why? Why would this create better outcomes than the Obama policy? It seems all the conservatives have left is grumpy-faced shit on principle. With no tangible benefits whatsoever.

[folti78]

I definitely understand MoO's stance on this issue. Obama is going to decrease taxes on 3/4 of the population and increase on 1/4 of the population. MoO believes that if there is going to be any tax increase, everyone should feel the pain, not just one certain segment. I empathize with that statement and in a perfect world, would agree that this would be the case.

Does your perfect world takes into account that tax rate for the highest bracket decresed to nearly 1/3 since the early '60s (nice graph)

[Terralthra]

Honestly, MoO's childhood poverty may be the root of his attitudes. While some formerly poor has sympathy for those who remain in poverty because they remember what it was like, others hate it, believing that it was their personal virtues alone that brought them up from poverty to wealth. Therefore, the still poor are lazy, undeserving assholes who deserve to be disdained. Your most virulent Objectivists are always formerly cash-strapped ex-poor, entrepreneurs, self-made types. People like that. Apparently they think an ideology that flatters them and works for a virtuous and capable few is a sound model to apply to all society, on principle alone.

This is an appeal to motive. It carries no logical weight.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Honestly, MoO's childhood poverty may be the root of his attitudes. While some formerly poor has sympathy for those who remain in poverty because they remember what it was like, others hate it, believing that it was their personal virtues alone that brought them up from poverty to wealth. Therefore, the still poor are lazy, undeserving assholes who deserve to be disdained. Your most virulent Objectivists are always formerly cash-strapped ex-poor, entrepreneurs, self-made types. People like that. Apparently they think an ideology that flatters them and works for a virtuous and capable few is a sound model to apply to all society, on principle alone.

This is an appeal to motive. It carries no logical weight.

Except I never said, "the reason that Ossus is wrong is because of his psychological motivations"; I said that it is common that people have common attitudes with a common background. I was noting something I think exists and was interesting. Your comment is factually wrong for the same reason why listing why a person is wrong then calling him a motherfucker is not an ad hominem.

[erik_t]

Honestly, MoO's childhood poverty may be the root of his attitudes. While some formerly poor has sympathy for those who remain in poverty because they remember what it was like, others hate it, believing that it was their personal virtues alone that brought them up from poverty to wealth. Therefore, the still poor are lazy, undeserving assholes who deserve to be disdained. Your most virulent Objectivists are always formerly cash-strapped ex-poor, entrepreneurs, self-made types. People like that. Apparently they think an ideology that flatters them and works for a virtuous and capable few is a sound model to apply to all society, on principle alone.

This is an appeal to motive. It carries no logical weight.

DUHR I USED A SMARTPHRASE FROM THE RULES!

If only you could have read IP's post and considered whether or not your smartphrase was in any way applicable...

[Pablo Sanchez]

Wealthier people, I would think, would more concerned with his proposed increases to the Captial Gains rate, which will stymie investment which I would think would be a much greater concern in a staggering economy.

Justify this statement. The Capital Gains rate was slashed by the Bush tax cuts and the USA is currently enjoying the worst economic performance since WWII.

[Terralthra]

Honestly, MoO's childhood poverty may be the root of his attitudes. While some formerly poor has sympathy for those who remain in poverty because they remember what it was like, others hate it, believing that it was their personal virtues alone that brought them up from poverty to wealth. Therefore, the still poor are lazy, undeserving assholes who deserve to be disdained. Your most virulent Objectivists are always formerly cash-strapped ex-poor, entrepreneurs, self-made types. People like that. Apparently they think an ideology that flatters them and works for a virtuous and capable few is a sound model to apply to all society, on principle alone.

This is an appeal to motive. It carries no logical weight.

Except I never said, "the reason that Ossus is wrong is because of his psychological motivations"; I said that it is common that people have common attitudes with a common background. I was noting something I think exists and was interesting. Your comment is factually wrong for the same reason why listing why a person is wrong then calling him a motherfucker is not an ad hominem.

Except you didn't say anything about his argument at all. You simply went on a diatribe about something you think he feels (with no evidence at all, really), and wholely unrelated to his argument. You may have been talking about something you found 'interesting,' but it still carries no logical weight in a thread which is discussing Master of Ossus's objections to Obama's proposed tax policy. So, you're right. It's not an appeal to motive. It's a red herring. Happy?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Except you didn't say anything about his argument at all. You simply went on a diatribe about something you think he feels (with no evidence at all, really), and wholely unrelated to his argument. You may have been talking about something you found 'interesting,' but it still carries no logical weight in a thread which is discussing Master of Ossus's objections to Obama's proposed tax policy. So, you're right. It's not an appeal to motive. It's a red herring. Happy?

No, red herrings are things you bring up deliberately in order to derail the argument. All I did was bring up something as a side-comment without engaging the central argument at all. People do this constantly, wondering about people's motivations and the sociological and personal ramifications of political positions and sympathies. At best you could call what I did a thread hijack (then what do you think your one-off snipe is, or continuing to drag out your little tiff?), but why don't we cut the shit and admit you're here again saving face after saying something stupid?

[Stark]

Red didn't link his speculation to the validity of MoO's arguments. It might be irrelevant, but he in no way claimed this speculation had any impact on the arguments flying around.

[Terralthra]

No, red herrings are things you bring up deliberately in order to derail the argument. All I did was bring up something as a side-comment without engaging the central argument at all. People do this constantly, wondering about people's motivations and the sociological and personal ramifications of political positions and sympathies. At best you could call what I did a thread hijack (then what do you think your one-off snipe is, or continuing to drag out your little tiff?), but why don't we cut the shit and admit you're here again saving face after saying something stupid?

I'm sorry, were you trying to give me an example of an appeal to motive, so I would know it better in the future?

Red didn't link his speculation to the validity of MoO's arguments. It might be irrelevant, but he in no way claimed this speculation had any impact on the arguments flying around.

He may not have made a direct link to the validity of the argument, but the diatribe as a while certainly carried the implication that Illuminatus Primus believed Master of Ossus to be advocating against Obama's policy ideologically and irrationally without coming out and saying so directly. If that's untrue, then my apologies for reading that implication in the pointed insults.

[Illuminatus Primus]

He may not have made a direct link to the validity of the argument, but the diatribe as a while certainly carried the implication that Illuminatus Primus believed Master of Ossus to be advocating against Obama's policy ideologically and irrationally without coming out and saying so directly. If that's untrue, then my apologies for reading that implication in the pointed insults.

Oh, right. I am the one reading motivation and intent into another's statements. Righteeo.

[Master of Ossus]

Which is not a materially different value--justice is based on natural law, fairness, and equity, is it not?

Equity would see both parties in any criminal dispute punished the same. Equity would see a three-time DUI and you paying the same rate for car insurance. Mindless equity is not a virtue.

But would you disagree that justice is based on those principles? If not, then why push justice as some gold standard while denigrating "fairness," "equity," and "natural law?"

This does not follow. Nobody wants to pay for anything. Zero taxes would make the most popular politician EVAR!

Cite some kind of reputable poll or concede that you haven't the foggiest idea if the rest of the population is as self-centered as you.

I concede that I'm not sure about the infrastructural thing, but I still contend that it's irresponsible to fund increased spending while simultaneously and significantly cutting taxes on a very large segment of the population while simultaneously raising taxes on another subset of it.

[Master of Ossus]

Poor people live on less than what you do all the time. Success is not guaranteed to anyone, you can work your ass off and still be poor. This is just another way of saying the poor are poor because they deserve it. Blame the victim.

Let's be honest with ourselves, Broomstick:

How many destitute doctors are there in this country? Engineers? Scientists? Mathematicians? Operations Researchers? Lawyers? Success may not be GUARANTEED to such people, but you're lying to yourself if you think that there is no correlation.

A few posts ago you said less than 40% - which is it? Your numbers are all hell and gone in this thread, which is unlike you, MoO. Your thrashing around because nothing supports your position.

It's between 39 and 40 percent, as I've shown. Now will you address the fact that this is a very large fraction of the populace?

We have already demonstrated that even people who, thanks to deductions, do not pay Federal income tax most assuredly DO pay taxes. Stop trotting this bullshit out.

Yet they contribute nothing to the general budget, which is what finances projects like the infrastructure improvements that people here are clamoring for. It's easy for people who don't pay for things to say that we should build more of them.

On the other hand, letting people starve because there is no work is not a solution, either. The proposal isn't to simply throw money at people - it's to give people employment in exchange for money, with the results of that employment being tangible assets that will benefit the country for a long time to come.

Like what? Better power lines in CA? We don't need those--the system easily managed a 1/100 year event in 2006. In fact, I don't even think the state needed to trigger its emergency response mechanism during that heat storm.

Speaking as someone caught in this mess, I would have much preferred to work at a government job building roads or insulating schools or doing some other infrastructure project than simply sitting at home receiving a temporary unemployment benefit and feeling useless. By the way, did I mention that I pay Federal income tax on my unemployment benefits? If I had a government infrastructure job I'd be paying taxes on that, too. And the nation would be getting some benefit from not only my tax money but my labor as well. Why is this a problem for you? Alternatively, if I have no job at all there is no tax money from me at all.

Because, as we have shown, many of these people wouldn't actually be paying taxes--fully 39% of tax returns filed have zero liability.

[Master of Ossus]

But historically, we've taxed the wealthy a lot more in the past than we do today; between the early 80s and today, the tax burden shifted considerably from corporations and the wealthy, to the middle class. At least, that's what I've heard. So, it's okay to favor the wealthy with tax cuts, as has happened this decade, but it's not okay to reverse that trend?

Actually, our income tax right now is quite high in historical terms. The highest marginal rate is not as high as it was in the 1960's, but high-income individuals now bear a greater share of the income tax burden than they have since the 1920's (see, for example, the chart posted earlier). Moreover, in 1986 the highest marginal tax rate was cut to 28% and effective for a few of those years. It rose steadily until 2002, when the Bush tax cuts temporarily reduced it "down" to 35% (I haven't followed it closely enough to know whether that cut was extended or not).

[Darth Wong]

Which is not a materially different value--justice is based on natural law, fairness, and equity, is it not?

Equity would see both parties in any criminal dispute punished the same. Equity would see a three-time DUI and you paying the same rate for car insurance. Mindless equity is not a virtue.

But would you disagree that justice is based on those principles?

That's precisely what he said: justice is not based on simple equity.

If not, then why push justice as some gold standard while denigrating "fairness," "equity," and "natural law?"

I'm curious if you actually read his quote before responding to it.

I concede that I'm not sure about the infrastructural thing, but I still contend that it's irresponsible to fund increased spending while simultaneously and significantly cutting taxes on a very large segment of the population while simultaneously raising taxes on another subset of it.

Why? Because you say so? Because you take it for granted that an extra tax burden on a particular group is always wrong as a matter of principle, thus making your entire argument circular because your premise is the same as your conclusion?

[erik_t]

Which is not a materially different value--justice is based on natural law, fairness, and equity, is it not?

Equity would see both parties in any criminal dispute punished the same. Equity would see a three-time DUI and you paying the same rate for car insurance. Mindless equity is not a virtue.

But would you disagree that justice is based on those principles? If not, then why push justice as some gold standard while denigrating "fairness," "equity," and "natural law?"

I would have difficulty defining justice. Equality would be a few bullet points down, though, and it would certainly be qualified in some manner. Again, I do not see any utility whatsoever in blind equality. Harrison Bergeron lived in a society much more equal than just.

I concede that I'm not sure about the infrastructural thing, but I still contend that it's irresponsible to fund increased spending while simultaneously and significantly cutting taxes on a very large segment of the population while simultaneously raising taxes on another subset of it.

I would be strongly sympathetic to this point of view if we accepted as a precondition that the previous tax structure was "good", for anyone's individual definition of good.

I haven't payed close enough attention to see if you've replied, but several folks in this thread have pointed out that, compared to many (if not most) other times in this country's post-income-tax history, the GWBush-era tax structure heavily favored the wealthy. I agree with these people in that I do not believe the previous tax structure was "good", which I define personally in way that you might think trends towards the dirty pinko communist school of thought. For example, I think it makes a great deal of sense to have income at $350,000 (currently the top bracket) to be taxed at a lower level than income of $35,000,000.

As I see it, you are a sensible enough person to recognize the non-ideality of a hypothetical tax structure that was strongly regressive, taxing your first $100k of income at 50% and the rest of it at 1%. I dare say you would find it (using your own words) responsible to fund identical or increased spending "while simultaneously and significantly cutting taxes on a very large segment of the population while simultaneously raising taxes on another subset of it" in this hyper-regressive scenario.

So as I see it, you really only have one question to answer. Which do you believe is "better": the tax structure of 1965 or 2005? How do you evaluate the fact that it is "better"?

[Mayabird]

There are quite a few destitute scientists out there, the ones who for whatever reason (bad luck, didn't suck the right cocks, some jackass cut the research budgets to make the quarterly reports look better) weren't able to get funding. The guy who discovered the gene for green fluorescence protein in sea jellies, the one that's regularly inserted into all sorts of creatures now for various useful things (hell, I got that gene into bacterial cultures for Bio 1 lab in college), has been working as a courtesy driver for an airport the last few years because he couldn't find a job in a lab.

[Darth Wong]

Nothing is guaranteed. Percentages vary, but the idea that you can neglect people if you find an excuse to blame them for their predicament is morally bankrupt in the extreme. Any moral argument based on equity must yield to moral arguments based on reduction of suffering, unless one actually believes that equity outweighs suffering.

[Master of Ossus]

Wealthier people, I would think, would more concerned with his proposed increases to the Captial Gains rate, which will stymie investment which I would think would be a much greater concern in a staggering economy.

Justify this statement. The Capital Gains rate was slashed by the Bush tax cuts and the USA is currently enjoying the worst economic performance since WWII.

The real problem with capital gains rates is that it encourages the "lock-in" effect, since gains and losses are only recognized when there's a sale event. That produces a distortion in distribution of resources. In fact, the last two times the capital gains rate was cut, revenues from the tax increased because people sold off assets and moved their funds into more productive resources. That doesn't, of course, mean that further cuts will increase tax revenues, but it does suggest that increasing capital gains rates will, in fact, decrease the revenue generated by such taxes by further discouraging sales and re-investment.

[Darth Wong]

Wealthier people, I would think, would more concerned with his proposed increases to the Captial Gains rate, which will stymie investment which I would think would be a much greater concern in a staggering economy.

Justify this statement. The Capital Gains rate was slashed by the Bush tax cuts and the USA is currently enjoying the worst economic performance since WWII.

The real problem with capital gains rates is that it encourages the "lock-in" effect, since gains and losses are only recognized when there's a sale event. That produces a distortion in distribution of resources.

"Distortion" relative to what? Unfettered mass-trading which increases market volatility and causes wild fluctuations in prices? The latter is an ideal situation?

[Master of Ossus]

I would be strongly sympathetic to this point of view if we accepted as a precondition that the previous tax structure was "good", for anyone's individual definition of good.

I haven't payed close enough attention to see if you've replied, but several folks in this thread have pointed out that, compared to many (if not most) other times in this country's post-income-tax history, the GWBush-era tax structure heavily favored the wealthy. I agree with these people in that I do not believe the previous tax structure was "good", which I define personally in way that you might think trends towards the dirty pinko communist school of thought. For example, I think it makes a great deal of sense to have income at $350,000 (currently the top bracket) to be taxed at a lower level than income of $35,000,000.

The tax rate has risen and fallen over time, but people with high incomes currently pay a greater percentage of income taxes than they have at any time in history, in spite of the tax "cuts" that reduced the highest marginal rates to a level above what they were in the late 1980's.

As I see it, you are a sensible enough person to recognize the non-ideality of a hypothetical tax structure that was strongly regressive, taxing your first $100k of income at 50% and the rest of it at 1%. I dare say you would find it (using your own words) responsible to fund identical or increased spending "while simultaneously and significantly cutting taxes on a very large segment of the population while simultaneously raising taxes on another subset of it" in this hyper-regressive scenario.

So as I see it, you really only have one question to answer. Which do you believe is "better": the tax structure of 1965 or 2005? How do you evaluate the fact that it is "better"?

I agree that it's difficult, but Congress didn't seem too enamored with the 1960's system since they got away from it... and kept getting away from it... and kept getting away from it in a series of acts over time. That suggests that Congress found them unsatisfying.

Moreover, I think you can see the flaws in Obama's tax plan: despite the increase in taxes on the wealthy, overall revenues will remain far below what they would have to be in order to pay for the current budget, let alone increases in tax spending.

Finally, even in nominal terms the highest marginal bracket didn't kick in in the 1960's until the $400,000 mark (in WWII, IIRC it was something like $5m). Today, the highest marginal rate kicks in at a little over $350k. Obviously, with inflation (particularly in the 1970's) separating those schedules, it's not realistic to compare 1960's tax schedules to the current one on the basis only of the highest marginal rate. Tax rates back then were far less onerous than is suggested by stating that the highest marginal rate back in 1960 was 96% (especially since for some reason I think that was only for certain kinds of income).

[Master of Ossus]

"Distortion" relative to what? Unfettered mass-trading which increases market volatility and causes wild fluctuations in prices? The latter is an ideal situation?

From a distribution of resources perspective it would almost have to be. I'm really tired of the "market volatility" argument, myself.

[Darth Wong]

"Distortion" relative to what? Unfettered mass-trading which increases market volatility and causes wild fluctuations in prices? The latter is an ideal situation?

From a distribution of resources perspective it would almost have to be. I'm really tired of the "market volatility" argument, myself.

Why?

[Master of Ossus]

Why?

Capital gains taxes make it costly to move resources from low-performing sectors into higher performing ones. Suppose for example that some prescient investor knows that Stock A will return 10% each year over the next 5 years while Stock B will return 15%. Clearly Stock B would be the better investment a priori.

But if the investor has already invested in Stock A, and he must pay capital gains for selling it, it's not necessarily true that Stock B will provide him with a higher return. If the capital gains rate is high then the investor would have to evaluate whether selling the stock, paying the tax, and then re-investing in B would be better than just keeping his money in A and accepting the reduced returns.