I tried recently to listen to "First Family" by Cassandra
A Good but I couldn't get past the opening "notes on terminology." The list of "approved" words (and why) replacing old slavery related words is so hilarious it could be an SNL skit!
Gratefully, we can still use the word plantation because forced labor camp just doesn't cut it for some reason so the thankless debate still rages among the woke historical juries.....
The state previously known as Rhode Island and Providence Plantations changed its name a few years ago to just Rhode Island. Even though Rhode Island wasn't known for plantation-based slavery, the word was just too much.
I think most people feel, on a first principles basis, that taxation is evil. It's the removal of a person's personal property through the threat of force. That's why, in my opinion, there is such a positive automatic response to tax cuts.
Now, on a second order basis, taxes are necessary. And if something is necessary, doing less than the minimum turns a necessary evil into a needless evil. But that second order thought takes, as the name implies, thought. And feelings beat thoughts.
The funny thing is that no matter how you slice and dice the tax code, federal receipts as a percent of GDP stay in a pretty tight range of 18% - 21% of GDP. It goes up during booms and falls during recessions, but it stays pretty constant.
Spending on the other hand, continues to rise, and most of it is medicare, social security, medicaid and defense (which itself is mainly salaries).
Eventually we will need a VAT to increase the revenue, but that won't happen until people flee the dollar which right now has no competition.
I was going to warn you that if you're not careful, you're going to satire this into existence, but you seem to have already recognized that. Great article.
One note here is that at least for the farmers you can make a national security argument for favoring them in the tax code--personally, I like that the USA can not only feed itself, but is a food exporter. (BTW, not a farmer.)
But...yeah. It's hard to argue that most of the tax code and carve outs are structured around trying to incentivize things that benefit society as a whole rather than being based on one particular group managing to get an important Congresscritter's ear once, getting something written in that benefited them, and then nobody being willing to touch it afterward.
Farming actually needs favoring in the tax code, because the economics of farming only make sense if there is enough fodder scarcity to drive prices up to make farming profitable enough to compete with other businesses. Government decided to instead have subsidies because food abundance (i.e. much more food is produced than needed to feed the population) is better than producing the exact amount of food which means one bout of bad weather can leave too little food to feed everyone ad soaring prices.
The example of this is in a food category that due to regulations kind of are like this. Eggs, one bad bird flue and the price of eggs soar so much because everyone wants eggs and the supply went too low. Now apply this to the whole food market because subsidies are removed so there is not excess food being produced and see what happens.
>These plans tacitly acknowledge that voters resent government-to-citizen transfers when they’re considered “welfare”, but are tickled to orgasm when you call the transfer a “tax cut”.
While the overall effect is the same, people are always going to think of increasing gov->citizens transfers(welfare) differently than decreasing citizen->gov transfers (tax cuts) It's not an arbitrary distinction.
Wellfare is the government picking winners, tax cuts are viewed as the government not punishing people who one via their own efforts* quite as much, so there is a distinction, namely on incentives (tax cuts encourage people to work more to earn more, welfare encourages people to work less to earn the same amount because the government will make up the difference).
*efforts may ancestors efforts instead of your own, but most people approve of being able to leave things to their children, it is usually the people who don't have kids that see this as some sort of moral wrong.
"Y'all Ready for This?" is by 2 Unlimited, not Quad City DJs. Quad City did the "Space Jam" song. This colossal error has forever shattered my trust in the media.
Personally, I like the system in Simon Rich’s novel Miracle Workers (in the novel it’s for who gets into heaven, but we could repurpose it for our tax system): Whoever can skip a rock across a lake at least five times never has to pay taxes.
Of course, I like this system because I have done this, many times—an advantage of growing up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes!
I vote for Scrabble tournaments! I'm really good at scrabble, half court shots not so much.
I feel like this is where the political battle line is going to end up being drawn.
I'm waiting for the New York Times 4 part series on how this policy discriminates against "Non Basketball Having Persons."
People first language, please. Person experiencing ball-lessness
I tried recently to listen to "First Family" by Cassandra
A Good but I couldn't get past the opening "notes on terminology." The list of "approved" words (and why) replacing old slavery related words is so hilarious it could be an SNL skit!
Gratefully, we can still use the word plantation because forced labor camp just doesn't cut it for some reason so the thankless debate still rages among the woke historical juries.....
The state previously known as Rhode Island and Providence Plantations changed its name a few years ago to just Rhode Island. Even though Rhode Island wasn't known for plantation-based slavery, the word was just too much.
Just a few years ago? That's very interesting! Thanks!
Yes. Henceforth it will be known as Woke Island.
LOL I will alert the loony lefty media.....
I bow to the master!
I know it's not politically correct to say these days, but sorry, I'm still going to refer to then as "the basket ballless"
What if I'm a non height having person? At 5'2", this is discrimination!
I would counter them by pointing out this policy will help black Americans
Nothing but net gains!
I think most people feel, on a first principles basis, that taxation is evil. It's the removal of a person's personal property through the threat of force. That's why, in my opinion, there is such a positive automatic response to tax cuts.
Now, on a second order basis, taxes are necessary. And if something is necessary, doing less than the minimum turns a necessary evil into a needless evil. But that second order thought takes, as the name implies, thought. And feelings beat thoughts.
The funny thing is that no matter how you slice and dice the tax code, federal receipts as a percent of GDP stay in a pretty tight range of 18% - 21% of GDP. It goes up during booms and falls during recessions, but it stays pretty constant.
Spending on the other hand, continues to rise, and most of it is medicare, social security, medicaid and defense (which itself is mainly salaries).
Eventually we will need a VAT to increase the revenue, but that won't happen until people flee the dollar which right now has no competition.
Trying but failing to come up with a good acronym for the law that involves Steph Curry.
Sounds like Congress is trying to Curry favor with the voters.
I was going to warn you that if you're not careful, you're going to satire this into existence, but you seem to have already recognized that. Great article.
The Ball Don’t Lie taxation plan
One note here is that at least for the farmers you can make a national security argument for favoring them in the tax code--personally, I like that the USA can not only feed itself, but is a food exporter. (BTW, not a farmer.)
But...yeah. It's hard to argue that most of the tax code and carve outs are structured around trying to incentivize things that benefit society as a whole rather than being based on one particular group managing to get an important Congresscritter's ear once, getting something written in that benefited them, and then nobody being willing to touch it afterward.
Farming actually needs favoring in the tax code, because the economics of farming only make sense if there is enough fodder scarcity to drive prices up to make farming profitable enough to compete with other businesses. Government decided to instead have subsidies because food abundance (i.e. much more food is produced than needed to feed the population) is better than producing the exact amount of food which means one bout of bad weather can leave too little food to feed everyone ad soaring prices.
The example of this is in a food category that due to regulations kind of are like this. Eggs, one bad bird flue and the price of eggs soar so much because everyone wants eggs and the supply went too low. Now apply this to the whole food market because subsidies are removed so there is not excess food being produced and see what happens.
>These plans tacitly acknowledge that voters resent government-to-citizen transfers when they’re considered “welfare”, but are tickled to orgasm when you call the transfer a “tax cut”.
While the overall effect is the same, people are always going to think of increasing gov->citizens transfers(welfare) differently than decreasing citizen->gov transfers (tax cuts) It's not an arbitrary distinction.
Wellfare is the government picking winners, tax cuts are viewed as the government not punishing people who one via their own efforts* quite as much, so there is a distinction, namely on incentives (tax cuts encourage people to work more to earn more, welfare encourages people to work less to earn the same amount because the government will make up the difference).
*efforts may ancestors efforts instead of your own, but most people approve of being able to leave things to their children, it is usually the people who don't have kids that see this as some sort of moral wrong.
Sounds like someone just got dunked on by their tax preparer. With you brother.
"Y'all Ready for This?" is by 2 Unlimited, not Quad City DJs. Quad City did the "Space Jam" song. This colossal error has forever shattered my trust in the media.
Fixed! This comes a day after a Van Halen joke cost me readers so my dated musical references are really starting to cost me.
My trust in the media has been deshattered! As a reward, here's the Quad City DJs' Christmas song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y64E6uxMzso
Personally, I like the system in Simon Rich’s novel Miracle Workers (in the novel it’s for who gets into heaven, but we could repurpose it for our tax system): Whoever can skip a rock across a lake at least five times never has to pay taxes.
Of course, I like this system because I have done this, many times—an advantage of growing up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes!