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Raskolnikov38 posted:It seems like what you would do would vary a lot by state though I’m not aware of any effort here in California to do so. Granted prop 13 is probably the bigger tax issue for us atm What kind of scenario would you support a sales tax over an income tax? I am genuinely asking these questions, I don't know enough about tax policy to be sure past the broadest of strokes. I'm just working from the assumption that "the main goals in tax policy ought to be taxing those who have more, more, and generating revenue efficiently to help those who have less." quote:how would one go about making a sales tax progressive? exempting everything but luxury purchases? That seems like it would just be paternalistic, in the sense that "poor people can't have nice things."
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Oct 26, 2017 20:58
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Lightning Knight posted:Is it worth trying to create systems of progressive sales taxes instead of having progressive income taxes? I was under the impression that sales taxes broadly are bad for people the less money they have, which is why Republicans keep trying to replace income taxes with a national sales tax. Even the GOP flat-tax proposals called for an exemption to shield lower incomes. But it'd be pretty unwieldy to offer a reduction in sales-taxes paid at the point of service based on income, because everyone would have to register for their income-based sales-tax discount card and then reconcile their income against the reduction at tax time (much as we do now for health insurance). Or are you picturing another way of making sales taxes progressive?
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Oct 26, 2017 21:00
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Office Pig posted:You overestimate the presence of humanity in the oligarch and severely underestimate the place power holds in their hierarchy of desires, Ruan. Perhaps, but I'm willing to entertain the idea of my political philosophy not calling for direct genocide, not becoming monsters and all that. If force is needed to prevent injustice, so be it. If they want to give up all their power and wealth to live, that's a bargain I'm willing to make too. Raskolnikov38 posted:how would one go about making a sales tax progressive? exempting everything but luxury purchases? No taxes on food? I don't know if it's possible to make a sales tax progressive. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 21:01
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Kilroy posted:peak Granted, I can see the reason for fear among liberals, usually, the left was a silent partner in the Democratic coalition and had limited effect on how the party has run. However, since 2015 it is clear that the Sanders campaign awoke an honest division in the Democratic Party which very well may cause problems with for it in 2018/2020 (admittedly the left now still has no real influence on how the party is run). However, I think at its heart, it really comes down to stark ideological differences that very well may be unbridgable. I am not surprised there is increasing bitterness because there probably should be bitterness between the two sides because they want the party/country to take two very different trajectories. I think most Sanders voters didn't just care about Medicare for All (for example), but it was one of many policies they wanted to be enacted and if anything they seem to be only further diverging. The only thing that would save the Democrats, without changing their direction, is that the GOP simply meltdowns from infighting.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:02
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right loving here
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Even the capitalist class will occasionally produce a class traitor, so theoretically you don't have to kill all the rich.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:02
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Willa Rogers posted:Even the GOP flat-tax proposals called for an exemption to shield lower incomes. No no no, I believe I've entirely misunderstood you! I was under the impression that sales taxes are bad, in general. Or at least, regressive to a point versus income taxes. So I was asking, if that is true, should "we should replace sales taxes with income taxes" be a talking point for left-wing activists trying to get a hold on local and state politics? I'm just thinking about that because sales taxes is a common political discussion I hear older people having where I live (Wisconsin) all of the time, so it seems like a good way to connect with them politically.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:03
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Condiv posted:too bad medicare for all is pie in the sky free pony fantasy rather than something dems fight for. cause jesus gently caress we need it bad Yes, but Russia 
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Oct 26, 2017 21:03
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Both the Jilani/Fang side and Jason Johnson are incredibly disingenuous in this whole debate. Johnson tries to tie Bernie and "the dirtbag left" to Evans when Bernie has nothing to do with Evans and neither Fang nor Jilani have anything to do with the "dirtbag left." That is just him trying to fit this into a Bernie vs Clinton narrative. Whatever you think of Bernie or the"dirtbag left," it is completely unrelated here and just an attempt to push the "racist berniebro" angle. On the other side, I don't know much about Fang. But Jilani is most definitely someone who likes writing hit pieces against anyone who he disagrees with. Before this one, he had a completely shameless article on a left wing professor who was suspended from campus because alt right figures were calling in death threats. Seems to be bad faith on multiple sides here.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:03
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RuanGacho posted:Perhaps, but I'm willing to entertain the idea of my political philosophy not calling for direct genocide, not becoming monsters and all that. If force is needed to prevent injustice, so be it. If they want to give up all their power and wealth to live, that's a bargain I'm willing to make too. good news! being wealthy does not fall afoul of the definition of genocide quote:Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group...
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Oct 26, 2017 21:04
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Lightning Knight posted:Is it worth trying to create systems of progressive sales taxes instead of having progressive income taxes? I was under the impression that sales taxes broadly are bad for people the less money they have, which is why Republicans keep trying to replace income taxes with a national sales tax. In terms of when I'd support it, um... specifically "sin taxes" on cigarettes and booze are pretty drat effective. It's weird because that's using the tax for behavioral modification, but there you go. It's also good at getting everyone to pay a baseline tax rate, if that's a thing you decide you have to do - why the hell anyone posting here would want that, I have no idea, because it's like a negative mincome, but I guess Team (R) would like it? There's a good joke about how we could use a new set of economists on our side, some sort of Neo Liberal Economists, but I'm not smart enough to make it nor smart enough to tie it to Bernie's active embrace of Modern Monetary Theory (which has little to do with taxation honestly) e: oh, and you posted again while I was typing this up, yes, we should definitely replace sales taxes with income taxes and I suspect it would not be as hard a sell as it sounds once you get people really thinking about sales tax. Nobody likes that poo poo.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:05
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Nevvy Z posted:I'm not convinced this is actually a meaningful statistic. Can you elaborate on the details and what it is supposed to prove? https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/06/hendersonhillygustompsonPOQ.pdf about 25% of people who voted for clinton in the 2008 primary wound up voting for mccain in the general, though as the authors of the study note that number is likely low due to self-reporting it's regularly brought up in response to the argument that the 2016 election was thrown to trump by people who voted for sanders in the primary but voted for trump in the general, which is generally pegged at around 10% of sanders primary voters
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Oct 26, 2017 21:06
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Or it could be the voters. Nobody on the left ever seems to want to address that end of the problem other than a semi ironic guillotine one liner. It's comparatively easy to run different candidates though.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:07
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Neurolimal posted:What exactly do you want to talk about WRT the tax cut Keep reading and the question will be answered in time.  Anyhow, got a desktop again so here's some links and info NOVA GOONS: COME KNOCK ON DOORS FOR DEMOCRACY Saturday 10/28 & Saturday 11/4, 4536-B John Marr Drive, Annandale VA Breakfast Provided, Technology Provided, Lunch Provided, Sense of Self-Worth Self-Grown NON-VIRGINIA AMERICAN GOONS: MAKE PHONE CALLS FOR DEMOCRACY Hit me up over PM, or if you can't, we can do it over email by request, and I'll get you the good good. Call union members and remind them to vote (registration has already closed, but in-person absentee voting is valid through the close of business on 11/4) COOL VIRGINIAN DELEGATE CANDIDATES: Danica Roem - http://danicaroem.ngpvanhost.com John Bell - http://www.johnbellfordelegate.com Elizabeth Guzman - http://elizabethguzmanforvirginia.com Kathy Tran - https://www.kathyfordelegate.com Those aren't the only four cool delegates, but they've stopped by the labor fed, they've been with us on working issues, and they show up when we need them. I've stumped for them, and I've been proud to do it. If you have a tenner to spare, throw it at them, because the campaigns themselves will greatly appreciate it. WHY I KNOW AND SAY ALL THIS poo poo For a little background, I'm a union stagehand who grew up in Fredericksburg, VA. I've seen unchecked Republican nonsense hurt people, particularly my autistic brother (not the kind we get rude about on the forums with, but the ugly, non-verbal, never-live-unassisted kind). Personal responsibility is a way to feel superior to others, at least in the way it's practiced out here, so I get into fights about it. My union sent me to the Northern Virginia Labor Federation to put that to work two years ago, and I spread that to anyone who'll listen. Facebook is a waste for such things; you know this. So when I get mad at people who post online and do nothing, there's a real chance I'm not thinking of you, dear friend; I'm thinking of someone else I know, and hoping that you're more willing to throw in than others. And I think you are. I've had a few people prove me right in the last few weeks. I want/need VA to hold the line. We won all our fights last year on the state level. I think we can keep winning some more. Winning back the House of Delegates is a pipe dream, but our conservative estimates say we can pick up 4-7 seats. (Losing one seat overall would give the Virginia GOP a veto-proof majority, which would be horrific. I don't expect it, but unexpected things tend to happen nowadays.) It would take 17 seats to flip the HoD. That's equally unexpected. But there's an ocean of candidates out there - more challengers than we've had in decades, and a slew of first-timers into the fray. Some have picked up DNC notice, some have simply been supported by labor COPE committees. And some are just hoping to be the placeholder when the wave comes. But they're good people, one and all. If you really want to affect change, use Virginia as a reason to scare the gently caress out of the rest of the country's regressive shitheads. We vote every year, sometimes twice a year, so if you want to read the room, read my fair Commonwealth.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:07
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Willa Rogers posted:Even the GOP flat-tax proposals called for an exemption to shield lower incomes. Sales taxes are inherently regressive. It's a flat tax on your spending, businesses just pass it on to consumers. It's a tax on consumption, Marginal utility of the dollar and all that. Income tax is the only true progressive option. WA state couldn't even pass a 1% on those making >250000 a year.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:07
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The Muppets On PCP posted:https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/06/hendersonhillygustompsonPOQ.pdf How many Sanders voters just decided to stay home though? Honest question I have no idea maybe it was hardly any.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:08
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Lightning Knight posted:No no no, I believe I've entirely misunderstood you! https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-council-to-vote-today-on-income-tax-on-the-wealthy/ Whether it would be smarter for activists in Washington to focus on changing the existing barriers to having an income tax or to focus on making the taxes we do have as progressive possible is just a matter of tactics (we should do both).
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Oct 26, 2017 21:09
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DACK FAYDEN posted:That impression is correct! Consumption is a higher percentage of income for poor people for obvious reasons, so in practice they're not flat (they are income-neutral, after all) but straight-up regressive (if you're looking at percentage of income paid rather than percentage of tax being charged.)  So you're arguing in favor of sin taxes? That seems bad to me, in the sense that it is punishing poor people more for bad habits than rich people. How do we justify that? I mean, it's not like there's any shortage of left-wing economists, both capitalist and socialist. They're just not considered Serious People. BlueBlazer posted:Sales taxes are inherently regressive. It's a flat tax on your spending, businesses just pass it on to consumers. It's a tax on consumption, Marginal utility of the dollar and all that. So... we should be trying to aggressively convince voters that an income tax would be net better for them in the long-term?
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Oct 26, 2017 21:09
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Lightning Knight posted:Is it worth trying to create systems of progressive sales taxes instead of having progressive income taxes? I was under the impression that sales taxes broadly are bad for people the less money they have, which is why Republicans keep trying to replace income taxes with a national sales tax. There's some instances where a sales tax (so long as the lower bracket incomes are exempt) makes sense, primarily with regards to treating habits that cause health issues that will not end with just A Surgery/pills (as is the case for preventative measures); alcohol and cigarettes are obvious ones, as well as food (but that's harder to dictate). Of course, that only makes sense if the government is paying your medical bills, which currently is not the case.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:11
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DACK FAYDEN posted:e: oh, and you posted again while I was typing this up, yes, we should definitely replace sales taxes with income taxes and I suspect it would not be as hard a sell as it sounds once you get people really thinking about sales tax. Nobody likes that poo poo. You would have to find a way to get businesses in general to lobby for it. At this point its a tax never paid by any business ever due to resellers permits. The consumer is almost always left holding the bag.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:11
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Raskolnikov38 posted:good news! being wealthy does not fall afoul of the definition of genocide Oh well in that case   Lightning Knight posted:So... we should be trying to aggressively convince voters that an income tax would be net better for them in the long-term? Yes, probably. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 21:11
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Kilroy posted:To be fair, that might be the last election where the Democratic party could count on leftist votes to a large degree. Admittedly, the fear of another term of Trump/GOP one-party rule is a strong motivator but we will have to see. If anything the rising vitriol is probably a reason for concern (actually this thread is a good example, but it is all over the place atm). As far as shooting the wealthy, eh, I rather just empty their bank accounts and give them a livable flat and a ho-hum job. One of my favorite parts of Doctor Zhizago is that his upper-middle-class family now to their horror has to share their mansion with a bunch of refugees that would literally freeze to death otherwise.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:11
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The Muppets On PCP posted:https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/06/hendersonhillygustompsonPOQ.pdf Also notable is that 9% of Obama primary voters turned around to vote for McCain. 13% of McCain voters voted for Obama. Sometimes folks do weird poo poo. "Around 10%" seems like a general baseline you can expect for these kinds of shifts between primary and the general. 25% is notable because it's a lot loving higher than that.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:12
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Lightning Knight posted:
Yes, like how we should aggressively be seizing the means of production.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:12
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BlueBlazer posted:Yes, like how we should aggressively be seizing the means of production. Well, yes, but that's a long-term consideration.  Neurolimal posted:There's some instances where a sales tax (so long as the lower bracket incomes are exempt) makes sense, primarily with regards to treating habits that cause health issues that will not end with just A Surgery/pills (as is the case for preventative measures); alcohol and cigarettes are obvious ones, as well as food (but that's harder to dictate). I'm still not sure I agree with this, insofar as it seems like a paternalistic way to handle the problem versus regulating the industries that create the harmful products. Maybe I'm just being naive though.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:14
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:How many Sanders voters just decided to stay home though? Honest question I have no idea maybe it was hardly any. i'm sure some did, but my guess is that number (about 13 million people voted for sanders in the primaries) is dwarfed by
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Oct 26, 2017 21:14
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Lightning Knight posted:Well, yes, but that's a long-term consideration. If you just charge an externality tax on the producer you get the same effect because the prices of the goods rise.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:15
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Nevvy Z posted:I'm not convinced this is actually a meaningful statistic. Can you elaborate on the details and what it is supposed to prove? The point is that there isn't any rational reason to think that leftists not voting enough for Democrats is a problem worth mentioning. I mean, in the first place the burden of proof should be on the people making that claim, but the "fewer Sanders voters defected relative to 2008 Clinton voters*" point is just supposed to further illustrate that "leftist/progressive people not voting for Clinton/mainstream Democrats is a problem" is a dumb conclusion to arrive at (since what little evidence we have seems to indicate that the faction of Democrats associated with loyalty to Clinton aren't any more loyal). I mean, you could definitely argue that either 1. Sanders voters aren't a good proxy for what is being described as "leftists" in this thread or 2. 2008 Clinton primary voters aren't a good proxy for 2016 mainstream liberal voters. But ultimately this is a situation where someone is making a pretty insulting claim (that a unique lack of loyalty from leftists is a big problem) without any evidence to support it, and what little evidence we have that kinda-sorta serves as a proxy doesn't seem to support their conclusion. *I actually feel like it's more useful to just point out that the percent of Sanders primary voters who didn't vote is about in line with what you'd expect normally.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:15
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BlueBlazer posted:WA state couldn't even pass a 1% on those making >250000 a year. As I understand, that bullshit is enumerated in our state constitution. Edit: Nope, state law though. https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=36.65.030 Edit, Edit: poo poo, I'm bad at this. According to Article VII, Section of Washington’s Constitution “all taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of property within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax and shall be levied and collected for public purposes only.” A 1933 State Supreme Court case also struck down the idea of creating an income tax. Uncleanly Cleric fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 21:16
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Trabisnikof posted:If you just charge an externality tax on the producer you get the same effect because the prices of the goods rise. That's true, I suppose. It just feels kind of bad and wrong to me to be implicitly charging the poor more for their vices. I don't think I'm looking at it the right way.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:16
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The Muppets On PCP posted:i'm sure some did, but my guess is that number (about 13 million people voted for sanders in the primaries) is dwarfed by Well yeah but those people probably never vote. A Sanders primary voter is part of the politic process so it means more if they stayed home for the genera.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:16
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Lightning Knight posted:I'm still not sure I agree with this, insofar as it seems like a paternalistic way to handle the problem versus regulating the industries that create the harmful products. Maybe I'm just being naive though. Sure, I'm all for regulation as well. Just saying that there are self-harming vices people partake in which can reduce the efficiency of free healthcare with preemptive screenings, as well as ways to compensate for them.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:17
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The Muppets On PCP posted:i'm sure some did, but my guess is that number (about 13 million people voted for sanders in the primaries) is dwarfed by It would be very interesting to see what would happen if we banned societal social loafing. Apparently you have to actively invoke the 5th now in order for it to count so it could be argued "not voting" is not speech. Except we know that's not why that ruling went that way so it's totally consistent everybody!
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Oct 26, 2017 21:17
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Lightning Knight posted:That's true, I suppose. It just feels kind of bad and wrong to me to be implicitly charging the poor more for their vices. I don't think I'm looking at it the right way. Is your vice tax actually more than the social costs of the good? If not, society is still subsidizing that good.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:18
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well yeah but those people probably never vote. clinton got 4 million fewer votes than obama in 2008, and i seriously doubt all of them who are still alive voted for trump e: and that's not getting into various voter suppression schemes put into place in the intervening years, though the number of people disenfranchised by that is probably in the hundreds of thousands The Muppets On PCP fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 21:19
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BlueBlazer posted:Income tax is the only true progressive option. No, wealth tax is the best option. 
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Oct 26, 2017 21:20
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Ytlaya posted:No, wealth tax is the best option. What exactly does this mean?
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Oct 26, 2017 21:21
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Lightning Knight posted:What exactly does this mean? I was just joking that a wealth tax is ultimately even better at redistributing from the rich to the rest of the population than just an income tax (because ultimately wealth inequality is a bigger issue than income inequality). edit: Just in case you're not aware, a wealth tax is what it sounds like - asking for X% of a person's net wealth (usually above some threshold, like with other progressive taxes) per year. The US doesn't have a wealth tax (though some other countries do), but it should have one. edit2: Interesting thing I just found: "In 1999, Donald Trump proposed for the United States a one off 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more." We need to somehow rewind Trump's mental age. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 21:24
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Lightning Knight posted:So you're arguing in favor of sin taxes? That seems bad to me, in the sense that it is punishing poor people more for bad habits than rich people. How do we justify that? That said, it's noting that raising sales taxes on a specific good might not result in a difference of spending - if I'm a broke-rear end college student with the goal of purchasing "as much cheap booze as I can get for  ", we're actually cutting consumption (and also generating a small amount of government revenue) but that's the only effect of the tax on me personally as a consumer. That one's mostly hypothetical, since it's really hard to measure the elasticity of each individual human being and circumstances change so much, but could produce the desired effect for some segment of people.e: Oh, you posted about industry regulation too! Yeah, I'd prefer that to any sort of tax, if it was feasible. I mean, I'd prefer that all drugs were legal but sin taxed in proportion with the harm they do to generate revenue, because that's a combination of ending the War on Drugs, generating money for local schools, and using minimally coercive means to cut down on people doing drugs. But I also want a flying unicorn and all that.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:24
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Ytlaya posted:No, wealth tax is the best option. *looks at proposal liberally* Ytlaya posted:No wealth tax is the best. option?.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:25
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Ytlaya posted:I was just joking that a wealth tax is ultimately even better at redistributing from the rich to the rest of the population than just an income tax (because ultimately wealth inequality is a bigger issue than income inequality). No I meant what does "wealth tax" exactly entail, mechanically? Are we talking stuff like property taxes? DACK FAYDEN posted:I think the benefit of discouraging drug consumption (of those two drugs specifically) outweighs the cost of lost utility from the additional money spent by those who continue to consume. Mind you, I'm backing this up with absolutely nothing at all other than my own gut preferences. Which is why I freely admit I mostly can't! This makes perfect sense to me in economic terms, it just feels wrong in moral terms. I'll think about it more.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:26
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