You're tax $$ at work!

[Bard]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ Apr 21 2011, 02:33 PM) 45k would not pay my basic living expenses (small appartment, food, utilities, student loans and car payment).

Yeah, but where do you live?

For my first year of college I was living in suburban minneapolis with a 2 bedroom apartment, a car of my own in GREAT condition (used, but it had gotten regular checkups and continued to do so after I got it) college tuition (I had to pay my way aside from the occasional grant and loan because I was trying to avoid loans as much as possible), eating stir-fry I made from scratch myself when I wasn't eating out, and affording Cable TV with a bunch of premium channels and I was STILL either banking cash or blowing it on video games/warhammer/musical instruments/top shelf booze ($60/bottle scotch, etc at least once a month) on a regular basis on 33k a year before taxes.

Granted, this was 11 years ago, but I talked to one of my neighbors who lived in the same building a few months back and rent has only gone up $100 a month since then. The only thing I'd have to cut back on would be the booze, warhammer, and musical instruments and I could STILL afford it on that pay, even without the ensuing raises that would have come from working for the same company for 11~ish years had they not gone under.

It's all about where you live, man.

[Icky]

QUOTE (Bard @ Apr 21 2011, 04:41 PM) It's all about where you live, man.

Very true.

If I could take my Connecticut salary back to NC where I grew up I could live the high life.

Currently here I'd probably be considered middle/lower-middle class (mainly b/c I'm supporting a family of 3 on one income).

[Bard]

QUOTE (Icky @ Apr 21 2011, 03:47 PM) Very true.

If I could take my Connecticut salary back to NC where I grew up I could live the high life.

Currently here I'd probably be considered middle/lower-middle class (mainly b/c I'm supporting a family of 3 on one income).

Where in NC? I spent some time in Raleigh on a business trip and then headed down to Fayetteville to see some friends while I was there.

PRETTY state.

I ate at this one place called "The Big Easy" in downtown Raleigh just a ways up from the Sheraton that was GREAT.
Live southern jazz and a Jambalaya to kill for.

[Jimen]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ Apr 20 2011, 07:29 PM) Yeah you missed the point. If you taxed him more, he couldn't have afforded to give the girl a promotion or hire a new guy.

And jimen you're just making stuff up now.

Taxes don't just disappear into the void. They get paid back to the American people (except for the tens of billions we give to our overseas puppets every year), who will then spend that money on buying mcwarren's services. That not only increases mcwarren's profits, but his workload as well - meaning that he will hire new employees because he needs more workers to cope with all the business he's getting, rather just because he felt like hiring somebody.

QUOTE (mcwarren4 @ Apr 21 2011, 03:33 PM) I would be thrilled with a flat tax. Just about any non-progressive wealthy person I know feels the same way. Most conservatives regardless of wealth would be fine with a flat tax. Most libertarians would accept a flat tax regardless of wealth. Most progressives regardless of wealth are not fine with a flat tax. The lines of division aren't drawn in terms of wealth. Its ideology.

The problem with a flat tax is that it is incredibly regressive. It sounds fair at first, but the problem is that a poor person is far less likely to be able to cope with losing a substantial fraction of their income than a rich person is, because the marginal utility of each dollar is not equal. The first $40k a person makes per year is far more important than the rest of their yearly income. To illustrate what I mean, let's assume a 25% flat tax. You would be pretty pissed about having to pay around $50k in taxes, but you wouldn't literally lose your house over it, you'd just have to rearrange your finances a bit and cut some costs! A teacher who makes $30k a year, on the other hand, would probably get kicked out of his @#(!ty apartment after a tax like that!

[Icky]

QUOTE (Bard @ Apr 21 2011, 04:58 PM) Where in NC? I spent some time in Raleigh on a business trip and then headed down to Fayetteville to see some friends while I was there.

PRETTY state.

I ate at this one place called "The Big Easy" in downtown Raleigh just a ways up from the Sheraton that was GREAT.
Live southern jazz and a Jambalaya to kill for.

I grew up outside Winston-salem and lived in the triad for 25 years.

[MrChaos]

You know what I hate girly? Your assumption that $#@!ing lecture was needed at all. As somehow Icky or say myself forgot how it was to be in Heyoka's shoes. I raised a family worked three $#@!ing jobs while putting myself through school. Hell a slacker compared to my ex-wife's mother raised six kids on welfare while putting herself through college ( husband died ). My neighborhood was lower middle class and I was very lucky both my parents were sober, hard working,and good ones.

So when I say "Heyoka that attitude is going to hold you back my man." It is because I've got the $#@!ing merit badge for been there have friends who still live it. So Heyoka chin up man and taking what is rightfully yours is not shameful. How you use it and what you do with it can be. Keep on keeping on cause your chance will come. Cursing the man rarely is helpful

MrChaos

[Icky]

MrC

[Camaro]

QUOTE (mcwarren4 @ Apr 21 2011, 10:33 AM) I would be thrilled with a flat tax. Just about any non-progressive wealthy person I know feels the same way. Most conservatives regardless of wealth would be fine with a flat tax. Most libertarians would accept a flat tax regardless of wealth. Most progressives regardless of wealth are not fine with a flat tax. The lines of division aren't drawn in terms of wealth. Its ideology.

QUOTE (Jimen @ Apr 21 2011, 12:54 PM) The problem with a flat tax is that it is incredibly regressive. It sounds fair at first, but the problem is that a poor person is far less likely to be able to cope with losing a substantial fraction of their income than a rich person is, because the marginal utility of each dollar is not equal. The first $40k a person makes per year is far more important than the rest of their yearly income. To illustrate what I mean, let's assume a 25% flat tax. You would be pretty pissed about having to pay around $50k in taxes, but you wouldn't literally lose your house over it, you'd just have to rearrange your finances a bit and cut some costs! A teacher who makes $30k a year, on the other hand, would probably get kicked out of his @#(!ty apartment after a tax like that!

Yup.

That's why I came up with my idea, its a meld of progressive and conservative thought on the subject.

I would expect that all middle class and above Americans will be paying full bore rate. But the lowest brackets are very low. And even then, the highest wouldn't be terribly high due to the elimination of credits, deductions, and tax advantaged income types. You may be paying more, but it would be more "fair."

Moving Medicare into this arrangement is for a similar reason.

I feel its a fair compromise between this current abomination of a tax system, liberals, and conservatives.

However, I feel the CPA's of the nation would lobby against such a bill being passed!


As to the comment about 45k, even in states like California there are areas where 45k a year is enough for a car and a house. The trick is to avoid large cities like the plague.

[Makida]

I am sorry, I was not aware that my four-line post would be taken as a personal affront or a "lecture" (apparently *any* post made by me automatically qualifies as a wall of text, no matter what its actual length... ) I am also sorry for not reading Icky's mind in order to realise exactly what he has and hasn't read in the post he was responding to (since, you know, at the point when I actually wrote my reply he was saying to Heyoka "your attitude is the problem, if you worked harder you'd succeed"). Frankly, however, I don't see what's so evil about the comment "you shouldn't assume how easy or difficult success is for others based only on your own experience." I certainly don't see where in my comment I made any unfair statements about the experiences of Icky, Mr. C., or any other individual, or where I implied that Mr. C.'s experiences in life were easy or something. The post I meant as a general statement. What Icky said reminded me of an attitude that I see on a somewhat regular basis in such discussions, which amounts to "if you work hard you can succeed, ergo, if you don't succeed you have only yourself to blame, everything else is fine, and I know I'm right cuz I myself had a difficult experience."

Frankly, I sort of regretted the comment after Icky's "it's not worth responding to" post made me think that perhaps I wrote something poorly-thought-out, but this kind of a reaction to an essentially harmless, and frankly, not at all incorrect, thing that I wrote suddenly makes me not care very much.

I'm sorry if I came across as dismissing your life experience, although I honestly have no idea where that view of what I wrote came from.

[Clay_Pigeon]

QUOTE (Icky @ Apr 21 2011, 04:47 PM) Very true.

If I could take my Connecticut salary back to NC where I grew up I could live the high life.

Currently here I'd probably be considered middle/lower-middle class (mainly b/c I'm supporting a family of 3 on one income).

When I moved to CT, my first job teaching at a private school paid $40,000. I thought "SWEET!"

Then I moved there.

Rent on my studio apartment was more than my current mortgage.

Cost of living in SW CT is definitely all jacked up.