[mycroft]

The problem is that "we're disappointed in our [MP|Congressman|Mayor|Councilman|MLA|whatever], but no way I'm voting for those [socialists|nutcases|racist throwbacks|no-experience upstarts|whatever]. So, least of evils."

That might be three disconnected thoughts, even; it's so ingrained. Also, the third thought may not even trigger.

At least on the provincial and federal level, I've never been involved in an election that mattered (a couple of times, it's been thought to be close - but it ended up not being). Almost my entire life, one right-wing (for Canada) party has been in power in Alberta. For the last 20 years or so, the main argument is that they're corrupt, treat the province as their own fiefdom, and are in the pockets of the resource industry. But voting for anyone else? Heresy. The only time anything changes is when an even more right-wing party comes to challenge; so far we're two for two for "discount them as useless, then call them reactionary, then co-opt them, then let the remnants wither and die while returning to SOP".

It does look like that status quo may be changing this time: the assassination attempt (on the Wildrose party, to be clear, not any person!) was SO blatant that the core rural voters plan on voting for the bloody remnant no matter who they run, the capital seems to be solidly left (for Canada) - a trend from the last 15 years, for some reason - and even Calgary seems to be playing the three-horse race game. But then again, the polls said the same thing in 2012, and 61/84 (now 70/84, after the assassination attempt) that time too.

There's a federal election in the offing, too - and we're heading for monkey mode again. I haven't figured out who hasn't learned yet "if your election result is a lock, no party is going to care about you" in 50 years here. But then again, "No way I'm voting for those [socialists|NEP <epithets> (yes, seriously)]." Your loss; unfortunately, I have to live here too.

[blackshoe]

gwnn, on 2015-April-22, 23:11, said:

You challenged my assertion on whether or not he proposed getting rid of the IRS because "you don't recall." What kind of a comment is that? I asked you to look it up and you still refused to do so.

http://www.ronpaul.com/taxes/
http://www.washingto...t-once-and-all/

I didn't "challenge" anything. You made a statement, and I commented that I didn't recall either Paul expressing that position. That's all. You didn't ask me to look it up, and I didn't refuse to do so. You said "you might have done the chore yourself". Yeah, I might have. I didn't. Sue me. I still don't care.

[blackshoe]

Trinidad, on 2015-April-23, 07:49, said:

Few people like to pay tax. But to consider tax "abuse" is going over board.

Is it? Suppose the government said to you "how much did you make last year? Give it here." Would that not be abuse of the power to tax? Yes, that's so extreme even politicians wouldn't be stupid enough to try it, except perhaps under extreme forms of Communism. So the line isn't there. But if that's abuse, and taking say 1%, or 10% of what you made last year is not abuse, then the line is somewhere between the two.

The libertarians say "taxation is theft." It's a buzz-phrase, and arguments about it, especially by those who don't like it, typically center around the phrase itself rather than the logic behind it — and there is logic behind it, like it or not. That said, I do agree that governments do (at least, I hope they do) good things, however inefficiently, and that those good things have to be paid for somehow. I'm just not so sure all those things need to paid for with money taken from people under threat of force. And if you don't think there's a threat of force, try not paying your taxes.

[gwnn]

OK so next time I will meet you in the laws forum and someone mentions law 37A I will just reply "I don't recall that law 37A is about that." and that will add to the discussion how?

You asked me for a list of nutty things, and I gave one excerpt. You said that you haven't heard of the IRS thing and later that you still haven't heard anything nutty. So this wasn't a challenge? Why don't you just admit you were wrong? Yea I know, becaus you don't care.

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2015-April-24, 13:07, said:

And if you don't think there's a threat of force, try not paying your taxes.

More so in the past: If You Owe Under $1 Million, The IRS May Not Visit You

Quote

For the past few years it has been in vogue for some segments of the population to bash the IRS and call for decreased funding if not outright abolishment. The IRS, like many large organizations, has fought to control its small sliver of problematic employees and increase efficiency. The problem is that the IRS, unlike other large organizations, is responsible for collecting the revenue that runs the country.

When Congress “guts” the IRS like it has over the recent past, what is the likely result? A most foreseeable one. The IRS cannot continue to enforce the tax laws and collect taxes as effectively as they should. In the U.S. we have a voluntary tax system which means that taxpayers voluntarily decide to file tax returns and, in many instances, pay those taxes.

In Dallas, the IRS says it can’t chase tax cheats who owe less than $1 million

Quote

DALLAS — The Internal Revenue Service collects about 93 percent of the revenue that keeps the federal government going.

But today in Dallas, there are more than 1,000 wealthy people who owe a whole lot of money the IRS says it isn’t even trying to collect.

If these taxpayers are delinquent on $900,000, for example, the IRS won’t go after them; budget reductions have forced the revenue collection staff to train its firepower on cheats who owe $1 million or more.

“I have to say, sorry, we can’t get that money,” said Richard Christian, supervisory revenue officer for the Dallas area. “Nobody’s ever going to knock on their door.”

No good citizen should mind paying taxes, particularly at the low rates we have in the US. And gutting the IRS is a very poor idea from a return on investment standpoint.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on 2015-April-24, 13:07, said:

The libertarians say "taxation is theft." It's a buzz-phrase, and arguments about it, especially by those who don't like it, typically center around the phrase itself rather than the logic behind it — and there is logic behind it, like it or not.

If there is logic behind this statement, I don't find it remotely convincing.

Lets look at a typical definition of theft: Quoting wikipedia: "In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it".

Here's the rub: You voluntarily choose to live within the United States. In doing so, you are accepting the social contract that the citizens of the United States have established, and part of that social contract says that you will pay those taxes that the government says that you owe. Your choice to live within society means that you are consenting to be taxed. If you don't like all the various benefits that societies taxes have paid for, you're welcome to leave.

[mikeh]

blackshoe, on 2015-April-24, 13:07, said:

Is it? Suppose the government said to you "how much did you make last year? Give it here." Would that not be abuse of the power to tax? Yes, that's so extreme even politicians wouldn't be stupid enough to try it, except perhaps under extreme forms of Communism. So the line isn't there. But if that's abuse, and taking say 1%, or 10% of what you made last year is not abuse, then the line is somewhere between the two.

The libertarians say "taxation is theft." It's a buzz-phrase, and arguments about it, especially by those who don't like it, typically center around the phrase itself rather than the logic behind it — and there is logic behind it, like it or not. That said, I do agree that governments do (at least, I hope they do) good things, however inefficiently, and that those good things have to be paid for somehow. I'm just not so sure all those things need to paid for with money taken from people under threat of force. And if you don't think there's a threat of force, try not paying your taxes.

You are either an idiot or malicious, neither of which I believe for a moment, or wilfully ignorant.

Richard touched upon the notion of a social contract. I appreciate that this idea is probably anathema to libertarians, but it is something that cannot be denied by anyone with an ounce of objectivity in them.

Look at it another way.

Humans are social animals. That is impossible to deny on any rational level. If you can't admit this fact, then you are either an irrational ideologue or ignorant.

Social animals develop, or have hard-wired into their psyches, societal hierarchies and relationships. Western societies are extremely complex.

One of the mechanisms that has evolved in western society is the notion of a government. Once this was probably simply the alpha male in a small group related by kinship. Now, it comes in many forms, some of which are politically elected people, and some of which are bureaucrats or others employed by government, including military and quasi-military forces (for the latter, read: police)

As a member of the US society, you routinely have available to you many benefits, especially if, as I infer, you are financially successful.

You drive on highways built and maintained with public money. You fly in aircraft using airports and air traffic control methods paid for by the public. You can be reasonably sure the plane is safe because of regulations imposed and monitored, at public expense, by government.

You can travel on vacation with some degree of safety because you have, I assume, an American passport.

You benefit from the inexpensive availability of various foreign-produced goods because of trade deals negotiated by public servants, and can be assured that the goods are reasonably safe due to government regulation and inspection. If you get sick, you can buy medication knowing that it has been carefully (if not always perfectly) tested and regulated according to rules enforced by public servants.

If you are a victim of crime, the police will help you. If you have a civil dispute, you don't need a gun to resolve it (tho I appreciate that some Americans think that that is the best way, especially if you get to shoot first), because society provides, at public expense, a civil justice system.

The wealthier one is, the more one benefits from this and the myriad other ways that 'government' uses tax money.

Meanwhile, despite the ravings of the anti-tax crowd, the reality is that the poor pay disproportionally more of their income in taxes than do the wealthy. Even those who pay 'no taxes' pay taxes.

One cannot buy gasoline without paying taxes, even in jurisdictions with no sales tax. One cannot buy alcohol or tobacco without paying taxes. If one pays rent, the landlord will have factored taxes into the rent that is charged, as will every merchant who sells anything. Meanwhile, while the poor pay less in absolute terms than do the rich, they pay effectively far more of their disposable income than do the rich.

Ask yourself this:

Who really benefits from the size and cost of the US military? Hint: the shareholders of the companies supplying the military. Yes, the employees benefit as well, but if the military budget were put to more peaceful aims, an awful lot of people would find employment as a result.

Who benefits from the policing, especially as it seems to be administered in the US?

Who benefits from airports and such? Hint: poor people don't fly much

So those who are required to pay income tax are merely being asked to pay for some of the costs of the life they enjoy. The better their life, the more they ought to pay.

You don't like it?

Move to Somalia, and find out just how well your libertarian ideals fit you for survival in a land with no functioning government.

[hrothgar]

mikeh, on 2015-April-24, 16:15, said:

As a member of the US society, you routinely have available to you many benefits, especially if, as I infer, you are financially successful.

Ed is a retired Federal employee, sucking off the government teat, while complain how unfair it is that he is taxed...

[kenberg]

I don't much like the "tax is theft" summary. It's true that every society organizes itself and imposes some constraints on its members.I can't go outside and walk down the street naked. I don't actually want to, but anyway I can't. Some communities are more restricitve than others in what they impose. I doubt that I can keep goats. And i pay taxes. I don't quite agree with Richard's argument that I voluntarily live in the USA. i live here, true, , but this love or leave it argument is not really right however it is applied. I was born here and if I found it sufficiently oppressive I would emigrate, but it is fair to discuss things that one feels should be changed w/o having the rebuttal of "then move" thrown back. We are a society, we set expectations, some of these expectations are put into law and enforced. of course we do this, and I hope and trust that we will keep doing it.


I regard taxes as practical, and really as a necessity. I seriously doubt that I would like the result if taxes were abolished or even drastically lowered, and I feel comfortable imposing taxes on others as well. That's what a society does, it imposes requirements on its members. I'm ok with debating how much tax and on whom, but we need taxes and so we impose taxes. Calling it theft really strikes me as rhetoric, meaning that it goes nowhere useful. Those who think taxes should be abolished or dramatically lowered can simply say that they think taxes should be abolished or dramatically lowed. And that we should all be able to raise goats in our backyards.

[hrothgar]

BTW, rewatching "Repo Man". Just hit the part where Bid says: "Look at those assholes, ordinary ***** people. I hate 'em."

[awm]

Winstonm, on 2015-April-24, 11:15, said:

Yes, supply side economics is quite profitable for those who have money to invest - for the other 90%, it sucks.

Well I have money to invest, and even putting aside "social justice" issues and voting purely on my stock market balance, supply side economics are a disaster.

Today the S&P 500 closed at 2117. On Feb 1, 2009 it was at 825. On Feb 1, 2001 it was at 1349. So eight years of supply side under Bush and stocks lost value. I didn't have money in the market then, but I did lose about 100k on a house! Six years of demand side under Obama and stocks have gone up 150%.

Of course I am not in the billionaire class and maybe for them this somehow works out, but plenty of people in the top 10% of income have no love for supply side.

[hrothgar]

awm, on 2015-April-24, 17:57, said:

Well I have money to invest, and even putting aside "social justice" issues and voting purely on my stock market balance, supply side economics are a disaster.

Today the S&P 500 closed at 2117. On Feb 1, 2009 it was at 825. On Feb 1, 2001 it was at 1349. So eight years of supply side under Bush and stocks lost value. I didn't have money in the market then, but I did lose about 100k on a house! Six years of demand side under Obama and stocks have gone up 150%.

Of course I am not in the billionaire class and maybe for them this somehow works out, but plenty of people in the top 10% of income have no love for supply side.

Now now, we needed Bush to destroy the stock market for it to come roaring back under Obama...

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2015-April-24, 13:35, said:

In Dallas, the IRS says it can’t chase tax cheats who owe less than $1 million

Wish I'd heard about that 2 weeks ago. I discovered I made a $3500 mistake on my taxes, in my favor (I added an extra digit in my charitable contributions, so something like $1,500 became $13,500). I voluntarily filed an amendment and paid the extra tax. Now I learn that I'm 3 orders of magnitude too inconsequential for them to bother with.

[hrothgar]

barmar, on 2015-April-25, 05:30, said:

Wish I'd heard about that 2 weeks ago. I discovered I made a $3500 mistake on my taxes, in my favor (I added an extra digit in my charitable contributions, so something like $1,500 became $13,500). I voluntarily filed an amendment and paid the extra tax. Now I learn that I'm 3 orders of magnitude too inconsequential for them to bother with.

With fines, penalties, and interest, a small mistake can add up to a million dollars pretty damn quickly

I screwed up a filing about 10 years back and had the feds come after me for $200K.
Luckily, I had paid the right amount but messed up the basis cost on some stock.

There is a reason that I now have a damn good accountant...

[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2015-April-25, 05:30, said:

Wish I'd heard about that 2 weeks ago. I discovered I made a $3500 mistake on my taxes, in my favor (I added an extra digit in my charitable contributions, so something like $1,500 became $13,500). I voluntarily filed an amendment and paid the extra tax. Now I learn that I'm 3 orders of magnitude too inconsequential for them to bother with.

Nah, you'd have fixed it anyway. But it's certainly irritating for honest folks to find out about tax cheats getting away with it, and I'm sure that this news will tempt some weaker people into noncompliance.

I suspect that the anti-government crowd anticipates that and approves of it, and had that in mind when cutting the IRS budget. Maybe the long-range idea is to solve "the immigration problem" by turning the US into a place where no one would want to relocate.

[cherdano]

awm, on 2015-April-24, 17:57, said:

(...)
supply side economics are a disaster.

Today the S&P 500 closed at 2117. On Feb 1, 2009 it was at 825. On Feb 1, 2001 it was at 1349. So eight years of supply side under Bush and stocks lost value. I didn't have money in the market then, but I did lose about 100k on a house! Six years of demand side under Obama and stocks have gone up 150%.

Come on, Adam, you are too smart for cheap arguments like this. Your argument boils down to "the housing crash happened during the Bush administration". The causes for the housing crash are complicated, and supply side economics are pretty far down the list, if they should be listed at all.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2015-April-25, 05:30, said:

Wish I'd heard about that 2 weeks ago. I discovered I made a $3500 mistake on my taxes, in my favor (I added an extra digit in my charitable contributions, so something like $1,500 became $13,500). I voluntarily filed an amendment and paid the extra tax. Now I learn that I'm 3 orders of magnitude too inconsequential for them to bother with.

Maybe, maybe not. We moved about 8 years ago and I inadvertently lost some records. I filed my taxes in good faith and got a note from them saying that I owed them another three grand. They wanted it. I realized my mistake and, with some effort, corrected it. Happily, it turned out that after I recovered the lost records and filed an amended return, they owed me money. That'll teach 'em. I was amused top see that I had to do this in two parts. First I had to file something to stop them from coming after me, then I had to file some stuff with a different office to get them to giev me what I was owed.

I decided that life would be simpler if I let someone else do my taxes. I started doing my father's taxes when I was something like thirteen and I am really tired of it. I don't mind the money, for me it's the damn paperwork. If I never again see another tax form, that will be bliss.

[y66]

Guest repo from Greg Manikw, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush from 2003-2005:

Quote

On Charlatans and Cranks

Jared Bernstein, a bigshot at the left-wing thinktank Economic Policy Institute, seems to think I am a hypocrite. He writes:

Economists sometimes serve vested interests, and will change their views accordingly. The best example is also one of the best economists, Greg Mankiw. This textbook-writing Harvard prof was Bush’s chief economist for awhile, and during his confirmation hearing and subsequent tenure at the White House, he constantly defended Bushonomics, including supply-side beliefs that he once argued were the musings of “cranks and charlatans."

The problem is, he did not check his facts.

I used the phrase "charlatans and cranks" in the first edition of my principles textbook to describe some of the economic advisers to Ronald Reagan, who told him that broad-based income tax cuts would have such large supply-side effects that the tax cuts would raise tax revenue. I did not find such a claim credible, based on the available evidence. I never have, and I still don't.

The book made clear that the critique applied to a particular reason to favor the tax cuts, not necessarily to the policy of cutting taxes. There are many reasons a person might favor tax cuts besides the belief that tax cuts are self-financing. I hope it is not too pedantic to point out that there is a big difference between rejecting a policy and rejecting one argument made by some proponents of the policy.

In the second edition of the text, I took out the phrase "charlatans and cranks" because an editor and some readers of the first edition said (correctly) that it was too inflammatory for a textbook description of a policy debate. But the substantive analysis of tax policy stayed about the same. This old post includes an excerpt from the current edition.

My other work has remained consistent with this view. In a paper on dynamic scoring, written while I was working at the White House, Matthew Weinzierl and I estimated that a broad-based income tax cut (applying to both capital and labor income) would recoup only about a quarter of the lost revenue through supply-side growth effects. For a cut in capital income taxes, the feedback is larger--about 50 percent--but still well under 100 percent. A chapter on dynamic scoring in the 2004 Economic Report of the President says about the the same thing.

I don't have a problem with a person changing his mind over time based on new evidence and new thinking. So even if I had changed my mind on this issue and somehow decided that broad-based tax cuts were self-financing, I would not feel bad about it. But the truth is, I haven't changed my mind. If anyone tells you I have been inconsistent on this issue, you can be sure that he is either a charl....

Okay, let's just say he is mistaken.

[y66]

Which is not to say that Mr. Manikw's views on taxation are shared by a majority of his colleagues in the economics profession or even here in the water cooler. From Iron Men of Wall Street by guess who:

Quote

Greg Mankiw has written another defense of the 0.1 percent — and this one is kind of amazing.

... Mankiw invokes the strong role of financial fortunes in U.S. inequality to argue that the incomes are deserved:

A similar case is the finance industry, where many hefty compensation packages can be found. There is no doubt that this sector plays a crucial economic role. Those who work in banking, venture capital and other financial firms are in charge of allocating the economy’s investment resources. They decide, in a decentralized and competitive way, which companies and industries will shrink and which will grow. It makes sense that a nation would allocate many of its most talented and thus highly compensated individuals to the task.

Has Greg been living in a cave since 2006? We’re now in the seventh year of a slump brought on by Wall Street excess; the wizardly job of “allocating the economy’s investment resources” consisted, we now know, largely of funneling money into a real estate bubble, using fancy financial engineering to create the illusion of sound, safe investment. We also know that there is a real question whether hedge funds, in particular, actually destroy value for their investors.

One more thing: Mankiw argues that our tax system is fair because the top 0.1 percent pays a higher share of income in federal taxes than the middle class. This neglects the partial offset of this progressivity by regressive state and local taxes. But surely the main point is that to the extent that taxes on the 0.1 percent are high (they aren’t really, in historical context) that’s largely because Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, so that Obama’s partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts and the high-income surcharges that partially finance health reform remained in place and the Ryan budget didn’t happen. It’s kind of funny to claim that our system is fair thanks to policies that you and your friends tried desperately to kill.

[kenberg]

y66, on 2015-April-25, 06:43, said:

Guest repo from Greg Manikw, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush from 2003-2005:

This is interesting from several perspectives. The economics, certainly. But also the trouble that arises when we start calling people names. :Charlatans and Cranks" was in the first edition of his text but was removed for the second edition by demand ot the publisher, and Mankiw now agrees. And Bernstein writes "Economists sometimes serve vested interests, and will change their views accordingly. The best example is also one of the best economists, Greg Mankiw.".. If you go to the link and read the follow-up conversation between the two, Bernstein expresses surprise that Manikw took offense by this"Having read your website reacting to my TPM post, you and your readers got me all wrong. I certainly didn't accuse you of hypocrisy and meant no offense at all. In fact, I called you one of the best economists, and have always enjoyed your work, " Uh huh.Well, I can see why Manikw did not take Bernstein's words as a compliment. Being called a really talented prostitute is, at best, a mixed compliment.