Re: UNCIVIL UNIONS
"nicholas a. evans" <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.music.dadl.ot |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Mike Findlay <[email protected]> wrote: > And I think we need to distinguish between tax policy and law enforcement. > I think the "tax the rich" mentality is silly and there is no moral or > pragmatic rationale for it. I try not to have a "tax the rich" mentality. What I would like is an economically sound progressive tax that "emulates" a simple flat tax with *very* few deductions (loopholes), but rather than being flat according to absolute value it would be flat according to diminishing marginal utility. That is, not 20% for everyone, nor even a simple "first $20K + 7K per dependent is free, 20% after that" (although I agree that would be better than our setup of loopholes today), but a *gently* increasing set of marginal rates that leads to a gentle increase in effective rates. It would emulate a flat tax in that the marginal tax rate for $1000 would *feel* the same at $50K, $100K, $500K, $1000K, etc, even though the actual marginal rates would be very gradually increasing. How the rates are determined should be based on an economic formula for estimating the diminishing marginal utility. I'm no economist, so I don't know if it is even possible to do this in a technocratic non-partisan manner. But assuming an 80-90% consensus among economists could be reached on how to estimate it, that's what I'd want (I think). As I understand it, I also like Milton Friedman's idea of replacing our current welfare regime with a Negative Income Tax (with a guaranteed minimum income). > I think > pitchforks and torches are a far more appropriate response to > wallstreet/bankers than the "if they're doing it we/you should do it too". Yeah, I'd far rather the money be clawed back by SEC/DOJ/FBI/etc fines (and more importantly, jail time where appropriate!) than via taxes. But if our financial regulatory system is almost completely captured in all three branches of government (as it would appear), I'm not entirely against another department of the government (e.g. IRS and tax code) stepping up to the plate to do what they can to even the scales (although it isn't really their bailiwick and it does make me very uncomfortable and is a rotten long term solution). -- Nick -- dadl-ot mailing list http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot