Taxation and exemption policy

[Koga No Goshi]

Wow, for a moment I was hearing John Edwards, but then I noted that the stuff following "two Americas" was coherent.

The baby isn't mine.

Re: layoffs, cancer, disasters and the like. I'm a believer in insurance as a means of transferring risk. Nobody can completely predict and prepare for all things. If the government ends up serving as the insurer of final resort for the 2-3% who can't get any coverage at all under any circumstances because their risk level is so high, then that will probably need to happen. As it is, the federal government is too much involved in disasters etc. as the FIRST insurer. Trying to be supportive of everyone for everything is a chimera.

Well remember that private insurance is the reason that the Federal Government HAS to be involved as a "first insurer" for a lot of things. Even rich people don't want to pay the premiums for things like wildfire or earthquake or hurricane, let alone everyone else! As I've mentioned before, here the rich people with their lawyers and political connections all got together, all the people who had multimillion dollar homes in Malibu, and shoved through a bill where the state now has to cover reimbursing them when their houses collapse or burn down in wildfires, because they didn't want to pay the high private insurance premiums. (And of course, because they keep insisting on rebuilding luxury homes in an area which will just naturally be devastated by wildfires every so often.) The fact that private insurance companies are deregulated sufficiently to the point where, they operate on a "no loss" philosophy where they only want to cover for conditions, or cover individuals, who will never need insurance payouts in the first place, and modify premiums accordingly if the person has ANY risk of ever needing to file a claim to the point where it gets prohibitive, is a big part of the problem and why the Federal Government has to step in when a natural disaster strikes or State and/or Federal governments get stuck with the bill when there is a serious health problem in an area. (Sometimes the "serious health problem" is just the fact that no one in a considerable area can afford private insurance, so they are overburdening the emergency rooms of state-funded hospitals.) So any discussion of replacing "Big government" with "private insurance" will entail massive reform and regulation of insurance industries, and that kinda goes against the largesse and philosophy of small government pro-private business change doesn't it?

Even if we say "people should take personal repsonsibility and not build or buy homes in areas prone to disaster", and advocate for NO insurance whatsoever for said people, then you still have to deal with the fact that there are millions of people who live in areas where, once every century, there is a major earthquake, but otherwise people never even think about natural disaster. Or places where the unexpected can and will eventually happen, out of the routine. The current private insurance system would not and does not cover for such things anymore than it covers people living in disaster prone regions where it could be argued that people might be expected to "know better."

Of course we're not all "even." Never occurred to me that we would or could be. Those who have wealth will maintain that advantage until you steal their wealth from them at the point of a gun. Most of them worked hard to earn it. Those who simply inherited did get "lucky" but how does that subtract from your chance at success?

Also, I said I wanted the FEDERAL government out of education. County and City governments -- a level we're more than willing to kick out of office and who are, therefore, more responsive to the electorate -- are the appropriate venue for this. The Founders knew that taxation was part of government, but they very much tried to craft a system where that taxation was occurring on a local level whenever possible. It matters.

Alright first off let me dispel the idea that I'm proposing 100% pure socialism and 100% equal distribution of everything. That is a common straw man (I know you weren't making it, I'm just addressing this point generally) when people talk about the enormous disparities of wealth and access to resources in the U.S. I find these disparities largely unjustifiable in the richest nation on earth, and with how much of our wealth is concentrated in so few hands. To me "Communism" and "90% of the wealth in the top 10%, and 30% of the wealth in the top 1%" (Source: CIA World Factbook) is an ENORMOUS continuum and there is a lot more middle ground than "free market or Communism, take your choice."

I am not, nor would I, propose that someone making $110,000 should have to hand over $30,000 in taxes to cover the medical bills of someone making $50,000 and thus make them even. And I think that is so far out of what I am proposing in fact and so out of proportion with the wealth disparities we are talking about in the case of the U.S. that when people start to make that criticism I sense I must be winning. :) We're not talking about that, even with the Obama tax structure we're not talking about anything like that whatsoever, and people who posture otherwise are being dishonest. (Let me say again I know you have not suggested any such thing.) I am proposing that saying that someone with 60 million is more entitled to their tax cut than someone working and making $38,000 needs chemotherapy or help when a tornado takes their roof off is inexcusable with the wealth available in the U.S. I think that's a highly immoral proposition in fact, and I think that to say that the rich earned their money so they are entitled to keep more of their money for further wealth acquisition or luxury while saying that someone less well off who also earned their money doesn't deserve things that can keep them alive and working, and teaching, or contributing to society in some fashion, unless they can pay for it themselves, doesn't serve society. I think this is an "I got mine, it's all about me, and I'm closing the door behind me" proposition in the face of the wealth distribution in the United States.

I do think it's patriotic to pay your fair share. And I think that paying more out of loads of money you never need to ensure your wealth and that of another generation is fair, if it helps the nation overall "keep up", maintain standards of quality of life and opportunity, access to necessary healthcare, adequate education, and get out of staggering debts. The wealthiest, who benefitted most from being a member of our society, somehow bearing less responsibility when that same society digs deeply into debt or can't afford the wars it is waging, is an argument I do not understand. I do not understand a mindset of special privilege wealthy have over their money that never seems to extend to people with less, and that tax is somehow more evil when applied to a rich person than a poor person. I am by no means poverty stricken but I make considerably less than six figures and I pay my fair share of taxes, perhaps a bit more being a single male without a mortgage or other large deduction on my taxes. And I do not feel a special right to get out of my tax burden just because I work for what I earn, because there's some kid out there from Appalachia with leukemia. And there's some family out there with 8 people living in one house who are about to send the first member of their family to college. And there is a single mom out there with breast cancer. And I will not improve our society more by getting back the money I pay in taxes and spending it on a better car than what I drive, or a plasma TV and newer cellphone, than keeping that mom alive will. View it in terms of cost:effectiveness if you want to get really er, calculated about it. I can work for a few days to earn the equivalent of a nice plasma TV. I couldn't earn enough in five years to contribute into society more than what kids having their mom, or a family not being homeless, or a veteran having the care he needs instead of holding a sign on the freeway onramp, is worth. IMHO.

Given what faces the typical American family over a lifetime of work, I think the idea that what must take precedence in our policy is how to return the maximum amount possible to the rich from their tax burdens, is very uncivic.