What I'd like to see change is the level of sheer fanaticism displayed by the Brown Shirts, err, supporters.
The last time a group of people repeatedly uttered the same shallow political slogans over and over again (while occasionally spiced up with personal slurs and hate mongering) in support of one person, Poland put their military on high alert.
Brown's election proves to me that the Republicans are very good at convincing large numbers of people to vote against their own self-interests...usually with the goal of passing tax cuts for the upper 5%.
It's true that a nation can't tax its way into prosperity. It's also true that a nation can, by not collecting enough taxes, put itself on the brink of bankruptcy while unable to reverse the damage done to social institutions. Crumbling infrastructure, noncompetitive schools and citizens who can't afford to visit a doctor when they're ill are not the hallmarks of a great nation.
And that, Tom, is the real danger behind cardboard cutouts such as Scott Brown.
- The Carrot
P.S. I say that as a member of the 5% who, once upon a time, saw the light.
Hong Kong has fantastic public transport, good schools (which are contracted out to private and religious groups), low crime, several universities, lots of parks and munipal swimming pools and stadia, clean sidewalks and well-maintained roads -- to name only a few benefits of the city -- all at a 16% income tax rate and no sales tax. (With deductions, it's closer to 10%).
Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers can be hit with income taxes of 30-50% with a bonus 5-10% sales tax -- yet the U.S. generally has poor to mediocre public services.
So, if U.S. citizens are undertaxed (which appears to be your argument), why does one of the world's great cities offer so much more for so much less?
Paul, I haven't been there so you have me at a disadvantage. But wouldn't you have to admit it's a lot easier to manage the needs of a single city than it is a large country of diverse political, economic and social landscapes?
It'd be an interesting study to see how Newburyport would fair if we kept every tax dollar we paid within our fair borders and used them to service only our citizens. I suspect we'd do all right.
First, I didn't say that US citizens are *undertaxed*. I said that part of the Republican party's agenda is passing tax cuts for the highest earning segment of the population. And yes, these people pay the most taxes, but that's because it's a percentage of their gross income. If you earn $20m/yr you're going to pay more in taxes in sheer dollars than the person earning $40k/yr. This is high school math, at best, and arguing that these taxes are unfair because Scrooge Mcduck only keeps $15mil/yr is specious, at best.
But that's not the worst of it. See, these tax cuts are financed by cutting social programs that, for better or for worse (and I think 'worse') a fairly large percentage of the American public relies upon. We can do without midnight basketball, but when the cuts extend into childhood vaccination programs, school lunch programs, etc at that point more harm than good is being done. The many end up paying the price for the few.
Please don't respond with 'trickle down economics' bullsh*t. That stuff only works in a normal economy where the luxury goods, services and vacation spots manufactured and performed *within the country engaging in trickle down*. The United States no longer fits that definition; trickle down economic theory results in capital flight. Oh sure, the Lexus dealership makes a few extra bucks, but there's a limit on how many Lexus' someone will purchase. It's not like Scrooge McDuck will use his new-found tax savings to give the paperboy extra money, or tip the garbageman on a weekly basis, or buy new textbooks for the local schools. Heck, when that DOES happen it tends to be front page news, not because it's a feel good story, but because it happens so rarely!
My point: Americans aren't *undertaxed*, but they're probably not *overtaxed* either. The problem is with the distribution of tax revenues. Socially, you get more bang for the buck by tossing money at schools and healthcare than you do by giving some rich guy a marginal tax break.
As for Hong Kong: I don't know how long you've been there, but I suspect it's been after the Chinese takeover. I spent a lot of time there prior to the takeover doing a variety of things. There was essentially no social welfare system. If you couldn't earn enough to eat or pay rent, you starved outdoors. Foreign charities were the only source of relief. As a result everyone hustled, got educated and worked hard. It was Ayn Rand's dream writ large, and I for one (being somewhat of an immoral bastard at the time) loved it.
[Moscow is better. You can buy anything you want in Moscow. Anything. Really.]
It had been that way since at least the Japanese occupation.
With no social welfare system to think of AND a culture that's designed to be healthy for business and not the individual, the tax rate can be much lower than here in the US of A.
You're trying to compare apples to oranges, a culture that emphasizes hard work and education with one where the average citizen can't make change and watches television, what, six hours a day while eating snack food and dreaming of having a show on MTV?
You put a Hong Kong style system in place in the US and you'll need bulldozers to bury the starvation victims (and if that's crude imagery, so be it). It's also the truth.
I did not 'sleep through the Obama campaign'. I'm not entirely sure what Obama's election has to do with Scott Brown's election, and it seems like something one of Brown's fanatics would say rather than any sort of intelligent comment. I probably shouldn't take the bait...but I will.
I also did not sleep through 8 years of GWB misleading the nation...although to be fair, I believe he was simply following the lead of people much smarter than himself.
I certainly didn't sleep through the 'temporary' tax cuts that passed during GWB's reign of error, even though it was predicted (and proven correct) that it would lead to deficit problems.
I didn't sleep through the poorly-disguised attempt to move tax money into private hands ala Social Security privatization (and can you imagine how bad that situation would be if the SS Trust fund had actually been moved into the hands of the investment bankers? Ay yi yi...).
I also didn't sleep through the attempt to move tax money into private hands via the 'vouchers for private schools' push, which was a very poorly disguised way to shift public education money into privately-run 'faith based' schools, resulting in a new generation of religious/political whackos and the devastation of our already-shaky public school system.
I didn't sleep through the inanity of the Mccain/Palin campaign, and I didn't sleep through the inundation of 'talking points' designed to make those of us with an education and IQ over room temperature appear to be 'elitists'.
(I mean, c'mon: normally, you really really REALLY want to listen to the smartest, most educated people in the room, right? And if they tell you you're wrong, you really really REALLY want to consider that advice...not diss them with personal insults. That's absolutely nutty.)
I ALSO did not sleep through the 'Ketchup is a vegetable' years, but I suspect that's before your time.
So no, I haven't been sleeping; sometimes I wish I had been fast asleep over the past decade. I've been paying attention to what's been going on, and the context and the content are starting to concern me.
Here's what I see is the problem: if you deliberately slam your hand in a car door, it's going to hurt, and hurt badly. Only an idiot or a lunatic would slam their hand in the door again.
Bubba and Anonymous' replies are prime examples of why the political system has broken down in the United States; it's completely unclear to me what Somalia or children singing have to do with the Massachusetts election.
There is no compromise or desire to engage in conversation on one side, while the other is willing to do both and receives nothing but non sequitur, personal attacks or completely inane screeds...all flavored with some sort of rabid hatred and all designed to divert attention from the actual issues.
Certainly you're not suggesting that Scott Brown's truck has nothing to do with the MA election.
I voted for Capuano in the primary but realized that Martha's goose was cooked when her first campaign ad said in essence "vote for me, I'll keep the children safe".
I think Coakley's campaign ranks somewhere between Shannon O'Brien and Mike Dukakis for "worst ever".
Just think, we get to do it all over again in 2 years...
1. Tom, the fact that you have not visited Hong Kong can be easily remedied. It’s a great place to take kids, and Cathay Pacific, American and Continental run non-stops from New York area airports. No non-stops from Boston, I’m afraid.
2. Tom, because of Hong Kong’s unique status as a quasi-independent city-state, the municipal government shoulders many national-level responsibilities, such as immigration, broadcast licensing and monetary policy. Yet taxes are low.
3. Tom, Hong Kong is as diverse as any U.S. city. Hong Kongers include Europeans, South Asians, Japanese, Russians, Arabs, you name it. More importantly, the Cantonese-speaking population is not monolithic, and the influx of Mainlanders (with whom the Cantos do not necessarily get along) is kaleidoscopic.
4. Tom, the reality of HK’s tax system may support your argument. HK is home to several thousand of the wealthiest people on earth, and these people directly and indirectly (through their companies) are the tax base. They finance the city government as well as donate or endow public goods such as rec centers. The knock on HK is that, for all the talk of democracy and the rule of law, the city is run by a few dozen billionaire families – but this is a fantastic deal for ordinary Hong Kongers, who enjoy low taxes and generally top-notch public services. It might be hard to duplicate this model across the U.S., but why isn’t it the norm in places like Boston and San Francisco, which have concentrations of rich people in small areas?
5. Carrot, oh please. I defy you to show me more than a handful of U.S. or state government programs which have seen a meaningful reduction in funding over the last 10 years (i.e., currently have less funding than in FY 2001 plus inflation). “Cuts” are either (a) decreases in the rate of increase or (b) occasional actual cuts to, gasp, the funding level of a few years ago (not such a hardship considering how low inflation has been). Here’s a web page devoted to crunching the Massachusetts budget. Knock yourself out looking for deep cuts.
6. Carrot, demagoguing about school lunches is factually inaccurate. Federal budget authority for the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program increased from $39 billion in 2008 to $67 billion in 2010. For child nutrition programs, the numbers were $14 billion to $17 billion. Here’s the U.S.D.A. budget; if you can see deep cuts in school lunch programs, I want a referral to your eye doctor.
8. More importantly, vaccines are a cost of having children, and people who can’t afford the vaccines should not be having children.
9. Carrot, you are correct in that Hong Kongers are extremely hard working because there is little in the way of government-sponsored charity. That’s a good thing. Cf. France’s welfare state, 35-hour work week, chronic unemployment and weak economy.
10. Carrot, you say that, in the U.S., “the average citizen can’t make change and watches television . . . six hours a day.” If so, why should economically productive people be forced – on pain of imprisonment -- to subsidize these undereducated layabouts? Your characterization would seem to counsel in favor of the “riot insurance theory,” that spending on social programs should be the absolute minimum needed to prevent riots and street violence.
16 comments:
CHANGE!
Yeah, well, you wait until we change the change you're changing.
What I'd like to see change is the level of sheer fanaticism displayed by the Brown Shirts, err, supporters.
The last time a group of people repeatedly uttered the same shallow political slogans over and over again (while occasionally spiced up with personal slurs and hate mongering) in support of one person, Poland put their military on high alert.
Brown's election proves to me that the Republicans are very good at convincing large numbers of people to vote against their own self-interests...usually with the goal of passing tax cuts for the upper 5%.
It's true that a nation can't tax its way into prosperity. It's also true that a nation can, by not collecting enough taxes, put itself on the brink of bankruptcy while unable to reverse the damage done to social institutions. Crumbling infrastructure, noncompetitive schools and citizens who can't afford to visit a doctor when they're ill are not the hallmarks of a great nation.
And that, Tom, is the real danger behind cardboard cutouts such as Scott Brown.
- The Carrot
P.S. I say that as a member of the 5% who, once upon a time, saw the light.
Well said Carrot
Dear Carrot,
How do you explain Hong Kong?
Hong Kong has fantastic public transport, good schools (which are contracted out to private and religious groups), low crime, several universities, lots of parks and munipal swimming pools and stadia, clean sidewalks and well-maintained roads -- to name only a few benefits of the city -- all at a 16% income tax rate and no sales tax. (With deductions, it's closer to 10%).
Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers can be hit with income taxes of 30-50% with a bonus 5-10% sales tax -- yet the U.S. generally has poor to mediocre public services.
So, if U.S. citizens are undertaxed (which appears to be your argument), why does one of the world's great cities offer so much more for so much less?
carrot, did you sleep through the obama campaign?
Paul,
I haven't been there so you have me at a disadvantage. But wouldn't you have to admit it's a lot easier to manage the needs of a single city than it is a large country of diverse political, economic and social landscapes?
It'd be an interesting study to see how Newburyport would fair if we kept every tax dollar we paid within our fair borders and used them to service only our citizens. I suspect we'd do all right.
PKL,
Two things.
First, I didn't say that US citizens are *undertaxed*. I said that part of the Republican party's agenda is passing tax cuts for the highest earning segment of the population. And yes, these people pay the most taxes, but that's because it's a percentage of their gross income. If you earn $20m/yr you're going to pay more in taxes in sheer dollars than the person earning $40k/yr. This is high school math, at best, and arguing that these taxes are unfair because Scrooge Mcduck only keeps $15mil/yr is specious, at best.
But that's not the worst of it. See, these tax cuts are financed by cutting social programs that, for better or for worse (and I think 'worse') a fairly large percentage of the American public relies upon. We can do without midnight basketball, but when the cuts extend into childhood vaccination programs, school lunch programs, etc at that point more harm than good is being done. The many end up paying the price for the few.
Please don't respond with 'trickle down economics' bullsh*t. That stuff only works in a normal economy where the luxury goods, services and vacation spots manufactured and performed *within the country engaging in trickle down*. The United States no longer fits that definition; trickle down economic theory results in capital flight. Oh sure, the Lexus dealership makes a few extra bucks, but there's a limit on how many Lexus' someone will purchase. It's not like Scrooge McDuck will use his new-found tax savings to give the paperboy extra money, or tip the garbageman on a weekly basis, or buy new textbooks for the local schools. Heck, when that DOES happen it tends to be front page news, not because it's a feel good story, but because it happens so rarely!
My point: Americans aren't *undertaxed*, but they're probably not *overtaxed* either. The problem is with the distribution of tax revenues. Socially, you get more bang for the buck by tossing money at schools and healthcare than you do by giving some rich guy a marginal tax break.
As for Hong Kong: I don't know how long you've been there, but I suspect it's been after the Chinese takeover. I spent a lot of time there prior to the takeover doing a variety of things. There was essentially no social welfare system. If you couldn't earn enough to eat or pay rent, you starved outdoors. Foreign charities were the only source of relief. As a result everyone hustled, got educated and worked hard. It was Ayn Rand's dream writ large, and I for one (being somewhat of an immoral bastard at the time) loved it.
[Moscow is better. You can buy anything you want in Moscow. Anything. Really.]
It had been that way since at least the Japanese occupation.
With no social welfare system to think of AND a culture that's designed to be healthy for business and not the individual, the tax rate can be much lower than here in the US of A.
You're trying to compare apples to oranges, a culture that emphasizes hard work and education with one where the average citizen can't make change and watches television, what, six hours a day while eating snack food and dreaming of having a show on MTV?
You put a Hong Kong style system in place in the US and you'll need bulldozers to bury the starvation victims (and if that's crude imagery, so be it). It's also the truth.
- The Carrot
Anonymous,
I did not 'sleep through the Obama campaign'. I'm not entirely sure what Obama's election has to do with Scott Brown's election, and it seems like something one of Brown's fanatics would say rather than any sort of intelligent comment. I probably shouldn't take the bait...but I will.
I also did not sleep through 8 years of GWB misleading the nation...although to be fair, I believe he was simply following the lead of people much smarter than himself.
I certainly didn't sleep through the 'temporary' tax cuts that passed during GWB's reign of error, even though it was predicted (and proven correct) that it would lead to deficit problems.
I didn't sleep through the poorly-disguised attempt to move tax money into private hands ala Social Security privatization (and can you imagine how bad that situation would be if the SS Trust fund had actually been moved into the hands of the investment bankers? Ay yi yi...).
I also didn't sleep through the attempt to move tax money into private hands via the 'vouchers for private schools' push, which was a very poorly disguised way to shift public education money into privately-run 'faith based' schools, resulting in a new generation of religious/political whackos and the devastation of our already-shaky public school system.
I didn't sleep through the inanity of the Mccain/Palin campaign, and I didn't sleep through the inundation of 'talking points' designed to make those of us with an education and IQ over room temperature appear to be 'elitists'.
(I mean, c'mon: normally, you really really REALLY want to listen to the smartest, most educated people in the room, right? And if they tell you you're wrong, you really really REALLY want to consider that advice...not diss them with personal insults. That's absolutely nutty.)
I ALSO did not sleep through the 'Ketchup is a vegetable' years, but I suspect that's before your time.
So no, I haven't been sleeping; sometimes I wish I had been fast asleep over the past decade. I've been paying attention to what's been going on, and the context and the content are starting to concern me.
Here's what I see is the problem: if you deliberately slam your hand in a car door, it's going to hurt, and hurt badly. Only an idiot or a lunatic would slam their hand in the door again.
And yet, we've elected Scott Brown.
- The Carrot
Carrot,
I don't think you understand - Scott Brown drives a truck. ;-)
And don't forget the Libertarian paradise of Somalia.
The last time a group of people repeatedly uttered the same shallow political slogans over and over again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua3fpleJC3Q
Bubba and Anonymous' replies are prime examples of why the political system has broken down in the United States; it's completely unclear to me what Somalia or children singing have to do with the Massachusetts election.
There is no compromise or desire to engage in conversation on one side, while the other is willing to do both and receives nothing but non sequitur, personal attacks or completely inane screeds...all flavored with some sort of rabid hatred and all designed to divert attention from the actual issues.
Joseph Stalin and company would be proud.
- The Carrot
Carrot,
Certainly you're not suggesting that Scott Brown's truck has nothing to do with the MA election.
I voted for Capuano in the primary but realized that Martha's goose was cooked when her first campaign ad said in essence "vote for me, I'll keep the children safe".
I think Coakley's campaign ranks somewhere between Shannon O'Brien and Mike Dukakis for "worst ever".
Just think, we get to do it all over again in 2 years...
Coupla responses:
1. Tom, the fact that you have not visited Hong Kong can be easily remedied. It’s a great place to take kids, and Cathay Pacific, American and Continental run non-stops from New York area airports. No non-stops from Boston, I’m afraid.
2. Tom, because of Hong Kong’s unique status as a quasi-independent city-state, the municipal government shoulders many national-level responsibilities, such as immigration, broadcast licensing and monetary policy. Yet taxes are low.
3. Tom, Hong Kong is as diverse as any U.S. city. Hong Kongers include Europeans, South Asians, Japanese, Russians, Arabs, you name it. More importantly, the Cantonese-speaking population is not monolithic, and the influx of Mainlanders (with whom the Cantos do not necessarily get along) is kaleidoscopic.
4. Tom, the reality of HK’s tax system may support your argument. HK is home to several thousand of the wealthiest people on earth, and these people directly and indirectly (through their companies) are the tax base. They finance the city government as well as donate or endow public goods such as rec centers. The knock on HK is that, for all the talk of democracy and the rule of law, the city is run by a few dozen billionaire families – but this is a fantastic deal for ordinary Hong Kongers, who enjoy low taxes and generally top-notch public services. It might be hard to duplicate this model across the U.S., but why isn’t it the norm in places like Boston and San Francisco, which have concentrations of rich people in small areas?
5. Carrot, oh please. I defy you to show me more than a handful of U.S. or state government programs which have seen a meaningful reduction in funding over the last 10 years (i.e., currently have less funding than in FY 2001 plus inflation). “Cuts” are either (a) decreases in the rate of increase or (b) occasional actual cuts to, gasp, the funding level of a few years ago (not such a hardship considering how low inflation has been). Here’s a web page devoted to crunching the Massachusetts budget. Knock yourself out looking for deep cuts.
6. Carrot, demagoguing about school lunches is factually inaccurate. Federal budget authority for the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program increased from $39 billion in 2008 to $67 billion in 2010. For child nutrition programs, the numbers were $14 billion to $17 billion. Here’s the U.S.D.A. budget; if you can see deep cuts in school lunch programs, I want a referral to your eye doctor.
7. Carrot, over at the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the budget of the Administration for Children and Families has grown from $48 billion in 2008 to $50 billion in 2010. Where are these cuts in childhood vaccinations of which you speak?
8. More importantly, vaccines are a cost of having children, and people who can’t afford the vaccines should not be having children.
9. Carrot, you are correct in that Hong Kongers are extremely hard working because there is little in the way of government-sponsored charity. That’s a good thing. Cf. France’s welfare state, 35-hour work week, chronic unemployment and weak economy.
10. Carrot, you say that, in the U.S., “the average citizen can’t make change and watches television . . . six hours a day.” If so, why should economically productive people be forced – on pain of imprisonment -- to subsidize these undereducated layabouts? Your characterization would seem to counsel in favor of the “riot insurance theory,” that spending on social programs should be the absolute minimum needed to prevent riots and street violence.
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