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Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
The only problem I have with a sales tax is that is unfairly places the burden of collection on a small minority (retailers). I think if we switched to a sales tax we'd have to give existing business owners some sort of option to liquidate their business and be compensated by the taxpayers at the time of the switch.
As you probably know, I think that's the ultimate solution. A "non-welfare" type voting system would lead to a flatter tax. Actually if I had to pick between a flat tax and a non welfare voting system I'd choose the latter because it would last longer. A flat tax with unlimited democracy wouldn't last very long.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Doesn't it seem obvious that all taxation is theft?I was arguing with my liberal coworker about how much I detest progressive taxation. I told him that it's immoral to tax people at different rates and he asked me "Why?". To me it just seems obvious...
Last edited by 5Points; 08-27-2019 at 08:09 PM.
Great topic, but it's not a 'Driver' it's a mechanism that facilitates / funds socialism, and it's not
really the 'progressive' aspect of taxes , its taxes period.
Progressive is worse, yes, but taxes in general are of course theft and redistribution of wealth,
if we were to agree to taxation, regarding income, flat would be the only fair tax.
We have had charities dating back centuries that took care of programs that the gobt' has since
decided to control and regulate, fk our Un Constitutional Federal govt, we need to shut down at least a dozen
agencies , today.
My point is that "less" is not better. If you make the decision that some sacrifice is necessary for the good of the whole, the most moral way is to spread the burden to as many members as possible. Suppose there's a small island nation of 100 people that keeps pillaged by the neighboring islands. They take a vote and decided to form a military. Would it be more fair if everyone had to chip in a little for that military or if they just took it all from one guy?
Everybody would pay for it because the manufacturers would add the cost of compliance to their prices but the total compliance cost that everyone would pay for would be less because less people would be burdened with compliance.
The tax is on everyone and I agree that it should be.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
The progressive income tax is no doubt a major driver of socialism, but I'd put monetary inflation in first place.
It's a form of tax that faces less political resistance and it creates periodic crises which motivate further expansion of government.
Both are certainly things to be avoided.
As Occam said, that's because it is an improvement.I think some libertarians have this idea that as long as the "net" amount of government force goes down it's an improvement.
Less aggression is better than more aggression.
I find it difficult to understand how this could be a controversial proposition among libertarians.
That should be a secondary to reducing the incidence of aggression.
Taxing $1M is always better than taxing $2M.
Given we're going to tax $1M, then sure, distribute the burden as fairly as possible.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
You're confusing two issues:
(a) whether it is unjust to distribute burdens unequally,
and (b) what causal effects unequal burden distribution might have.
As to the former, no, it isn't unjust; the first concern for any libertarian must be minimizing aggression, not distributing it equally.
As to the latter, you're confusing cause and effect. The progressive income tax doesn't suddenly appear one day from the sky and cause a society to move toward socialism; it's an effect of a society having already moved toward socialism. Why do societies move toward socialism? Various reasons, but the primary one is that they become democratic.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
If you are a little socialist and then that leads to a little unequal distribution of the tax burden which leads to more socialism and that is followed by more unequal distribution of the burden etc. then you are in a positive feedback loop.
The royalty that doesn't bear any of the burden personally is incentivized to increase the burden on those who do bear it in order to buy the loyalties of others.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
He seems to prefer hidden taxes. But hidden taxes are easier to raise since people are not aware that they are paying them. Things like tariffs or a tax on a producer. Those taxes are hidden in prices people pay. If you want to tax consumption, add the tax on at the point of purchase so people see how much it is. Or if you do a tax on incomes, have them pay it themselves instead of taking it out of paychecks before they see the final amount.
Hiding taxes makes tyranny easier to fund.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
If the taxes are hidden, you cannot avoid them. And if they are avoidable by some, it places an unfair burden on those who cannot avoid them- something else you said you wanted. Tariffs discourage production by making costs higher. Things like sales taxes discourage consumption (which also hurts business by lowering demand for their goods).
Ability of some to avoid taxes makes then unequal in distribution and according to you, drives tyranny. That means that taxes should be unavoidable. Unless you would like to continue to contradict yourself.
Last edited by Zippyjuan; 09-01-2019 at 08:29 PM.
Let's say you and I are voters.
I pay 100 in taxes and you pay 50.
How does that create an incentive for socialism?
That's entirely wrong (it's a better description of an elected politician), but I'm not going to bother discussing this with you again.The royalty that doesn't bear any of the burden personally is incentivized to increase the burden on those who do bear it in order to buy the loyalties of others.
Yes you can, they aren't top secret, everybody knows there is a tax on liquor and cigarettes for example.
They should be on things that anyone can avoid, that way the burden is equal.
Wrong, they encourage domestic production.
You finally realize that there are only "less bad" taxes?
Taxes should be as low as possible because there is no such thing as a good tax, we are discussing which taxes are the least bad for the minimum legitimate purposes of government.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Because if the person paying half as much believes that they will get more out of the taxes and spending than it costs them because the other person is paying more than them they will be encouraged to vote for more taxes and spending and the greater the disparity gets the larger the incentive becomes.
I'm right but I agree we don't need to debate that again because neither of us will change our minds.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
The burden wouldn't be equal (mind you, I don't care, but you apparently do).
Short of a straight capitation tax (which may not be feasible even for a minarchist state), there's no way to equally distributes the burden.
...and then of course benefits aren't equally distributed (even for a minarchist state).
This kind of equality is impossible: reminds me of Fourier designing exactly identical houses for the residents of his commune.
Last edited by r3volution 3.0; 09-01-2019 at 08:37 PM.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
If that person is in a position to vote himself the wealth of others, he's going to do so, regardless of the current distribution of burdens.
...which is the point: unequal burdens are an effect, not a cause, of socialism.
No, it very obviously wouldn't.
An excise tax doesn't magically cause all prices to increase equally.
The prices of certain goods (preferred by certain people) will increase more than the prices of other goods (preferred by other people).
It's also up in the air as to how the burden will be divided between firms, or between firms and consumers.
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