Comment on 'Go woke, go broke'
voracitude@lemmy.world 11 months agoIt’s not a strawman, it’s an educated guess based on the zeitgeist. You haven’t said adults can’t make their own medical decisions, but a major political party is all about controlling reproductive care, and it isn’t the Democrats. You tried say it’s a “blue idea” to meddle in people’s lives, I’ve just raised a counterpoint showing it’s not. That’s all.
And yes, you didn’t mention a wealth tax, but that’s the current “blue idea” on taxation. Poor Californians pay less in tax than most other states: cato.org/…/are-taxes-really-lower-california-texa…
But those are just numbers, I was interested in what you’re actually concerned about with this “destruction”. So it’s fair to say you worry that a blue influx will result in more taxes, and more regulations curbing personal freedoms?
By the way, if you haven’t seen efforts to curb voting rights, then you’ve had your eyes closed: www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/…/index.html
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Conservatives are not like liberals. We do not share a group mind. We each have our own opinions. The religious right is more prone to be anti-abortion on religious grounds. I am not religious and as such have no qualms with the ethical choice of abortion. I believe each person has the right to make their medical decisions without your sky god being involved. I am not anti-religious though. I do attend mass on holidays and other times throughout the year but it is more for tradition.
Not in absolute terms but in all terms they are higher. In my red state I paid 4.5 for income tax. In Oregon, I pay 10%.
If you look at the Cato article, it discredits California as a low tax state.
Having lived in both states, California is much more heavily taxed than Texas. I admit I was only in Texas briefly but overall the taxes were lower.
The devil is in the details for voting. WIthout a specific example, it’s hard to say. Personally I wish we would not let poor people vote. The founding fathers would never allowed that and I agree with them.
HorreC@kbin.social 11 months ago
What about being poor makes you unfit to vote? And what is poor, is it a hard line number, is it home and land ownership, what is the corral you would like these voting people to be in? Also this is what we left when we got away from the lords and ladies system of the monarchy, and I think the founding fathers would frown on this idea.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Landownership is the old standard. It was the standard used during the days of the founding fathers.
HorreC@kbin.social 11 months ago
So any state that takes more then they give in federal funds would also be looked at and their thoughts on federal matters would be curtailed? And does social security and the subsidies that we give to farmers and to oil and coal workers would disqualify them, as these are social hand outs. Lets really look into this, I think you are onto something. Seems there are some subsidies for first time home owners, seems all 501c3's are also subsidized so anyone working for a PAC/SuperPAC would qualify, also looks like all the auto workers (seems also all the plane makers take big hand outs for each person they employ) and most 'built in the USA' are also getting these hand outs.
voracitude@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I just have to address this first. You’re tipping your hand there a bit, mate, but I’ll engage with it. First off, this only makes any kind of sense if you take the view that people are poor because of bad choices, rather than being kept there by lack of opportunity and/or the systems we have in place (educational, correctional, social, governmental/administrative - you name it). If you think that intelligent people can be poor, then you shouldn’t take this view as you’re limiting the potential of our whole nation. Secondly, barring a very few outliers the reddest states are consistently the poorest, and consistently rank worst in education. If you want to ban the poors from voting, you hand the country to the Democrats and their “bad blue ideas”.
I cannot believe that you, a doctor, would argue for throwing away our best and brightest just because they aren’t born into privilege. I know you’re going to say that’s not what you’re arguing, that if they’re that clever they can make something of themselves, or some other bullshit rooted in the theoretical - don’t bother. It won’t work like that because the world isn’t theoretical, and it’s been tried before in various forms. You should reconsider that position.
You may be right about tax rates. It’s a complicated question; as that Cato article also points out by noting that their findings are in direct opposition to findings from other organisations, and that much of the detail is in how you measure it. How else do you explain getting opposite answers with the same data? I think if you would allow me to correct myself, I would say the “effective” tax rate is higher in Texas and other red states, for the poor. That is the demographic disproportionately affected by (for example) natural disasters, unconstrained energy bills, medical emergencies, and a lack of social programmes.
As to your personal experience, you yourself say you are a doctor, so you are absolutely not in a lower income bracket, and that you’d pay less income tax in a red state is a given because a lot of them don’t have income taxes at all. That’s the whole point, though. If you’re gonna have an income tax, people who make $30,000 a year should pay a lower percentage of their income in tax than someone making $100,000 a year.
I’m sure you can agree that 4.5% of $30,000 ($1,350) is a much bigger hit than 10% of $100,000 ($10,000) because things still cost what they cost. After all, it’s a lot easier to live on $90,000 for a year than it is on $28,650 for the same period, no matter what state you’re in. Gas, food, electricity, water, etc all cost roughly the same (for rich and poor people in the same region, not across the country obviously) regardless of your income; sure, you can spend more on it if you make more, but there’s only so low you can go in the other direction. Meanwhile the ability to spend more also saves money in the long run, as the necessities you buy like clothes and tools will last longer before they need repair or replacement.
This maths is the main reason I support a wealth tax (on people who are statistically likely to have a lot more money than you, but if you’re actually by chance a billionaire - yes, on you, but I’ll let you pay up front at a discount, DM me for details). The only reason it’s possible to earn that much money in the first place is because of infrastructure that we, as a society, built and pay for. Businesses run by our collective labour. If you make money via use of that infrastructure, you should pay a proportionate amount back for maintenance and expansion. If you make money off our labour, we deserve a fair cut. And if you don’t think I’m right about the importance of the infrastructure, or the labour, by all means go buy a derelict oil rig and build your own nation, with your own infrastructure - I’m sure it’ll go swimmingly, this time around.
If you wanna compare “group think”, the right are overwhelmingly single-issue voters, and we are seeing exactly what they’ll excuse before they vote any other way (for my money, it sure doesn’t seem like there’s a line that won’t be crossed). It’s astounding that you can look at how the left talks about Biden, or how Democrat politicians are held to account far more strictly than Republicans, and think there’s more “group think” there than the right and their fawning over fascist assholes like Trump and DeSantis. The projection with this statement is nothing short of ridiculous.
If you vote Republican, it doesn’t matter how you feel about reproductive care personally. “Her body, her choice” is one of those “blue ideas” you hold in such disdain. “Abortion should never be allowed under any circumstances, even if carrying to term is medically inadvisable or would outright kill the mother” is a “red idea”. That’s not unique to the right, though - if you vote Democrat, it doesn’t matter how you personally feel about (for example) war crimes or genocide being committed in Gaza. Sure seems like the Dems gonna fund it regardless.
I think we might actually even agree on taxes, if we sat down and hashed it out. Again, statistically, you and I are in the same income bracket as far as I’m concerned (and I do not make six figures - closer than many, but not by much). But while I do think an influx of Democrats to the South will change it, I remain unconvinced it’ll look anything like “destruction”.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 11 months ago
due to the length, I am just taking snippets. I believe you should have some skin in the game to vote. When people can vote for more, but don’t have to pay for it. It dooms the system. We have a serious issue with overspending in this country. You will hear the left scream, we need to tax people more. Even if we took all the wealth (Not income) from the top people in America, that wouldn’t even cover a year of expenditures. That is how bad our spending problem is. As such, if someone can’t manage to own property or whatever criteria we use, they shouldn’t be deciding how to set direction for the country. That is why we are spending more than we bring in each year as it is.
It is a very complicated issue. As Cato points out it’s not a fair comparison since they are trying to mimic the same numbers which isn’t the same lifetstyle. A 243K home in Texas may be reasonable but that won’t even buy you a home in the majority of California.
That would be hard to judge. The poor pay fewer taxes in general but they do pay indirectly property taxes if they are renting. The poor can get food stamps to help with food, reduce electricity or gas depending on the state, and housing vouchers to help with housing. Now I would like to see many of those removed and replaced with a true living wage as I don’t think people should depend on the government. I think most people would rather earn their living than be given a handout.
I lean more towards Haley as she is the only one who wants to compromise on abortion. I will admit that is where I disagree with the Republican stance since that is the religious right pushing the anti-abortion agenda.
I would like to see a flat tax. Maybe with a slight progressive take on it. That would be ‘fair’ but would also tax the high income earners more. Our current system is overly complex and favors those who can higher accountants and lawyers to do their taxes. It should be much simpler and we would capture more revenue.
I also would like to see better regulations around PE, VC, and hedge funds. The tax system should reward those who create good paying jobs, and punish those who destroy value. Companies that lay people off should be penalized and to provide stability to the economy.
I am glad Israel is finally crushing Hamas since the Palestinians have waged genocide on the Israelis for years. You would think the world would have learned after the holocaust to stop trying to kill the Jews, but they haven’t. I am not Jewish but I respect their right to self-defense. Israel will finally be able to stop the war crimes against them and that is a good thing. The region needs stability.
I have to say Kudos to you, most people do not get the reference or don’t get the deeper context.
voracitude@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah, I get wordy in the pursuit of accuracy. Also, it is a fairly complex and broad discussion we’re having, which doesn’t help. Also also, I’m not not American, but as with most things (foreshadowing!) it’s not that simple ;p
What do you call living in the country and paying taxes? Being affected by policy and law is skin in the game.
I can agree there are other ways than a wealth tax, and definitely agree that a living wage is better. I don’t think flat taxes work unless income and costs are also flat, but things just aren’t that simple in reality. Reading your thoughts on eliminating the income tax, you’re basically agreeing with “No taxation without representation” but from the other direction than usual. “Yes, you shouldn’t be taxed, and also you get no representation”. I disagree, of course; you’re advocating for the creation of a silent underclass and I value equality far too much for that. It’s just not good enough in practise because people with power tend to develop a penchant for persecution, and nobody should be voiceless as long as that’s a fact.
I think you’re right, closing loopholes (on companies offshoring profits to tax havens, as much or more than on very high earning individuals) would fix a lot of the cash flow issues the country faces, and a true living wage would obviate the need for a lot of social safety nets. Though I don’t think they should be removed entirely; the pandemic proved we need reserves. But it won’t cost near as much with fewer people needing them thanks to a living wage.
Essentially we can’t take care of each other when we can barely afford to take care of ourselves, and having the government do it leads to things like Deep Space 9’s Bell Riots. I’ve often said I see San Francisco going exactly that way if they can’t figure out homelessness (LA is gonna be more like “Escape From LA”, probably).
Wanna hear something funny? I had a whole section comparing the demographics of California and Texas that I deleted before posting, saying exactly what you did (but with citations), because it was already a novella.
I think you’ll like this: I’ve long been a proponent of creating a business arm of the government to monetise public research and infrastructure, fund public programmes, and/or rebate a portion to the American taxpayer every year. I think Australia had exactly the right idea with the CSIRO, and Norway with their “public pension” fund investing their oil profits. Alongside closing tax loopholes, it very nicely resolves a lot of cash flow questions like the ones you’re raising, for funding a lot of the social policy I propose.
I am fine with crushing Hamas, they’ve committed atrocities and war crimes too; they have outright said they’ll never stop so they must be stopped. The problem is that Palestinians are not Hamas, and the Israeli government doesn’t give a shit. They want the land and they will commit genocide to get it, Netanyahu said as much, and Biden is spending my tax dollars to help fund it. Neither government is right, and the people are suffering, and it’s terrible. I agree the region needs stability, stability means less suffering, but it’s too bloody messy. I firmly believe we should stay the fuck out of the Middle East.