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PoliGAF 2016 |OT5| Archdemon Hillary Clinton vs. Lice Traffic Jam
- Thread starter Spoiled Milk
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Aaron Strife
Banned
excelsiorlef
Member
excelsiorlef
Member
He's the guy who irresponsibly starts a fire in a dry forrest, leaves it to grow and then denies responsibility for the forrest fire that came out of it
We have a flat level of response to posters that doesn't take into account how huelenical they are.
I'm confused here. What details make this better for the poor?
I get that in theory, you could exclude poor people from any tax up to a certain point. And in theory this would be 'fair' in that no poor person would pay more taxes than they are paying now. So, you can move the slider up and down on the flat tax rate and find the point that both
1. Doesn't require that any poor person pay more than they do now
2. Adequately funds everything that you think the government needs to fund
Under any reasonable assumptions about what programs are necessary, there's no flat tax that meets these criteria. 'Fair' flat tax plans just amount to gutting a bunch of government programs that help the poor and middle class, and coming up with a terrible argument why they aren't necessary.
Jack Remington
Banned
I'm actually working on this right now.
For lower income families there is a pretty huge benefit. You see substantial reductions in special education and grade repetition, and an increase in high school graduation. You see a decrease in arrest and incarceration rates. Studies have shown a decrease in the teen birth rate (though these studies were performed when baseline rates are higher. So it depends on whether you think applying the derived effect size to a lower baseline rate is valid, i.e. does the effect scale linearly or logarithmically, or somewhere in between? There's probably a curve, but there aren't enough studies to really get an idea of what this curve would look like. This is the same question you get when you look at anti-smoking efforts. But anyway, teen birth is a low contributor to total ROI). Studies showed that children who got a year of pre-k had higher rates of employment and higher wages than a matched sample of children who did not. Depending on how you assign costs to these outcomes, you can get a positive ROI. You certainly get a positive ROI with low-income targeting.
The problem is that a lot of that economic ROI is offset by using public dollars to pay for pre-k for children whose parents would have enrolled them anyway and paid for it out of pocket. Depending on your assumptions, this can push it into negative territory.
My analysis indicates that making it free for children in households up to 300% of the federal poverty line has a positive ROI in every geography I've looked at so far.
It also depends on your assumptions as to what constitutes ROI. Do you include the public costs of crime (and proposed methodology for estimating these costs varies greatly, as it's kind of abstract)? Do you include the statistical cost of a human life if the study shows mortality reductions? Are the employment effects at all realistic in today's economy? It's hard.
Edit: as far as I can tell, proponents who argue something like a $6 benefit for every dollar spent are assuming that every child would get 100% of the benefit that the really low income children in these studies got. I disagree with this completely. It's definitely not $6, but there's a decent chance it's above $1.
Orbis Tabula
Member
Every damn time. You people, of all people on this forum, should know better.
HUELEN10
Member
I'm sorry, I just wanted to clear up how some flat taxes aren't truly flat because it was asked. So many people assume it's flat and that's that, but there is more to it than that, and I wanted to answer what was asked by Andy D is all (there are flat taxes that don't get applied unless you make a certain threshold. Ted Cruz's went as far as outlining specific family brackets). I get it, some of you aren't fans, that's okay, I completely respect that. It makes sense that there is no one-size fits all tax solution because so many people have so many different situations and needs.
Again, IF done right.
Andy, I hope that answered some questions, and also brought some pros and cons to light. It needs to be put in perspective though, any major proposal has pros and cons, and if things are done right, it can be used as a great tool. And even if it isn't used, it can help us think a bit more open to come up with even better solutions for our nation and for its future.
See this? This I wasn't aware of. Because some flat tax proposal are all about what is defined as poverty, we at this time don't know for sure if it would make the situation for these indiduals better or worse. That is something to keep in mind as well.
I see your point. It is true, for the ideal flat tax to either not further harm the poor or even better, help the poor, the threshold has to be set right. And the budget has to adapt to it, to make sure things are taken care of. Such a move would mean a need to reorganize or cut some redundancies in some departments, this is true. Personally though, if the right people and the right changes are made, I can see the nation prospering for the better of all its citizens.
Again, IF done right.
Andy, I hope that answered some questions, and also brought some pros and cons to light. It needs to be put in perspective though, any major proposal has pros and cons, and if things are done right, it can be used as a great tool. And even if it isn't used, it can help us think a bit more open to come up with even better solutions for our nation and for its future.
This post is actually way worse than the previous one, because people have asked you multiple clarifying questions and you failed to respond to any of them. But that's okay because "you respect that."
You clearly don't understand your own positions or why you believe them, which explains a lot about literally all of your posts.
Please think about this.
Captain Pants
Killed by a goddamned Dredgeling
We need some news. It's all Cinton emails and Huelen bait these days.
Oof, what did I start. Never thought I would get a Huelen bait response out of it.
I sense that Huelen's position is "gently" disliked. But I guess my follow-up question is what is the approximate point that reaches the criteria above? Is it at 10k, 50k, 250k family income? I should have clarified that to begin with.
eBay Huckster
Member
having actually taken a single economics class beyond 101, I'm definitely not a fan of flat taxes
and that you seem to ignore the fact that literally everyone on this forum who does have more than that basic understanding is also "not a fan"... is making me ponder a lot of things, like "are you a PD-esque character" and a few other things I will only say in the Discord
You're the sheriff round these parts. This mess is yours!
Fenderputty
Banned
Never, because of the marginal utility of income. Also, because the richer you are the more you benefit from the society around you.
It's everyone who currently pays the flat tax amount or less. Depending on where you set the flat tax rate, it could be 50 or 200k. That would be fair in a strict definition that 'no poor person currently pays more taxes than they do now'.
But as we all know, given how effective social and other government programs can be this isn't actually fair. Society will always have a better use for a millionaire's second million than they will, or more specifically a better use for more of it than their first million (I'm not advocating a 100% marginal tax rate for any bracket).
It can't be done right and it doesn't help us with any of the above.
Speaking of messes, shinra is a mess.
eBay Huckster
Member
pros of a flat tax: you actually can structure it so poor people don't pay more, i guess, in a really unwieldy way that makes it even less effective
cons of a flat tax: you lose god knows how many hundreds of billions in revenue to less productive uses from everyone BUT poor people. and also ted cruz supports it.
cons of a flat tax: you lose god knows how many hundreds of billions in revenue to less productive uses from everyone BUT poor people. and also ted cruz supports it.
SAD!
Is the question here, like, assuming we were going to have a flat tax of X% and exclude everybody making $Y or less, how do we set X and Y to generate about the amount of money we currently generate or more?
The problem is that this question is likely insoluble, because the appropriate value for Y is dependent on the value of X. The amount of money we'd need to generate with a flat tax would be very high, so we'd need to set X very high. But then we need to move Y higher. However, most taxpayers are lower-income, so the higher we move Y the more income we lose, forcing us to raise X again. It's a vicious circle that leads to us just taxing, like, Warren Buffett alone for 250% of his income.
Jack Remington
Banned
Children get a lot of benefit from constant interaction with a parent. Some programs seem to be replacing that with something that's worse for them.
Aaron Strife
Banned
A flat tax is something I assume appeals mostly to people who don't understand how tax brackets work and assume that if you make a dime over 400k you're now losing 40% of your income.
This, and I think it appeals to some vague concept of fairness since everyone pays "the same".
Abinash117
Member
I don't see it how that is a pro. If they are paying the same, but the government is getting less revenue as a whole that means certain programs will be cut that negatively effect some people on the a large scale as more programs would have to be cut by so much. Chances are that the programs that benefit poor people will largely be cut. Paying as much as you are now only to lose more potentially is not a positive to how I see it.
This exactly. I mean I get that it's threshold probably should vary based on local standard of living (city vs. rural, NY vs. Cleveland...) but I was just curious what numbers look like. Is there a calculator with sliders that someone has put together so I can play with the values?
Exactly. The biggest argument I hear for it is that it's "fair". And the biggest argument against it is that it's not possible to make it "fair". So I wanted to see if there are any numbers out there that make it near workable or more palatable to the masses.
Found some here http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/09/design-your-own-flat-income-tax.html though it uses a per person rebate rather than a threshold floor.
It's 2016, why are we still voting yea or nay?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVa4G32M7Bc
Stuff like this is what fuels camp Sanders (video from Nevada convention).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVa4G32M7Bc
Stuff like this is what fuels camp Sanders (video from Nevada convention).
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I mean, to me its as simple as people who staunchly vote for the GOP would vote for a carbon rod if you put an (R) next to it. The fact that both parties win elections is what is bad for Trump because the mere existence of enough swing voters to influence the actual outcome of election doesn't favor the guy.
To that extent I have no real expectation that any traditionally red states are going to magically turn blue. If the Democrats were running the Immaculate Democratic Candidate, I guess I could see it.
To that extent I have no real expectation that any traditionally red states are going to magically turn blue. If the Democrats were running the Immaculate Democratic Candidate, I guess I could see it.
https://today.yougov.com/news/2013/01/08/understanding-how-marginal-taxes-work-its-all-part/
Unsurprisingly, fewer Republicans understand marginal tax rates.
It definitely makes policy conversations difficult! These people are voters lol
A flat tax is just an awful idea. It isn't fair. It doesn't REWARD the holy job creators ™
This is my idea for a tax plan
<$25,000 - 25% (The filthy leeches of society, this tax will stop them from being able to afford lobster for every meal)
$25,000 to $50,000 20%
50,001 to $150,000 10%
>$150,000 - 0% (the Job Creators™ deserve a reward for creating jobs)
CRAYONS 2016
This is my idea for a tax plan
<$25,000 - 25% (The filthy leeches of society, this tax will stop them from being able to afford lobster for every meal)
$25,000 to $50,000 20%
50,001 to $150,000 10%
>$150,000 - 0% (the Job Creators™ deserve a reward for creating jobs)
CRAYONS 2016
eBay Huckster
Member
yeah, everything after "you actually can" in that sentence is basically meant to imply "this isn't actually a pro in any sense other than it makes someone with a warped mind feel good in theory" and the cons just slam that home
I totally agree. Otherwise what's to stop poors from not getting jobs as bankers and lawyers?
They're going to use up all the mako and kill the planet!
Frank the Great
Banned
Hilldawg should pick Merrick Garland as her VP for maximum fuckery.
Then appoint Obama to the Court.
Box of Kittens
Banned
That it sounds fair is a decent part of its appeal. Of course the people to whom it sounds fair are looking at the wrong question. If you don't understand the concept of marginal utility, then you don't realize you're viewing fairness in terms of numbers instead of actual impact on a person's life.
Of course many of the people who are pushing a flat tax understand this well enough and are just being disingenuous. It's similar to how they're willing to exploit confusion about how marginal tax rates work (i.e. thinking your take-home pay can go down by moving into a higher tax bracket).
Black Mamba
Member
Carson's tax plan cut after-tax income on the bottom 20% by about 14%.
That's increasing taxes on someone who earns $10k by $1400.
Top 1% get a 33% increase in after-tax income.
Stop and think about what you're advocating.
The thing is, why give the Sanders people anything more to complain about? Fuck, just give him the Nevada win and the +2 pledged delegates. It's not like it makes a difference. I would do whatever I could to just give the Sanders people what they want to placate them to avoid the "Fraud!" claims. I mean, I'm not saying there *is* fraud, but what can you do? Just give them what they want to shut them up.
excelsiorlef
Member
excelsiorlef
Member
Because they'll complain about everything anyway and top of it start screaming about momentum
No, the crazies don't deserve that. They don't get their way just because they bitch and moan. It won't shut them up anyway.
Spoiled Milk
Banned
Y2Kev is right. We should collectively stop responding to attention seekers and troll posts.
I guess I am just trying to figure out what the fuck their (and Bernie's) endgame is in all of this is. It just makes no sense to me. Christ, now I know how the Republicans felt about the Ron Paul people in 2008/2012...
balladofwindfishes
Member
They have no end game. They are the Ron Paul supporters. Same group of people. They like complaining for the sake of complaining.
Actual Bernie supporters, and not just band wagon hoppers, jumped ship awhile ago.
Actual Bernie supporters, and not just band wagon hoppers, jumped ship awhile ago.
You guys know Huelen is either trolling or utterly incapable of rational thought right
In either scenario it's not practical to try to explain policy, though it could potentially help a lurker or someone else who is confused I suppose.
So policy explanation = good, freaking out about the crazy poster = bad
In either scenario it's not practical to try to explain policy, though it could potentially help a lurker or someone else who is confused I suppose.
So policy explanation = good, freaking out about the crazy poster = bad
User 85168
Banned
Some Veep-situation if I've ever seen one
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