Does Megan Think Liberals Don’t Pay Taxes?
| October 29th, 2007Megan McArdle writes:
I don’t know why Matt should find this remarkable:
Still, the main psychological point remains that there’s a remarkable tendency to equate advocating that others engage in risky acts of physical violence with the idea of possessing courage and strength as personal characteristics.
After all, we’ve already internalized the notion that advocating taxing other people in order to give their money to someone else is somehow morally akin to charity.
I find the “taxing other people” argument — which conservatives and libertarians use frequently — bewildering. “I think people, but not me, should go to Iraq and risk death,” just ain’t analogous to “I think all taxpayers, me included, should pay for a generous safety net.”
In a followup post, Megan implies that liberals only favor using wealthy people’s money to pay for social programs. Poppycock.1 I’m hardly high-income, but I pay taxes. So do most liberals and leftists. And although liberals and leftists2 favor raising taxes on the wealthy, not all rich people are republican.3
Note also that SCHIPP, which is paid for from cigarette taxes, has received enthusiastic support from lefties — even though smokers are not an especially wealthy group.
Yet the idiotic “liberals want to spend other people’s money” idea is commonplace among conservatives .
- The word “poppycock” “is actually American in origin, first turning up there about 1865. The OED is silent on its origin, but most modern dictionaries know well where it comes from: the Dutch word pappekak for soft faeces.” (back)
- ”L&L” — the newest sequel to Dungeons & Dragons! (back)
- Incidentally, the overall tax structure in the US is flattish — the vast majority of Americans pay about 16% of their income in taxes, give or take a couple of percent. (back)
October 29th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Saying that taxation to help the needy doesn’t count as charity because it uses other people’s money is like saying the police arrest of a child molester doesn’t count as heroic because it was four men with weapons against one unarmed. It probably doesn’t. And it probably doesn’t matter. The virtue isn’t in the act itself; it’s in the results.
Now, if someone could definitely prove to me that private methods provide superior *results* to taxation for a given specific circumstance, I’d be all for it. But
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Hah, edit time out. There should be no ‘but’ at the end of that last sentence, so don’t hold your breath for the awesome cliffhanger.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I think that as well. In fact, I agree with a lot of your social goals. I just don’t agree with your arguments.
Seeing as I also support progressive taxation and a big safety net, and seeing as I’m not incredibly rich, in practice that means that the safety net is largely going to get paid for (in my dreams) by really wealthy people, and not by me. IOW, I “pay taxes”, but I don’t pay a LOT of taxes. (and in fact, last year, after deductions, I paid no taxes at all. Though this is very unusual for me.)
This is a common situation for the nonrich: you may pay taxes, but you don’t pay very much.*
Does that bother me? No. But I agree that lobbying for such taxation is only a distant cousin to my contributing personally to such a cause. The first isn’t charity and the second is.
*measured as an absolute, not relative, amount. Is this fair? I dunno. But I have no problem saying that I pay less in taxes than does Joe Rich Dude, even if I’m paying $10,000 while making $50,000 and he’s paying $100,000 while making $20 million. I can afford less, but that doesn’t change the fact that I pay less.
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October 29th, 2007 at 9:14 am
I agree that lobbying for income transfer programs isn’t charity. I’m not sure if anyone has actually claimed that it is charity, though; Megan didn’t provide links to anyone making such an argument.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Amp, I think what Megan is referring to is what some on the left do in the opposite direction - claiming that right-wingers are UN-charitable because they do NOT support income transfer programs. Thus, the implication is that those programs are charitble (or at least that supporting them is).
Of course, I don’t know that for sure, but that is what came to mind regarding your query about who actually says that.
And, of course, just because you pay taxes doesn’t mean that you pay in a significant amount nor does it mean that you could not theoretically be arguing for creating programs that far exceed your tax contribution (and that of everyone else in your bracket) - in other words, advocating a program that is, in fact, mostly paid for with other peoples’ money, presumably rich peoples’ money.
I, for one, would be glad not to pay any taxes. I find it strange that some people who pay taxes also get government benefits - but only because it seems strange to take money away from someone in one form just to give it back in another, when it probably would have been cheaper to just let them keep it. But that may not be a big phenomenon.
At the same time, I recognize the need for taxes and government. I just disagree with the size of it and I think most of it is wasted money - and kickbacks for rich donors. Talk about a return on an investment - like those who donate a few million to some Senators and Bush and get legislation that makes them billions of dollars. There is no better investment than a politician.
This comment was written by Disgusted Beyond Belief.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I wonder how this meme works with the “limousine liberal” stereotype. If liberals are all rich latte drinkers wouldn’t they be arguing to tax *themselves* and spend it on a social safety net that, as limo dwellers they don’t even need?
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October 29th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Amp, most of the discussion I see on the left these days . . . and certainly most of the campaign rhetoric–involves raising taxes on “the rich” in order to fund things like national health care. People who oppose these things are often castigated as “selfish”, even when neither they, nor the people hurling insults, are going to pay the new taxes.
Do you think you should pay much higher taxes in order to fund social spending? If not, then you can’t believe that you’re any more personally moral or generous than people who are against those taxes. (not that I’m aware that you, personally, have made any such claims). And of course, if you do think that you should pay higher taxes, why aren’t you donating whatever you should be paying to charity? Even if you think it’s less effective than government action would be, it can’t be that there is no charity effective enough at helping someone deserving to satisfy your moral obligation.
This comment was written by Megan McArdle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Megan,
First of all, I think that you need to be looking at taxpayers as classes rather than individuals in the context of this discussion. “The rich” is not Tracy Doe and “the poor” is not Lenny Smith.
If we look at taxes from the class, rather than individual, point of view, we can see that the richest folks (those in the class that encompasses the top 1% or top 10%) pay a noticeably smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the commonly defined middle class does. Thus, when those of us on the left talk about increasing taxes on the rich, we are, first and foremost, calling for the rich to pay a percentage of their income commensurate with the taxes paid by those in the middle class.
As to:
And of course, if you do think that you should pay higher taxes, why aren’t you donating whatever you should be paying to charity?
I’ve always thought that was a lousy argument. If only I pay those “higher taxes” to charity, I put myself at a competitive disadvantage in the wealth acquiring game as we play it under the current rules. But if everybody pays those higher taxes, the playing field remains equal. Also, if I’m the only one paying those “higher taxes” to charity, my goals will not be met. If, OTOH, everybody (including me and my friends and loved ones) pays those actual higher taxes, the funding necessary to achieve my goals will actually exist.
Also related to this, I believe that the wealthier you are, the higher the percentage of your income should be paid in taxes. This is part and parcel of what I’d like to think the social contract is - if you can pay more, you do. Thus I don’t complain that I pay a noticeably higher percentage of my income in taxes now that I earn $90k than I did when I earned $20k. It is my duty to my community to help support those less fortunate than I and, as I now benefit more from our infrastructure & society, my fair share is more than it used to be and I can afford to pay more.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Bit confused, Jake. So from a “class” perspective, you’re paying a lower percentage of your income than poor people are. But from an individual perspective, you’re paying more now than you did when you were (income) poor?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Even limo libs tax other people. If they didn’t, they’d just fund whatever program they want out of pocket. It is use of taxes paid by other (nonsupporters of the liberal idea) people to fund liberal ideas which chafes libertarians, not the effect (or lack thereof) on supporter’s tax burden. Whether all of your money, or none, went toward your favored social program is utterly irrelevant to the ethics of using taxes paid by non-supporters of that program to fund it. That is to say, libertarians aren’t calling liberals hypocrits, they are calling them thieves.
(In general, hypocrisy is viewed as a great wrong primarily by the left, the right is at peace with the idea that, as the Christians say, all are sinners. (Or, to put it another way, it is easy to consider hypocrisy the greatest sin when one has few morals. Those with strict moral codes have to be able to deal with the probability that man, a highly flawed and temptable creature, won’t ever be able to live up to them. For example, the great evil (in the view of Christian right-wingers, NOT ME - I view consensual activity of this type as being of no more moral importance either way than, say, watching tv) of ‘out’ gays is not that they are tempted to sin and sometimes fall into ’sin’, but rather that they are not repentant or ashamed of those sins. So Larry Craig, by being furtive about his sin, acknowledges the sinfulness of his action, and thus is less bad than, say, Barney Frank, who refuses to do so.)
Megan: Y’all are just going to talk past each other, because your operative morality is individualist, while Ampersand (like many on the left) has a collective sense of morality. The person on the left isn’t trying to discharge an individual moral obligation to the poor - that isn’t the morality he operates under. He is trying to advance our society toward fulfilling what he sees as its collective moral obligation to the poor - in his view the obligation isn’t merely his, it is everyone’s, whether they accept it or not. That is to say, there is no ‘your’ and ‘my’ moral obligation for him to discharge through charity, it is all ‘ours’, in the modern left’s world view.
This comment was written by rvman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Last I checked conservatives have no problem spending my tax dollars on the Iraq oil war. Can i get refund when we all agree “to stop spending other peoples money”?
On a smaller point while the cigarette tax is regressive, I think some level of taxing is justified to cover smoking related costs (mainly the health costs) and perhaps some for prevention efforts. Other than that I’m 100% for making the rich pay universal health care.
Class War Now!
This comment was written by drydock.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Megan wrote:
“Charity” is not the opposite of “selfish,” Megan; saying that people who are infuriated at the thought of their precious precious tax dollars supporting a welfare mother are being selfish, is not the same as saying that people who do support a generous welfare state are being charitable.
I believe in paying my fair share of what’s necessary for a strong social safety net, including universal government-paid health care. If that requires me paying much higher taxes, I’m in favor of that.
In Portland, where I live, many worthy public initiatives are paid for by voter-approved property tax increases (parks, libraries, etc). I have voted for every single one I’ve had a chance to vote for — and have continued to do so since becoming a homeowner myself. So I support higher taxes for myself not only on my blog, but in the voting booth. (Or in the mail-in ballot, to be less poetic but more accurate). I suspect that most lefties and liberals do the same.
In general, I think a highly individualist worldview is more selfish than a communitarian worldview. But of course you can’t apply that analysis at the level of particular individuals; there are selfish communitarians and nonselfish individualists.
That’s not an argument I generally bother making, though, because it smacks a little of ad hom. (I wouldn’t have mentioned my view on it here if you hadn’t brought it up while addressing me).
Speaking of ad hom attacks…
What I give to charity is none of your business.
It’s also irrelevant. Universal health care is either the right policy or the wrong policy; it’s not suddenly the wrong policy based on if the person advocating it has given to charity lately. I have never once brought up what someone I’m debating with has given to charity, and I never will; you should imitate me in this regard, Megan.
However, your ad hom aside, Jake is right. I want society as a whole to guarantee a decent economic situation for everyone in society, and I favor effective solutions that will bring such a situation about. Using taxes for a common social safety net that benefits us all is a rational way to bring this outcome about; and it’s no more wrong for me to want taxes to pay for this than it is for taxes to pay for roads, or the police, or FEMA.
If my paying 10% of my income to charity would solve these problems, of course I’d do it. But it won’t, and it’s ludicrous of you to bring this up as if that’s at all a reasonable alternative policy to (say) France’s income transfer and health care programs. The problems we face are too large and systematic to be handled by individual charitable gifts. They can, however, be solved by a tax increase that would be far less than 10% for most taxpayers, and not an unreasonable crimp on any taxpayers’ lifestyle.
Furthermore, because charitable giving may go down when incomes go down — such as during periods of high unemployment or low wage growth — a system that depends solely on personal charity will not only always be inadequate, but it will be most inadequate exactly when it’s most required.
* * *
I’m going to be working on getting drawings done today — and also going to see a movie tonight with Jake Squid :-) — so probably won’t be responding more in comments. My apologies. I do read every single comment, for whatever that’s worth.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Robert,
I’m not in the top 1% (or even 10%) of income earners. Therefore I fall in the commonly defined “middle class.” As such, I (and by “I”, I mean my class - the middle class) pay a higher percentage of my income in taxes than the wealthiest among us. I also pay a higher percentage than the classes below middle, but that is as I think it should be.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 29th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
“Amp, I think what Megan is referring to is what some on the left do in the opposite direction - claiming that right-wingers are UN-charitable because they do NOT support income transfer programs. Thus, the implication is that those programs are charitble (or at least that supporting them is).”
I’m glad we swiftly put to rest the notion that anti-poverty programs must fulfill some ethically ambiguous category of “charity” before we can implement them - otherwise, I reserve the right to personally veto any armed action by the police or military if it doesn’t fulfill some perfect definition of “heroism”.
You do have a point here with saying that people shouldn’t hurl words such as “selfish” at those who don’t support social programs.
“I find it strange that some people who pay taxes also get government benefits - but only because it seems strange to [b]take money away from someone in one form just to give it back in another[/b], when it probably would have been cheaper to just let them keep it.”
Giving wealth away in one form and getting it back in another is the basic principle of all economic interaction there, dbb. The reason the government mediates these particular exchanges is because they deal with goods the private sector is incapable of providing, either at all or at the same level.
“Bit confused, Jake. So from a “class” perspective, you’re paying a lower percentage of your income than poor people are. But from an individual perspective, you’re paying more now than you did when you were (income) poor?”
Hmm. I think Jake already fielded this question, but here it helps to remember that federal income tax =/= the sum total of all taxes in the universe. Many discussions about the relative tax burden shouldered by the rich take into account only the federal income tax, as if no taxes are paid in the form of sales taxes, property taxes, state and municipal taxes, excise taxes, and payroll taxes, all of which are/can be regressive in effect. (Granted, this also discounts the capital gains and estate taxes, which are progressive in effect.) So it’s entirely possible to say that rich should pay more of their income in taxes – in other words, a call for greater progressivity in the income tax – whilst also maintaining that, say, upper middle class folk pay more total taxes than the very wealthy. It depends if by ‘income’ you literally mean ‘income’, or are using it as a synonym for ‘wealth’.
Personally, I find it doubtful that the very rich don’t in fact pay the greatest share of their wealth in taxes – I just think that the extent to which they pay more is vastly overstated when all taxes are not taken into account. I could foresee a situation like the one JakeSquid posits happening, but only after taking into account tax evasion, a vastly overlooked problem. But we have no way of measuring that here.
“Whether all of your money, or none, went toward your favored social program is utterly irrelevant to the ethics of using taxes paid by non-supporters of that program to fund it.”
Ruman, do you support using government money for public universities? The CDC? Enforcing traffic laws? Building and maintaining water mains and sewage systems? Subsidizing medical research? Regulating airspace and bandwidth frequencies?
Because if you look around, there are people who oppose each and every one of these functions of government. If you believe government spending in any of these areas – or any area at all, really – is legitimate, then you are also coercing non-supporters of the program to pay for what you want. True, the great majority of people support all of these state services. But then great majorities of people support Social Security, universal health care, and the basic notion of taxing the rich to help the needy. Your argument reduces to piddling with degrees of great-majority-ness, which is, suffice to say, distinctly morally unpersuasive.
Now, if your argument is that there is some specifically wrong with taxing the rich to help the needy, make that argument. But don’t try to hide behind easy anti-“government” rhetoric. Don’t we all hate government in our own way?
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 5:35 am
Sylph - Of course I recognize that part and parcel of economic activity is money going in and coming out. But I was talking specifically about a government program that pays money ONLY based on not having enough income. Thus, it seems strange to first have the government say that you make enough income that they can tax it and take some of it, and then say that your income is too low and so give you money. It would be easier (and far far far more efficient) to simply raise the level of untaxed income rather than tax it and then pay it back.
Paying someone because they have low income is not standard economic activity (there is no exchange) - it is welfare.
This comment was written by Disgusted Beyond Belief.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Spending “other people’s money” to fund the Iraq war, abstinence-only education programs and faith-based initiatives is OK but spending “other people’s money” to fund a generous social-safety net is bad. Got it.
This comment was written by SarahMC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Sylphhead,
I was actually talking about only income taxes. I’m willing to be corrected, though, because I haven’t collected the research on Federal Income Tax. I have, however, done some work on the Oregon State Income Tax. I have (perhaps incorrectly) extended my findings to the Federal level since Oregon tends to imitate the Federal government in most cases. That work can be found here: http://jakesquid.livejournal.com/2836.html
Perfectly legal deductions account for the discrepancy. In Oregon, no tax evasion is required to result in the top 2% of income earners to pay a bit more than 1/2 of what the bottom 98% pay in taxes (as a percentage of their income).
There is an excellent book, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else, that details how the top income earners pay much smaller percentages of their income in income taxes than you would think possible. If I had it to hand, I feel certain that I could assert facts on the numbers rather than quite possibly incorrect memories.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Amp said:
I want society as a whole to guarantee a decent economic situation for everyone in society
I would disagree. I want society as a whole to guarantee that every individual will have the opportunity to provide a decent economic situation for themselves. Whether or not they choose to put forth the necessary effort is up to them; if they don’t (as opposed to can’t) they should suffer the consequences.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 7:37 am
slyphhead, when you look at the various things that the taxpayers’ money is spent on and compare them, remember that under our form of government some things (roads, a military, etc.) are in fact specified under the Constitution as being within the powers of Congress, whereas other things (a social safety net) are not.
So while different people may object to their taxes paying for different things, those different things have different standing under the law. They’re not equivalent.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 7:52 am
So, RonF, you think all rich people are rich due to hard work and effort while all poor people are poor due to lack of motivation and laziness?
This comment was written by SarahMC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I just want to thank you for the etymology of ‘poppycock’. It’s been a while since I used the term; it will see more use, probably in the immediate future.
This comment was written by P6.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:34 am
I want society as a whole to guarantee that every individual will have the opportunity to provide a decent economic situation for themselves. Whether or not they choose to put forth the necessary effort is up to them; if they don’t (as opposed to can’t) they should suffer the consequences.
I really, really don’t want anybody who believes this to be part of my society. But, given that I’m stuck with them, I want a social safety net for those foul people, too.
Which of the above 2 sentiments is more in line with the New Testament? Weird.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I really, really don’t want anybody who believes this to be part of my society.
There are far more people who believe this than who don’t. Whose society is it?
And, what’s “foul” about expecting that people who can take care of themselves, will?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Here’s an example, Robert. How is a foster child who’s lived with 15 different families during her life supposed to know how to take care of herself when she ages out of the system at 18 and is suddenly on her own? With no solid support system to help her navigate the real world? With, perhaps, no life skills to speak of?
This comment was written by SarahMC.Not everyone grows up in a good family with a mom and dad who’ll pick them up when they fall down.
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October 30th, 2007 at 9:06 am
And, what’s “foul” about expecting that people who can take care of themselves, will?
Because you don’t actually know who can take care of themselves. Your judgement is subjective and extremely likely to be factually incorrect. It’s foul to hold oneself out as arbiter of who can and who cannot “take care of themselves” as many impediments are not readily visible.
Judge not, that ye be not judged..
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Jake,
Where is all this Biblical reference stuff coming from? Am I missing something?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 9:51 am
What’s more, our capitalist system requires a certain level of unemployment in order to function well. We have designed a system that has winners and losers . . . and that’s fine . . . but once having ‘losers’ is an integral component of your system, there’s a certain cruelty in washing your hands of them.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Where is all this Biblical reference stuff coming from?
It’s kind of related to who I’m responding to & their past statements of the importance of their religion in their lives. I’m trying to put my position in terms that may be both familiar and of importance to them.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 10:02 am
How is a foster child who’s lived with 15 different families during her life supposed to know how to take care of herself when she ages out of the system at 18 and is suddenly on her own?
By having eyes and ears and a brain, and recognizing that most of the 15 families she’s worked for go out and, I don’t know, get jobs? Such a person may well have many deficits in life skills that they will have to learn as they go. But they aren’t someone who can’t take care of themselves.
It’s foul to hold oneself out as arbiter of who can and who cannot “take care of themselves” as many impediments are not readily visible.
This is absurd, and is a test you would reject as applied to any other area of your life. LOTS of things in life aren’t readily visible, yet we must make judgments there nonetheless. Fortunately we have brains and the ability to do crazy things like asking questions. (”Are you sitting down because you’re tired? Or because you have myasthenia gravis?”)
Granted, no person is going to be a perfect arbiter, and there are undoubtedly going to be differences of opinion and interpretation.
But having discovered the hidden variables of a person’s situation and collectively decided upon standards of behavior and responsibility, we’re perfectly capable as people of making these reasonable determinations. Lots of people can’t take care of themselves. Most can.
If that’s “foul”, then so is the whole concept of human social organization.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I appreciate (kind of) your reference of the Biblical sentiments, Jake.
But it’s worth noting, to anyone who (like you ) doesn’t appear well-grounded in the fundamentals, that the Bible urges charity that is aimed at those who need it- that we support “widows and orphans”, in other words, but that the able-bodied by the Bible’s standards are expected to care for themselves.
Christ demands that we care for others as we would care for ourselves. He demands that we share love, fellowship and brotherhood with one another. He doesn’t require that we check our brains at the door.
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, I had no clothing and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to see me.”
Note - NOT, you gave out food to everyone. NOT, you gave drinks away to everyone. NOT, you took everyone in. NOT, you clothed everyone. NOT, that you visited everyone.
Rather, that you gave food to the HUNGRY. That you gave drink to the THIRSTY. That you sheltered the STRANGER, clothed the NAKED, visited the SICK and IMPRISONED.
Means-tests, in other words. Endorsed by the Jewish and Christian traditions for 4000 years, and still going strong.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Fortunately we have brains and the ability to do crazy things like asking questions. (”Are you sitting down because you’re tired? Or because you have myasthenia gravis?”)
Good luck getting help when you have a chronic pain syndrome. That works so very well. Go find yourself a fibromyalgia support group and see how well your judgment works in real life.
Whether one can take care of oneself or not comes down to the individual. Much like pain, the same degree of which can be intolerable for one while a minor irritation for another, this is something that is extremely difficult to judge from the outside. Distasteful as this may seem to you, this is a case where we need to largely believe what people tell us about themselves. You know, start from a position of belief rather than a position of disbelief.
Honestly, judging who can and cannot care for themselves is not nearly as easy as judging who can and who cannot program a computer.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 10:34 am
… the Bible urges charity that is aimed at those who need it…
… you gave food to the HUNGRY…
I don’t recall the bible instructing us on a means test to determine if somebody is REALLY hungry or just scamming. If somebody asks you for food, isn’t the default position supposed to be belief in their claim? Or are we told to first say, “Prove it?” If so, I surely missed that in my education.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Distasteful as this may seem to you, this is a case where we need to largely believe what people tell us about themselves.
Have I argued otherwise? I would say that the presence of scammers in society militates for some skepticism concerning absurd claims (”I can’t work because I was in foster care”), but in many cases the only prospective evidence for someone’s disability is their own statement. As a society, we are competent to establish broad baselines of what does and doesn’t count as a reasonable self-report of disability; I’m in agony 24/7, vs. My cats need me.
You’re shifting the goalposts. You said it was foul to believe that people who should take care of themselves, ought to. Now you’re trying to turn that into the “foulness” deriving from judgmentalism.
You need to either back off your original assertion, or stop trying to change the parameters.
IRRESPECTIVE OF ONE’S OPINION CONCERNING HOW DISABILITY SHOULD BE DETERMINED, is it foul to believe that people who can take care of themselves, should?
I don’t recall the bible instructing us on a means test to determine if somebody is REALLY hungry or just scamming.
Nor does Paul provide instructions on how to repair tents; he just says that if you can work as a tentmaker to support yourself, you better do it.
The existence of a qualifier is implicit support for the idea that someone must do the qualifying. Surely there are people that you would believe immediately if they said there were hungry; equally surely, there are people who you would know were just trying to cadge a meal.
Our charitable obligations do not extend to charitably assuming the honesty of every human being on earth.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 11:22 am
You need to either back off your original assertion, or stop trying to change the parameters.
I think that you have misinterpreted my original assertion (possibly due to my lack of clarity). So let me try to clarify it here.
My initial assertion was that I really, really didn’t want people who thought like RonF. to be part of my society.
IMO, people who think like RonF. (as represented by his statement that I quoted) believe that they are fit to judge who can and who cannot provide for themselves. The statement I quoted is one that I have often heard in conjunction with complaints about “welfare queens,” a cliched complaint that strongly implies both that the social safety net is overwhelmed by scammers and that the complainer can judge who is and who is not deserving of aid.
This means that I believe people who think like RonF also believe that they are accurate judges of who cannot provide for themselves and who is merely not putting for the effort while basing that judgment on extremely limited info. Thus my quoting of the biblical line about judging in my response to your query.
I hope that is a satisfactory explanation of my initial comment.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Oh. I am enjoying the discussion of biblical interpretation.
One thing of which I was previously unaware is that the “For I was hungry…” verse from Matthew is almost a direct quote from several places in the Old Testament.
Also, if it’s Paul saying, “… if you can work as a tentmaker to support yourself, you better do it,” but Jesus exhorting us to feed the hungry, what is the relative weight of each? Is that really what Paul said? Are we meant to believe that Paul setting an example for the Thessalonians by working is in any way implying a means test for works of charity?
I’m asking those questions in all seriousness because I know less about interpretation of the New than I do the Old.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Yeah. Isaiah 1:17 is the big one in the feed-the-poor department, particularly because it is presented as part of a direct (and lengthy, and pissed off) quote from God, not as Isaiah’s own opinion.
The verse is pretty redolent of the idea that is fairly thick on the ground in biblical text: judgment. Not of the smite-evil variety, but of the using your brain variety. God commands the listener to reach right judgments in the cases of the widow and the orphan.
Paul’s labor doesn’t establish a means test; it establishes the principle of self-sufficiency where possible.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Part of this has more to do with logic than charity or greed. Reason says we can’t accomplish some goals, charitable or otherwise, without group action and probably taxes. Likewise, reason says that goals like universal fire department service or health care benefit everyone. Warren Buffett probably has honest charitable reasons for giving away lots of money and supporting more taxes on his class. But he also knows that it won’t in fact hurt his children’s standard of living — nobody needs more than a few million dollars for anything except status or power — and it may in fact protect them from angry citizens or villagers carrying torches. See Solon of Athens.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I was referring to Isaiah 58:7 and on through :12 (in which sacrifice in service of the needy is the way to spiritual fulfillment and satisfying God) in the midst of calling for obeying the spirit, as well as the letter, of God’s laws.
If I recall my classes correctly, Isaiah was a prophet in a time in which Israel had fallen from following biblical law. He was citing the ways in which his contemporaries had strayed and telling them how God wanted them to act. In fact, 1:17 seems to be calling for what I have stated in prior comments wrt judgment vs justice.
I disagree with your analysis in your second paragraph (as did my religious classes). In terms of judgment, Isaiah is concerned with God’s judgment and the need to follow God’s laws and not with human judgment of other people.
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
is no call to use your brain to judge others. Rather, it is a call to follow God’s laws and, as is mentioned in numerous other places in Isaiah, to treat your fellows decently and with charity as God wishes.
Isaiah is a fascinating mix of fire & brimstone combined with love your brother. An almost apocalyptic vision of the cleansing of Israel. But nowhere in there do I remember anything (good in God’s eyes) about judging your brethren.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Also, helping the poor should mean they have more money to spend and help the economy (by which I mean rich people). And the evidence of “negative unemployment” calls that inflationary doctrine mentioned before into question. The dogma seems either false or, like the Laffer curve, meaningless in practice.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Jake asked:
“Which of the above 2 sentiments is more in line with the New Testament? Weird.”
Well, Jake, since you brought it up, here you go. This is from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 3, verses 6 - 15:
From Chapter 4, verses 11 - 12:
This has been viewed as a guideline for life in America from the founding of English settlements here. From the founding of Jamestown on the National Endowment of the Humanities’ web site:
My emphasis; I wonder if the NEH missed or ignored the fact that this is a Scripture quote.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
SarahMC said:
So, RonF, you think all rich people are rich due to hard work and effort while all poor people are poor due to lack of motivation and laziness?
No. Do you?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
In terms of judgment, Isaiah is concerned with God’s judgment and the need to follow God’s laws and not with human judgment of other people…learn to do right! Seek justice…”
I eagerly await how we are to learn to do right and to seek justice, without considering judgment. The very language of the verse itself requires mental processing; it’s plead the case of the widow, not plead the case of anyone who wanders along. Uphold the fatherless, not uphold every random kid.
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October 30th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Isn’t that nice. I guess this may relate to the discussion after all. Because since I just pointed it out, you should still recall that America does not follow the Puritan conservative principle for rich people unless you modify it as Brad does in his explanation (following Bill Bennett).
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Robert: unless you follow the Sermon on the Mount. But this is a minor point, since Paul makes it clear in Romans 13:8-10 that you have exactly one moral commandment to follow as a Christian.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Thanks for the verses, RonF. Learning new things is always good.
Thessalonians 3:6-15 certainly gives a concise summary of modern day Christian sentiment (to a certain extent). I find Paul intriguing because so much in there seems to be the word of Paul (as opposed to the word of God). The phrasing and choice of words is particularly notable to me as causing that impression. The more I read of Paul, the more I understand why there are those who make the distinction between Christians and Paulists.
“If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
This exemplifies why Christianity (or Paulism for those who view it that way) is not the religion for me. No matter how much I hate my ex-wife on a personal level, I’d never let her starve. To do so (even if she wouldn’t work) would be nothing more nor less than stark cruelty.
I might also point out that the circumstances, both in Paul’s time and at the Jamestown colony, were significantly different in terms of availability of food than they are now. In Paul’s time & at the Jamestown colony there was (or was always the possibility of) real famine without prospect for relief from distant locations. As a result, starvation for the entire community was a looming reality. That sort of phrase allowed people to harden their hearts towards those who would starve in the next famine - an understandable strategy for the preservation of one’s mental health. In contrast, today we produce more than enough food to feed every person in the world well and we have the communications and transportation to get food anywhere that it is needed. That we choose not to, that we choose to starve people as punishment says nothing good about us or the gods we believe command us to do so.
Also, today, as Myca said, our system relies on having people who are unemployed. If we create a class that we don’t want to be working, is that even remotely related to Thessalonians? Can we then deny them food, etc. and still be moral, righteous in God’s eyes Christians?
Believing that line is applicable today or believing that we need to understand the context is the difference between following the letter and following the spirit, between blindly following orders and doing what is right and moral. Or so I think.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I eagerly await how we are to learn to do right and to seek justice, without considering judgment.
If you read and believe Isaiah, you can learn by following God’s laws as previously laid out in the Torah.
The very language of the verse itself requires mental processing; it’s plead the case of the widow, not plead the case of anyone who wanders along.
It seems to me that the verse assumes that the person claiming to be a widow or orphan is actually a widow or an orphan. So much of Isaiah is a plea for returning to God (which explicitly includes honesty and explicitly excludes judging your fellows). This is an admittedly utopian view, but that’s part and parcel of the prophets - threaten destruction, entice with heaven. The prophets were not normal, everyday folks, or so we were taught in school. They were pretty radical folks preaching a very manichean near future - turn to God & everything will be perfect or continue and face utter destruction. You, otoh, take the view that people need the stick to do what is necessary and that they would lie to avoid work. This is a perfectly valid worldview, it’s just not the one that Isaiah was living with.
If we can accept that as the worldview within which many of the prophets (including Isaiah) lived, we can see how there would be no call to judge whether others are worthy of receiving aid or not.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Thanks for the link, hf. The First Principle of Conservatism was certainly enlightening for me.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Robert, you seem to be considering a very narrow definition of “social safety net.” It’s not that 18 year old former foster children from really bad situations can’t physically work. It’s that sometimes all different kids of people can benefit from programs designed to teach people skills, help them find stable employment & housing, etc. I think they are a good idea. I recognize that not all people were born into ideal situations, and I’d be more than willing to pay more in taxes to make society more just and equitable.
RonF, I don’t. But I inferred, from your writing, that you did.
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October 30th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
If we can accept that as the worldview within which many of the prophets (including Isaiah) lived, we can see how there would be no call to judge whether others are worthy of receiving aid or not.
Not worthy of receiving aid or not; helpless or not. The commandment is to care for widows and orphans - at the time, the people who were most at peril in a very hostile world. God isn’t telling us to support the 32-year old able-bodied, sound of mine “orphan” boy until his death from natural causes at 92, he is telling us to adopt the three-year old orphan, to find a job for the thirteen-year orphan, to make sure the nine-year old orphan is getting two or three squares. The process of deciding where on the sliding scale we stop helping people is political, or religious, or cultural - but there’s a pretty fair range of middle ground where we have broad agreement of judgment.
I should stop using the word judgment, because you’re reading it as the sense of moral condemnation. I should say discernment. Yes, we help the widows (metaphorically) - in Isaiah’s time, discernment meant making sure someone claiming the widow’s allotment is a widow.
Trust, but verify.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Jake:
No matter how much I hate my ex-wife on a personal level, I’d never let her starve. To do so (even if she wouldn’t work) would be nothing more nor less than stark cruelty.
If she wouldn’t work, you’re not letting her starve. She’s starving herself. That’s not cruelty on your part; it’s suicide on her part.
I might also point out that the circumstances, both in Paul’s time and at the Jamestown colony, were significantly different in terms of availability of food than they are now.
The premise of this part of your post seems to be that Paul’s statement was based on ensuring that the community didn’t starve. I contest that; for one thing, he seems to be warning those who follow him that they are not simply to teach the Word but to work as well. On that basis I’d say it was therefore possible for the community to support someone to teach the Word and not work as well. It seems to me that his statement is based on the concept that there is an inherent good to working and supporting one’s self, and that it also more properly inspires other (especially given the quote from Chapter 4).
Also, today, as Myca said, our system relies on having people who are unemployed.
That’s an interesting assertion. It’s not familiar to me, and I don’t buy it.
I don’t see anything in the context of those verses that makes them inapplicable today.
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October 30th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
SarahMC
It’s not that 18 year old former foster children from really bad situations can’t physically work. It’s that sometimes all different kids of people can benefit from programs designed to teach people skills, help them find stable employment & housing, etc.
I quite agree that those are proper moral things for a society to do. Those are programs that help people help themselves. For example, in order for someone to take advantage of money for education, they have to go to school and get good enough grades to learn something and graduate. While someone is dependent on others while going to school, the end result is that they should be able to end that dependency. That’s why I strongly support effective governmental support for education, even though there’s not a thing about it being a duty or responsibility of the government in the Federal Constitution. Of course, the various State constitutions generally all mention it, which is fine; that’s the whole idea behind limited sovereignty of the States (a.k.a. “State’s rights”).
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I have a question for the “means testers” out there.
Let’s say you see somebody who is at first glance able-bodied, but is not working, and is starving (or homeless, or suffering in any other way that working would alleviate).
How likely is it, in your mind, that that person is in fact able (but unwilling) to work? And how likely is it that they are unable to work in a way that is unapparant to you at first glance?
My impression is that those who are eager to apply means-testing are often eager to believe the former — that the non-working poor are in some way “pulling the wool over our eyes”, craftily managing to enjoy their substandard Section 8 housing and WIC handouts while avoiding honest work.
Personally, I think you’d have to be crazy to aspire to be one of the non-working poor. I think that the vast majority of the non-working poor don’t work because they can’t, and that our obsession with means-testing ends up harming them totally out of proportion to the good it does in preventing slacking.
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Myca and Jake are correct; the authorities who run the economy deliberately act in ways to make sure that there are always enough unemployed workers so that wages aren’t forced up “too” fast.
Ron wrote:
Whether or not you “buy it” is irrelevant. Some things are a matter of opinion, but this isn’t; it’s just the facts of how the Federal Reserve Bank operates.
If unemployment gets too low, firms are forced to offer higher wages in order to compete for the smaller pool of available workers. To pay for the higher wages, firms raise their prices, leading to inflation.
If low unemployment brings about rising prices — and if the unemployment rate is low enough, it inevitably will — the Federal Reserve Bank will respond by raising interest rates, in order to slow economic growth, which will in turn increase unemployment and prevent (or at least slow down) inflation. In fact, the Fed will often do this before inflation rises, wanting to counteract inflatinary trends before they begin.
Obviously I’m doing some extreme nutshelling here, but nothing I’m saying here is controversial, or something that only left-wing economists believe.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Bjartmarr raises an interesting question (well, interesting to me at any rate.)
Are there any Europeans here? i have read, but do not know the accuracy of, reports that living “on the dole” is/was much more common in the more socialist Europeans contries. Which makes sense, at least to me: the better it is to be one of the non-working poor, then the more people will be non-working poor.
Whether or not it’s more common though, I doubt anywhere near “most” of the nonworking poor are voluntarily so.
And of course it is difficult to figure out who “should” be working. Take the U.S. and the often-perverse incentives for poor people. If you start work (good, right?) you can occasionally lose benefits in an amount equal to or greater than your new earned income (bad). Or, say, if you start work (good) your childcare and commuting costs equal your take home pay (bad.) Or if you’re in a shelter and you start saving money (good) to get your own place, you may lose your shelter (bad.)
Is a person in that situation, who makes a perfectly rational choice not to work, someone who is “unwilling?” It’s a stretch to say they are, IMO.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Note that Ampersand et al simply describe they theory controlling the Fed’s actions. It may not be true, and indeed I don’t entirely buy it, but the authorities clearly try to follow this principle.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Let’s say you see somebody who is at first glance able-bodied, but is not working, and is starving (or homeless, or suffering in any other way that working would alleviate). How likely is it, in your mind, that that person is in fact able (but unwilling) to work? And how likely is it that they are unable to work in a way that is unapparant to you at first glance?
No data. Anecdotally, “some”, in both categories.
f low unemployment brings about rising prices — and if the unemployment rate is low enough, it inevitably will — the Federal Reserve Bank will respond by raising interest rates
So the Federal Reserve Bank takes action when the inflation rate goes up, or when the unemployment rate goes down? I’m sure there’s some correlation between those numbers, but which one is the trigger?
This could just as easily be framed as “the government works to make sure that entrepreneurs and small business people have a hard life”; rising interest rates make new ventures and operating capital both more expensive.
But there’s no political hay to be reaped by doing that.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
No, that’s not what your original quote said. You said:
Here, “some people” are paying taxes and ALSO getting government benefits. We are not talking about people who are so poor that they DON’T pay taxes.
And when you say,
Am I wrong to read “another” as “another [form]”, rather than “another [person]”? Sounds like what you’re saying that is that what’s ridiculous is someone’s money leaving them and coming back to them in another form, which again is what constitutes a basic economic transaction.
I am not saying that taxation is a basic economic transaction that is accurately analogous to buying peaches at your local bodega. (I do maintain that taxation is not a *unique* economic transaction by the same token, however, and that it has many private sector equivalents where there is an obvious imbalance of power, such as that between landowner and tenant, or boss and employee.) I say this only to highlight that a lot of anti-tax arguments really clutch at any straw they can grasp, as is evidenced by the fact that the same logic employed against taxes can also be employed against other things that the anti-tax crusader otherwise approves of.
Progressive taxation is a separate issue.
The general welfare clause, the interstate commerce clause, and the necessary and proper clause in tandem have been interpreted to allow the New Deal, desegregation, and federal criminal law. The Supreme Court has considered this valid. Rich plutocrats, working class racists, and the right wing punditry have not. The Constitution does not tell us, unfortunately, which of the two interpretations are binding.
Oh, wait. Never mind.
Also, do you have any objection to the idea that it takes just as much state power to forcibly seize an individual’s private property to pay for a railroad that the individual doesn’t want? Does the initiation-of-force-ness go up depending on how the state chooses to spend the money after it has forcibly seized it? If so, how?
Ron, the Federal Reserve raises short term interest rates to halt economic growth when unemployment dips too low. Have you never heard of (the now largely debunked*) NAIRU?
An interesting way to think of it, Sailorman, is analogizing it to due process. There are those who think that the emphasis should be on prosecuting as many of the accused as possible. Punishing the actually guilty is a more important consideration than the collateral damage inflicted on the wrongly accused. There are those who don’t like it when criminals are harshly punished, because they see this as violence perpetrated by the state and that criminals are often just the misunderstood elements of society. Then, there are those who want guilty criminals to be given their just dues by the state, but not at the expense of accidentally jailing the innocent. Though both are important, in the end, the freedom of the wrongly accused is more important than punishment of the guilty. I’m of the third camp, and this philosophy is the founding principle of modern democratic legal systems as well.
When it comes to the social safety net, we see a similar assortment of camps. There are those who think that not giving away handouts to the undeserving is a more important consideration than giving some help to those who are in dire circumstances through no fault of their own, and could really use some help. There are those who think that everyone deserves a minimum level of economic assurance. I’m ambivalent toward this: I think everyone should have basic food and shelter, but “economic assurance” could be interpreted more broadly than this.
Then there are those who agree that somewhere out there, some people are receiving welfare who don’t deserve it. They could be working, but they aren’t. I don’t like the idea of these people being on the government dole. But I also understand that any move to cut down assistance - giveaways, really - to these people will also do so for people who really need and deserve assistance: people who are poor because they’re either too young or too old to find a decent job. People who are poor because their parents were poor, abusive, or both. People who are poor because of one or two mistakes made deep in the past, but are still essentially good people who need a temporary leg up. People who are poor because of medical conditions. And cutting assistance to this latter group is a greater wrong than giving it out to the former.
I suppose there could be a way for the government to profile each and every welfare recipient to make sure that they’re of the latter type. But here, we have a pernicious tradeoff: if it’s intricate enough to work, chances are we are wasting more money implementing this program than we are giving money to those who don’t deserve it. If it’s not, chances are it’s too ham-handed to separate the two accurately. And it all depends on trusting those who administer it on the ground, who could very well be real jackasses, to be accurate judges of moral character.
A better method is to replace a straight cash dole with an array of cash vouchers so that we can better direct where our tax money’s being spent. Think food stamps, but expanded both in amount and scope. The problem is, not every poor person has the same needs: a hard-working poor single mother in her late teens will spend her money differently from a hard-working recovering drug addict who’s a single man in his late 30’s. Ultimately, I think a very strong safety net of ground level government services - child care, drug rehab, adult education - will eliminate the need for any straight welfare payments.
*Conceptually, NAIRU is still valid as a logical corollary of the Phillips curve. But NAIRU has been adjusted downward repeatedly over the past quarter century after theory did not match up with empirical experience, so the predictive power of NAIRU is virtually nil today.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
One of the barometers they use to measure inflationary tendencies is the unemployment rate. Once inflation begins, it is usually too late, so they take pre-emptive measures by acting on the unemployment rate. This is a textbook explanation of the concept.
I’m really surprised more people are surprised when they hear this. Part of the Federal Reserve’s job is to prevent unemployment rates from getting “too low”.
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October 30th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Just a reminder that not all welfare recipients are non-working individuals. Many people with multiple full-time jobs receive welfare benefits. So do their children.
This comment was written by SarahMC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Sailor:
This makes sense, in the same way that “the better it is to be paraplegic, then the more people will be paraplegic” makes sense.
While there may be a few people whom extra handouts may convince not to work, I’d have a hard time believing that this number significantly impacts the number of people on public assistance. Rather, I find it far easier to attribute the US and Europe’s disparate public assistance rates to the relative ease by which someone who can’t work can find their way onto the public assistance lists. (In other words, I think we deny assistance to many who need it, while certain European countries aren’t so stingy.)
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
October 30th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that. Get any sleep?
This comment was written by Bjartmarr.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 12:14 am
Ampersand:
This used to be the theory (or maybe it was always just an oversimplification by the lay media–I’m not sure), but I think it’s pretty much universally acknowledged now that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. The idea that low unemployment causes inflation was a confusion of causality and correlation. It’s not that low unemployment causes inflation–it’s that loose monetary policy both stimulates economic activity, thereby lowering unemployment, and increases the money supply, leading to inflation.
Also, that NYT chart in the footnote is misleading. Yes, the bottom 20% only have $8,000 per year in pre-tax income, but according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which the chart cites as a source, they have expenditures of over $19,000 per year. I’m really not sure what’s going on there. This quintile has the highest average age of any of the quintiles, so there are presumably some retirees in there living off their savings, and 42% are homeowners, so property taxes may account for much of the taxes. In any case, it doesn’t seem to be the case that people trying to get by on $8000 a year are paying $1500 in taxes.
It’s also misleading at the upper end. Yes, the top quintile may be paying a total effective tax rate of 19%, but for married couples filing jointly, the 25% bracket doesn’t even kick in until they have an AGI of $61,300. When you figure in all the deductions and credits, it’s not inconceivable that a couple might be making $100k between the two of them without hitting the ceiling of the 15% bracket. It’s not until you start getting up into the mid six figures that you have 30%+ effective tax rates.
Which is consistent with your claim that the vast majority pay a tax rate of 16% (for the record, I have a five-figure salary and pay about 25% between federal income tax and “my half” of FICA, but that’s because I rent and have no wife or dependents). But Megan’s right: Most Democrats will not directly pay the cost of the tax hikes they support (and neither will most of the Republicans who oppose them), because the tax hikes endorsed by most Democratic candidates are narrowly targeted at a small minority of the population.
I agree 100%. But doesn’t the idea that almsgiving should not be a private matter lie at the core of your political philosophy? In other words, you’ve decided that how much I give to charity, what causes I give to, and what strings, if any, I may attach to those gifts, are matters to be decided publicly. So is it really fair to cry foul when others want to make your charitable contributions a matter for public discussion?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 2:32 am
This is so far from reality that I don’t even know how to answer it.
A recent article in the Financial Times asked if perhaps Monetarism is “rising from the grave.” (And I add: If it is, then please someone grab a wooden stake and have at it.) People don’t describe a view as possibly about to rise from the dead if that view is universally agreed upon, Brandon.
Regarding “most democrats will not directly pay the cost of the tax hikes,” I don’t think that’s the point. Yes, most Democrats will not directly pay the costs of reversing Bush’s ridiculous giveaways to the wealthy; but that’s not the question. The question is whether or not most Democrats are paying taxes which help support the social programs Democrats support; and the answer is, yes they do.
And as I’ve pointed out (but you ignored), I routinely vote to raise my own taxes to pay for government programs, and I doubt I’m the only one.
(For that matter, I had thought that a couple of the Democratic health care plans floating around raised taxes on more than just the ultra-wealthy. But I may be wrong.)
This is impressive. You could not possibly have any less comprehension of my view.
Paying taxes is not, in my view, giving to charity. Giving to charity is giving to charity; paying taxes is paying taxes; and the two activities are entirely separate.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to give to charity, and contrary to your ridiculous claims above I will not tell you where to give it, or attach strings. But that you give to charity (and I’m sure you do, very generously) doesn’t exempt you from p