Oh No I'm on Welfare

[Loki]

I'd rather have my congressman pass legislation to make you pay more than necessary. Oh, wait. You don't pay any taxes.

Only 20%... Jesus Loki.

But if you are happy to pay taxes because it supports civilization, why should you care if I do as well? Civilization gets funded just as much whether you give $1000 or we give $500 each. On what grounds do you prefer the latter to the former (assuming you have the resources to pay the $1000)?

[EyeKhan]

#1. I care because I hate you.

#2. My comment was within the context of people who don't want to pay taxes but still want roads, police, fire departments, courts, consumer protections, a military, electricity, medicine, air and sea ports, secure borders, etc. Nothing was mentioned about the amount of taxes though an argument can be made for some minimum threshold.

#3. I'm not beating down the door to pay more taxes, but I'm not going to cry about the taxes I do pay. I'm perfectly willing to cry about how they are spent, however. You might think the trillion+ that's gone into Iraq is money well spent and trivial since the government spent a lot more on other things during that same time period. I however think it was a catastrophic waste, especially in light of the fact there's still no end in sight, despite the troop draw down, and that Iraq is just as likely, if not more, to become a client state of Iran as it is to stay one of the US.

#4. If there was an initiative to right-size the tax burden, which would inevitably mean an increase in taxes for upper income earners, I wouldn't oppose it assuming it was progressive and fair and there was some attempt to invest in the country's future vs. pouring trillions into occupying countries for no sensible reason.

#5. As I've said ad nauseum, and as you've ignored ad nauseum in your simpleton attempts to play "gotcha," there is no sense at all in unilaterally sending extra money to the government. There needs to be a structured, reliable, fair and predictable revenue policy that meets the needs of maintaining civilization. Random extra checks from people who just feel like being generous in a particular year would arguably make things worse, not better.

Assuming you've bothered to read this far before firing off another attempted gotcha reply, you may now proceed with cherry-picking, context twisting, and whatever other integrity-free tricks you've honed over the years.

[GGT]

What if we could "earmark" extra donations to better fund certain departments or programs?

[EyeKhan]

Theoretically that's what we do when we vote for our congressional representatives. But if put in practice like you suggest, likely some things would be way over-funded and most others way under. The unfortunate thing about most people is they are narrow minded and often ignorant and dismissive of the very many nevertheless important things they don't understand. Rolling with that is theoretically what the beuracracy's for.

[Hazir]

Actually it's what you have a Republic for, the bureaucracy is just a tool for the Republic. I agree that typically individual voters are too myopic to make the right choices on policies. Even though they sometimes seem to get it right, like the People in Oregon, who finally realised that you can't demand better services from the state for free.

[EyeKhan]

That's what I meant vis a vis the beuracracy. Elected representatives can't be experts in all things but their decisions require, theoretically, input from experts. Enter the much maligned career beuracrat.

[Hazir]

That's what I meant vis a vis the beuracracy. Elected representatives can't be experts in all things but their decisions require, theoretically, input from experts. Enter the much maligned career beuracrat.

Yeah, I know why people always whine about bureaucrats, the truth is however that 'we' only do what 'they' tell us to do. And yes, they have policy advisors and the likes, but those typically are people who don't know the first thing about how things work out in the real world. They aren't really extensions of the bureaucracy but water carriers for the politicians.

Politicians who always deny any responsability for the horrible decisions they take, all the way up to the President of your United States who thinks he can both work in the West Wing and NOT be part of the establishment.

[EyeKhan]

Politicians who always deny any responsability for the horrible decisions they take, all the way up to the President of your United States who thinks he can both work in the West Wing and NOT be part of the establishment.

That's about positioning himself to the electorate. I doubt he believes that illusion.

[Hazir]

That's about positioning himself to the electorate. I doubt he believes that illusion.

Well, you are probably right. I on the other hand refuse to have to use telepathy to fathom what politicians really think. It's time the people stop accepting this nonsense from people who are the state telling us they are against it.

[EyeKhan]

Well, you are probably right. I on the other hand refuse to have to use telepathy to fathom what politicians really think. It's time the people stop accepting this nonsense from people who are the state telling us they are against it.

Sometimes they are. Take Bush for example, I think a lot of his government's negligent governance was out of a belief and a desire to prove the government can't do anything right. Either that or they were really that incompetent. Now there's something to vote for, eh?