Quote from: BitMagic on November 04, 2011, 06:49:58 PM

Quote from: notme on November 04, 2011, 04:23:24 PM

I'm not sure what you're getting at with 89 vs 90%.

Oh, I was saying that someone just under the poverty line (90%) gets a full prebate on their "flat-distributed" % tax. Someone just over it (89%) get's absolutely no benefit. This is my argument for graduated taxes.

Quote from: notme on November 04, 2011, 04:23:24 PM

Yes, there are situations where people earn money unfairly, but I don't see that as something the government should be responsibile for policing.

So, in essence: rule of law rests in your own hands. John Doe finds it an offense to his sensibilities when his daughter downloads internet porn, and so he crushes her head in with a baseball bat for her impropriety. Acceptable?

It's an extension of "John Q doesn't like Coca-Cola paying nothing for 5-year-olds in china to bottle, so he decides to not buy Coca-Cola anymore."

More realistic: what happens when Eric Prince decides he'd like an island and doesn't want the natives with it, in this no-law land of yours?

That's not acceptable, and the father should be put in jail. Police should stop violent crimes. I didn't say no laws. I feel information should be widely available and the markets should decide what is acceptable. Governments should prevent violent crimes within their boarders and defend their citizens from foreign invasion. Little else is acceptable to me. Luckily, I haven't yet had to deal with the dilemma of paying to support the monstrosity we have allowed to form. I haven't yet made enough, and avoiding that dilemma is what has kept me complacent.

Trust me, I understand how nasty things can get, but I firmly believe that the only way to fight that is awareness: spreading information. We are more capable than ever of sharing information all over the globe. Big governments don't aid in awareness; they restrict the flow of information.

And just to be clear, the sales tax with a pre-bate is not how it is actually done in the US, or anywhere as far as I know. We have progressive taxes very similar to Europe, and no national sales tax at all. Most states have a small sales tax (4-6%) and a few have exemptions for things like food and clothes. I think Alaska is the only state where citizens get checks, and that's because the oil is state owned. Oh how different WV would be if coal/gas companies had to pay more than a few thousand dollars a month to destroy a mountain range.