Comment by dstroot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dstroot | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Tax is money we contribute to a collective fund and then we elect representatives to spend it for the common good. With me so far?

The people who contribute the most should have a proportional say in how it’s spent. This is “fairness”. Numerically there will be more people who contribute less and fewer people who contribute more under a regressive system.

All of us share the benefits of social programs and health care even if we are not directly benefiting. Society works, and people can regain health, etc. and start contributing to the overall pool of tax money again.

At no point should tax become a method to redistribute wealth - although that’s exactly what it’s become.

We can all agree that some people earn so little they don’t have to pay into the “common benefit fund” (tax) but then shouldn’t they lose the right to decide how the funds are spent?

If we take your thought experiment to the extreme, it could look like this:

The wealth divide continues widening.

After generations, and the "snowball effect", Jeff Bezos' great-grandchildren end up paying all the taxes because everyone else in the country makes so little (only enough to survive) that they don't have to pay in.

At this point, a single-family has a say on how the money will be spent.

And you may accept this scenario, but now that same family literally controls the movement of all food and people (through our road systems), our country's national defense, and most importantly, the ability of any of the rest of the poor people in the country to ever not be poor forever after.

So, using proportional representation (as you appear to advocate) and the idea that even modest returns on very, very large amounts of money will eventually overtake the rest of the economy, we have moved from a democracy to a monarchy or oligarchy.

I don't want my hard-earned saving to be taken away, so I am sympathetic, but there is still the real-world problem that if money isn't forcibly redistributed at a rate that eats into the "magic" of compound interest, it is only a matter of time before there is a problem.

And if it must be redistributed, I rather it is redistributed to the government for the good of all, rather than just handed out evenly among everyone.

You can show how X system is not sustainable but if the parent claims X system is the only "fair" system then the argument falls of deaf ears.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com