why? i'd rather keep the money than give it to the state. why vote for people who want to tax you more? i realize it's nice to believe in integrity but i don't think this is an example of it
This demagoguing of taxes is getting a bit old. Reagan, Ike, and Nixon would all be chased out of the party at this point. Taxes are the price we pay for living in a society.
Edit for clarification: Obviously not all taxes are good, similarly not all taxes are bad. That is my point. Life is rarely black and white. I also think tax laws should apply equally and Amazon shouldn't be given any breaks that others aren't.
Agreed; however, for things such as schools and roads and a police-force, this is part of how they earn their money, so when you say no to sales taxes, you're not only saying no to all of its abuses, but you're saying no to the things that actually need it.
The problem isn't with the taxes, the problem is with where the taxes go; and if we don't like where taxes are going, then we need to vote with the mind to change it, and petition our elected officials to change their spending practices.
Will it work? Probably not, sadly, and I don't know where that leaves us.
Maybe, change tax due dates from April to the 3rd week of October?
Spending priorities will change rapidly.
Very, very rarely do I find people who want no government or crippling taxes. The question, as you point out, becomes "how much is too much?"
So can we please stop describing other people's opinions in extreme ways? (I mean that for both sides)
I'm in favor of allocating a certain percentage of GDP to various governments. Say 15% to national, 5% to state, and 2% to local governments. Let the governments themselves decide how to collect it.
This does two things: it gives a real number instead of a bunch of arm-waving, and it puts government on a budget. Historical records show us that you're not getting much more than 20% out of a population anyway (and that's forgetting the Laffer curve)
You can always argue for more or less government and taxes. Both positions are perfectly fine. What's not fine is making this out to be socialism versus anarchy. It's really much more a conversation about finding compromise and being able to spend as much as you tax, instead of having politicians vote for programs nobody can afford and then pointing their fingers at the other guy when the bill comes due.
As for your question about living in a modern society, I'd argue we're paying about 20x more than we need to for these services, mainly because there's no choice involved. As governments continue to clamp down with taxes and more "help", there will be less and less choice, thereby making the multiplier even higher.
There's nothing wrong with believing that yes, we need these things, but no, this is not the way to have them. Doing the wrong thing with good intentions and a good goal is still the wrong thing. :)
Not like they used to.
According to my grandfather (now 89 years old), who was a USDA inspector at a couple of meat processing plans from the end of WWII until he retired (in the late 1980s): There used to be an independent USDA inspector in virtually every processing plant. That inspector could shutdown the entire facility if he saw fit. Now most plants are self-regulating and only get pre-scheduled spot checks by the USDA.
He was pretty upset by the change in the system and the associated decline in the safety and quality of meats.
That said, almost no one bothers doing so, so in theory the rate would go up. However the rate would not be the "tax rate" but instead the "rate of taxes owed which are ultimately paid".
i refuse to believe taxing out of state corporations is going to make a big difference. there's already plenty there, it's just used in the least efficient way possible. this whole thing with the affiliate programs is either a really lame money grab or good lobbying by big box stores.
Your argument also assumes that the business is a net drag on the local environment unless it charges a sales tax. But I strongly doubt that the sales tax revenue a business generates is much more than the other economic benefits it brings (e.g. jobs). This is why so many local governments are willing to provide tax credits to businesses that move or start in their districts.
Looks like there is a correlation between test scores and funding, but it's not statistically significant.
According to a review of over 400 studies, "there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family input are taken into account," according to a paper published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
This chart, http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/796DF8C7C231CFFE..., would seem to suggest while per-student education spending has doubled between 1970 and 2005, scores haven't really improved.
Do you have any evidence that increasing funding will improve results?
Pay particular attention to the McKinsey report results, which found that a teacher that is a standard deviation better than the norm adds $20k to a student's lifetime earnings. Two standard deviations gets you $32k, or $640,000 for a class of 20. Teachers' starting salaries are $39k/year in the U.S., but in educationally top performing places like South Korea and Singapore teachers earn more on average than lawyers and engineers.