47% of Households Owe No Federal Income Tax (no rly) (USA)

[Sparrow]

Wow.

I definitely feel out of place in this debate. You people have a lot of rage, don't you?

 

[nezroy]

up here in Canada we have an option to pay more tax on our pay cheque, which i do, and when tax time rolls around, i get a lot more money back cause i'm charged that extra tax on each pay cheque, it's a nice little bonus

You can do that down here, too.

I'm not sure how well-known it is, but it's perfectly legit to fudge down your "deductions" on the W-4 so you get more withheld from each paycheck and then take back a bit at the end of the tax year.

You don't need to fudge anything; you can generally just set your extra withholding in the US and Canada to any amount you please by contacting your HR dept. The deductions and such are just a standard way that employers help to figure out what you ought to withhold, since you will pay a penalty if you underpay by more than 10% in a given year.

That said, withholding extra is not particularly advantageous. You're not making any more money at the end of the year than you would have otherwise, and are instead locking that extra money up in an "investment" with no return. From a pure min-max perspective you would be better off paying the bare minimum 90% of the tax you expect to owe in order to avoid a penalty, then investing the difference each month in something with a safe return (a CD or whatnot). Then pay the remaining 10% tax at the end of the year out of that investment, and pocket the extra returns. You will have more money that way than in any other fashion, all else being equal.

Of course realistically you probably won't earn enough to care about, and psychologically it's nice not to worry about the hassle of owing taxes and instead receive a refund for people who otherwise find it hard to save their money. Not to mention the chance that you might underpay by more than 10% and face a penalty due to miscalculation.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

If you can barely afford to eat, and are then obliged into a situation which actually worsens your financial situation, (it's not just that you don't gain from it, but you actually go backwards...) who in their right mind would actually do it?

This I agree with fully, having seen real world examples of it. A friend of mine struggles very hard in the real world. He works harder then I do to keep the family living at a normal level, not rich but making sure there is shelter, education, food and what not for their kids. They are still on some governmental allowances even now, for because they have no control over the economy at large and it is in the crappier they can't get more then minimal wage jobs over there, regardless of skill or ability.

Hell, he is a damn soldier and still living below the poverty line, just to show how sickening this can all be but I digress...

In any case he decided in effort to raise the house holds budgets he would go out and get a second job, spending more time working somewhere then at home and getting minimal sleep. What happened?

Well he ended up with LESS money thanks to the flaws in the system your talking about. Trying to better himself, to work harder and in the end it ended up costing him more as he lost many benefits his family required as they where still struggling. Just to make up the lost the household had to get a THIRD job, that means both parents had to work their arses off just to survive.

To say that people on benefits are not working hard enough is an insult to my friend, and the MAJORITY who are like him. Instead of rewarding people who are struggling to get their lives onto a better footing they are punishing them. In turn they are rewarding people who refuse to better their lives, cause those people are obviously smarter then my friend.

The system needs to be changed!

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Once again people baffle me with complaints about the rich being taxed more, which they should be because they have more. It's not like it's hurting any of the complainers, who I'm guessing don't even fit into the tax bracket that's being taxed more.

There is this illusion in the USA, and I wish I couldn't' fathom where it came from but I do. The illusion is that anyone in the middle class is somehow in the 'rich' class bracket, or going to see a raise and arrive in that class bracket in the next few weeks. As a double dose of self-illusion Those that are not above the poverty line and know it are all sure tomorrow they will wake up in the rich bracket, winning the lottery or something.

So these people don't want to do anything that might harm their future, imaginary wealth. They are so isolated from the reality, that the tax bracket we are talking about are people who make MILLIONS, and TENS OF MILLIONS, a year. Money that none of us will ever be able to amass even if we worked every day for eighty years in a middle class job! No matter how many raises we where expecting to magically get.

I remember reading somewhere of a professor that asked his class what a 'rich' wage would be only to find that very few answered anywhere close to 100,000. He felt disappointed when he had to point out that the lowest paying bracket of the upper class is hundreds of times that... and that many of his class would be lucky to get a quarter of their estimate. Yet the damn fools still believed the government was 'taxing the rich too much' and even having reality pointed out to them didn't shatter their dreams of some day being rich enough to wipe their arse with $100 bills.

Even down here in Aus it is the same way, with people I live with griping that only wages should be taxed... even though that is their ONLY income. Why? They all believe that they will strike it rich and don't want the government to tax the investments they would make....

 

[Agema]

No. I do not believe the majority of poverty is the result of bad luck. Some of it is (and I don't mind helping those people) but most of it is NOT. People are usually poor because they lack the discipline to set a goal, work hard to achieve that goal, and make the sacrifices necessary to accomplish it.

...etc.

Other people have pointed out why what you believe is wrong, and I'm going to add my voice here.

One of the greatest misconceptions of many conservatives seems to be that everyone has control over their lives, that every decision is made from perfect reasoning. Both neuroscience and psychology overwhelmingly suggest otherwise. You make decisions based on prior experience, influences, and so on.

Many people can be badly raised by their parents and badly educated, both impair their ability to make good choices. The stress of living in poverty causes ill-health, including ill mental health. Never underestimate social pressure, from peers and the local community generally, which drives many people to make choices not in their ultimate best interest (for instance, how easy is it to get a good education if your classmates bully and beat you up as a teacher's pet for doing well?) Psychologists have found that poverty causes people to feel inferior, and they develop a lack of self-esteem, consequently they don't believe they can do well, and so are less likely to try.

Chaos, stress, poverty and societal problems make people who tend to make bad choices, and those bad choices lead to chaos, stress, poverty and societal problems. Punishing and condemning them exacerbates the problem. What they need are the resources to help them do better.

 

[cobra_ky]

Should people be forever penalized for one poor decision they made? Even if they made it when they were, say, young and stupid? Teenagers do stupid things. You did stupid things, I did stupid things; EVERYONE did.

Case studies have repeatedly shown that "Hard work" alone is rarely enough for someone to pull themselves up unless they get very lucky. When you have a single mom working two full-time jobs and wearing herself to the bone just to pay bills and take care of kids, but still not managing to make enough to put in savings and move out of an inner city neighborhood? That's not a sustainable situation.

I disagree with you. Yes we should be punished for every mistake that we do.

When i was in high school i busted my ass with my studies and my music. while the other teens just worried about having fun in the short term. I left high school being rated 1 on my instrument in the state and getting a full ride scholarship to my college of choice. Yet again i am at college and i am seeing more of the same Young people just trying to have fun rather than make the most of their circumstances. It sickens me.

People need to understand that each of your own actions has a consequence the best way to teach that lesson is to let them fail and make them work up from there failure.

Lets talk about the single mom situation unless it a divorce how did the situation arise. By her being dumb. If its s divorce then usually they get child support to help them deal with the bills.

that's a shockingly naive and offensive view of teen pregnancy. It takes two people to make a baby. when a baby is born it's both their faults.

Children usually aren't even held legally responsible for their actions. if we aren't going to let them ruin their lives through crime, why should we let their lives be ruined by a child they weren't prepared for, especially since you're probably ruining the baby's life too?

 

[kawligia]

You make a reasonably compelling argument but it still falls flat on the basis of what you choose to hold any given person responsible for.

You can't just arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say 'these people lack self-disipline' therefore everything is their own fault...

Yes, I know people that spend all the money they have on alcohol, or drugs, or similar stuff, then beg for more.
You can't help some people by giving them money, in the end.

But success and failure aren't simple correlates with how hard you work.
Working harder won't make you more successful in and of itself.
Neither will being lazy guarantee being poor.

Sure, to a point, you can improve your own circumstances, but all it takes is one misfortune to put you into a practically unrecoverable position.
Being master of your own destiny has it's limits.

What's worse, the choice in attitude has negative consequences. I can, and do see people get mistreated simply because they are poor.
Why? Because people think it's their own fault.

It doesn't matter if it is or it isn't the person's own fault, but time and again i've seen the 'you are responsible for your own fate' line of reasoning used to be outright abusive to anyone who is poor, with no care or consideration given to why they are poor, but just the implicit assumption that they are the only ones responsible.

The flip side to this is of course letting people off from taking any kind of responsibility for their own actions, which is, ironically, also harmful. And in particular, it's actually harmful to the person themselves.

Then of course, as a European, the 'welfare trap' comes to mind.
This is the psychological trap that results from getting government handouts.
Some people use it to justify not giving people anything to begin with, but the real problem is that the system is rigged (as with your example of the handicapped) to be counter-productive.
If you can barely afford to eat, and are then obliged into a situation which actually worsens your financial situation, (it's not just that you don't gain from it, but you actually go backwards...) who in their right mind would actually do it?
It's like being asked to work more hours at your job, except the harder you work, the less you get. Not much incentive there.
Welfare systems are fine in principle, but why are so many of them rigged to actively discourage people to try and improve their circumstances?

There's a difference between being poor and being unable to go see a movie when you feel like it, and being poor and having to decide if you can actually afford to eat something today...

But basically, I very much doubt people have anywhere near as much control over their lives as you think they do.

I never intended to imply that hard work will guarantee great wealth or that laziness would guarantee utter poverty. Hard work and determination can ALMOST guarantee a moderate level of success. By that I mean having enough money to pay for all your basic necessities and also a moderate amount of luxuries. It will never guarantee millions of dollars. And it doesn't protect you from calamities like getting in a car crash and becoming a quadriplegic or a widespread economic depression.

I have no problem with helping people who are temporarily down on their luck or who simply cannot improve themselves. I only have a problem with permanently supporting people who WON'T help themselves. Especially when they receive more than basic necessities. (See below)

And I do not support treating poor people like crap on a personal level. I hate stuck up people. Like I said, I worked a lot of shitty jobs to pay for school and I worked mostly with people who were FAR from rich. I got along with them and even made a few friends along the way. Also, my two best friends could adequately be described as "poor." They both made stupid decisions when we were younger and are paying for it now. I don't look down on any of them on a personal level and I don't think they are "bad people." I just don't think the taxpayers should be forced to reward them for their mistakes.

Should people be forever penalized for one poor decision they made? Even if they made it when they were, say, young and stupid? Teenagers do stupid things. You did stupid things, I did stupid things; EVERYONE did.

Case studies have repeatedly shown that "Hard work" alone is rarely enough for someone to pull themselves up unless they get very lucky. When you have a single mom working two full-time jobs and wearing herself to the bone just to pay bills and take care of kids, but still not managing to make enough to put in savings and move out of an inner city neighborhood? That's not a sustainable situation.

Failure to reward =/= punishment. I don't want to penalize anyone. I just don't want to bail them out at my expense. I also don't want to set the precedent that people should be rewarded for failing (or worse, not even attempting to succeed).

It's like if a football team B had half of it's players hung-over or sleeping in and only showing up at half-time, but then you turn around and reward them with extra points at half-time so that they will have a "chance to come back." That's nice for them, but they don't deserve that chance. It's downright insulting for football team A. Why the hell should team A not get wasted the night before? Why should team A show up on time ready to play? If people who screw up are in the same boat as people who don't, why should they not say "fuck it" and have fun themselves?

That's the difference between "fairness" and "uniformity." Fairness is when everyone plays the game by the same rules. "Uniformity" is when everyone has the same score. When people get rewarded for willful failure, that may help create uniformity by reducing the gap between rich and poor, but it's certainly not fair. Because the rest of us DON'T get rewarded for failure. We suffer for it instead. That means that people are playing by different rules for the sake of having the same score, or closer to the same score.

And no. The situation you described above is unlikely to result in success by hard work alone. But it is that woman's fault that she got knocked up and failed to obtain education or training of some sort. Hard work is only part of the equation. Self-control and foresight are a large part of it too. She should have thought about the consequences of her actions. She either didn't think about it, or she didn't care.

All things being equal, hard work can make most people at least have a comfortable existence. Not fabulously wealthy, just reasonably comfortable. However, yes, it IS possible for someone to screw themselves in the manner you described. I am all for education, counseling, or some other reasonable program designed to help young people not dig themselves into a hole that's too big to climb out of. But if they wind up doing it, I don't want to bail them out at taxpayer expense.

I am not saying these people should STARVE. There are enough resources in this country for nobody to have to starve to death. But the freebies should stop with necessities. (Food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.) The thing is, we give a LOT more than that. Go down to the welfare office in your area. You will see most people there drove in a relatively nice car, or have a fancy cell phone, or are wearing expensive jewelry, or are on drugs. All that shit costs a LOT of money. If they can afford that, they they are receiving too much "help." Necessities are for everyone, but luxuries are life's reward for success/contribution to society. People living on my dime have no business getting rewarded for that with luxury items.

When I was in the military, I worked with a guy who use to deliver mail. He delivered a LOT of welfare checks to people with no job. Guess what? Those people made MORE than he did! That is just not right.

ok and having Bush make it so that rich people who didn't need the money in the first place, ie could stop making money today and not ever have to worry about money again, gets more tax breaks than the poor.

sorry but it wasn't Obama who did this, he's trying to fix it and make it better for those less fortunate and need the money.

seriously rich people should be taxed more because they can afford it.

ok as for people not paying tax, most employers take off income tax on your pay cheque, so what ends up happening is by the end of the year they have paid enough tax that they don't have to actually pay any more to the government and if they're lucky they can get some money back.

up here in Canada we have an option to pay more tax on our pay cheque, which i do, and when tax time rolls around, i get a lot more money back cause i'm charged that extra tax on each pay cheque, it's a nice little bonus

I don't think you realize how much "rich" people are already taxed. My dad is not rich. He is upper middle class at best. (We were lower middle class at best when I was growing up.) He is a CPA and does peoples taxes for a living. He pays almost 50%...50 motherfucking % of all the money he earns in taxes. Not all in income taxes, but in taxes in general.

And the people who are "rich" with millions of dollars pay even more! The richest 5% of the population already pay roughly 90% of all taxes collected in the entire country. I think they are shouldering enough of a burden already.

And yet, those people can vote on whether or not to increase income tax on the rest of us which will then be "redistributed" to them.

Thanks Democrats for giving away so much of my money.

Thanks for giving the rest of the world 8 years of Bush. Cheers Mate! (Y)

You assume too much. Just because I don't like Obama, I necessarily loved Bush? Sorry my friend, but that's just not true. I have almost as many problems with the Republicans as I do with the Democrats.

Snip

I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology. I understand the influence of environment on people. But it is just that...an influence. It's up to YOU to rise above. When you try to create uniformity by resource redistribution, you only wind up with more unfairness. (See response to second quote above.)

Sometimes people will just have to try harder than others. Sad but true. I certainly had a harder time getting through school than someone whose parents had money and paid their way in full. With all the financial aid available, ANYONE can get SOME SORT of education or training no matter how poor they are. If someone chooses to not take advantage of that then that's their decision. Their shitty environment may have not helped them develop the willpower to stick with it, but in the end, only THEY can overcome those influences. Nobody else can do it for them and handouts will not fix their problem. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Like I said before, I am not saying that we should let these people starve, but they get a HELL of a lot more than necessities. They get enough resources to have luxury items they don't deserve. I'm not opposed to giving them food, but I am DAMN sure not going to pay for their cell phones or jewelry.

 

[Agema]

Snip

I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology. I understand the influence of environment on people. But it is just that...an influence. It's up to YOU to rise above. When you try to create uniformity by resource redistribution, you only wind up with more unfairness. (See response to second quote above.)

Sometimes people will just have to try harder than others. Sad but true. I certainly had a harder time getting through school than someone whose parents had money and paid their way in full. With all the financial aid available, ANYONE can get SOME SORT of education or training no matter how poor they are. If someone chooses to not take advantage of that then that's their decision. Their shitty environment may have not helped them develop the willpower to stick with it, but in the end, only THEY can overcome those influences. Nobody else can do it for them and handouts will not fix their problem. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Like I said before, I am not saying that we should let these people starve, but they get a HELL of a lot more than necessities. They get enough resources to have luxury items they don't deserve. I'm not opposed to giving them food, but I am DAMN sure not going to pay for their cell phones or jewelry.

Yes, I agree that people can rise up from difficult starts, that the playing field will never be level, and that you can't make someone be responsible if they inherently refuse to be.

However, reasonable means have to exist for people to succeed; it doesn't matter whether they are age 5, 15, 30 or 50. For instance, if someone got pregnant carelessly, someone needs to step in to see that if they want to turn themselves around the childcare does not become a ball and chain to them doing well afterwards, and that their children are supported adequately so they do not repeat their parents' mistakes.

I can appreciate irritation people have that such people get enough to pay for luxuries. (On the other hand, I'd say minimum quality of life could extend to some more basic, cheaper end "luxuries" like modern communication.) The state can provide a lot of vital support for such people. It doesn't have to be cash in their pockets, but institutional support for education, job training, childcare, motivation. Stigmatising and condemning people, and squeezing their financial pips until they squeak does not get results.

 

[kawligia]

Snip

I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology. I understand the influence of environment on people. But it is just that...an influence. It's up to YOU to rise above. When you try to create uniformity by resource redistribution, you only wind up with more unfairness. (See response to second quote above.)

Sometimes people will just have to try harder than others. Sad but true. I certainly had a harder time getting through school than someone whose parents had money and paid their way in full. With all the financial aid available, ANYONE can get SOME SORT of education or training no matter how poor they are. If someone chooses to not take advantage of that then that's their decision. Their shitty environment may have not helped them develop the willpower to stick with it, but in the end, only THEY can overcome those influences. Nobody else can do it for them and handouts will not fix their problem. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Like I said before, I am not saying that we should let these people starve, but they get a HELL of a lot more than necessities. They get enough resources to have luxury items they don't deserve. I'm not opposed to giving them food, but I am DAMN sure not going to pay for their cell phones or jewelry.

Yes, I agree that people can rise up from difficult starts, that the playing field will never be level, and that you can't make someone be responsible if they inherently refuse to be.

However, reasonable means have to exist for people to succeed; it doesn't matter whether they are age 5, 15, 30 or 50. For instance, if someone got pregnant carelessly, someone needs to step in to see that if they want to turn themselves around the childcare does not become a ball and chain to them doing well afterwards, and that their children are supported adequately so they do not repeat their parents' mistakes.

I can appreciate irritation people have that such people get enough to pay for luxuries. (On the other hand, I'd say minimum quality of life could extend to some more basic, cheaper end "luxuries" like modern communication.) The state can provide a lot of vital support for such people. It doesn't have to be cash in their pockets, but institutional support for education, job training, childcare, motivation. Stigmatising and condemning people, and squeezing their financial pips until they squeak does not get results.

I am not against financial aid for education at all. I am not against child care on campus during school hours. I am not against anything that allows someone to try to help themselves. That is not rewarding them, only allowing them to correct their own mistakes. I am only against rewarding people by permanently supporting deadbeats with far more luxuries than is deserved.

And not ALL things that aren't absolutely vital to survival should be cut, only most of them. It's fine if they have a few dollars a month to pay their cable bill or a few dollars a month to spend on a basic cell phone bill. The problem is that they have a lot more than that. They have REALLY nice iphones and flatscreens...shit *I* don't even have even though *I* am paying THEM! If they have more luxuries than I have, why the hell would they bother to improve themselves and contribute to society instead of leeching off of it? Makes me wonder why I bother myself.

But amount is only half of it. Type is another. Money (and food stamps that can be sold for money) just gets wasted on alcohol, drugs, or luxuries. Then they need MORE money because they are still hungry! What needs to happen is that they be given resources themselves that have little to no barter value. Like actual food or clothing.

Also, taxes are wasted in more areas than just "helping" the poor. There are a hell of a lot of "feel good" programs that chew through a horrible amount of money. I'm not saying that Republicans are not responsible for some of that, because they are. But from what I have seen, the Democrats and their "progressive" agendas do quite a bit more of that than the Republicans and their "conservative" agendas. Sorry but I am just going to have to leave it at that. That's a whole 'nother thread and I have typed enough in this thread already. LOL

 

[cleverlymadeup]

ok and having Bush make it so that rich people who didn't need the money in the first place, ie could stop making money today and not ever have to worry about money again, gets more tax breaks than the poor.

sorry but it wasn't Obama who did this, he's trying to fix it and make it better for those less fortunate and need the money.

seriously rich people should be taxed more because they can afford it.

ok as for people not paying tax, most employers take off income tax on your pay cheque, so what ends up happening is by the end of the year they have paid enough tax that they don't have to actually pay any more to the government and if they're lucky they can get some money back.

up here in Canada we have an option to pay more tax on our pay cheque, which i do, and when tax time rolls around, i get a lot more money back cause i'm charged that extra tax on each pay cheque, it's a nice little bonus

I don't think you realize how much "rich" people are already taxed. My dad is not rich. He is upper middle class at best. (We were lower middle class at best when I was growing up.) He is a CPA and does peoples taxes for a living. He pays almost 50%...50 motherfucking % of all the money he earns in taxes. Not all in income taxes, but in taxes in general.

And the people who are "rich" with millions of dollars pay even more! The richest 5% of the population already pay roughly 90% of all taxes collected in the entire country. I think they are shouldering enough of a burden already.

ummm sorry to say but no they aren't taxed that much, they get crazy amounts of tax breaks and loopholes, so they actually end up paying far under 50% tax and sorry to say but i doubt your dad is even taxed 50% of his income, especially if he's a CPA and knows the loopholes and due to the fact that he's got kids as well

i know enough about taxes and such to know how deductions work and such and kids means huge tax breaks

 

[kawligia]

ok and having Bush make it so that rich people who didn't need the money in the first place, ie could stop making money today and not ever have to worry about money again, gets more tax breaks than the poor.

sorry but it wasn't Obama who did this, he's trying to fix it and make it better for those less fortunate and need the money.

seriously rich people should be taxed more because they can afford it.

ok as for people not paying tax, most employers take off income tax on your pay cheque, so what ends up happening is by the end of the year they have paid enough tax that they don't have to actually pay any more to the government and if they're lucky they can get some money back.

up here in Canada we have an option to pay more tax on our pay cheque, which i do, and when tax time rolls around, i get a lot more money back cause i'm charged that extra tax on each pay cheque, it's a nice little bonus

I don't think you realize how much "rich" people are already taxed. My dad is not rich. He is upper middle class at best. (We were lower middle class at best when I was growing up.) He is a CPA and does peoples taxes for a living. He pays almost 50%...50 motherfucking % of all the money he earns in taxes. Not all in income taxes, but in taxes in general.

And the people who are "rich" with millions of dollars pay even more! The richest 5% of the population already pay roughly 90% of all taxes collected in the entire country. I think they are shouldering enough of a burden already.

ummm sorry to say but no they aren't taxed that much, they get crazy amounts of tax breaks and loopholes, so they actually end up paying far under 50% tax and sorry to say but i doubt your dad is even taxed 50% of his income, especially if he's a CPA and knows the loopholes and due to the fact that he's got kids as well

i know enough about taxes and such to know how deductions work and such and kids means huge tax breaks

I specifically said it was not just income tax. He has done the math and it is about 50% of his total income that is paid in taxes. Federal income tax caps out around 35% of your income. When you add state income tax, social security, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. it winds up at 50%. If he was in the highest income tax bracket at 35%, he would pay well over 50% of his total income in taxes. If you don't want to believe it, I can't force you to and I'm not going to try. And it's also true that the top 5% DO pay more than 90% of all money generated by taxes. And they pay about 60-70something % of their income in taxes.

It's downright laughable that you take so much money from them that together, they pay 90 cents out of every dollar the government gets and then you demand more! They are already paying to run this entire country but that's not enough for you. You still want MORE! As the icing on the cake, you turn around and act like THEY are the ones being greedy for saying "enough is enough" and "at least stop wasting the money"!

WOW!

 

[Agema]

The top 5% of earners pay about 55% of the nation's income tax. The top 25% of earners pay about 85% of the nation's income tax. The bottom 50% pay under 3% of the nation's income tax.

Now, bear in mind:
The wealthiest 5% of Americans own 60% of the nation's wealth. The wealthiest 20% owns about 80% of the nation's wealth. The poorest 20% owns... virtually none of the nation's wealth.

Funnily enough, those figures are very close to the tax payments. Now okay, earnings are not the same as wealth, but the two are heavily correlated. So it seems reasonable to say that the richest Americans are paying taxes roughly equivalent to the proportion of the country that they own.

Seems fair to me.

Also consider, the lowest 50% pay under 3% of total tax. In order to get substantial amounts of money out of them, you have to tax them a lot. You'd have to increase their total tax burden 33% (say, 30% total tax burden increased to 40%) just to increase government revenues 1%, and how devastating do you think it would be to hammer the poorest people in the country with a tax increase of that size?

Taxing the poor doesn't work, because they're to damn poor to make it worthwhile taxing them.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Spoiler: Lengthy post

You make a reasonably compelling argument but it still falls flat on the basis of what you choose to hold any given person responsible for.

You can't just arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say 'these people lack self-disipline' therefore everything is their own fault...

Yes, I know people that spend all the money they have on alcohol, or drugs, or similar stuff, then beg for more.
You can't help some people by giving them money, in the end.

But success and failure aren't simple correlates with how hard you work.
Working harder won't make you more successful in and of itself.
Neither will being lazy guarantee being poor.

Sure, to a point, you can improve your own circumstances, but all it takes is one misfortune to put you into a practically unrecoverable position.
Being master of your own destiny has it's limits.

What's worse, the choice in attitude has negative consequences. I can, and do see people get mistreated simply because they are poor.
Why? Because people think it's their own fault.

It doesn't matter if it is or it isn't the person's own fault, but time and again i've seen the 'you are responsible for your own fate' line of reasoning used to be outright abusive to anyone who is poor, with no care or consideration given to why they are poor, but just the implicit assumption that they are the only ones responsible.

The flip side to this is of course letting people off from taking any kind of responsibility for their own actions, which is, ironically, also harmful. And in particular, it's actually harmful to the person themselves.

Then of course, as a European, the 'welfare trap' comes to mind.
This is the psychological trap that results from getting government handouts.
Some people use it to justify not giving people anything to begin with, but the real problem is that the system is rigged (as with your example of the handicapped) to be counter-productive.
If you can barely afford to eat, and are then obliged into a situation which actually worsens your financial situation, (it's not just that you don't gain from it, but you actually go backwards...) who in their right mind would actually do it?
It's like being asked to work more hours at your job, except the harder you work, the less you get. Not much incentive there.
Welfare systems are fine in principle, but why are so many of them rigged to actively discourage people to try and improve their circumstances?

There's a difference between being poor and being unable to go see a movie when you feel like it, and being poor and having to decide if you can actually afford to eat something today...

But basically, I very much doubt people have anywhere near as much control over their lives as you think they do.

I never intended to imply that hard work will guarantee great wealth or that laziness would guarantee utter poverty. Hard work and determination can ALMOST guarantee a moderate level of success. By that I mean having enough money to pay for all your basic necessities and also a moderate amount of luxuries. It will never guarantee millions of dollars. And it doesn't protect you from calamities like getting in a car crash and becoming a quadriplegic or a widespread economic depression.

I have no problem with helping people who are temporarily down on their luck or who simply cannot improve themselves. I only have a problem with permanently supporting people who WON'T help themselves. Especially when they receive more than basic necessities. (See below)

And I do not support treating poor people like crap on a personal level. I hate stuck up people. Like I said, I worked a lot of shitty jobs to pay for school and I worked mostly with people who were FAR from rich. I got along with them and even made a few friends along the way. Also, my two best friends could adequately be described as "poor." They both made stupid decisions when we were younger and are paying for it now. I don't look down on any of them on a personal level and I don't think they are "bad people." I just don't think the taxpayers should be forced to reward them for their mistakes.

I did not mean to imply you did. But I come across a lot of people that do. And that is a problem in and of itself.

Still. What constitutes a basic necessity?
It's fairly safe to assume everyone needs food, water, and shelter.
But... There are plenty of other things that make life pretty difficult in this day and age if you don't have one.

In any event, I'd really have to dispute the idea that people on welfare get more than the basics.
If they have anything like a car (which can be essential in some places, but merely a burden in others), jewellery, or anything that isn't incredibly cheap, it's more than likely had these things before they hit on hard times.

It's rarely the case in my experience that you get anything more than enough money to cover food, rent and utilities unless you are very careful with your expenditure.
The chances of being able to buy anything else with actual government handouts aren't that high, and I know this from personal experience.
It varies from country to country, certainly, but it certainly doesn't constitute a reward.

Should people be forever penalized for one poor decision they made? Even if they made it when they were, say, young and stupid? Teenagers do stupid things. You did stupid things, I did stupid things; EVERYONE did.

Case studies have repeatedly shown that "Hard work" alone is rarely enough for someone to pull themselves up unless they get very lucky. When you have a single mom working two full-time jobs and wearing herself to the bone just to pay bills and take care of kids, but still not managing to make enough to put in savings and move out of an inner city neighborhood? That's not a sustainable situation.

Failure to reward =/= punishment. I don't want to penalize anyone. I just don't want to bail them out at my expense. I also don't want to set the precedent that people should be rewarded for failing (or worse, not even attempting to succeed).

It's like if a football team B had half of it's players hung-over or sleeping in and only showing up at half-time, but then you turn around and reward them with extra points at half-time so that they will have a "chance to come back." That's nice for them, but they don't deserve that chance. It's downright insulting for football team A. Why the hell should team A not get wasted the night before? Why should team A show up on time ready to play? If people who screw up are in the same boat as people who don't, why should they not say "fuck it" and have fun themselves?

That's the difference between "fairness" and "uniformity." Fairness is when everyone plays the game by the same rules. "Uniformity" is when everyone has the same score. When people get rewarded for willful failure, that may help create uniformity by reducing the gap between rich and poor, but it's certainly not fair. Because the rest of us DON'T get rewarded for failure. We suffer for it instead. That means that people are playing by different rules for the sake of having the same score, or closer to the same score.

And no. The situation you described above is unlikely to result in success by hard work alone. But it is that woman's fault that she got knocked up and failed to obtain education or training of some sort. Hard work is only part of the equation. Self-control and foresight are a large part of it too. She should have thought about the consequences of her actions. She either didn't think about it, or she didn't care.

All things being equal, hard work can make most people at least have a comfortable existence. Not fabulously wealthy, just reasonably comfortable. However, yes, it IS possible for someone to screw themselves in the manner you described. I am all for education, counseling, or some other reasonable program designed to help young people not dig themselves into a hole that's too big to climb out of. But if they wind up doing it, I don't want to bail them out at taxpayer expense.

I am not saying these people should STARVE. There are enough resources in this country for nobody to have to starve to death. But the freebies should stop with necessities. (Food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.) The thing is, we give a LOT more than that. Go down to the welfare office in your area. You will see most people there drove in a relatively nice car, or have a fancy cell phone, or are wearing expensive jewelry, or are on drugs. All that shit costs a LOT of money. If they can afford that, they they are receiving too much "help." Necessities are for everyone, but luxuries are life's reward for success/contribution to society. People living on my dime have no business getting rewarded for that with luxury items.

When I was in the military, I worked with a guy who use to deliver mail. He delivered a LOT of welfare checks to people with no job. Guess what? Those people made MORE than he did! That is just not right.

What country is this anyway?
I know the details of 3 different countries, and I can tell you that unless you're considered disabled, the welfare payments are about half of minimum wage.
Granted, that means if you work minimum wage for less than about 20 hours a week, you might be in that position.
But as these same welfare payments are close to the limits of what you can realistically live on in those countries, that just tells us there are working situations which aren't very good either.

To get to the example given earlier, you show an immediate bias to presume this woman was poor and uneducated to begin with, and therefore shouldn't have gotten herself pregnant.

Well, a recent example given to me was a well-off family. Father, mother, 2 kids. Both parents work, they have a mortage, etc. Pretty typical middle-class family.
Anyway, the father dies in an accident.
The mother, suddenly has to support 2 children alone, has no help, and a large chunk of the family's income is gone.
What's worse, the stress and various circumstances of the sudden change mean she loses her job as well.
And she suddenly finds no-one is willing to help her.

Now tell me, in what way was that her fault? You can have all the foresight in the world and still lose everything.

As for luxury items... Well, you really aren't likely to be able to afford them on welfare. Either someone sacrificed a lot (as in, more basic necessities) to get them, or they have them from before they were on welfare.
If I were to go from a $100,000 a year job to welfare, chances are I would have a lot of durable goods in my possession that could be considered luxuries.
Should I be expected to sell them all, because I've hit on bad times?

Spoiler: Hidden to make post shorter.

ok and having Bush make it so that rich people who didn't need the money in the first place, ie could stop making money today and not ever have to worry about money again, gets more tax breaks than the poor.

sorry but it wasn't Obama who did this, he's trying to fix it and make it better for those less fortunate and need the money.

seriously rich people should be taxed more because they can afford it.

ok as for people not paying tax, most employers take off income tax on your pay cheque, so what ends up happening is by the end of the year they have paid enough tax that they don't have to actually pay any more to the government and if they're lucky they can get some money back.

up here in Canada we have an option to pay more tax on our pay cheque, which i do, and when tax time rolls around, i get a lot more money back cause i'm charged that extra tax on each pay cheque, it's a nice little bonus

I don't think you realize how much "rich" people are already taxed. My dad is not rich. He is upper middle class at best. (We were lower middle class at best when I was growing up.) He is a CPA and does peoples taxes for a living. He pays almost 50%...50 motherfucking % of all the money he earns in taxes. Not all in income taxes, but in taxes in general.

And the people who are "rich" with millions of dollars pay even more! The richest 5% of the population already pay roughly 90% of all taxes collected in the entire country. I think they are shouldering enough of a burden already.

The reason for that is self-evident. (not to mention 50% isn't even that much. try 42% income tax. + 10% Sales tax (on everything), + various other 'hidden' taxes... Not to mention the times when income tax has been 82% or higher)

50% of $1,000,000 is 500,000
50% of $30,000 is $15,000

taxing someone who earns 1 million that amount, is therefore equivalent to taxing about 25 or so people on the lower income.

the reason for taxes being uneven is equally obvious. If you have $1,000,000 and lose half of it, you still have 500,000.
That is still more than 20 times the amount after tax than the low income earners made before having to pay tax at all.

Yes, the numbers are larger, but the impact is smaller.

And getting back to the welfare trap for a moment, the Australian government has an amusing scheme where they let you keep some of your welfare payments as you get back into work.
The problem though, is that the net income of a person goes backwards.

You think it's bad having to pay 50% tax? Try a system where if you happen to fall between the cracks of the system you can end up owing 110%... Yep. More than you are getting paid.

The rich subsidise the poor. But they don't suffer all that badly for it really.

The middle classes suffer the most, because they aren't rich enough not to notice what's being taken from them.

Taking $50,000 from someone who earns $100,000 has a lot more impact than taking $500,000 from someone who earns $1,000,000

But, taking $10,000 from someone earning $20,000 or worse yet, $5000 from someone earning $10,000 ... Well that's really going to cause a lot of problems.

Spoiler: Some more stuff. No further comment.

And yet, those people can vote on whether or not to increase income tax on the rest of us which will then be "redistributed" to them.

Thanks Democrats for giving away so much of my money.

Thanks for giving the rest of the world 8 years of Bush. Cheers Mate! (Y)

You assume too much. Just because I don't like Obama, I necessarily loved Bush? Sorry my friend, but that's just not true. I have almost as many problems with the Republicans as I do with the Democrats.

Snip

I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology. I understand the influence of environment on people. But it is just that...an influence. It's up to YOU to rise above. When you try to create uniformity by resource redistribution, you only wind up with more unfairness. (See response to second quote above.)

Sometimes people will just have to try harder than others. Sad but true. I certainly had a harder time getting through school than someone whose parents had money and paid their way in full. With all the financial aid available, ANYONE can get SOME SORT of education or training no matter how poor they are. If someone chooses to not take advantage of that then that's their decision. Their shitty environment may have not helped them develop the willpower to stick with it, but in the end, only THEY can overcome those influences. Nobody else can do it for them and handouts will not fix their problem. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Like I said before, I am not saying that we should let these people starve, but they get a HELL of a lot more than necessities. They get enough resources to have luxury items they don't deserve. I'm not opposed to giving them food, but I am DAMN sure not going to pay for their cell phones or jewelry.[/quote]