The Economist - "Inequality or middle incomes: which matters more?"

True enough, but without taxation there are no state services. Perhaps you'd like to do without a police-force, or firefighting?

For most of Europe just food purchased at supermarkets is exonerated. Not clothes, not transportation and not housing. Otherwise the collection gets too complex and costly to manage. Moreover, below certain levels of income, families can find funds from local (not national) authorities to cover housing and transportation.

The Value Added Tax (at rates of around 20%) collected in France generates total-funds twice the value of that obtained by Income Taxation. It is constant governmental income (collected nationally) since people shop year round. And the government does not need inspectors reviewing tax-declarations.

 

Not true.
The national lottery pays for state services but is not a tax.

The queens parks are often open to the public, but they are not always taxpayer funded.
Our governments also borrow to provide services and they also run profitable companies to spend on public services.

Many public services are indeed not provided by taxation at all, but through donation. For example, charities or alumnae at a university.

I'm happy to do without the police and fire fighting myself. Both are useless. I have my own fire fighting equipment and hire private policeman and use security systems and own weapons, because when I dial 999 life experience has taught me... no one comes.

There are very few things my government provide to me through taxation that they could not fund through voluntary mutually agreed payment systems.
Through normative trade.

A train is a train. I could buy the ticket and pay for the whole thing in one transaction. Or I could pay less for the ticket at the kiosk and pay the rest in tax. Or indeed I could have an entirely tax funded railway and pay it all through tax.

All these options are possible as long as you aren't dogmatic.

 

I meant to say exactly what I said.
"social contract
or social compact

• Word Origin

noun
1. the voluntary agreement among individuals by which, according to any of various theories, as of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, organized society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare or to regulate the relations among its members.
2. an agreement for mutual benefit between an individual or group and the government or community as a whole. "

If you were born here you inherited the agreement. If you immigrated you personally agreed and your descendants inherit your agreement. Claiming yu didn't agree is no more reasonable than a bank robber claiming he didn't 'agree' to those laws.

A private police forces? Cheaper than government? Show me just one.
And, it needs to be cash because a) you failed to demonstrate reliability by failing to pay the monthly rate up front; and b) a guy who's house is burning down and wasn't smart enough to pay for fire protection is probably not going to pay for the $15k service call.

 

I think you're trying to pick a fight where none exists.

I'm not opposed to a national sales tax if it can be structured so as to not hurt the poor. Taxing a loaf of bread? A gallon of milk? A box of cereal? a pound of hamburger? No. No, let me rephrase that, HELL NO!

Taxing an 18 ounce porterhouse? A container of caviar? a box of chocolates? I'm up for that.

Hopefully the difference is understood.

 

The VAT in France collects more than half of all tax-receipts and and a minimal cost. (You pay a sales-tax anyway in the US.)

Income Taxation accounts for less than a third - at significant cost.

Period.

 

It is futile explaining simple English to some people on this forum. They really do not WANT to understand so imbibed are they with nitwit Rightist Rhetoric. You'd think they'd read Mien Kampf ...

I wish you Good Luck ... !

 

Sophistry.

Try harder ...

 

Is this agreement in writing anywhere? Also, how can I inherit an agreement? Are you telling me that I can contractually obligate my children to things? This could get fun....

Again - you are creating a strawman and arguing against it. You are trying to frame the argument from your perspective when it really doesn't work that way.

 

If you're suggesting that we are only taxed so as to provide roads, fire departments, and police, then I would fully support that plan.

 

Its not sophistry at all.

If it is not a voluntary exchange it is coercion. Coercion by definition causes harm.

 

Nice, but not nearly enough.

A country and its people needs other supports, mostly societal, but you are blind to them. In general, the Replicants (as a party) are oblivious to any modern democracy that expands its influence in search of a better standard of living.

The party was born in the19th century and has not changed on iota ...

 

Yeah, statists always trot out roads, police, and fire departments. But that's just their attempt at slight of hand.

 

Yes, if it's written into the Constitution.

A provision of the 12th Amendment last November resulted in the election of a candidate to the presidency who had lost the popular-vote (by the most significant margin in the country's history).

Nowhere else on earth is that possible in a supposedly "free country" ...

 

Mindless drivel...

 

I wouldn't.

Democracy - 51% of the population trampling the rights of the other 49%. Mob rule. Not something to aspire to if you ask me.

 

Mindless drivel.

 

I'd support it over what we have now.

 

I would support being shot in the leg vs my head...but either way you are still being shot.

.

 

You are kidding, right?

It is called the US Constitution,. You inherited both rights and responsibilities when you were born. You pass on those rights and responsibilities to your children. You do have two options if your do not want to participate. Prison or Expulsion.

AND, your quote.

"As to the "services"....I am quite sure that there is a much cheaper and more efficient solution out there than government."

You are the one suggesting that private services are "cheaper and more efficient." I merely challenge you to demonstrate how that "efficiency" might work in a real world.

Your world: Zero taxes. Taxes are in fact, illegal. Now go fund functional police, fire, and EMT services and tell me how that works.

BTW...the Fire department thing did not come from my mind, it came from an actual news story.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/

 

We the people elect representatives and we the people, through those representatives, chose both how we are taxed and for what.

You the person do not get to choose what laws you will or will not obey.

 

Oh? Where in the Constitution does it state my responsibilities as it pertains to this "social contract"?

I have read the constitution several times and don't seem to remember that.

Well - Roads for example. Roads today are mostly built by private companies...are you suggesting that citizens couldn't negotiate cheaper or more efficient contracts on their own? It is only through Government and its long track record for efficiency with little to no waste or abuse that could accomplish such a feat?

Well - EMT services for the most part are currently privately funded. I can and do handle my own self-defense quite well and am not sold on the idea that police do much more than lock up non-violent offenders. Fire protection is mostly reactionary anyhow, outside of large disasters they have very little to do. In fact, I recently read an article surrounding over-time pay and fire fighters out of California...making somewhere north of 250k/year...gotta love that Government oversight and efficiency.

Cool story.

 

Read? Obviously not. Article 1 Section8

Really? Show me a road built entirely with private money, on private land without the use of any government powers to acquire the land or guarantee the funding. Just one.

Ain't none. They don't exist except as driveways and parking lots. And all those contractors building roads? Those roads were approved by you, funded by you and will be used by you.

Really? The EMT coming on that fire truck is privately funded? Please, come with us to reality. You are going to run down to the bank when the alarm goes off? You are going to respond to that 911 call reporting a burglary? Again, dream on. These are public services paid for by the public. Make them private and you make them available only to those who can afford them and those who can afford such services are very few and far between.

The ignorance and hypocrisy of the far right never fails to make me shake my head in pity and disgust. Example:
A guy was laid off in 2009 during the collapse. He spent more than a year unemployed collecting extended benefits and other "welfare" all the while railing against "big government" programs that provide those protections. A few years later he had medical issues hat have essentially left him unemployable. He's now collecting SS disability as well as Medicaid and, yes, still railing against the system that provides for his home, food, medical care. That is pure "conservatism."

 

That section simply states that the Congress has the power to levy taxes. Not that I have some responsibility to pay them as part of some social contract.

Its all private money and private land until the government steals it. So I would say all of them.

I didn't approve any of them and funded none of them by choice. Now if you were to ask me to fund a road and laid out the case as to why that might benefit me, I would more than likely be open to voluntarily giving money to the project.

Well most ambulance services (EMT's) do not work for the county in the form of fire departments. Most of them work for private ambulance companies that tend to be a wing of the local health care providers.

I don't care about a bank being robbed, and I very well may assist a neighbor who's being robbed. Why are you assuming such services would be expensive? The average law enforcement officer makes about 45k a year.

Again - pointing out some dudes hypocrisy is irrelevant. Your generalization is the logical equivalent of saying that all black people are lazy...or that all Women are bad drivers. Not very liberal or progressive of you.

 

Really? That's all it says?

Perhaps you're not quite the constitutional "scholar" you believe yourself to be.

https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html

Study up and try again.