Some while ago I asked someone in a debate- 'how much of my labor can I expect to personally benefit from without being 'selfish'? I was, of course, not answered. Maybe if I ask everyone. Although all are welcome to chime in, I'm especially interested in hearing from those of you who think we have a collective ethical obligation to support a minimum standard of living for everyone- housing, food and healthcare. Where can we draw the line? What portion is it moral for me to expect to keep for my own self improvement? I think (hope!) we can all agree that I (and you and everyone) am entitled to keep some portion of our own prosperity for ourselves. But how much?
There is no answer. If you didn't have water to your home, a sewer system, dirt unattended roads, no police, no fire, no ambulance service, no telephone, nothing, not even a local hospital I'd say probably you don't deserve to be taxed at all. If I put you in a 3M mansion, gave you 5K a month for pocket expense, paid for your choice of groceries, bought you a new car of your choice every six months and guaranteed you that you would never have a pocket pay out for anything over $50.00, I'd let you tax me 100%.
It, of course - as @Capt Nice already stated - is dependent upon how much the taxes you already pay for (or would pay for) contributes directly to your benefit. If I knew that my taxes were guaranteed to cover my healthcare, I'd happily pay 10% - 20% more of what I already pay. And, more importantly, I would know that EVERYONE would be covered. If I can see my taxes at work within my life, I won't grumble about what I pay.
My response to these folks has always been the same. Why can't we expect a contribution from all? That is the question never answered. Collectivism of course demands that every one must produce in order to support the weight of the entitled parties. Folks who were indigent, or addled, or whatever never seem to actually do well in socialist societies, and yet, it's the socialists who bang the drums the hardest and loudest because, "the sick and dying" an all. And yet, in every instance, the "sick and dying" never fair will in their authoritarian utopias. Never. So, ask the better question. When the less fortunate aren't able to produce what will the elite do with them? Taxes are simply the method elite use to support their political class, not to save the unfortunate of us. And when folks on the left demand more taxes, it's because they've figured out that their standard of living isn't sufficient to support their greed or their egos.
Feel free to just contribute anyway.... you wold feelz better, right? I think you're under the delusion that "everyone" would be covered, because those with high cost services, wouldn't be getting the care that they actually needed, because that's never how socialize medicine works. Ask the Brits. or Germans. It's a fantasy.
And I have seen people who literally brag about not having to work and enjoying government handouts. One person I know hasn't had a job in years and sells drugs to support his lifestyle. He was absolutely giddy to have received the stimulus payout the rest of us employed people received, as well as the 600 per month unemployment, for a job he never had. This is my problem with it. When you create a system of giving, people get used to just taking and not working. It will always be like this. If you want people to work, they need to be hungry. You will never be able to control where your money goes. I don't mind paying local taxes because I know it's going to my roads, my school systems and infrastructures and so on. I don't want to be funding some ghetto in Detroit that burns itself down every time a black guy gets arrested or something.
I've answered it plenty of times. There are at least three reasons: 1. Some people have nothing to contribute. That is why "ability to pay" is one of the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of taxation. 2. Many people are net victims of the system, not net beneficiaries, and therefore owe nothing, but are instead owed something. That is why "beneficiary pay" is the other most fundamental and widely accepted principle of taxation. 3. Justice requires that those in receipt of net benefits -- the privileged -- repay all that they are taking before anyone else is asked to subsidize them. While capitalism only requires the productive to produce in order to support the privileged in the manner to which they intend to remain accustomed. Fortunately, the elite don't get to decide. Yet somehow, in advanced democracies, and even not-so-advanced not-so-democracies, the unfortunate are mostly being saved.
Even if you do have those things you do not deserve to be taxed, because you are already paying a landowner full market value just for permission to enjoy them.
It depends what you mean by "expect." If you are talking about what is rightful, then 100% of the fruits of your labor are rightly your property. If you are talking about what is realistic in a typical advanced capitalist democracy, ~50% would be more like it, depending on a number of factors such as how productive your labor is. Those whose labor is less productive typically have a larger fraction of it taken by private rentiers, while those whose labor is more productive have more of it taken in taxation.
You're not easy to understand but my guess is you're saying the person that sold you the house should be the one responsible for maintaining everything?????? Makes no sense to me.
What an amazing set of conditions. So, let us take them individually. Most of all folks have something they can contribute. This isn't the case for folks who are entirely incapacitated either medically or emotionally. For those, they are the set aside that charity and generosity compensate for. And, frankly we have sufficient tax burdens already that cover these groups. What are "victims of the system"? Middle to high income students who pursue useless college degrees that they paid for using government assistance and backed loans to obtain? Of course, they are non productive pursuits, but explain again why they need public assistance yet again to wash them of their own personal choices? And no, I doubt they are "owed" anything at this point. Beneficiary pay is for folks who are actively paying into long term government annuities like Social Security and Medicare. That is the fundamental promise of having paid in ultimately to receive a benefit. I would also point out that using current collections to overcome immediate budget shortfalls is a violation of that from government. And heres' where you entirely went off the rails. The privileged you refer to seem to be this endless bank account that you feel you're entitled to. Why Again? It's not like you made them wealthy did you? You might have purchased goods or services from them, or even been a paid employee of them, but how does that give you a right to their earnings? Your analysis is puerile here. What exactly is this privilege that you refer to? Is it anyone with more income than you? You seem jealous of these folks. Why? If I worked really hard to obtain my wealth, I don't have any more privilege than anyone else. I have no more rights, or less obligations than anyone else. (Well, unless I'm a democrat in government, and then, perhaps you have a point). I suggest that the elite do get to decide. Every time someone like Jack Dorsey decides what content his platform with censor, he's getting to decide, is he not? Every time one of the socials is guaranteed immunity from liability from legal outcome, that is an example of when elites in our nation enjoy an artificial privilege that democrats provided them. And yet, I suspect you eagerly voted from them, did you not?
You mean I state facts too clearly for you to evade. What house? I'm talking about landowning. When you pay the market price for land, either renting or buying, you are paying the landowner for his permission to access and enjoy publicly provided benefits.
And everyone DOES contribute, in that their rights to liberty are taken from them by force and made into the private property of the privileged. Even they have "contributed" their rights, and should receive just compensation. No, because we impose such excessive burdens on them in the first place. Those who have more taken from them than they get back: the bottom 95-99%. Among others. Countervailing privilege is a poor substitute for justice. They need justice: just compensation for the forcible removal of their rights. Everyone is owed their rights, or just compensation for their removal. No it isn't. It is for folks who are getting the benefit of public expenditures on desirable services and infrastructure -- i.e., landowners -- and government-issued and -enforced privileges such as bank licenses and IP monopolies. No, that is not who I am talking about. I am talking about those who benefit from public spending, not those who are registered to benefit from a contributory program. I.e., I identified facts that you have to contrive some way of not knowing, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil. No, the privileged are those who hold legal entitlements to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. And it is a typical false, absurd, and disingenuous ad hominem fallacy for you to attempt to shift the topic to me personally, and to your tiresome and infantile speculations about what I "feel" I am entitled to. Because they benefit from the uncompensated abrogation of my rights. Their ownership of my rights did. I had to pay them full market value just for their permission to access publicly provided services and infrastructure that my taxes already helped pay for. The rents of privilege are not earnings because they are not obtained in return for any commensurate contribution to production. It is objectively correct. Legal entitlements to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. The most valuable ones are land titles, bank licenses, IP monopolies, oil and mineral rights, and broadcast spectrum allocations, in roughly that order. The relation between privilege and income is strong for obvious reasons, but not perfect. No I don't. That is a pure ad hominem fabrication on your part, nothing but a predictable and inevitable attempt to change the subject. Why do you feel you have to make $#!+ up and divert the thread to me personally rather than address the facts I have identified? That is baldly false. Whether you are privileged or not has nothing to do with how hard you worked, it is strictly determined by whether you now hold any of the privileges listed above, or other, less important ones. Work and privilege are entirely orthogonal. When you are privileged, you have more rights than others because you own their rights. It's true that in the USA plutocracy is well established, and public policy serves the interests of rich, greedy, privileged parasites, not the general interest. But other advanced democracies are not so benighted. That's not public policy. It doesn't have the force of government, as taxation does. Democrats created corporate limited liability or corporate personhood? I don't think so. No. But I certainly would have if I were American. Lesser of evils.
