4 ms·

Perhaps because in the end, you pay for stuff with dollars, not with percentages? That whole game of playing with abstract fractional numbers is already massiv

by Radim 10y ago

Perhaps because in the end, you pay for stuff with dollars, not with percentages? That whole game of playing with abstract fractional numbers is already massively progressive. I think people fail to appreciate how very bizarre this "accepted norm" actually is.

quadrangle 10y ago
The goal of all taxing and spending must be related to political goals. They aren't goals in and of themselves. What is the political value of taxing a flat percent instead of a progressive percent (let alone taxing a flat dollar amount)? The political value of progressive percentages is that it keeps the money supply stable without taking too much spending power away from the lower and middle income people where their spending power relates directly to things like seeing children cared for well with good education, time with parents, and other opportunities etc. There's a huge social value in maximizing the number of people who have spending power enough to live reasonably stable, healthy lives, as long as we avoid perverse incentives and allow healthy market mechanisms to keep the economy running smoothly. So, what's the policy objective of going the other way (away from progressive percent tax rates)?
- Radim 10y ago
  A fundamental sense of fairness -- for reasons given above. I understand that the "social contract" may dictate otherwise in practice (even ignoring arrogant self-declarations of "social value", coming from a communist East European country, I've seen enough of those). After all, we're just a bunch of primates. But to pretend there's nothing bizarre about this group-above-individual arrangement, that the opposite is somehow a completely invalid or incomprehensible viewpoint, is a serious lapse of the imagination.
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    Did you infer from anything I wrote some sort of group-above-individual dogma?

by Radim 10y ago

quadrangle 10y ago

The goal of all taxing and spending must be related to political goals. They aren't goals in and of themselves. What is the political value of taxing a flat percent instead of a progressive percent (let alone taxing a flat dollar amount)? The political value of progressive percentages is that it keeps the money supply stable without taking too much spending power away from the lower and middle income people where their spending power relates directly to things like seeing children cared for well with good education, time with parents, and other opportunities etc. There's a huge social value in maximizing the number of people who have spending power enough to live reasonably stable, healthy lives, as long as we avoid perverse incentives and allow healthy market mechanisms to keep the economy running smoothly. So, what's the policy objective of going the other way (away from progressive percent tax rates)?

Radim 10y ago
A fundamental sense of fairness -- for reasons given above. I understand that the "social contract" may dictate otherwise in practice (even ignoring arrogant self-declarations of "social value", coming from a communist East European country, I've seen enough of those). After all, we're just a bunch of primates. But to pretend there's nothing bizarre about this group-above-individual arrangement, that the opposite is somehow a completely invalid or incomprehensible viewpoint, is a serious lapse of the imagination.
- quadrangle 10y ago
  Did you infer from anything I wrote some sort of group-above-individual dogma?