15 ms·

The Oppression of the Supermajority

48 points by iron0013 8y ago

citilife 8y ago
> About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. I for one, am glad the majority can't just decide what the taxes are. It's a balance in society, but the general rule I personally have is live and let live. I don't want hand outs, I don't want to take peoples money at the point of a gun unnecessarily. I also regularly give to my community, by choice. I think it's important to respect one another and increasing taxes on a neighbor because they make more, doesn't seem fair. Maybe they worked harder, maybe they were born in a better position in life. It doesn't matter, by the time your 30, it's mostly what you did with your life that got you there. Let's not be petty and try to force our neighbors to pay us. I feel something like 20% of your income a year, for everyone making over livable wage seems fair (livable wage meaning, average cost of food + minor shelter for the average in said country). Then just close all loop holes. As in, you have to pay 20%, no complaints after you make $15k or something (in the U.S.). That'd probably >2x tax revenue and be "fair" to everyone.
- chickenfries 8y ago
  That's called a regressive tax system.
  - citilife 8y ago
    Actually, no it's not. The poor are taxed at the same rate as the wealthy. Regressive, is that they are taxed more. I'm suggesting that we take substantially more from the ultra wealthy; many of whom already pay <15% tax. I'm also suggesting we tax the middle class less as well (who often pay more by percentage >15%) and the poor don't pay taxes until after they make a "live-able wage", i.e. only after they can afford food and shelter do we tax. A flat 20% tax rate, plus removing loop-holes or tax refunds would dramatically impact the wealthy and middle class. Then we drop taxing the poor (which the U.S. already does). I think it's naive to think we should just "raise taxes" to disproportionately take from the people who have money. They may have earned it, I don't want to take their wage, any more than I want to take from someone who works in the field all day.
    - rosser 8y ago
      Ignoring marginal utility is absolutely regressive.
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      The income tax would not be regressive, but the overall tax system (including sales tax, gas tax, and other consumption or usage taxes) would be regressive. That isn't to say that regressivity is a fatal flaw — tobacco taxes and other "sin taxes" are all regressive, but they're seen as good because the goal is to discourage behavior, not raise revenue.
  - yaks_hairbrush 8y ago
    Definition of "regressive tax": A tax that takes a higher percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners. By definition, the tax system in the post you replied to is not a regressive tax system.
    - eropple 8y ago
      That is a poor definition of a regressive tax. A better definition is "a tax that ignores the marginal utility of income in its application". Poor people derive overwhelmingly more value from dollar $10,001 than rich folks do from dollar $1,000,001. (This is not controversial.) Thus, rich folks can--and should because they derive more value from the structures of the society that enables them to be successful and not hit over the head for their paycheck--pay progressively more to sustain that society. (This is also not controversial in reality, even amongst relatively right-wing economists.)
      - yaks_hairbrush 8y ago
        The definition I gave is, nonetheless, the accepted definition of the term. Can't find a citation for yours. (Note: I do understand about utility, and how/why progressive tax systems help society. My only bone of contention here is that you're trying to redefine a specific term to have a different meaning.)
        extra88 8y ago
        "While a flat tax imposes the same tax percentage on all individuals regardless of income, many see it as a regressive tax. A regressive tax is on which taxes high-income earners at a lower percentage of their income and low-wage earners at a higher rate of their income. The tax is seen as regressive due to a more significant portion of the total funds available to the low-income earner going to the tax expenditure. While the upper-income payer still pays the same percentage, they have enough income to offset this tax load." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flattax.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flattax.asp
      - pdonis 8y ago
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    ISTM a system that differed from the current one by really "closing all loop holes" would be significantly less regressive. Of course, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of that actually happening in our Congress, but the vision is admirable even if isn't practical.
- zepto 8y ago
  “it's mostly what you did with your life that got you there“ This is simply not consistent with facts. Where you are born, what education you got, and what risks you were able to take has a huge impact on success.
  - citilife 8y ago
    > This is simply not consistent with facts. Is it really a "fact" though? I know there are studies out there and that it's a popular opinion. The question is, why? There are near infinite factors impacting "success" and "success" is fluid, but also any statistics used are correlations and generalizations at a massive scale. My point, is that we cannot begin to determine each case independently. Instead, we should uniformly tax the society for funding society. The ultrawealthy will pay more on a percent based system, the upper, middle, and lower classes will progressively pay less. > Where you are born, what education you got, and what risks you were able to take has a huge impact on success. Also, I've seen this thrown around - let's assume this is true. I tend to agree, but you also have to recognize that by 30 years old, we shouldn't be treating people like children. By 30 it's entirely possible making minimum wage to attend college or to take risks. It may have been harder or they may have had to work hard, but there's no reason to make the argument the opportunity wasn't there, because it typically is.
    - CodeCube 8y ago
      > By 30 it's entirely possible making minimum wage to attend college or to take risks. This is a mighty big leap ... many minimum wage jobs have erratic schedules that make attending classes difficult, let alone barely paying you enough to eat and have housing. God help you if you start a family.
    - blacksmith_tb 8y ago
      > By 30 it's entirely possible making minimum wage to attend college It may be, barely, depending on the state you live in[1]. But presumably no one would argue that it would be a lot easier if your family had the means to help you... 1: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Minimum-Wage-Work-Alone https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Minimum-Wage-Work-Alo...
- qubex 8y ago
  But a system of philanthropy is inherently biased insofar as since donors can and do choose charitable causes that match their own preferences. Taxation is necessary (also) to redistribute from taxpayers to reciprients in an (ideally) unbiased and (in the real world) somewhat tempered by democratic representatives. That’s part of the reason why American and increasingly European politics have become so factious.
  - CharlesColeman 8y ago
    > But a system of philanthropy is inherently biased insofar as since donors can and do choose charitable causes that match their own preferences. Anand Giridharadas goes pretty deeply into that idea in this talk that he did at Google. I highly recommend watching it, I thought it was elucidating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM I want to read his book "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World" but I haven't gotten to it yet.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tathougies 8y ago
    You're not wrong, but I'm trying hard to place this comment. The commenter you responded to said nothing about philanthropy. In fact, some interpretations of 'live and let live' would explicitly bar philanthropy.
    - qubex 8y ago
      The OP mentioned his giving to his community on a voluntary basis. That sounded like an operative description of philanthropy so I used that term.
    - agency 8y ago
      The GP said "I also regularly give to my community, by choice."
      - 8y ago
- gnicholas 8y ago
  > Then just close all loop holes One man's loophole is another man's incentive. If you are struck by catastrophic medical issues and pay more than 10% of your AGI in medical bills, you can deduct the cost. Is this a loophole? Or is this a way to cushion the blow of having been dealt a lousy hand in terms of medical costs? It depends on your perspective. > That'd probably >2x tax revenue and be "fair" to everyone. From an economic perspective, it's great to "lower the rate and broaden the base". The problems come when, after the rate has been lowered, lobbyists get all the same incentives/loopholes put back in. Now you have a lower rate, and many of the same carveouts.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > One man's loophole is another man's incentive. If you are struck by catastrophic medical issues and pay more than 10% of your AGI in medical bills, you can deduct the cost. Is this a loophole? No, it's just badly broken, arbitrary, unnecessary complication. Deductions are sensible for essential costs, but healthcare doesn't magically become essentially when it crosses the 10% AGI threshold; it makes sense for healthcare costs to be deductible period.
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      > it makes sense for healthcare costs to be deductible period. It's also hard to draw lines. Is Viagra covered, for example? This is one of the reasons there's a threshold — to make sure the deduction is only being granted where there are non-routine expenditures. The tax code views some level of medical expenditures as routine, and therefore non-deductible.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > It's also hard to draw lines It's easier if you don't draw unnecessary and illogical lines to start with, which is what the dollar threshold is. > Is Viagra covered, for example? Apparently, if you buy enough relative to your income. > This is one of the reasons there's a threshold — to make sure the deduction is only being granted where there are non-routine expenditures. Which is both a dumb idea and not done well by a share of income rule. > The tax code views some level of medical expenditures as routine, and therefore non-deductible. Routine expenditures being non-deductible isn't an intelligent rule; if it is a kind of expenditure that should be deductible, being routine doesn't really change that. If it is a routine expense that is assumed covered by the standard deduction, then you just require itemization to take a specific deduction for the purpose; we don't need special handling for something for which we already have a better and more general solution.
- magissima 8y ago
  If you don't like the majority deciding on taxes, you don't like democracy.
  - freedomben 8y ago
    “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” http://freakonomics.com/2010/08/12/quotes-uncovered-if-wolves-and-sheep-could-vote/ http://freakonomics.com/2010/08/12/quotes-uncovered-if-wolve...
    - SkyMarshal 8y ago
      In more ways than one. Lets say one wolf is kind of smart and realizes it's a multi-round game, and that after they eat the sheep there won't anything else for them to eat except each other. What does that wolf do then? And what if it occurs to him that he can't be sure that the other wolf hasn't realized this too?
    - magissima 8y ago
      Good analogy. A wolf majority results in sheep being eaten with or without democracy because the wolves are more powerful. A sheep majority can save the sheep from the wolves only in a democratic system where the wolves respect majority rule. By the way, rich people are wolves, not sheep.
    - anoncake 8y ago
      Everything else is one wolf eating two sheep.
      - freedomben 8y ago
        What about a system where wolves aren't allowed to eat sheep, and everybody just chooses for themselves what to have for dinner (so long as that choice doesn't involve coercing someone else)?
        eropple 8y ago
- freedomben 8y ago
  For people downvoting this, consider that it can (and should IMHO) be possible for citilife to live in a system where this is the case, and for you to live in a system that meets your needs as well. I don't understand why so many people are convinced that a giant state imposing one-size-fits-all on a hugely diverse population is a good idea. The United States particularly was founded on the idea of a tiny federal government where most things were decided by States, so people could freely move to the government that best fit their needs. Some further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy
  - anoncake 8y ago
    If it's possible to live in a system where the rich aren't properly taxed, the rich will choose to live in that system. Thus no one can live in a system that does tax them fairly, because the system that tries to does not have any rich people to tax.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      I respectfully disagree. People aren't simply motivated by taxes -- there's other things like friendship, society, sense of purpose, opportunities, their place of business and the country they live in as a whole. Further, perceived value of money operates on a logarithmic scale so for someone with $2M in income $1M is a lot of money to take, but for someone with $100M $1M just isn't. I don't think you've factored in a whole lot of aspects. For instance, the top tax rate in Denmark is 62.5% and yet they have wealthy people -- why aren't they all in Hong Kong or Singapore or Malta or Gibraltar? The hyperbolic example is "the only place that won't tax me is this deserted island, so peace boys, it's just me and my money over here." Feels a bit unlikely doesn't it? There are places with truly nominal taxes already (Saudi Arabia for one), so why aren't all our rich people ... there in one big pile already?
      - anoncake 8y ago
        You're right, I simplified way too much. Of course taxes are not the only factor in play. Indeed, I hope that I overestimated their inpact. Also I didn't expect the top taxes in Denmark to be that high.
- peisistratos 8y ago
  > I for one, am glad the majority can't just decide what the taxes are. The majority are those who work and create wealth. The minority are the heirs who expropriate surplus labor time from those who work. It is an old idea, James Madison wrote the initial draft of the US Constitution and said it was meant "to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority". Hand outs and taking people's money at the point of a gun is what the heirs do from those who work and create wealth. Larry Page talks about how the police encircled the auto plant his hammer-armed grandfather was on strike at. "By the time your (sic) 30, it's mostly what you did in life that got you there" - sure like Trump and his small million dollar loan from his dad, W. Bush and his drinking and failed businesses before a government deal for a sports stadium. We see these self made by 30 men as our recent presidents. We have income earned by labor, and "income" expropriated as a Rentier - rent, interest, profit. We know this as workers pay higher taxes on their earned income than heirs do for their unearned income. The parasitism is by the heirs who do not work upon us who do work. It has not much to do with money or material - it is a relationship - the expropriation by the heir of the surplus labor time of the worker.
  - tathougies 8y ago
    > We have income earned by labor, and "income" expropriated as a Rentier - rent, interest, profit. We know this as workers pay higher taxes on their earned income than heirs do for their unearned income. It is incredibly difficult to interpret this as a critique of what the commenter wrote, when he explicitly called for a flat tax rate.
    - svachalek 8y ago
      It refers to a flat tax on income and wages, which matter little to the wealthy. Capital gains are where the real money lies, and they're so hard to define that you can't call "no loopholes" on them.
      - tathougies 8y ago
        > Capital gains are where the real money lies, and they're so hard to define that you can't call "no loopholes" on them. Well the government does quite the job right now and also taxes them at a lesser rate.
- MuffinFlavored 8y ago
  I think it boils down to "let's look at all of the problems we have for citizens in our nation". People in debt who can't afford to feed their families/pay their mortgages, homeless people, sick people. Ok. How do we solve these problems? Money. Who has money? Ultra rich. How much money do they really need? You've got somebody buying a $100m superyacht and somebody who can't afford to eat living within the same nation. I'm not saying I agree with this method of thinking 100%, but I think it's where the "we should tax the ultrawealthy" mindset comes from. Where else are we going to get the money? By the government pulling it out of a hat? That's bad for everybody. The ultrawealthy giving up some of their millions isn't super noticeable for them. On top of that, if 1 billionaire gets taxed at 75%, how many impoverished people does it stand to help?
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > if 1 billionaire gets taxed at 75%, how many impoverished people does it stand to help? Not enough. That's the fundamental issue with all "tax the wealthy" proposals: the wealthy don't have enough money to fix all the problems the tax-the-wealthy people want to fix, even if they were taxed at 100% of their income and no loopholes. So "tax the wealthy" always ends up looking more like "tax the middle class", which does more harm than good.
    - MuffinFlavored 8y ago
      I'd be curious to see the numbers on this. I thought 99% of the wealth belonged to 1% of the population or something crazy. Are you sure taxing the middle class would bring in more than taxing the ultra richer?
      - pdonis 8y ago
        > I thought 99% of the wealth belonged to 1% of the population or something crazy. If you're talking about taxing wealth, that's a very different thing from taxing income. I was thinking of income. The tax foundation summary of tax year 2016 [1] gives a good overview of the breakdown of income and federal income tax. The top 1 percent of earners had about 20 percent of reported income, and paid about 37 percent of income taxes received. But the income split point for the top 1 percent is only about $480K per year. Most of those people are not billionaires or even close to it. The share of income taxes paid by billionaires is much smaller. The issue with trying to tax wealth, instead of income, is that you can only tax it once and spend it once, and then it's gone. So unless you have some really obvious one-time expense that that wealth can buy you and that will benefit everyone enough to make it worthwhile to pay the political cost, it's just not feasible. [1] https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/ https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...
- maccam94 8y ago
  A flat tax rate is a bad idea, because as your wealth increases the incremental utility of money decreases. This is why we have a marginal tax rate system in the US. The highest rates only apply to the portions of income greater than $500k.
  - RhysU 8y ago
    The utility of time, however, stays fixed. We've all got something like 75 years to live. A flat tax of 20% takes one-fifth of a working week for the public. And, really, why should 2 days be taken from person X while 1 day is taken from person Y?
    - fredophile 8y ago
      Why is one day of person X's time worth more than person Y's?
    - maccam94 8y ago
      Time and money are different things. Many people are not paid on a time-basis. Taking 20% of the earnings of a minimum wage laborer working 80 hours a week is much more burdensome than 20% of the wages of a stock broker who makes $1M/year with their bonuses.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Given that the ultrawealthy tend to make their money from capital gains and go through great efforts to reduce their taxable income, I suspect that your proposal to tax everyone at a flat 20% would actually raise taxes on the ultraweathy, and thus you are among that 75% you’re trying to argue against.
- fredophile 8y ago
  I strongly disagree with the idea that success by 30 is mostly based on personal choices. There is plenty of evidence that your income as an adult is correlated to your parent's income [0]. [0] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01...
slacka 8y ago
> 83 percent favor strong net neutrality rules for broadband, and more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws. No one in my largest circle is against net neutrality. Yet here we are. By fixing the number of Reps. at 435, we have ended up in a situation where you can win the Electoral College with 23% of the population.[1] The Wyoming Rule would fix the underrepresentation in populated states and the electoral issue.[2] [1] https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-popular-vote https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-pres... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule
- sandov 8y ago
  Being in favor of net neutrality != being in favor of net neutrality regulations
- gnicholas 8y ago
  > The Wyoming Rule would fix the underrepresentation in populated states and the electoral issue. How would this fix the electoral issue (I assume you're referring to the Electoral College)? From the wikipedia page, it appears only to propose changing the makeup of the House of Representatives.
  - kingbirdy 8y ago
    Each state receives an amount of electoral college voters equal to how many congressional representatives it has. So the Wyoming Rule means states with a disproportionate population/elector ratio would no longer exist - all states would have a roughly equal ratio.
    - pdonis 8y ago
      Each state still gets two electoral votes for its Senators, so small states still have an advantage with the Wyoming Rule, but less of one than they have now.
      - 8y ago
brandonmenc 8y ago
> more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws TIL that 60% is considered a "supermajority."
- mikeash 8y ago
  60% is a common supermajority threshold. For example, it’s what the Senate requires to invoke cloture.
- tlb 8y ago
  It has some precedent. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#Three-fifths,_or_60_percent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#Three-fifths,_or...
qubex 8y ago
I had expected this would be a retelling of how Kurt Gödel (of Incompleteness Theorems fame) claimed to have found a logical flaw in the U.S. Constitution and was dissuaded from brining it up at his naturalisation interview. I was pleasantly surprised it was nothing of the sort. https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html
hockeybias 8y ago
...And in addition to being philanthropic, the wealthy don't put their money under a mattress. They invest in companies - everything from startups to large, conservative companies. Will we really be better off if the government decides how to put more money to work? Doubtful.
kansface 8y ago
Perhaps 75% of Americans do believe the wealthy should pay more taxes (why not!), but what if we instead asked exactly how much the highest marginal rate should be? I'd guess 30-50% of answers would actually be below the current rate (39.6%). What percentage of respondents would want to lower the current rate after learning the current value? What percentage of Americans actually understand marginal tax rates in the first place? As for meaningful policy, high income earners have little in the way of income and alot in the way of capital gains. Should we increase short/long term capital gains taxes or impose marginal taxes? Public policy needs an actual number and that also happens to be the sticking point! People are upset about income inequality (or just mad at large) so they say we should increase taxes on the rich. I think these sorts of surveys should be taken like any other sort of user feedback; listen to the problems and discard the proposed solutions. We have actually run the experiment of tax policy by popular vote in California, and not unexpectedly, its a disaster! Lets tell our goals to the economists and let them figure out the rest. see also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
hirundo 8y ago
> The framers of the Constitution, having experienced a popular revolution, were hardly recommending that the will of the majority be ignored. The Constitution sought to fine-tune majoritarian democracy, not to silence it. Specifically they "fine-tuned" it by including a supermajority requirement for changing the Constitution. The argument that this constitutes oppression is therefore clearly an argument against the Constitution. OK, but own it. Instead the author is trying to have it both ways, paying obeisance to a sacred cow while insisting that we slaughter it.
squozzer 8y ago
>About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. I would ask that if 75% of the population favor something, how many election cycles should it take to install a Congress willing to carry it out? Even in single-party districts, opponents can run in primaries. So Mr. Wu's analysis has holes -- one I would mention is the role of political marketing -- by which I mean, sure the incumbent is in the lobbyists' back pockets, but they did ${something_heroic_way_back_when} and besides, the challenger did/said ${something_that_sounds_bad}. And I think too that people believe too strongly in the "write a letter to your rep" fairy tale, which when balanced against the lobbyist USD, is found wanting. Maybe incumbency is too strong an advantage. >And when running for office, Mr. Trump did gesture at his support for popular policies, promising to control drug prices, build public infrastructure and change trade policy to favor dispossessed workers. Yet since coming to power, Mr. Trump, with a few exceptions, like trade, has seemed to lose interest in what the broader public wants, focusing instead on polarizing issues like immigration... Mr. Wu seems to be wrong here. In the past weeks, I have heard news about Congress wanting to get a handle on drug prices; trade policy seems to be creeping slowly in the direction Mr. Wu would like; and around the time the last Congress was swearing itself in, Trump had mentioned something about infrastructure. If Congress can find the time to pass an infrastructure bill, that is. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.asp...

48 points by iron0013 8y ago

> About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. I for one, am glad the majority can't just decide what the taxes are. It's a balance in society, but the general rule I personally have is live and let live. I don't want hand outs, I don't want to take peoples money at the point of a gun unnecessarily. I also regularly give to my community, by choice. I think it's important to respect one another and increasing taxes on a neighbor because they make more, doesn't seem fair. Maybe they worked harder, maybe they were born in a better position in life. It doesn't matter, by the time your 30, it's mostly what you did with your life that got you there. Let's not be petty and try to force our neighbors to pay us. I feel something like 20% of your income a year, for everyone making over livable wage seems fair (livable wage meaning, average cost of food + minor shelter for the average in said country). Then just close all loop holes. As in, you have to pay 20%, no complaints after you make $15k or something (in the U.S.). That'd probably >2x tax revenue and be "fair" to everyone.

chickenfries 8y ago
That's called a regressive tax system.
- citilife 8y ago
  Actually, no it's not. The poor are taxed at the same rate as the wealthy. Regressive, is that they are taxed more. I'm suggesting that we take substantially more from the ultra wealthy; many of whom already pay <15% tax. I'm also suggesting we tax the middle class less as well (who often pay more by percentage >15%) and the poor don't pay taxes until after they make a "live-able wage", i.e. only after they can afford food and shelter do we tax. A flat 20% tax rate, plus removing loop-holes or tax refunds would dramatically impact the wealthy and middle class. Then we drop taxing the poor (which the U.S. already does). I think it's naive to think we should just "raise taxes" to disproportionately take from the people who have money. They may have earned it, I don't want to take their wage, any more than I want to take from someone who works in the field all day.
  - rosser 8y ago
    Ignoring marginal utility is absolutely regressive.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    The income tax would not be regressive, but the overall tax system (including sales tax, gas tax, and other consumption or usage taxes) would be regressive. That isn't to say that regressivity is a fatal flaw — tobacco taxes and other "sin taxes" are all regressive, but they're seen as good because the goal is to discourage behavior, not raise revenue.
- yaks_hairbrush 8y ago
  Definition of "regressive tax": A tax that takes a higher percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners. By definition, the tax system in the post you replied to is not a regressive tax system.
  - eropple 8y ago
    That is a poor definition of a regressive tax. A better definition is "a tax that ignores the marginal utility of income in its application". Poor people derive overwhelmingly more value from dollar $10,001 than rich folks do from dollar $1,000,001. (This is not controversial.) Thus, rich folks can--and should because they derive more value from the structures of the society that enables them to be successful and not hit over the head for their paycheck--pay progressively more to sustain that society. (This is also not controversial in reality, even amongst relatively right-wing economists.)
    - yaks_hairbrush 8y ago
      The definition I gave is, nonetheless, the accepted definition of the term. Can't find a citation for yours. (Note: I do understand about utility, and how/why progressive tax systems help society. My only bone of contention here is that you're trying to redefine a specific term to have a different meaning.)
      - extra88 8y ago
        "While a flat tax imposes the same tax percentage on all individuals regardless of income, many see it as a regressive tax. A regressive tax is on which taxes high-income earners at a lower percentage of their income and low-wage earners at a higher rate of their income. The tax is seen as regressive due to a more significant portion of the total funds available to the low-income earner going to the tax expenditure. While the upper-income payer still pays the same percentage, they have enough income to offset this tax load." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flattax.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flattax.asp
    - pdonis 8y ago
- jessaustin 8y ago
  ISTM a system that differed from the current one by really "closing all loop holes" would be significantly less regressive. Of course, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of that actually happening in our Congress, but the vision is admirable even if isn't practical.
zepto 8y ago
“it's mostly what you did with your life that got you there“ This is simply not consistent with facts. Where you are born, what education you got, and what risks you were able to take has a huge impact on success.
- citilife 8y ago
  > This is simply not consistent with facts. Is it really a "fact" though? I know there are studies out there and that it's a popular opinion. The question is, why? There are near infinite factors impacting "success" and "success" is fluid, but also any statistics used are correlations and generalizations at a massive scale. My point, is that we cannot begin to determine each case independently. Instead, we should uniformly tax the society for funding society. The ultrawealthy will pay more on a percent based system, the upper, middle, and lower classes will progressively pay less. > Where you are born, what education you got, and what risks you were able to take has a huge impact on success. Also, I've seen this thrown around - let's assume this is true. I tend to agree, but you also have to recognize that by 30 years old, we shouldn't be treating people like children. By 30 it's entirely possible making minimum wage to attend college or to take risks. It may have been harder or they may have had to work hard, but there's no reason to make the argument the opportunity wasn't there, because it typically is.
  - CodeCube 8y ago
    > By 30 it's entirely possible making minimum wage to attend college or to take risks. This is a mighty big leap ... many minimum wage jobs have erratic schedules that make attending classes difficult, let alone barely paying you enough to eat and have housing. God help you if you start a family.
  - blacksmith_tb 8y ago
    > By 30 it's entirely possible making minimum wage to attend college It may be, barely, depending on the state you live in[1]. But presumably no one would argue that it would be a lot easier if your family had the means to help you... 1: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Minimum-Wage-Work-Alone https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Minimum-Wage-Work-Alo...
qubex 8y ago
But a system of philanthropy is inherently biased insofar as since donors can and do choose charitable causes that match their own preferences. Taxation is necessary (also) to redistribute from taxpayers to reciprients in an (ideally) unbiased and (in the real world) somewhat tempered by democratic representatives. That’s part of the reason why American and increasingly European politics have become so factious.
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  > But a system of philanthropy is inherently biased insofar as since donors can and do choose charitable causes that match their own preferences. Anand Giridharadas goes pretty deeply into that idea in this talk that he did at Google. I highly recommend watching it, I thought it was elucidating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM I want to read his book "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World" but I haven't gotten to it yet.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tathougies 8y ago
  You're not wrong, but I'm trying hard to place this comment. The commenter you responded to said nothing about philanthropy. In fact, some interpretations of 'live and let live' would explicitly bar philanthropy.
  - qubex 8y ago
    The OP mentioned his giving to his community on a voluntary basis. That sounded like an operative description of philanthropy so I used that term.
  - agency 8y ago
    The GP said "I also regularly give to my community, by choice."
    - 8y ago
gnicholas 8y ago
> Then just close all loop holes One man's loophole is another man's incentive. If you are struck by catastrophic medical issues and pay more than 10% of your AGI in medical bills, you can deduct the cost. Is this a loophole? Or is this a way to cushion the blow of having been dealt a lousy hand in terms of medical costs? It depends on your perspective. > That'd probably >2x tax revenue and be "fair" to everyone. From an economic perspective, it's great to "lower the rate and broaden the base". The problems come when, after the rate has been lowered, lobbyists get all the same incentives/loopholes put back in. Now you have a lower rate, and many of the same carveouts.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > One man's loophole is another man's incentive. If you are struck by catastrophic medical issues and pay more than 10% of your AGI in medical bills, you can deduct the cost. Is this a loophole? No, it's just badly broken, arbitrary, unnecessary complication. Deductions are sensible for essential costs, but healthcare doesn't magically become essentially when it crosses the 10% AGI threshold; it makes sense for healthcare costs to be deductible period.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    > it makes sense for healthcare costs to be deductible period. It's also hard to draw lines. Is Viagra covered, for example? This is one of the reasons there's a threshold — to make sure the deduction is only being granted where there are non-routine expenditures. The tax code views some level of medical expenditures as routine, and therefore non-deductible.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > It's also hard to draw lines It's easier if you don't draw unnecessary and illogical lines to start with, which is what the dollar threshold is. > Is Viagra covered, for example? Apparently, if you buy enough relative to your income. > This is one of the reasons there's a threshold — to make sure the deduction is only being granted where there are non-routine expenditures. Which is both a dumb idea and not done well by a share of income rule. > The tax code views some level of medical expenditures as routine, and therefore non-deductible. Routine expenditures being non-deductible isn't an intelligent rule; if it is a kind of expenditure that should be deductible, being routine doesn't really change that. If it is a routine expense that is assumed covered by the standard deduction, then you just require itemization to take a specific deduction for the purpose; we don't need special handling for something for which we already have a better and more general solution.
magissima 8y ago
If you don't like the majority deciding on taxes, you don't like democracy.
- freedomben 8y ago
  “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” http://freakonomics.com/2010/08/12/quotes-uncovered-if-wolves-and-sheep-could-vote/ http://freakonomics.com/2010/08/12/quotes-uncovered-if-wolve...
  - SkyMarshal 8y ago
    In more ways than one. Lets say one wolf is kind of smart and realizes it's a multi-round game, and that after they eat the sheep there won't anything else for them to eat except each other. What does that wolf do then? And what if it occurs to him that he can't be sure that the other wolf hasn't realized this too?
  - magissima 8y ago
    Good analogy. A wolf majority results in sheep being eaten with or without democracy because the wolves are more powerful. A sheep majority can save the sheep from the wolves only in a democratic system where the wolves respect majority rule. By the way, rich people are wolves, not sheep.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    Everything else is one wolf eating two sheep.
    - freedomben 8y ago
      What about a system where wolves aren't allowed to eat sheep, and everybody just chooses for themselves what to have for dinner (so long as that choice doesn't involve coercing someone else)?
      - eropple 8y ago
freedomben 8y ago
For people downvoting this, consider that it can (and should IMHO) be possible for citilife to live in a system where this is the case, and for you to live in a system that meets your needs as well. I don't understand why so many people are convinced that a giant state imposing one-size-fits-all on a hugely diverse population is a good idea. The United States particularly was founded on the idea of a tiny federal government where most things were decided by States, so people could freely move to the government that best fit their needs. Some further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy
- anoncake 8y ago
  If it's possible to live in a system where the rich aren't properly taxed, the rich will choose to live in that system. Thus no one can live in a system that does tax them fairly, because the system that tries to does not have any rich people to tax.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    I respectfully disagree. People aren't simply motivated by taxes -- there's other things like friendship, society, sense of purpose, opportunities, their place of business and the country they live in as a whole. Further, perceived value of money operates on a logarithmic scale so for someone with $2M in income $1M is a lot of money to take, but for someone with $100M $1M just isn't. I don't think you've factored in a whole lot of aspects. For instance, the top tax rate in Denmark is 62.5% and yet they have wealthy people -- why aren't they all in Hong Kong or Singapore or Malta or Gibraltar? The hyperbolic example is "the only place that won't tax me is this deserted island, so peace boys, it's just me and my money over here." Feels a bit unlikely doesn't it? There are places with truly nominal taxes already (Saudi Arabia for one), so why aren't all our rich people ... there in one big pile already?
    - anoncake 8y ago
      You're right, I simplified way too much. Of course taxes are not the only factor in play. Indeed, I hope that I overestimated their inpact. Also I didn't expect the top taxes in Denmark to be that high.
peisistratos 8y ago
> I for one, am glad the majority can't just decide what the taxes are. The majority are those who work and create wealth. The minority are the heirs who expropriate surplus labor time from those who work. It is an old idea, James Madison wrote the initial draft of the US Constitution and said it was meant "to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority". Hand outs and taking people's money at the point of a gun is what the heirs do from those who work and create wealth. Larry Page talks about how the police encircled the auto plant his hammer-armed grandfather was on strike at. "By the time your (sic) 30, it's mostly what you did in life that got you there" - sure like Trump and his small million dollar loan from his dad, W. Bush and his drinking and failed businesses before a government deal for a sports stadium. We see these self made by 30 men as our recent presidents. We have income earned by labor, and "income" expropriated as a Rentier - rent, interest, profit. We know this as workers pay higher taxes on their earned income than heirs do for their unearned income. The parasitism is by the heirs who do not work upon us who do work. It has not much to do with money or material - it is a relationship - the expropriation by the heir of the surplus labor time of the worker.
- tathougies 8y ago
  > We have income earned by labor, and "income" expropriated as a Rentier - rent, interest, profit. We know this as workers pay higher taxes on their earned income than heirs do for their unearned income. It is incredibly difficult to interpret this as a critique of what the commenter wrote, when he explicitly called for a flat tax rate.
  - svachalek 8y ago
    It refers to a flat tax on income and wages, which matter little to the wealthy. Capital gains are where the real money lies, and they're so hard to define that you can't call "no loopholes" on them.
    - tathougies 8y ago
      > Capital gains are where the real money lies, and they're so hard to define that you can't call "no loopholes" on them. Well the government does quite the job right now and also taxes them at a lesser rate.
MuffinFlavored 8y ago
I think it boils down to "let's look at all of the problems we have for citizens in our nation". People in debt who can't afford to feed their families/pay their mortgages, homeless people, sick people. Ok. How do we solve these problems? Money. Who has money? Ultra rich. How much money do they really need? You've got somebody buying a $100m superyacht and somebody who can't afford to eat living within the same nation. I'm not saying I agree with this method of thinking 100%, but I think it's where the "we should tax the ultrawealthy" mindset comes from. Where else are we going to get the money? By the government pulling it out of a hat? That's bad for everybody. The ultrawealthy giving up some of their millions isn't super noticeable for them. On top of that, if 1 billionaire gets taxed at 75%, how many impoverished people does it stand to help?
- pdonis 8y ago
  > if 1 billionaire gets taxed at 75%, how many impoverished people does it stand to help? Not enough. That's the fundamental issue with all "tax the wealthy" proposals: the wealthy don't have enough money to fix all the problems the tax-the-wealthy people want to fix, even if they were taxed at 100% of their income and no loopholes. So "tax the wealthy" always ends up looking more like "tax the middle class", which does more harm than good.
  - MuffinFlavored 8y ago
    I'd be curious to see the numbers on this. I thought 99% of the wealth belonged to 1% of the population or something crazy. Are you sure taxing the middle class would bring in more than taxing the ultra richer?
    - pdonis 8y ago
      > I thought 99% of the wealth belonged to 1% of the population or something crazy. If you're talking about taxing wealth, that's a very different thing from taxing income. I was thinking of income. The tax foundation summary of tax year 2016 [1] gives a good overview of the breakdown of income and federal income tax. The top 1 percent of earners had about 20 percent of reported income, and paid about 37 percent of income taxes received. But the income split point for the top 1 percent is only about $480K per year. Most of those people are not billionaires or even close to it. The share of income taxes paid by billionaires is much smaller. The issue with trying to tax wealth, instead of income, is that you can only tax it once and spend it once, and then it's gone. So unless you have some really obvious one-time expense that that wealth can buy you and that will benefit everyone enough to make it worthwhile to pay the political cost, it's just not feasible. [1] https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/ https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...
maccam94 8y ago
A flat tax rate is a bad idea, because as your wealth increases the incremental utility of money decreases. This is why we have a marginal tax rate system in the US. The highest rates only apply to the portions of income greater than $500k.
- RhysU 8y ago
  The utility of time, however, stays fixed. We've all got something like 75 years to live. A flat tax of 20% takes one-fifth of a working week for the public. And, really, why should 2 days be taken from person X while 1 day is taken from person Y?
  - fredophile 8y ago
    Why is one day of person X's time worth more than person Y's?
  - maccam94 8y ago
    Time and money are different things. Many people are not paid on a time-basis. Taking 20% of the earnings of a minimum wage laborer working 80 hours a week is much more burdensome than 20% of the wages of a stock broker who makes $1M/year with their bonuses.
mikeash 8y ago
Given that the ultrawealthy tend to make their money from capital gains and go through great efforts to reduce their taxable income, I suspect that your proposal to tax everyone at a flat 20% would actually raise taxes on the ultraweathy, and thus you are among that 75% you’re trying to argue against.
fredophile 8y ago
I strongly disagree with the idea that success by 30 is mostly based on personal choices. There is plenty of evidence that your income as an adult is correlated to your parent's income [0]. [0] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01...

slacka 8y ago

> 83 percent favor strong net neutrality rules for broadband, and more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws. No one in my largest circle is against net neutrality. Yet here we are. By fixing the number of Reps. at 435, we have ended up in a situation where you can win the Electoral College with 23% of the population.[1] The Wyoming Rule would fix the underrepresentation in populated states and the electoral issue.[2] [1] https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-popular-vote https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-pres... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule

sandov 8y ago
Being in favor of net neutrality != being in favor of net neutrality regulations
gnicholas 8y ago
> The Wyoming Rule would fix the underrepresentation in populated states and the electoral issue. How would this fix the electoral issue (I assume you're referring to the Electoral College)? From the wikipedia page, it appears only to propose changing the makeup of the House of Representatives.
- kingbirdy 8y ago
  Each state receives an amount of electoral college voters equal to how many congressional representatives it has. So the Wyoming Rule means states with a disproportionate population/elector ratio would no longer exist - all states would have a roughly equal ratio.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    Each state still gets two electoral votes for its Senators, so small states still have an advantage with the Wyoming Rule, but less of one than they have now.
    - 8y ago

brandonmenc 8y ago

> more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws TIL that 60% is considered a "supermajority."

mikeash 8y ago
60% is a common supermajority threshold. For example, it’s what the Senate requires to invoke cloture.
tlb 8y ago
It has some precedent. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#Three-fifths,_or_60_percent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#Three-fifths,_or...

qubex 8y ago

I had expected this would be a retelling of how Kurt Gödel (of Incompleteness Theorems fame) claimed to have found a logical flaw in the U.S. Constitution and was dissuaded from brining it up at his naturalisation interview. I was pleasantly surprised it was nothing of the sort. https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html

hockeybias 8y ago

...And in addition to being philanthropic, the wealthy don't put their money under a mattress. They invest in companies - everything from startups to large, conservative companies. Will we really be better off if the government decides how to put more money to work? Doubtful.

kansface 8y ago

Perhaps 75% of Americans do believe the wealthy should pay more taxes (why not!), but what if we instead asked exactly how much the highest marginal rate should be? I'd guess 30-50% of answers would actually be below the current rate (39.6%). What percentage of respondents would want to lower the current rate after learning the current value? What percentage of Americans actually understand marginal tax rates in the first place? As for meaningful policy, high income earners have little in the way of income and alot in the way of capital gains. Should we increase short/long term capital gains taxes or impose marginal taxes? Public policy needs an actual number and that also happens to be the sticking point! People are upset about income inequality (or just mad at large) so they say we should increase taxes on the rich. I think these sorts of surveys should be taken like any other sort of user feedback; listen to the problems and discard the proposed solutions. We have actually run the experiment of tax policy by popular vote in California, and not unexpectedly, its a disaster! Lets tell our goals to the economists and let them figure out the rest. see also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

hirundo 8y ago

> The framers of the Constitution, having experienced a popular revolution, were hardly recommending that the will of the majority be ignored. The Constitution sought to fine-tune majoritarian democracy, not to silence it. Specifically they "fine-tuned" it by including a supermajority requirement for changing the Constitution. The argument that this constitutes oppression is therefore clearly an argument against the Constitution. OK, but own it. Instead the author is trying to have it both ways, paying obeisance to a sacred cow while insisting that we slaughter it.

squozzer 8y ago

>About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. I would ask that if 75% of the population favor something, how many election cycles should it take to install a Congress willing to carry it out? Even in single-party districts, opponents can run in primaries. So Mr. Wu's analysis has holes -- one I would mention is the role of political marketing -- by which I mean, sure the incumbent is in the lobbyists' back pockets, but they did ${something_heroic_way_back_when} and besides, the challenger did/said ${something_that_sounds_bad}. And I think too that people believe too strongly in the "write a letter to your rep" fairy tale, which when balanced against the lobbyist USD, is found wanting. Maybe incumbency is too strong an advantage. >And when running for office, Mr. Trump did gesture at his support for popular policies, promising to control drug prices, build public infrastructure and change trade policy to favor dispossessed workers. Yet since coming to power, Mr. Trump, with a few exceptions, like trade, has seemed to lose interest in what the broader public wants, focusing instead on polarizing issues like immigration... Mr. Wu seems to be wrong here. In the past weeks, I have heard news about Congress wanting to get a handle on drug prices; trade policy seems to be creeping slowly in the direction Mr. Wu would like; and around the time the last Congress was swearing itself in, Trump had mentioned something about infrastructure. If Congress can find the time to pass an infrastructure bill, that is. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.asp...