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This is a strawman that gets leveled at people that want to increase taxes. It's an attempt to paint me as a hypocrite and therefore not acting rationally. It's

This is a strawman that gets leveled at people that want to increase taxes. It's an attempt to paint me as a hypocrite and therefore not acting rationally. It's flawed reasoning. I invite you to consider: If my stated goal is to increase the tax on wealthiest folks with the intent of distributing more to the lower class and reducing wealth inequality. Should I: a) Spend 100% of my surplus income on gifts to the tax authority or b) Spend 100% of my surplus income on organizations that will organize community efforts to achieve my goal. It's a concept called the 'opportunity cost' -- option A is acting in the spirit of my goal, but does nothing to achieve my goal. If I am a rational player (and I'd like to believe I am), to achieve my goals it's considerably more effective for me to spend my money giving to charities that align with my objective. Therefore, I spend my surplus income on community organizing, land trusts, and other efforts that will build support for my goals. Edit: This is the same reason why I don't ask people who care about the national debt to just open their pocketbooks. If that's a cause you care about, I'd expect you to advocate for it and give your time/money towards groups that make it happen. I happen to think it's a ludicrous thing to care about. We can aggressively disagree about policies and still agree that we are acting in a rational way respective to our worldviews. There is room for both of our opinions here, but we should be able to discuss them without relying on these sorts of goofy strawmen.

rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> If my stated goal is to increase the tax on wealthiest folks with the intent of distributing more to the lower class and reducing wealth inequality That's not exactly "Send the tax man to my house" now is it? You want the government to take my money and use it for your ideological purposes that I do not believe in, to implement socialism in America, that's what I think you're saying. Am I wrong here? Sending the tax man to your house vs. doing that, those are two very different things. We can find common ground here, send the tax man to your house, we can agree on that at least can't we? And you can do that right now, this very minute, PayPal over what you think the correct amount is.
- pashamur 6y ago
  No, this is a bullshit argument. It's the same as telling people who want to fight global warming to buy recyclable containers (when we know that most of the damage comes from companies and not individuals) or telling people who are concerned about ocean pollution to use reusable straws or not to use paper bags (when fishing nets are actually responsible for >50% of ocean pollution and straws are less than 1%). This is actually a tactic that climate change denialists push for (accuse people of not doing enough personally so they don't go after the real source of the problem and blame themselves instead) It's a milquetoast argument intended to defend the status quo by attacking the people that want to change it.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Do we know how much our our country spends to bomb other countries? I would like to hear the ‘tax the rich’ crowd to tell me how many cents of my tax dollar goes to help people and how many go to wage war. It’s around 3.2-3.5% of our budget. That we know of. That’s close to a trillion/year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_S... : this is the United States federal budget. What is it that we couldn’t do with this much money can we do by increasing tax by a minuscule minuscule percentage that is nothing for the govt budget but makes such a massive dent for families, disposable income, consumer index, business development and investment. Where is the accountability. The taxes are to run the govt. the job of the govt is not to manipulate taxes to impose laws to cancel inequalities. This is thuggery by taxation. Govt should be small and efficient. Big bloated govts with access to unlimited tax monies will only get bigger and bloatier. Until their expenses will explode like Mr.Creosote in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. It is that ‘wafer thin mint’ that was the last straw that broke the camels back resulting in the Silicon Valley exodus.

rufus_foreman 6y ago

>> If my stated goal is to increase the tax on wealthiest folks with the intent of distributing more to the lower class and reducing wealth inequality That's not exactly "Send the tax man to my house" now is it? You want the government to take my money and use it for your ideological purposes that I do not believe in, to implement socialism in America, that's what I think you're saying. Am I wrong here? Sending the tax man to your house vs. doing that, those are two very different things. We can find common ground here, send the tax man to your house, we can agree on that at least can't we? And you can do that right now, this very minute, PayPal over what you think the correct amount is.

pashamur 6y ago
No, this is a bullshit argument. It's the same as telling people who want to fight global warming to buy recyclable containers (when we know that most of the damage comes from companies and not individuals) or telling people who are concerned about ocean pollution to use reusable straws or not to use paper bags (when fishing nets are actually responsible for >50% of ocean pollution and straws are less than 1%). This is actually a tactic that climate change denialists push for (accuse people of not doing enough personally so they don't go after the real source of the problem and blame themselves instead) It's a milquetoast argument intended to defend the status quo by attacking the people that want to change it.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Do we know how much our our country spends to bomb other countries? I would like to hear the ‘tax the rich’ crowd to tell me how many cents of my tax dollar goes to help people and how many go to wage war. It’s around 3.2-3.5% of our budget. That we know of. That’s close to a trillion/year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_S... : this is the United States federal budget. What is it that we couldn’t do with this much money can we do by increasing tax by a minuscule minuscule percentage that is nothing for the govt budget but makes such a massive dent for families, disposable income, consumer index, business development and investment. Where is the accountability. The taxes are to run the govt. the job of the govt is not to manipulate taxes to impose laws to cancel inequalities. This is thuggery by taxation. Govt should be small and efficient. Big bloated govts with access to unlimited tax monies will only get bigger and bloatier. Until their expenses will explode like Mr.Creosote in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. It is that ‘wafer thin mint’ that was the last straw that broke the camels back resulting in the Silicon Valley exodus.