| Author | Message | ||
     Unhinged Citizen Username: Mem Post Number: 2746 Registered: 5-2001  |
Spoken like a true old wind bag. You're being dishonest, but finally showing sense by hopefully leaving me alone for once. | ||
| Dave Citizen Username: Dave Post Number: 6362 Registered: 4-1998  |
Geez. WWF's got nothing on MOL. Where are our megasponsors for the No-Holds-Barred Cage Match: Watch harpo, mem and lumpy take on the Menacing Illegal Students! [Cut to closeup of Howard Dean screaming YEAHHHHH] | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1192 Registered: 6-2001 |
ffof, glad to move on now that we've straightened that out. First of all, I haven't settled in my own mind on any particular mix of taxes or decided for or against caps on spending or taxes. I don't know that anybody has. The point of a constitutional convention would be to vet various proposals and put one to the voters. I have decided I want the reform to go in the direction of greater progressivity, which means linking taxes to people's income or wealth (their ability to pay) rather than fixed charges on goods, especially a good so necessary to people's existence as housing (and especially using volatile market value as the basis for levying the tax). In previous posts, you seem to favor using state collected "sin" taxes and gas taxes. How would you distribute them in a way that didn't promote inequities in educational outcomes? | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1193 Registered: 6-2001 |
Do you really think there is nothing you could do about that, Dave, or is it some ideology that I don't understand that keeps you from actually enforcing some adult level of courtesy in these forusm? The persistent offenders really are persistent, and even those disinclined toward that level of high-school baiting and taunting feel obliged to hit back every so often in absence of any word from you. | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1194 Registered: 6-2001 |
ps, ffof: There are some aspects of school funding that might be more efficiently paid through local property taxes, but I do think those should be kept to a minimum, to help avoid the kinds of inequities you fear. | ||
| Unhinged Citizen Username: Mem Post Number: 2747 Registered: 5-2001 |
Nope. I was wrong. It won't leave me alone. Sigh. | ||
| Dave Citizen Username: Dave Post Number: 6366 Registered: 4-1998 |
Let's focus on the issue at hand. The fighting is not productive and has obviously turned people away from addressing the problem of illegal students. | ||
| ffof Citizen Username: Ffof Post Number: 1922 Registered: 5-2001  |
I have no idea. It just seems like a good source of revenue! Actually, my bottom line is this, before any property tax reform is instituted (well, I guess we could keep talking about it), I would much much rather see reform in the following areas which would majorly help to correct our NJ budget problems 1)take away the obscene penalties for drug possession - this would unclog our courts and save something like $40,000 per year prisoner costs (institute drug rehabilitaion at a fraction of the cost) and 2)institute a clean needle program to prevent spread of AIDS - the state's cost in AIDS healthcare is enormous yet the state won't give out clean needles - this is just mindnumbing. THis is just a start but the money saved here could go to property tax relief everywhere if given to schools for example. Anyway, these issues are more important to me and better for the well-being of our communities. People need to be made aware that the drug laws as they stand are costing us millions and millions of dollars AND are not even solving anything. And then there's the issue of legalization - take out the profit motive, etc and hopefully in the end the down and out communities would be able to build themselves back up. Okay sorry for the drug rant, but it just seems like it would help a whole lot more from a humanitarian perspective and from a budget perspective than kvetching over property taxes where everyone's gonna pay in some shape or form anyway. | ||
| ffof Citizen Username: Ffof Post Number: 1923 Registered: 5-2001 |
thread drift... www.drugpolicyalliance.com | ||
| ffof Citizen Username: Ffof Post Number: 1924 Registered: 5-2001 |
I just decided that drug policy is not really thread drift because if addressed properly, it would help the communities that are so wrought and that in turn would mean that students could possibly have reason to stay in their own communities. | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 905 Registered: 10-2001 |
"I have decided I want the reform to go in the direction of greater progressivity, which means linking taxes to people's income or wealth (their ability to pay) rather than fixed charges on goods, especially a good so necessary to people's existence as housing (and especially using volatile market value as the basis for levying the tax). " Aren't people's salaries "necessary to people's existence?" Why are you so willing to penalize people who earn a lot of money yet unwilling to penalize people who own expensive homes? Just because a person earns a good wage doesn't mean they have a better ability to pay. What connotes wealth in your opinion? I'd say that a couple earning 250K, living in a modest home are no more wealthy than a family that earns 100K that lives in a 500K home. And didn't you say that your income fluctuates wildly? Wouldn't your income based approach be subjected to those same wild fluctuations? I'm not sure what the right answer is, but one thing is for sure, we spend too much damn money without accountability. I would love to have that much leeway with the budget for my department. I find it amusing that when the federal government needs money people like you attack the wealthy for not paying their fair share. Now the states need money and you come calling once again. Always looking for someone to pay and never once taking a good look at the expense side of the ledger. I ran across an article about a month or so ago at work that listed NJ as one of the absolute worse places for a corporation to set up shop to do business. The combination of corporate taxes levied and high cost of living for its employees were cited as the main reasons. Not more than three years ago NJ was one of the best places to set up your business. We can thank the sweeping corporate tax increases passed by McGreedy for that. As a result more corporations will likely move to a more tax friendly state and it will result in one less teat for the public to suck on. | ||
| Tom Reingold Citizen Username: Noglider Post Number: 2079 Registered: 1-2003  |
I'd say that a couple earning 250K, living in a modest home are no more wealthy than a family that earns 100K that lives in a 500K home. What's a modest home? If couple A earns $125K and lives in a $500K home and couple B earns $250K and lives in a $1M, they spend the same fraction of their incomes on housing but they are unlikely to spend the same fractions of their incomes on everything else. Couple B probably doesn't eat twice as much. (In fact, if they're more literate, they may even eat less, but let's not drift into the obesity threads.) That leaves more money left for discretionary spending, making them what I would call more wealthy. Tom Reingold the prissy-pants There is nothing | ||
| las Citizen Username: Las Post Number: 9 Registered: 10-2003 |
Yeah, Tom, that sounds great. | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 907 Registered: 10-2001 |
A modest home around here would be 300K. In your example would you advocate couple B paying twice what couple A pays in taxes? What if couple B has two kids in college? Of course couple B wouldn't qualify for any financial aid or tax breaks so they would have to foot the bill all by themselves or borrow the money to foot the tab. But your example is quite different from what I proposed. Your example, while no means clear cut, is more clear than the question I posed. | ||
| Tom Reingold Citizen Username: Noglider Post Number: 2080 Registered: 1-2003 |
Sorry to misunderstand you. The point of the proposed reforms is that value of your home used to be a good indicator of ability to pay. These days, income is a better indicator. It's not perfect. In your example, you show the imperfection of income as an indicator of ability to pay. It sucks. But I think it sucks less than other measures. Or can you think of something better? Tom Reingold the prissy-pants There is nothing | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1195 Registered: 6-2001 |
ffof, As I've said before, I agree with you about the benefits of changing the drug laws, even when you rant. Funnily enough, I'm about to go on jury duty, where last time I refused to serve on a drug possession case because I told the judge when he read the charges I thought they were so asinine I couldn't imagine sending anybody to jail even if they did do it. He let me go. As for sin and gas taxes being a good source of revenue, I think that it is generally better to collect taxes in way that doesn't result in people with less income paying a greater share of their income in taxes than people with more income. | ||
| sac Citizen Username: Sac Post Number: 943 Registered: 5-2001 |
People's salaries ARE necessary to their existence, at least in most cases, and I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. However, the existence of a salary implies that there is money there that could be used to pay taxes. The same cannot necessarily be said of a house. Ignoring issues of local vs state control, which I believe can and should be addressed separately, it is imminently fairer to tax income than property. I don't see how anyone can come to a different conclusion in that context. | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1196 Registered: 6-2001 |
sportsnut, People who own expensive homes didn't necessarily buy an expensive home. Many people see the value of their inexpensive home double, triple, quadruple and thensome -- and they get taxed on the value of a home they never could have afforded in the first place and whose taxes they cannot afford in the present. Does that answer your question? Some people's salaries go far beyond what they need for existence by quite a far measure. My wildly fluctuating income is very atypical. People argue against the stability of funding schools through the income tax, but funding education through the property tax has meant enclaves of wealth, based on ability to enter into the housing market, where school funding is "stable" and everybody else's schools seeing budget slashes until the law intervenes and forces redistribtuion. The rational way and stable way to do it (and I think cheaper in terms of tax collection) is to fund through the income tax. I don't recall ever posting anything about the federal government needing more money from taxpayers. It would be enough for me if they hadn't squandered the surplus and stayed out of Iraq. You must be thinking of someone else. I think it's already been established in this thread there isn't anybody like me on MOL. I'm the worst poster. But yes: I want to tax the wealthy in New Jersey to pay more than they currently do in taxes. For how long, I don't know. To some, that's one of the worst things about me. | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 908 Registered: 10-2001 |
Sac - Why do you think its fairer? I think its easier to justify, but fairer? Besides I don't think anyone is arguing which is fairer. The problem is when you tax income it is politically easier to attack the so-called rich. People see 250K salaries and immediately think that everyone is like Koslowski. That is not the reality. There is a huge difference between the truly wealthy and the rest of us. I feel that the lower end of the wealthy or what I would refer to as the upper middle class really get screwed. | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1197 Registered: 6-2001 |
sportsnut, Then how about a wealth tax? Or a surtax on incomes of one millon or more? |
