How can they accept a government which now routinely steals 50% of their income?
... exsqueeze me? No, you have to be in a pretty high tax bracket for that to be true. Some people make so little that they only pay Social Security - which is split with the employer unless you are self-employed so that's around %7.5 last I checked. The highest paying jobs I've ever had (at least, on the record) ending up taking somewhere between 20-30% for taxes (total, including social security).
How can they accept the Soviet-style healthcare system being pushed on us,Please explain to me
( ... )
How can they accept a government which now routinely steals 50% of their income? ... exsqueeze me? No, you have to be in a pretty high tax bracket for that to be true.
I usually say that rhetorically. But now I'm taking a look at a recent paycheck to get actual numbers:
17.9% federal income tax 5.9% state income tax 6.1% social security tax, my portion (but yes, I've heard it's 7.5% on average) 6.1% social security tax, employer-paid portion (which would otherwise be available for my pay) 1.4% medicare tax 7.8% sales tax (assuming I spend everything I have remaining) _____ 45.2% total
That's pretty close to 50%. And I didn't make six figures, that's for sure.
That said, it's easy to fall into the trap of debating whether taxes are "too high". (And this is way too high.) Instead, I'd rather debate the philosophy of taxes themselves. I think taxation ... at any level ... is highly unethical
( ... )
I am sorry, but you don't get to count the portion of social security that your employer pays, because no, they would NOT pay you more if they could. Business exists to make profit. They would add it to their profit. This is obvious.
You also do not get to count sales tax, because especially people in higher tax brackets definitely do not even come close to spending all of their income, and often invest their savings in some pretty high-yield investments, or manage to hide it in ways that you or I cannot so that it doesn't even count as their assets.
This brings your taxation to: 31.3%
Consider your own situation. You don't have kids. But you're still taxed to pay to educate other people's kids in the government-run public school system.
ALL OF SOCIETY benefits from children being educated. Or maybe you'd rather there be even more unsupervised, bored, uneducated children that have nothing better to do during the day than steal your bike and spray paint your garage whom, assuming they make it to adulthood, will be unable to hold
( ... )
I am sorry, but you don't get to count the portion of social security that your employer pays, because no, they would NOT pay you more if they could. Business exists to make profit. They would add it to their profit.
Maybe some businesses might pocket the money ... at first. But other businesses would see an opportunity to attract skilled people over from their competitors by offering higher wages, giving themselves a competitive advantage. Eventually, all employers would have to pay out the extra money in wages.
But even if they didn't, and that money went into the business's profit, so what? What happens to those profits? They get re-invested. Owners have more money to expand their businesses & factories, and hire more people. Either way, it would benefit workers & society.
ALL OF SOCIETY benefits from children being educated.True. But all of society benefits from ALL TYPES OF BUSINESS. When you buy vegetables from the supermarket, it benefits you & the supermarket, but it also benefits the truckers who shipped the food,
( ... )
1. What makes you think anything is being "pushed on us";
Everyone will be forced to accept it. Even if we don't choose to use a government-managed plan (assuming a "universal" plan doesn't pass & some private options remain for a while), we'll still be burdened with paying for it with even more taxes.
2. What you know about the former Soviet union's health care that makes what has been proposed in this country a good comparison to that;
In the Soviet Union, the government controlled all industry. It drove that society into the ground. Everyone became impoverished ... except for the politically-connected few, of course (a seminal book about life in the USSR is We The Living; while I don't agree with all of Rand's views, the book is excellent & fundamentally shaped my views toward government, although it's quite depressing). The same is true for North Korea, where people are starving. The same was also true for China ... until they decided to allow more freedom into their economy & their society became more prosperous
( ... )
Solving the healthcare mess, part 1gothaminsereniaSeptember 3 2009, 00:34:38 UTC
3. What exactly you think is the solution, considering how many people currently do not have even the option of having health care either due to preexisting conditions or employment situation?
An excellent question. Unfortunately, there are no public figures today offering a solution that will work. By "work", I mean improving healthcare with better quality and lower prices. But I can offer a solution that would work
( ... )
Solving the healthcare mess, part 2gothaminsereniaSeptember 3 2009, 01:03:50 UTC
So, to solve the healthcare mess, we need to identify the true causes of the problems. If we don't understand the problem, chances are any "solution" will either make things worse or just shift problems off to another area. Here are two big things that would really help the situation:
1. Abolish the FDA. The FDA's drug testing process costs about $1 billion for each new drug approved, and this cost ends up being passed on to the consumer. Despite that high cost, it doesn't always work, as the Vioxx scandal showed. But the main problem is due to the fact that only the giant pharmaceutical corporations are able to afford it. These expensive testing process costs shut out any small or independent firms which might develop a new drug or product, and that's why today we have an oligopoly of giant pharmaceutical companies which can gouge consumers for the price of medicine. Upjohn, Merck, & Bristol Myers Squibb love the FDA, because its $1 billion approval process lets them corner the market by keeping out new competitors, so they
( ... )
... exsqueeze me? No, you have to be in a pretty high tax bracket for that to be true. Some people make so little that they only pay Social Security - which is split with the employer unless you are self-employed so that's around %7.5 last I checked. The highest paying jobs I've ever had (at least, on the record) ending up taking somewhere between 20-30% for taxes (total, including social security).
How can they accept the Soviet-style healthcare system being pushed on us,Please explain to me ( ... )
Reply
I usually say that rhetorically. But now I'm taking a look at a recent paycheck to get actual numbers:
17.9% federal income tax
5.9% state income tax
6.1% social security tax, my portion (but yes, I've heard it's 7.5% on average)
6.1% social security tax, employer-paid portion (which would otherwise be available for my pay)
1.4% medicare tax
7.8% sales tax (assuming I spend everything I have remaining)
_____
45.2% total
That's pretty close to 50%. And I didn't make six figures, that's for sure.
That said, it's easy to fall into the trap of debating whether taxes are "too high". (And this is way too high.) Instead, I'd rather debate the philosophy of taxes themselves. I think taxation ... at any level ... is highly unethical ( ... )
Reply
You also do not get to count sales tax, because especially people in higher tax brackets definitely do not even come close to spending all of their income, and often invest their savings in some pretty high-yield investments, or manage to hide it in ways that you or I cannot so that it doesn't even count as their assets.
This brings your taxation to: 31.3%
Consider your own situation. You don't have kids. But you're still taxed to pay to educate other people's kids in the government-run public school system.
ALL OF SOCIETY benefits from children being educated. Or maybe you'd rather there be even more unsupervised, bored, uneducated children that have nothing better to do during the day than steal your bike and spray paint your garage whom, assuming they make it to adulthood, will be unable to hold ( ... )
Reply
Maybe some businesses might pocket the money ... at first. But other businesses would see an opportunity to attract skilled people over from their competitors by offering higher wages, giving themselves a competitive advantage. Eventually, all employers would have to pay out the extra money in wages.
But even if they didn't, and that money went into the business's profit, so what? What happens to those profits? They get re-invested. Owners have more money to expand their businesses & factories, and hire more people. Either way, it would benefit workers & society.
ALL OF SOCIETY benefits from children being educated.True. But all of society benefits from ALL TYPES OF BUSINESS. When you buy vegetables from the supermarket, it benefits you & the supermarket, but it also benefits the truckers who shipped the food, ( ... )
Reply
Everyone will be forced to accept it. Even if we don't choose to use a government-managed plan (assuming a "universal" plan doesn't pass & some private options remain for a while), we'll still be burdened with paying for it with even more taxes.
2. What you know about the former Soviet union's health care that makes what has been proposed in this country a good comparison to that;
In the Soviet Union, the government controlled all industry. It drove that society into the ground. Everyone became impoverished ... except for the politically-connected few, of course (a seminal book about life in the USSR is We The Living; while I don't agree with all of Rand's views, the book is excellent & fundamentally shaped my views toward government, although it's quite depressing). The same is true for North Korea, where people are starving. The same was also true for China ... until they decided to allow more freedom into their economy & their society became more prosperous ( ... )
Reply
An excellent question. Unfortunately, there are no public figures today offering a solution that will work. By "work", I mean improving healthcare with better quality and lower prices. But I can offer a solution that would work ( ... )
Reply
1. Abolish the FDA. The FDA's drug testing process costs about $1 billion for each new drug approved, and this cost ends up being passed on to the consumer. Despite that high cost, it doesn't always work, as the Vioxx scandal showed. But the main problem is due to the fact that only the giant pharmaceutical corporations are able to afford it. These expensive testing process costs shut out any small or independent firms which might develop a new drug or product, and that's why today we have an oligopoly of giant pharmaceutical companies which can gouge consumers for the price of medicine. Upjohn, Merck, & Bristol Myers Squibb love the FDA, because its $1 billion approval process lets them corner the market by keeping out new competitors, so they ( ... )
Reply
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