"Faculty tax": The conservative answer to income taxes
I really am digging this paleoconservative notion of a faculty tax: that your tax rate should not be based on what you earn, but on you can earn. The income tax is unjust because ... between two men of equal natural powers, the income tax lays the heavier burden upon him who most fully and diligently uses his abilities and opportunities. It even accepts indolence, shiftlessness, and worthlessness as a sufficient ground for excuse from public contribution.
The cure for this, apparently, was to tax you based upon your IQ and education: the smarter and more capable you were, the higher your tax rate. Those who used their faculties correctly could earn enough to survive the tax: those who couldn't, well, in true socio-darwinian fashion they should have perished.
Basically, if two people of equal "faculty" choose different career paths, such as one becoming a banker and the other a priest, the priest should pay the same tax rates as the banker. After all, his choice to waste his talents going into the Church denies the community the full output of his faculties.
Mike Konczal makes the futher case that crushing student debt is a faculty tax. People go to college to learn the full use of their faculties, but only by maximizing salaries can they survive the debt burden of modern education. Therefore, student debt is a faculty tax because it discourages people from going into fields that society currently values less.
The cure for this, apparently, was to tax you based upon your IQ and education: the smarter and more capable you were, the higher your tax rate. Those who used their faculties correctly could earn enough to survive the tax: those who couldn't, well, in true socio-darwinian fashion they should have perished.
Basically, if two people of equal "faculty" choose different career paths, such as one becoming a banker and the other a priest, the priest should pay the same tax rates as the banker. After all, his choice to waste his talents going into the Church denies the community the full output of his faculties.
Mike Konczal makes the futher case that crushing student debt is a faculty tax. People go to college to learn the full use of their faculties, but only by maximizing salaries can they survive the debt burden of modern education. Therefore, student debt is a faculty tax because it discourages people from going into fields that society currently values less.