Robot Payroll Taxes

[Boomhauer]

Having ALSO worked for the .gov I never saw accountability or caring for the taxpayer or concern about wisely spending the money

In fact the attitude concerning "accountability" was more along the lines of "don't get caught" and "deny, deny, deny". There was once specific case I clearly remember where the response to a public danger that people needed to know about was "here put up these generic posters". They only cared about the liability, not somebody's life.

And just because you are A-OK with higher tax rates doesn't mean I am. You are literally telling us to bend over, take it in the ass for the poorly defined "common good" and completely ignoring the whole part about "my" good. Because the last mother*expletive deleted*ing thing I care about is the wellbeing of shitheads who don't want to work when so much of MY hard earned paycheck is seized by force, and it's doubly infuriating that it is wantonly wasted.

[mtnbkr]

Having ALSO worked for the .gov I never saw accountability or caring for the taxpayer or concern about wisely spending the money

Weren't you a park ranger or some sort?  Tell me about the budgets you commanded or had input into.  

When I was a govt contractor (operations architect) and interacting with higher level folks at Govt bureaus (director level, folks with budgets and accountability), there was specific talk about fiscal responsibility vis a vis the services we deployed.  A good friend of mine (Mike Irwin knows him as well), a GS15 in the DOD, has made changes in his area of responsibility to save taxpayer money.  It did not benefit him at all to make those changes, but he did so in the interest of being more responsible with YOUR tax dollars.

Chris

[RoadKingLarry]

Show me where a tax cut actually worked and other taxes or fees weren't raised elsewhere.

Show me an actual example where trickle down economics worked and was lasting.

Show me a society that has taxed it's way into prosperity...

[charby]

Show me a society that has taxed it's way into prosperity...

It's a thin line between too much and too little taxes.

[RoadKingLarry]

It's a thin line between too much and too little taxes.

So how much is "just right"?
Let's start with the 23% that gets skimmed right off the top of my paycheck, federal, state, SS, FICA... Then we have property taxes, sales tax, fuel tax, excise tax, vehicle registration taxes, internet service tax, telephone tax and any number of other mandated government "fees" we have to pay. It's been several years ago but I figured up that my real tax burden was better than 60% of my income, it hasn't gone down since then.
I don't think any rational citizen can deny that for a civil society to exist some level of taxation is needed to provide for services deemed essential (fire, police, military...) but year after year we see government bloat and mission creep of things like social services and welfare taking bigger and bigger bites of our piece of the pie. Government funding of things like Planned Parenthood and handouts to illegal immigrants and innumerable other things that do not serve the public good. Fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars continues and tends to grow year after year.
How much of what I work for should I be allowed to keep? For the value returned our tax burden is way too high.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-real-world-middle-class-tax-rate-75

[Ben]

Weren't you a park ranger or some sort?  Tell me about the budgets you commanded or had input into.  

When I was a govt contractor (operations architect) and interacting with higher level folks at Govt bureaus (director level, folks with budgets and accountability), there was specific talk about fiscal responsibility vis a vis the services we deployed.  A good friend of mine (Mike Irwin knows him as well), a GS15 in the DOD, has made changes in his area of responsibility to save taxpayer money.  It did not benefit him at all to make those changes, but he did so in the interest of being more responsible with YOUR tax dollars.

Chris

That's a relatively small percentage of >GS13 employees. I saved the taxpayers money as well nearly every year I was in the management ranks, then some SESer took the budget surplus and spent it somewhere else, because coming in under budget only gets you a smaller budget for the next FY.

You can be a conscientious employee and still be overwhelmed by the overall system.

[Scout26]

Here's a town that got fined by the EPA

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/north-hempstead-agrees-to-pay-epa-50g-over-fuel-tank-violations-1.12276022

A university


http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Waco--EPA-fines-Baylor-for-hazardous-waste-violations-403461026.html

So where did the money for those fines come from ??  The pockets of the bureaucrats that did wrong or from the taxpayers that entrusted them to do the right thing?

[charby]

I don't give a tinker's damn if it's logistically easy for someone to take a job.  Given the moving around I've had to do, and have been willing to do, some welfare sucking leech gets no sympathy from me if they lose their bennies because they didn't want to leave their hommies to take a job.

I've moved also for jobs, guess what I had the means (as in money and support structure) to do so. I'm going to assume you did also.

How does one move when they have no means to do so, let alone make a couple trips for interviewing and then physically moving. Yes I want to see the able bodied welfare recipients working also, but how to you get them to the jobs or get the jobs to them. The ones who want to hang with their hommies aren't going to move not matter what, actually I wonder how many of those are actually getting a welfare check directly? Probably living or flopping between places that have an welfare recipient there and leaching off them. 

[charby]

So how much is "just right"?
Let's start with the 23% that gets skimmed right off the top of my paycheck, federal, state, SS, FICA... Then we have property taxes, sales tax, fuel tax, excise tax, vehicle registration taxes, internet service tax, telephone tax and any number of other mandated government "fees" we have to pay. It's been several years ago but I figured up that my real tax burden was better than 60% of my income, it hasn't gone down since then.
I don't think any rational citizen can deny that for a civil society to exist some level of taxation is needed to provide for services deemed essential (fire, police, military...) but year after year we see government bloat and mission creep of things like social services and welfare taking bigger and bigger bites of our piece of the pie. Government funding of things like Planned Parenthood and handouts to illegal immigrants and innumerable other things that do not serve the public good. Fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars continues and tends to grow year after year.
How much of what I work for should I be allowed to keep? For the value returned our tax burden is way too high.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-real-world-middle-class-tax-rate-75

I don't know what just right is, it's different opinion for everyone.

[charby]

So where did the money for those fines come from ??  The pockets of the bureaucrats that did wrong or from the taxpayers that entrusted them to do the right thing?

Town can from their coffers, or their insurance if they have it

Baylor is a private school, so it came from their budget, probably has some state and federal dollars in it, not sure how Texas budgets towards private universities.

[charby]

OK. Let's say things in Kansas are as bad as you say, and that tax cuts (rather than tax monies being wasted on non-essentials, burdensome regulation keeping GDP growth down, etc) is the reason for it. That is actually a good problem to have, compared to the rest of the country, that struggles with too much spending and too much taxation to support the too much taxation. As we've seen in our history, it's not hard to correct the problem of too little taxation. You just trot out enough sad pandas that need tax money, and have the Left air their stories on the evening news. 

I see where you're coming from.

[MechAg94]

It's a thin line between too much and too little taxes.

I guess we disagree.  I don't think it is a thin line at all.  That is mainly because there is wide disagreement on what exactly we all want Govt to do.  If you take it down to the minimum to maintain defense and basic sovereignty, the "too little taxes" line is way down low.  

Govt is NOT accountable to the taxpayer.  Govt is inefficient and gets more inefficient the bigger it gets.  The more stuff you add to the list of things the FedGov does, the "too little taxes" line goes up even higher.  It isn't linear.  You can look at FedGov spending historically and see a lot of useful information.  Before the income tax was implemented, Congress refused to pass the Prohibition amendment as sin taxes were a major source of taxes.  Once they had income taxes, they had no problem with it.  I think you can also look at FedGov spending once LBJ's Great Society stuff started welfare and when Medicare was started.  

I think the number of things Govt CAN do it near infinite.  If we cannot control spending and the scope of what Govt does, no amount of taxes will be sufficient.  

[MechAg94]

I think the number of things Govt CAN do it near infinite.  If we cannot control spending and the scope of what Govt does, no amount of taxes will be sufficient.

My quoted statement was piling on to what fistful said.  This is where I am coming from on most of this thread.  IMO, Govt as an entity is always trying to grow.  The number of people who want a piece of the power and/or money will always be more than there is to go around.  Govt bureaucrats do not get ahead in their careers by saying NO.  Knowing that, my opinion is the ONLY way to force Govt efficiency and accountability is to limit the funding side.  If money is there, it WILL be spent.  

Edit:  I would add that this is just human nature.  If someone is using resources for which they do no work or don't have to pay for, they have no incentive to be careful with the use of those resources.  Our government bureaucracy is worse since the system is set up to incentivise bureaucrats to spend more money, not less.  Yes, it could be done better, but there is no incentive to do that.

[MechAg94]

Town can from their coffers, or their insurance if they have it

Baylor is a private school, so it came from their budget, probably has some state and federal dollars in it, not sure how Texas budgets towards private universities.

I think Baylor gets very little if any money from the State for normal funding.  It came up recently since Texas passed a law for concealed carry in schools last session.  Since Baylor was private, they had options to bypass that law which public universities did not have.  If they were taking state funding, they would not have been able to do that. 

[mtnbkr]

How does one move when they have no means to do so, let alone make a couple trips for interviewing and then physically moving.

This is a bigger barrier than many realize.  It's one thing to travel around looking for work when you are currently employed or only recently unemployed.  It's another entirely when you've been out of work for years, have no assets, and no means to get a job locally (think of rust belt towns, Appalachia, etc).  It becomes virtually insurmountable. 

Chris

[MechAg94]

Since fines for regulatory violations were brought up earlier, I thought I would post something I heard about today.  It was mentioned that EPA fines were used for this also. 

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/24/report-justice-department-extorts-companies-to-fund-left-wing-activists/
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/holders-bank-of-america-settlement-includes-payoffs-to-democrat-groups/

Sort of undermines the whole accountability argument.

[charby]

My quoted statement was piling on to what fistful said.  This is where I am coming from on most of this thread.  IMO, Govt as an entity is always trying to grow.  The number of people who want a piece of the power and/or money will always be more than there is to go around.  Govt bureaucrats do not get ahead in their careers by saying NO.  Knowing that, my opinion is the ONLY way to force Govt efficiency and accountability is to limit the funding side.  If money is there, it WILL be spent.  

Edit:  I would add that this is just human nature.  If someone is using resources for which they do no work or don't have to pay for, they have no incentive to be careful with the use of those resources.  Our government bureaucracy is worse since the system is set up to incentivise bureaucrats to spend more money, not less.  Yes, it could be done better, but there is no incentive to do that.

I'm not asking the government to do everything, I just think there are things that are better handled by the government than private business, and I think private business can do many things better than the government.

I also think there is some services provided by government that can make our lives better/safer, even though we may not directly benefit from the service.

[Northwoods]

I've moved also for jobs, guess what I had the means (as in money and support structure) to do so. I'm going to assume you did also.

How does one move when they have no means to do so, let alone make a couple trips for interviewing and then physically moving. Yes I want to see the able bodied welfare recipients working also, but how to you get them to the jobs or get the jobs to them. The ones who want to hang with their hommies aren't going to move not matter what, actually I wonder how many of those are actually getting a welfare check directly? Probably living or flopping between places that have an welfare recipient there and leaching off them. 

Unless distances are really long it isn't that costly to go for the interviews, and if you're even a little resourceful you can make it happen.  Plus most companies will reimburse that expense.  Same goes for moving.  But, let's just assume those employers are too cheap to pay for that.  If it means getting them off welfare I'm ok with helping them out with taxpayer money so they can get to the interview and move to the new location.  4-6 months of them not on welfare will probably more than cover that expense.

[charby]

Unless distances are really long it isn't that costly to go for the interviews, and if you're even a little resourceful you can make it happen.  Plus most companies will reimburse that expense.  Same goes for moving.  But, let's just assume those employers are too cheap to pay for that.  If it means getting them off welfare I'm ok with helping them out with taxpayer money so they can get to the interview and move to the new location.  4-6 months of them not on welfare will probably more than cover that expense.

Be interesting to see a map of areas of high welfare recipients and areas of employment demand of wages high enough to get off welfare.

[makattak]

I'm not asking the government to do everything, I just think there are things that are better handled by the government than private business, and I think private business can do many things better than the government.

I also think there is some services provided by government that can make our lives better/safer, even though we may not directly benefit from the service.

Nearly everything done by the Federal Government would be better done by someone else. 

Either private enterprise where someone directly bears the cost of messing up,  or local government where people are better able to hold agents accountable. 

So, even if "the government" would do or better,  the Federal Government would not.

[charby]

Nearly everything done by the Federal Government would be better done by someone else. 

Either private enterprise where someone directly bears the cost of messing up,  or local government where people are better able to hold agents accountable. 

So, even if "the government" would do or better,  the Federal Government would not.

Privatize the military?

[RoadKingLarry]

Privatize the military?

What is it about statists that give them so much trouble with comprehension?
What part of "nearly" do you fail to grasp?

[makattak]

Privatize the military?

Larry stole my snark about "nearly", but other than the Navy, the states actually HAVE provided the military for much of our history.

I don't know if it would still work, and the necessity of a unified command structure may prove too much for such an arrangement now, but it's not outside the realm of experience.

Of note, I'm not advocating for the devolution of the Army to the states (aside: at least portions of the Air Force would, by necessity stay with the Federal Government for the same reasons as the Navy). In my comment, I was specifically thinking of the military as an exception that fell under the "nearly" that I stated.

[MechAg94]

I am sure private enterprise could do "Military" for less money.  The liability issues would be a big question.  However, cheaper and more efficient aren't primary goals of the military and contracting out National Defense has not gone well historically.  And from a Constitutional standpoint, that is one of the primary roles of our FedGov.  And then there is all the other stuff about fighting for a corporation versus your country. 

We have used privateers in our past who ended up being pretty effective at the role of damaging the British merchant fleet.  They didn't attack the British military fleet too much.


When it comes down to it, a lot of the supporting roles around the military have been privatized. 

[KD5NRH]

We have used privateers in our past who ended up being pretty effective at the role of damaging the British merchant fleet.  They didn't attack the British military fleet too much.

Well, when the Letter of Marque and Reprisal doesn't specify, you go after the low hanging fruit.