From: mlee@esd.dl.nec.com (Michael Lee)
Subject: Re: Why I cannot vote Democratic
Organization: NEC America, Engineering & Support
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 16:11:01 GMT

From article <1992Sep2.175839.27113@auto-trol.com>, by katbea@auto-trol.com (Kathy Beatty):
> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
> :
> :   I wasn't trying to leave that part out of the issue; I just took it for
> :   granted that this was understood (that nobody wants to pay for these
> :   things).
> :
> You should not take it for granted. Many of us think that our taxes are the
> price we should be paying for good government. It's not true that nobody
> wants to pay; we just don't want to pay more than our fair share.
>
>
> Kathy

How can you determine what fair is?

Is fair based on:

1. income, earned or unearned?
2. assets, which kinds - houses, factories, schools, cars?
3. consumption - of food, services, clothing, shelter, TVs?
4. number of children
5. religion
6. race

Taxes are based on combinations of these factors in various governments
through the world and NONE of them are "fair".

By "fair", I mean moral/ethical/honest/right thing to do.

Taking something from someone else by force is inherently immoral and
cannot be made moral/ethical/honest/right or fair.

Different taxes may be more or less fair/moral/ethical.
So, which kind of tax is the "most" fair?
That depends entirely on subjective values.

My value is that the most fair tax must be voluntary or 0%.

Of course, that is a contradiction of the basic nature of taxes.
They are always mandatory and greater than 0%.

The original income tax was 1-2% and affected people with income > $50,000.
That is certainly more fair than what we have today ... but not completely
fair.


Interesting facts:

The total of all taxes collected by all governments (state, federal, local)
in the US is about 44% of total income in the US.

If the personal income tax were completely eliminated, the total taxes
would be about 33% of total income.  This is what the serfs paid in the
Middle Ages in Europe.

If the personal income tax were completely eliminated, the US federal budget
would be reduced to what it was way back in 1987. :-)

That's how fast our govt. is growing.  I wouldn't mind paying for "good"
govt. either.  But, only a very small part of our govt. is doing "good".
The rest is doing "bad".

A step in the right direction is to reduce what govt. is doing.  One of
the "bad" things our govt. does is to cut "good" programs instead of "bad"
programs when we reduce its income.

We get tricked into increasing taxes because they won't stop doing the
"bad" things and we want them to keep doing the relatively "good" things.


-------------------------------------------------------------------
It is often stated (and certainly true) that the poor have no right
to the wealth of the rich.  It is seldom stated (but equally true)
that the rich have no right to the wealth of the poor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I prefer a small government which may permit some evil to
a large government which promotes evil at my expense.
---------------------------------------------------------

Michael Lee
mlee@esd.dl.nec.com
214-518-3807
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,misc.headlines