I’ve been going back and forth with Lupus about how America and taxes are like a gun in your face – the Federal government is essentially a thug that is extracting your money “by force” and “with a gun in your face.” Although I agree that our current administration IS a bunch of thugs and essentially a crime family, the notion that the federal government is the cause of our woes is just laughably silly. So I’m coining a new phrase just so you’ll know what I’m talking about: “Lazitarians.”
Argument: We pay too much in tax.
No, YOU pay too much in taxes. I pay an amount that is close to 11% of our family’s gross annual revenue and have for the last 20 years. Completely legit, pristine white and 100% legal tax preparation. What I don’t do, is sit around and let them tell me what I will pay.
Here’s what you don’t understand: a tax return is essentially a negotiating framework. It first off requires full disclosure ie., this is what I made last year so that we have a basis to start negotiating, but from that point on it’s up to you to figure out what you’ll pay. If you simply take the 1040EZ and pay what they list then you’re both foolish and lazy. Essentially you are purchasing the right to not have to be smart. You’re saying, “Well, I don’t really want to have to work, think, keep records or figure out what is NOT the government’s share, so I’ll just pay this instead.”
Thanks, by the way, for paying the lion’s share of the money the fed receives each year – you’re certainly paying more than me. But hey – you also get more time on the couch to watch Desperate Housewives and such. Good for you. But I digress.
Lazitarians and the like are more comfortable complaining about the way things are then doing anything about them. Screaming about taxes is certainly a lot easier than doing something about them. Little known fact: a child, working in the home for a sole-proprietorship pays no income tax (up to a certain amount). So what do we do? Form a sole proprietorship to manufacture breast cancer awareness jewelry. The money the kids make, since they are still under 18, is under our control – so we apply it to their private school costs. Presto – earned income goes towards private school. Wow, that was tough (and an oversimplification, but you get the point). Clearly, the children need to for-reals work and there’s no funny business here – but we personally would rather they learn to work than watch TV, so our home is centered around understanding income and a work ethic. Again, this is beyond most folks that would rather pay a post-tax allowance to kids so that they aren’t taken away from Grey’s Anatomy.
How about this: C Corps can pay health insurance for their employees. So we have a C Corp for one huge aspect of what we do here. Because the board has decided that this makes a great benefit, all medical expenses, including optical and dental are a benefit of working for our C corp. Presto – medical costs are pre-tax.
Here’s the deal – PinkHat’s and my life with accounting is neither simple, easy or quick. We both spend on average 10 hours per month on our accounting, reconciliation and book keeping – as well as the sum we pay a *very professional EA* to make sure we’re doing it right – because if the government decides it wants to check up on us then we want to make sure we have our ducks in a row (thank GOD for PinkHat who does this stuff brilliantly). But when we look at the amount of money we save by spending this combined 20-ish hours per month, it makes EXCELLENT financial sense. In fact, the way I see it, it is a revenue opportunity. I have a cost of business at 38%. But by working 10 hours I can reduce that by a profound amount and put a huge amount of money in my pocket. And by doing it the right-right-right way, the money stays in my pocket all year long and the government gets there piece after the year is over. Presto – I’ve even made interest income on the money that I am going to pay them.
So please – stay dumb about this issue because you’re making my life really easy. There’s a couple GREAT new shows on channel 12 tonight… 
Argument: Private entities (companies / corps) are better suited to do things because they have an incentive – profit – rather than the government, which has no incentive.
Well, OK – you kind of have me on that one if you take it on face value – private corporations do have an incentive to do well – it’s called profit. But here’s the rub, and why that sentence always stops right there: Private corporations have incentive to do well FOR THEIR SHAREHOLDERS. Employees are a necessary evil, and if they can get it cheaper, do it cheaper, sell it for more, the board is happy. Lazitarians do not understand that corporations have no conscience nor any reason at all to be concerned with my health, welfare or wellbeing – except so long as I have a dollar to spend on them. IT is for this very reason that “un-incentivised government programs” are often of such value – in fact, you’re benefiting from them RIGHT THIS SECOND.
The Internet was thought of, prototyped, developed and made ubiquitous because of government, military and academic programs. The argument that “private industry is better” is simple horseshit because if they COULD have done it they WOULD have. If there was so much to be made and private industry would be so much better at this, believe me they would be. The amount of people that profit directly or indirectly is a DIRECT result of this research and development and, yours and my tax dollars. The benefits to health from the space program are innumerable. The capability to simply drive from state to state pretty easily on federal highways is marvelous.
How about this one: private industry would still have us believe that “It’s never really been proven that cigarette smoke is bad for your health.” There’s your private industry: complete denial so that they can continue to profit. And yours and my tax dollars went to fighting them on this. Where is the benefit you say? Let people smoke and die? Well, first off – I don’t have time personally to research the health dangers associated with smoking, so I need to outsource that before I decide to light up. Second, since I pay for the health care of folks that can’t afford it, and those very same folks are the ones most likely to smoke, then I’d prefer that the government continues to fight the private industry that wants to profit AT MY EXPENSE WHETHER I SMOKE OR NOT.
How does the notion of Lazitarian fit in here? Corporations make a lot of noise and are actually at least as good, if not better at propoganda than our government. It’s a whole lot easier to believe the fascists and scream at the government than it is to believe that they (corporations) could really give a shit if my drinking water is safe or not. Why we want to scream at the entity that is TRYING to make water safer (the government) while we want to give free reign to the very entities that have polluted it (private enterprise) is amazing to me. But rather than learning, we’d rather see how Addison is doing on Private Practice (hey honey – did you get that on the Tivo?) and scream. Lazitarians.
Argument: The government controls me
No, you are a Lazitarian. Noone and nowhere does it say that freedom is easy or cheap. It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to get smart and make use of the tools that this country provides for you to prosper – if you want to eliminate the government so that you can prosper, then you are a WELFARE MOTHER. You are looking for the government to hand you the worst entitlement of all: LAZINESS. If you can’t compete because it’s “just too tough to start a business” then you are LAZY. You want to cut everyone down to your level because you cannot rise up to the challenge. Get off your butt, turn the TV off and grab a book… make a plan about how you will take responsibility for your life, rather than screaming that the government has taken it from you. It has not – you have surrendered it willingly.
And by the way, thanks again- I love the lovely landscaping on the roads around here – certainly a gift from you and your hard work. Really, thanks.
Perkiset, you nail it right to the wall. It is pathetic to hear from the so called “free marketeers” that government can’t do anything, and then see them line up for the government handout that they demand for their businesses and corporations. Their hypocracy about welfare and social responsibility is appalling.
I will say this: Bush has been a blessing for those of us who say that it is foolish to hire a person to run your business (in this case, the government) who doesn’t believe in the goals and asperations of the organization. It’s like hiring crooks or cronies to make your business succeed and then wondering why your business fails. Ooops, it’s not LIKE doing that, Bush is doing that with Gonzales, Brownie, Scooter, Wolfowitz, et. al.
The fact is, you hire a wolf to tend the hen house, you drastically reduce the chicken population. But I’m preaching to the redeemed here. You say it much better than I. The truth that you hit on most cogently is that the vast majority of business people are “Lazitarians,” doing little for anyone but themselves, and not really doing a very good job of that.
What I see as the major problem in this whole equation is that the majority of the people out there trying to score in the free market are ones who have had some level of priviledge in our society. They have had the opportunity for education, nutrition and health care, while the people they complain about, the so-called welfare culture, have not had those benefits. Lazitarians want to glean the benefits for themselves and close the door behind them.
I want a government that provides certain things for everyone: things like a police force that equally serves the community, a military that stands guard on the wall to keep us safe, a medical care system that provides equal opportunity to health and ensures the general level of health for the whole community, I want everyone to have an equal opportunity to attain the educational goals that he/she is willing and able to meet, I want everyone to be able to look to their old age and know that there is a baseline below which no one will fall, I want to live in a country that recognizes the specialness of those who are artistically inclined and provides them with the support for them to give us their special view of the world we live in, and I want to be able to buy food, knowing that it is safe for me to eat. These are the responsibilities that we all owe to ourselves and each other.
If these basic goals sound like socialism, so be it. But if they are attained, then I believe that the environment will be created in which the true business person will be able to more easily thrive. They will work in a milieu that provides healthy, properly trained and educated, secure and balanced workers who can commit to doing the finest job they are capable of. It will be a world that allows the person who is innovative, creative, and in possession of a strong work ethic, to attain those goals and ambitions they seek with the cultural support system that undergirds them. It is not some dream world, but a positive, doable, and morally correct goal for us to strive for. I don’t see that as utopian, I see it as the American dream.
Claiming, that I say it better than you after an eloquent and articulate comment like that is *way* too kind. I particularly loved “the reduction of the chicken population…” the analogy is even funnier when taken out of context.
Here’s the problem IMO: Lazitarians believe that the government is populated by ineffectual lazy people, sucking the government teat with no work ethic or desire to make an impact. They lump them all into the same group, excluding from their analysis the profound benefit that so very many government employed people deliver. They also see an example like Apple, and paint all workers for all corporations with the same drive and success rate – it’s just foolishly Pollyanna in a twisted, fascist kind of way.
The other problem, that both you and I share, is one of optimism: we both believe that there is a group of voters large enough to actually make a difference. I just don’t know any longer. I can only hope that after the storm of this horrible administration and the evil they have done to our country passes, we will see a return of some enthusiasm and drive to make our country a better place – rather than dividing it into useable voting blocks, incurring crippling debt for personal gain and perpetual fear to keep us down.
I just don’t know.
I think you are 100% spot on about what is right, how we should go forward and how we should take care of ourselves as individuals, local municipalities and a group of united states. The notion that “health” (for example) should be profitted upon rather than a basic human right of the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world is beyond selfish… it’s mean and hateful. And interestingly, we could do it AND pay doctors a wage that befits their immense knowledge and experience… it’s very doable. But we as a country need to decide that saving lives is more important than taking them in the name of oil. And I just don’t know if we’ve grown up to that level yet.
The problem is, that a tax system should not prey upon the stupid, and unfortunately ours does. I think that is one of the main draws for a flat-tax concept, however, most people don’t think beyond the idea of it. Linear tax increase, maybe, flat tax, no way, it punishes the poor, and current system, punishes everyone but the top 5-10% of earners.
In other conversations the problem with our taxes is that we don’t get anything of truly perceived value for it. Sure, the podunks in backwater somewhere think the kick ass military is of value, but even after some prodding, asking, “what do YOU get for your money?”, results in a big giant, hmmmm. After much dumbing it down, I usually am able to convince people that even paying 50% of your money to the government would be worth it, IF you actually got the services you needed, and the 50% you had left over was pure “fun money”. I would pay 50%, if i never had to worry about my health, my education, being homeless, sanity, roads, transport, military of smart, teachers who care, cops who don’t beat, firemen who have the right equipment, etc,etc. And that left over 50%? food, vacation, entertainment, toys, fun, yeay.
Unfortunately we have become a “nation of dumb sheep”. If the prez says its good for us, it must be, why would he lie? Silly rabbits. The mantra of less government is never actually even attempted, though it is touted till the cows come home. It is a paradox which most cannot understand. You cannot increase services AND decrease taxes at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive. On top of that, government will never downsize, because the people making the downsize decisions will lose their jobs. Would you fire yourself?
A final issue is Socialization. Which asshole in history turned that into a dirty word? How did Socialization become equal to Communism? You have no idea how many times I have heard people respond to the idea of socializing healthcare with, “I don’t want Communist medicine so I have to wait 6 months to get stitches for a cut.” But again, that is actually not the issue.
The best way to control a population is fear. People don’t realize that fear does not have to come in the form of a gun. It can come in the form of the unknown, or threat of hardship, or jail. People pay their taxes, without much effort to reduce, because they fear an audit, which they believe could send them to jail (which is pretty much never will unless you are criminal about it). People believe socialized medicine would reduce their care, which is laughable, since you don’t actually have healthcare right now, even if you have insurance; you have possible health access.
Meh, i gotta go pay my insurance bills now.
Man, I wish I would have seen this post sooner and I’ll have to find the time to answer more completely. But let me hit a couple of the main points.
* No, YOU pay too much in taxes
It is very naive to believe that most of the taxes you pay are in the form of income taxes. This goes to show your short sightedness of the issue. I’d say income taxes actually account for less than ½ the taxes you really pay. The rest of them are wrapped up in registration fees, taxes that companies pay that you pay for indirectly by utilizating their services, inflation, inheritance tax, etc etc etc… So even if you pay 0 in income taxes you are still loosing 30% of your income to taxation.
* Argument: Private entities (companies / corps) are better suited to do things because they have an incentive – profit – rather than the government, which has no incentive.
Your point here is that companies also have to answer to shareholders etc etc… And sure this is true. The problems with corporations generally stem from the sweetheart deals they forge with government. For instance the entire concept of a corporation which shields the business owner from responsibility when the corporation does something wrong. If business owners were held personally responsible for the actions of the business as is suggested by the free market philosophy then the business owner would have huge incentive to treat everyone right.
* Here’s the problem IMO: Lazitarians believe that the government is populated by ineffectual lazy people, sucking the government teat with no work ethic or desire to make an impact.
Um, have you worked for the government before? I have. It is full of lazy ineffectual people. These sorts of people are drawn to government jobs, just like the same sort of people are drawn to union jobs. They can be lazy and ineffectual without much chance of negative concequences.
* The tax dude at the end
I get your points. The problem it taxation and healthcare like you are suggesting under a tax system are no longer a choice. I should be able to choose what I want to do with that 50% not have it mandated by someone.
This is a core problem with the socialist indoctrinates state worshipers like yourselves that we have in this country today. You think that just because the intention of something is good, that is it by nature good. Your forget that this country was founded on the principles of liberty, and that by removing choice from people you are removing liberty.
Liberty to me is more important than anything else. It is more important than my health, it is more important than the children. Give me liberty or give me death is the saying. Handing over control to the government is the opposite of liberty, and that is what I oppose.
Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke weed, or anarchists with no balls. I come right out and say that I’m an anarcho-syndicalist.
So what you’re really saying, is that capitalism is hampered by … wait for it … capitalism. What you really want is a free market society where you are free to sell anything you want without any restriction, toll or fees associated with it so that you can make unfettered profit. No my friend, it is YOU that are both naïve and unschooled. I defy you to name any nation at any time where capitalism such as you describe exists or existed. You’re saying that you’d like to be able to pay as low as possible a rate to to create a product for you and you want to be able to sell it for and keep 100% of your money. You are dangerously naïve and I doubt that you’ve ever had your own business.
I do a tremendous amount of business in a variety of countries. If I were to call all the fees associated with me getting to market a “tax” then in fact you’re way off base, because we regularly only make between 10-20% profit on gross revenue. If you’re trying to make the argument that all fees associated with my getting a product in hand constitute a “tax” (outside, of course, the hard cost of the item – but then you’re claiming that an enormous amount of THAT is even in taxes) then we can’t work through this, because you’re hopelessly ill advised about the nature of economics.
I am beginning to believe that you simply see anything “government” as evil and even corporations are innocent entities that are corrupted by the government. Here again, you are wrong about the nature of corporations as well as the government.
In fact, if you read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and look at what government TRIES to do you will see that at the very LEAST there are some programs that are designed to serve the populace, rather than profit off them. Corporations exist for one purpose: to profit from the populace. Unrestrained, they would be willing to put mercury in our drinking water if they made a profit and could get away with it. Oh wait, they already did that. And what entity went after corps that were doing such an ill? Um, that would be the government.
It is true that the government is corrupted both by power-hungry men within it as well as from pressure without. But do not mistake the fact that if there is *some* wrong in an entity then it is *all* wrong. By the way: do you think that it was the government that created lobbyists, or perhaps was it corporations/concerned entities that wanted to manipulate the government to their own desires?
You claim that, if people were held personally responsible for the behavior of the corporation, then they’d be more incentivised to Treat Everyone Right. Hogwash. First off, there’s a simple concept called “piercing the corporate veil” which simply states that if the actions of a corporation are suspected of being illegal, government agencies can open them up like a can of tuna and pour out their insides. Do you remember Enron? How about the MCI debacle? The DuPont chemical issues? I could go on but it’s clearly useless. You may well have worked for the government and seen slothe and laziness that made you ill. I get it. I, on the other hand have worked as a contractor for the government as well as had my own companies and corporations for the better part of 2 dozen years. The difference is only that laziness in corporations is accompanied by a much more clever way of hiding it. People are people man, and it doesn’t matter what the structure around them is, they’ll behave the same way.
You’re right – it’s much harder to get fired from a government job than a corporate job. But here’s something you don’t understand: the larger a company gets, the more they approach government-laziness status.
There are PRECIOUS FEW corporations that behave and act the way that you would drape all of them – precious few. And there are few government agencies that do not succumb to a bit of the sloth you describe. But there is an awful lot of work done by government that is good as well.
“State worshippers like yourselves” OMFG.
What does “Liberty” cost man? And are you saying that, for Liberty to exist that I must adhere to YOUR opinion of what it is? See here’s the deal: We ARE a society, like it or not. We have inter-personal issues that must be addressed, like it or not. And the handling of these issues is either that they guy with the bigger gun wins, or it is mediated in one way or another. Now, in a capitalist society, every minute has value. Ergo, if (I) spend time mediating (your) issue, then it is worth something. I get paid. So if I mediate the path of a highway through great masses of people and have to concede lots of things to lots of them to make a highway that has been voted on and passed by a majority of the people, then I should get paid for that effort. Presto, government services. And the people that work to build that highway will need to get paid. And on and on. The real law of society IS the law of economics. The government was created to try to give us a framework to be civil to each other when things are not good. Said another way, a contract between two businesses is NOT there for the good times, it’s there for the bad times when something needs to be fixed. Our government is a framework that tries to make things as good as possible for the majority of people. Doing that, and maintaining that, takes money. Now get this: I like the space program and despise the war in Iraq. And I get to pay for both because WE THE PEOPLE, in order to form a more perfect union and all.
You scream at the fact that a dollar is taken for you because of something you don’t want to pay for? You have a few options:
If “Liberty is more important to [you]” than anything else then you must choose the last option. Find an island where you are not required to interact with any other humans and you will find what you are looking for. However, you may find that living alone in the wild is a bit taxing all in and of itself…
Parting shot – you think the chains you feel around you are all the government’s doing? You are controlled by Rupert Murdoch man. A private company that exerts it’s Orwellian vision upon us all minute by minute. The corporations in this country are so vastly more powerful than the government it is not even funny. They’ve even managed to convince you that the problem is not them…
[quote]
I get your points. The problem it taxation and healthcare like you are suggesting under a tax system are no longer a choice. I should be able to choose what I want to do with that 50% not have it mandated by someone.
This is a core problem with the socialist indoctrinates state worshipers like yourselves that we have in this country today. You think that just because the intention of something is good, that is it by nature good. Your forget that this country was founded on the principles of liberty, and that by removing choice from people you are removing liberty.
Liberty to me is more important than anything else. It is more important than my health, it is more important than the children. Give me liberty or give me death is the saying. Handing over control to the government is the opposite of liberty, and that is what I oppose.
[/quote]
The government is incapable of doing a worse job of healthcare than HMOs. Any not-for-profit entity is, because a for-profit entity has all the incentive it needs to refuse payment to anyone it can at any time, for any reason, and it happens for more than you and I are aware.
oops… How do you do that block quote thinger?
“* Argument: Private entities (companies / corps) are better suited to do things because they have an incentive – profit – rather than the government, which has no incentive.
Your point here is that companies also have to answer to shareholders etc etc… And sure this is true. The problems with corporations generally stem from the sweetheart deals they forge with government. For instance the entire concept of a corporation which shields the business owner from responsibility when the corporation does something wrong. If business owners were held personally responsible for the actions of the business as is suggested by the free market philosophy then the business owner would have huge incentive to treat everyone right.”
He’s right perk. Look at fanny and freddie in the current circumstance. These Big Time Bank ceo’s, like the ex ceo of Lehman, perpetuated an unethical lending practice that caused ‘the great depression 2′.
They did so because they knew that the gov’t would bail them out. They lobby and toss big bucks around thus corrupting the system.
I don’t think the free market is a bad idea but unethical business practices should be harshly punished.
But I’m no Lazitarian and I want to be clear on that. They are a truly kooky bunch of paranoid people.
Man, I’d love to watch a libertarian debate a far left nut. :popcorn: