Posted on 03/08/2011 5:28:00 AM PST by maggief
The Denver Post concludes a two-part report today on Colorado's agriculture-land tax breaks and the non-farmers who benefit from them.
(Excerpt) Read more at bizjournals.com ...
Only theoretically. Land production is not now, nor ever was, anywhere near maximum production. Especially when you consider that its a world market.
Yea, subsidies generally only work when you want more of something, not when you want less.
Sorry to see that your apparent unfamiliarity with the notion of public goods makes the question (it was not an argument) look silly to you. Perhaps you should open a textbook before passing such negative judgment?
Markets fail to provide public goods such as defense, and the coercive power of government is needed to finance them (not produce but merely raise funds). Paying less taxes results therefore in fewer public goods (such as defense) and paying no taxes will result in no such goods because markets will not step in to provide them.
I asked the poster to clarify what makes him view as patriotic weakening or disappearance of America's defense.
I find you post somewhat confusing:
If they construct the tax laws...
Who they? I thought it was we, the people, who construct laws via our representatives.
... in such a way that the populace as a whole can legally pay zero, then they're...
Again, who are "they?"
...either getting their money
Our government (it, not they) does not have its own money. The only money it has is our money that we give the government to ensure provision of public goods.
...some other way..,
What other way?
... or they just plain don’t need it.
How can the country not need money for defense.
Sorry again that you found my post silly.
Don’t over feed the government, no good ever comes from it. Pay it not one cent more than you absolutely have to by law.
I agree. That was not the issue, however: the question was what makes paying less taxes patriotic, as another poster claimed.
Yet are the so-called "loop holes" written for the rich, or are they written for the type of property? If they're written for the type of property, then all anyone has to do to use them is buy that type of property.
The article you linked confirsm what I said and flatly contradicts your claim:
And state Department of Revenue spokesguy Bob Bliss confirmed the senator “is under no obligation to pay the commonwealth sales tax.”
Did you read the article yourself?
I would very much appreciate any source that would confirm your claim, which I believe to be at odds with the facts, that Kerry violated the law.
money = power
Therefore
less money to fedgov = less power to fedgov
Therefore
our duty to limit fedgov power = our duty to give fedgov as little money as possible.
Sorry I did not spell it out before. I wrongly assumed that it would have been obvious to anyone on FR.
It's every American's patriotic duty to pay as little tax as possible.
And: It does not follow that "It's every American's patriotic duty to pay as little tax as possible." leads to "nobody pays any federal tax.", or the implication in that statement which is, "the federal government gets no revenue."
That is correct. But nobody suggested that implication; are now arguing, quite correctly, against a straw man.
We are not talking about an implication. The situation "nobody pays any tax" is a special case of "little tax" to which you referred in your original claim. This is., moreover, the most illustrative special case: since zero is the smallest nonnegative number, the "zero tax" is the ultimate illustration of "little tax."
But, since you appear to have been derailed by this issue of zero tax, let me rephrase my question staying entirely within your "little tax:"
Smaller taxes translate into a smaller provision of public goods and, in particular, a weakening of our national defense. Surely you will agree that there is nothing patriotic about weakening America's defense.
The point is, of course, we should be, as were our Founders, very distrustful of the government. We conservatives have all the reasons to believe that the government at present is too big and has to be made smaller. But that does not excuse us from the duty to think and use logic.
If you hate big government --- fine, but hate it for the right reason. The reason your gave was not.
No, not “derailed” at all, just responding to what you actually wrote.
Can’t get the same loop holes on a house,only on special property.
Yes, that was a wrong assumption: for some people here, distrust of the government is tempered by knowledge of basic economics and use of logic. One should not assume that all people here are ignorant.
money = power This is obviously false. What may be true when appropriately qualified is "money -> power." But let's move on:
Therefore
less money to fedgov = less power to fedgov
This is correct, of course.
Therefore
our duty to limit fedgov power = our duty to give fedgov as little money as possible.
This is incorrect: the last implication (""therefore") is actually a leap of faith, a non sequitur (funny, isn't it: first, you falsely imputed it to my previous post and now commit it yourself without noticing it -- just tells you how unhelpful to reply to honest questions with a snide two-word remarks).
The premise is false: we have no "duty to limit fedgov power." The duty we have is not to let it grow beyond the desired limit. The distinction is important.
Please reread my earlier post regarding public goods. The view of "lesser is better" is a silly mistake one hears from a lot of libertarians and anarchists. It is not true that less is better, as the example with defense illustrates. And it is for that same reason that we have no wholesale duty to limit government's power.
Thus, if the considerable strength of our enemies requires a defense budget of $300B, say, you don't want to make the governmnet smaller than that. You want the government to be at least as big as $300B. Demanding a reduction below that level would be irresponsible to the point of being treasonous. Should the enemies weaken, howver, and necessitate the defense budget of only $100B, it would indeed be our duty to reduce the government and bring the budget to $100B. Less need not be better, and we have no duty you have annunciated.
The issue of government finance is not as trivial as you assume it to be, and wholesale "principles" such as "our duty to reduce the government" have never been advocated by the Founders.
And now we're back to my earlier statement, that if taxes aren't uniformly applied based on property, then it doesn't matter who owns the property type that gets the favorable treatment.
If that is the only thing you've learned from my post and found it to be of sole importance, then so be it.
No replies from me will disturb you further on this thread.
Have a good day.
What makes it silly is that you make the completely illogical jump from paying the government as little as legally possible to the government getting no money at all and having to shut down the military. That’s not a matter of public goods, that’s a matter of you flying so far down the slippery slope as to no longer even being on the same mountain. What makes your argument even sillier is that he tax in question is a STATE tax and not one penny from it goes to the military.
Nobody is talking about markets, you are, once again, making a silly argument.
Nobody is talking about weakening or disappearing America’s defense. We’re simply talking about not over paying an already voracious federal government.
They the government that’s who. Duly appointed representatives of the people.
Our government has lots and lots of ways to get money besides direct taxation of the people. Tariffs, fees, tons of cash without having to directly hassle my wallet.
no you are wrong, that is EXACTLY the issue. It is the moral duty of EVERY single person to not give the government any excess money. That is the heart of fiscal conservatism, that is the heart of keeping the government in check. Paying less taxes, within the law, is patriotic because it maintains the correct balance America was founded on, that the government works for us, not the other way around.
What makes it silly is that you make the completely illogical jump from paying the government as little as legally possible to the government getting no money at all
Please read for details an earlier reply where this mistake is addressed. In sum: my contains a specialization, not an implication. Thus, there is no "jump," whether justifiable or not.
That’s not a matter of public goods,
If you make a claim, then you should demonstrate how it is unrelated to public goods. That would be contrary to my claim and prove me incorrect.
Since you clearly cannot, you substitute it with blah-blah-blah in the form of the famous but ambiguous slippery slope:
that’s a matter of you flying so far down the slippery slope as to no longer even being on the same mountain.
Again, where is the demonstration of any relationship between the "slippery slope" and anything I said? Nowhere, of course, just blah, blah, blah....
" What makes your argument even sillier is that he tax in question is a STATE tax and not one penny from it goes to the military."
You just can't think clearly, can you? The poster made a statement of principle: inspired perhaps by the article, he went beyond the article. He claimed that, as a matter of principle, paying less tax is patriotic. Since this was not qualified, it applies to all cases of government, state as well as federal. I was not responding to the article --- hence it matters not whether the article speaks of a state of federal tax --- but to that poster's annunciation of a general principle he invented. If you are unable to stay on topic, that's fine; but you are faulting others for doing so.
Unable to saying a single sentence without planting your feet into your mouth, you should not be so hasty to characterize something you see as silly: judging from the forgoing, things appear silly to you because you are thoroughly confused.
You don't have to take my advise, of course. Since you are now thoroughly convinced that whatever I say is silly, I shall not try to argue any further.
Have a good day.
your post contains a silly statement that’s at the bottom of a silly slippery slope. Here is what you said in post 43:
Suppose you get your way, and nobody pays any federal tax.
Nobody but you ever said anything about nobody paying taxes. That was 100% YOUR argument, you put it forth based entirely on whole cloth. You went straight from “pay as little as possible” (the post you replied to) to “nobody pays any” (your EXACT quote). And that’s a MASSIVE, and silly, jump.
Now as for the rest of your post, looks like a lot of “blah, blah, blah” and insults, thus proving you know the facts don’t support you.
You said something silly, it was a completely logicless slippery slope argument, and no amount of “blah, blah, blah” on your part is going to make it not silly. Man up and admit it or chicken out and run away, your choice, don’t care, look at all your insults to me and understand they apply to you.
Yours is a slippery slope fallacy. Conservatives aren’t inclined to eliminate all taxes. Government could receive much less in revenues and continue to maintain defense. We should lower taxes drastically, cut social programs drastically and maintain an adequate defense. That’s the conservative way. Local governments don’t need monstrous amounts of revenues for public education, the Violence Against Women Act, make-work projects and so on.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/john_kerry_mishandled_yacht_taxes.html
Key part>>>
“Kerry said he had sailed the yacht a handful of times, including to the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. He and his wife, millionaire philanthropist Theresa Heinz, own a home in Nantucket.”
***** John Kerry’s yacht claimed a docking in Rhode Island (no tax) but it was actually used in Massachusetts. The two Kerrys do not own a house in Rhode Island. Massachusetts wants the sales tax money and they got if from him
If you live in Massachusetts and buy&berth your new boat in Rhode Island..... But you use it Massachusetts.... You will be taxed if you are reported. Because your real berthing and use is Massachusetts
That is untrue and coming from a fellow Democrat. The rest of the article was true and went against that foolish statement
This will clarify it even better. That John Kerry/Teresa Kerry were liable for Massachusetts excise tax on the new yacht>>>
BOSTON GLOBE
http://www.myyachtregistration.com/2010/07/kerry-pay-mass-tax-ri-yacht/
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