I don't believe the so-called "sin taxes" on booze, smokes, gambling, etc are intended to punish the poor.  But the fact that the poor are the ones most impacted by them is indicative that poor people often make bad lifestyle choices.  Choices that, if they made better decisions, would make a significant beneficial difference in their lives with respect to both money and health.  Yet the left love to portray the poor as victims of the system.

Posted by tecwrg on 6/28/2014 1:04:00 PM (view original):
I don't believe the so-called "sin taxes" on booze, smokes, gambling, etc are intended to punish the poor.  But the fact that the poor are the ones most impacted by them is indicative that poor people often make bad lifestyle choices.  Choices that, if they made better decisions, would make a significant beneficial difference in their lives with respect to both money and health.  Yet the left love to portray the poor as victims of the system.

Have you been to a local casino... Its horrible.... Retired people on social security ******* away their bus fares. Literally... You'll hear someone say 'well there goes my bus fare' like its a good thing. So disturbing.

Posted by moy23 on 6/28/2014 12:47:00 PM (view original):
Funny thing is how the govt claims to be helping those in need but then taxes the goods they buy the most like booze, sugars, gambling, and smokes nearly 50%. Its beautifully crafted... And so many poor people buy into it hook line and sinker.

??? The only thing that gets taxed anywhere near 50% is tobacco. And that's to serve as a deterent.

Posted by moy23 on 6/28/2014 1:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 6/28/2014 1:04:00 PM (view original):
I don't believe the so-called "sin taxes" on booze, smokes, gambling, etc are intended to punish the poor.  But the fact that the poor are the ones most impacted by them is indicative that poor people often make bad lifestyle choices.  Choices that, if they made better decisions, would make a significant beneficial difference in their lives with respect to both money and health.  Yet the left love to portray the poor as victims of the system.

Have you been to a local casino... Its horrible.... Retired people on social security ******* away their bus fares. Literally... You'll hear someone say 'well there goes my bus fare' like its a good thing. So disturbing.

Honestly, you come off as high and mighty on choices others make.   You shouldn't do that or I'll bring up children again.   Tone it down a bit.

Posted by moy23 on 6/28/2014 12:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 6/28/2014 11:42:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moy23 on 6/28/2014 5:38:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 6/27/2014 11:30:00 PM (view original):
I don't really care about enforcement. I quoted that line to show that rent would be taxed. 30 cents for every dollar

so what - so will housekeepers, personal chefs, and au pairs.... your point? get a roommate - you are poor. problem solved. Your $1000 rent which would now be $1230 / 2 with a roommate is $615 per person.....and each person gets a $210 prebate.

Family of 4 kids - can't get a roommate - your $1230 rent is offset with a $749 monthly prebate. By used clothes for the kids, etc at 0% and you'll be better off here than if you were getting taxed 15% from your payroll on every dollar and then retaxed between 7-50% in sales taxes when you spend that money.

Putting that last scenario in real numbers...

$749 prebate
-$230 rent tax
=$519 left over.... Buy used clothes furniture etc at 0%
Leaves you with enough money to buy $2256 ($519/.23) in food, smokes, and gas without paying a single cent in taxes.

I don't even spend $2256 monthly on gas and food.... Not even close. In this scenario this family of 4 could truly have a negative tax rate, meaning less than 0%. Nowhere can you get that now. So if you truly advocate for the poor you can now clearly see how this plan is better for them than anything we have today.






i take it you choose the democratic states of america, right?

Problem solved? No, not really. There's a reason the fair tax isn't taken seriously, it's a joke.

It's a 30% (not 23) tax on everything that not only increases the tax burden on the poor, it leaves government revenue way short. The WaPo analysis found that we'd need a sales tax rate above 40% to match revenue, assuming that people didn't find ways to avoid the tax.

The fair tax is a gift to upper bracket taxpayers. Don't be so gullible.

Its 23%. If you by something for $1 you tack on 23 cents.

I get that you can play tricks with the #s but quite frankly that's just stupidity at its best. Chicago has a 12% sales tax but I don't try and flip that number around to try and inflate it to make a point.

The fair tax is not taken seriously because it severely limits the ways that politicians/lobbyists can manipulate the tax code for personal gains. That's why its not taken seriously. BP enjoys the tax break they get... So do many other companies.

Again, I don't care if it helps the upper tax brackets as long as it also helps the lower tax brackets. The fair tax helps everyone.... And that's a good thing, unless of course you hate the rich.

Sorry, but that is incorrect. It is a 30% tax. Look it up.

They use the 23% line to garner more support and to more adequately equate it to "tax rate" currently being paid on income.

If you purchase something for $77, add the 30% tax ($23) = $100.

So they say you pay $23 OUT OF EVERY $100 spent. Which is more easily comparable to an income tax rate, where a 25% tax bracket has you paying $25 out of every $100 earned.

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/28/2014 12:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 6/28/2014 8:02:00 AM (view original):
BL is all over the place here.

First, he suggests that we raise taxes on the wealthy since we need more tax money and because "they're rich and they can afford it, and their last dollars have diminished marginal utility" (a phrase he probably picked up somewhere from a blogger because, like a child with a new toy, he repeated it for around 30 pages until the novelty wore off).  

Then, he does a 180 and suggests that we severely restrict the income of the high wage earners (because Bill James said so, reminiscent of how Son of Sam was ordered to kill by his neighbor's dog).  When it's pointed out that this would severely decrease the amount of tax dollar's collected from the wealthy since they'll be making a fraction of what they're currently making, he's say that's OK because we won't need to collect that much tax revenue in this new world order.  Magic, I guess.

At some point, he insists that paying tax was "part of the deal of living here", but balks at the fair tax proposal which would collect tax revenue in a far more equitable and efficient manner from everybody living here.

He's funny.  Like a clown.

I think that sums up the last 60 pages.

We forgot about the 20 pages dedicated to cheeseburgers.

Posted by mchalesarmy on 6/29/2014 4:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by moy23 on 6/28/2014 12:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 6/28/2014 11:42:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moy23 on 6/28/2014 5:38:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 6/27/2014 11:30:00 PM (view original):
I don't really care about enforcement. I quoted that line to show that rent would be taxed. 30 cents for every dollar

so what - so will housekeepers, personal chefs, and au pairs.... your point? get a roommate - you are poor. problem solved. Your $1000 rent which would now be $1230 / 2 with a roommate is $615 per person.....and each person gets a $210 prebate.

Family of 4 kids - can't get a roommate - your $1230 rent is offset with a $749 monthly prebate. By used clothes for the kids, etc at 0% and you'll be better off here than if you were getting taxed 15% from your payroll on every dollar and then retaxed between 7-50% in sales taxes when you spend that money.

Putting that last scenario in real numbers...

$749 prebate
-$230 rent tax
=$519 left over.... Buy used clothes furniture etc at 0%
Leaves you with enough money to buy $2256 ($519/.23) in food, smokes, and gas without paying a single cent in taxes.

I don't even spend $2256 monthly on gas and food.... Not even close. In this scenario this family of 4 could truly have a negative tax rate, meaning less than 0%. Nowhere can you get that now. So if you truly advocate for the poor you can now clearly see how this plan is better for them than anything we have today.






i take it you choose the democratic states of america, right?

Problem solved? No, not really. There's a reason the fair tax isn't taken seriously, it's a joke.

It's a 30% (not 23) tax on everything that not only increases the tax burden on the poor, it leaves government revenue way short. The WaPo analysis found that we'd need a sales tax rate above 40% to match revenue, assuming that people didn't find ways to avoid the tax.

The fair tax is a gift to upper bracket taxpayers. Don't be so gullible.

Its 23%. If you by something for $1 you tack on 23 cents.

I get that you can play tricks with the #s but quite frankly that's just stupidity at its best. Chicago has a 12% sales tax but I don't try and flip that number around to try and inflate it to make a point.

The fair tax is not taken seriously because it severely limits the ways that politicians/lobbyists can manipulate the tax code for personal gains. That's why its not taken seriously. BP enjoys the tax break they get... So do many other companies.

Again, I don't care if it helps the upper tax brackets as long as it also helps the lower tax brackets. The fair tax helps everyone.... And that's a good thing, unless of course you hate the rich.

Sorry, but that is incorrect. It is a 30% tax. Look it up.

They use the 23% line to garner more support and to more adequately equate it to "tax rate" currently being paid on income.

If you purchase something for $77, add the 30% tax ($23) = $100.

So they say you pay $23 OUT OF EVERY $100 spent. Which is more easily comparable to an income tax rate, where a 25% tax bracket has you paying $25 out of every $100 earned.

Don't expect moy23 to know this. He didn't know that the tax was also levied on rent.

Sez the guy who confused tax rate and effective tax rate.  And who also looks to Bill James for economic advice for running the country.

BILL JAMES, ************!!!!!!

Posted by tecwrg on 6/29/2014 7:52:00 PM (view original):
Sez the guy who confused tax rate and effective tax rate.  And who also looks to Bill James for economic advice for running the country.

I didn't confuse anything. Someone's overall tax rate is their effective rate.

Posted by bad_luck on 6/29/2014 9:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 6/29/2014 7:52:00 PM (view original):
Sez the guy who confused tax rate and effective tax rate.  And who also looks to Bill James for economic advice for running the country.

I didn't confuse anything. Someone's overall tax rate is their effective rate.

Of course it is.  Yet we weren't talking about overall tax rate.

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/29/2014 7:57:00 PM (view original):
BILL JAMES, ************!!!!!!

I'm wondering if the editors at Baseball Prospectus have a plan for dealing with Iraq, and if BL will share it with us?

Posted by tecwrg on 6/29/2014 10:20:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 6/29/2014 9:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 6/29/2014 7:52:00 PM (view original):
Sez the guy who confused tax rate and effective tax rate.  And who also looks to Bill James for economic advice for running the country.

I didn't confuse anything. Someone's overall tax rate is their effective rate.

Of course it is.  Yet we weren't talking about overall tax rate.

You're going to have to quote. From what I remember, you posted a bunch of examples of taxpayers in your two bracket system, included the different effective rates for the examples, then ******* that a system where different people pay different rates was unfair.

There was no two bracket system.  Even Bill James thinks that anybody who thought it was is a massive idiot.

Yes there was.

First $75k (or whatever the number was), zero tax. Every dollar after that, 60% tax. That's two brackets, regardless of what you call it.