tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post2850375477652502005..comments2024-03-27T15:44:43.564-08:00Comments on What Do I Know?: What Does "Pay Their Fair Share" Mean?Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-59215868812852361162017-04-16T23:24:58.105-08:002017-04-16T23:24:58.105-08:00Part 2/2: You say you are a numbers person, but t...Part 2/2: You say you are a numbers person, but the numbers you give are pretty vague and there are no references or links to where they come from. If you are saying this particular income tax proposal has bad numbers, then I don’t see why it is my responsibility to provide the numbers first. I don’t know what numbers you want and what they are supposed to show. You brought it up, so you should give the numbers. <br /><br />Again, my original post was not about the specifics of the current Alaska income tax, but about the underlying assumptions that make some people favor an income tax and others oppose it. I do this because I believe those values, not the numbers of any particular proposal, are the real issue. If we don’t address those underlying assumptions, there will be deadlock unless one side has all the power. <br /><br />My point about whining boils down to this: Most Alaskan household get more money from the collective PFD’s than they pay in property taxes. I don’t know to what extent that’s true for people where there is a sales tax, but since Anchorage is more than half the state and doesn’t have a sales tax, I’d say at least half the households get back more than they pay. Most other states have income taxes, most have sales taxes. And if it weren’t for progressive politicians in the 1970’s who set up the Permanent Fund, no one would get a dividend even. No other US state, even oil states, have a dividend. Even people who want to privatize all the government land say, “It’s our money.” I’m sorry, that’s whining to me. It’s childlike behavior, expecting things without having to do anything for them. If you mean by 'engaged' that if their Permanent Fund gets diminished because the state has a deficit, they will vote out the people who tried to balance the budget, I'd say that's a shallow, short term engagement. That's not engagement in the process, only the outcome. It's like a kid complaining about not getting a new iPhone without having any sense of the parents' income and expenses. Just his wants. Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-33066530423409904492017-04-16T23:19:13.997-08:002017-04-16T23:19:13.997-08:00Part 1/2: Your original comment didn’t talk about...Part 1/2: Your original comment didn’t talk about needing a tax that “engaged all the people of Alaska.” <br /><br />As I read that original comment, you were saying that nearly half of Alaskans WON’T pay an income tax. You wrote, “so fewer people end up paying. Not what I would call fair or everyone paying their fair share.” Your emphasis, as I read it, was on this point - fair share- NOT that more people needed to be engaged. <br /><br />So I responded that people with low incomes simply couldn’t afford to pay and raised the points about the Protestant work ethic causing people to morally look down on poor people. The Cromwell reference was to show that the tension between the income tax and non-income tax folks isn’t new. These same battles have been going on for centuries. It’s useful to step back and see that our debates aren’t unique and to understand the underlying assumptions each side is making. Mantel portrayed the rich feeling no obligation to help the poor even though their wealth came from dislodging people from their livelihood. She portrayed Cromwell’s belief that the practical benefits of a tax making it possible to hire the poor and unemployed to build much needed infrastructure solved the problems of unemployment, poverty, and infrastructure and that the rich could easily afford it. That same split exists now. <br /><br />Again, originally, your basic argument was that lots of people wouldn’t pay the income tax and that wasn’t fair. If you meant more than that, you didn’t write it. I can only respond to what you actually write. Only in this last comment do you hint that you think the numbers are bad. (I think you mean that the dollar amounts are bad, not the number of people paying, but you don’t clarify that.) And then you raise a different issue - that without paying the tax, people won’t be engaged. That seems to be your point this time around. (I’m not trying be picky. I realize it is often difficult to a) figure out exactly what one means and b) to convey that in writing. I reread my posts multiple times before I post and I know that is not easy to do in the comment boxes. But I also know that going sentence by sentence is often the best way to get both sides to clarify what they mean.)<br /><br />The point of your most recent comment seems to be, “I want all people to be engaged with their government not just a small elite who pays taxes.” What exactly do you mean by “be engaged”? Do you mean that by paying income tax they are engaged? Or do you mean that paying taxes makes them (more?) engaged? Engaged how, specifically? I realize some people say that by paying taxes people have more of a stake in government. But I can’t find anything that gives evidence of that. Some people argue that liberals agreed to the permanent fund dividend because they thought the public would pay more attention to how the state taxed the oil companies. While people are intensely interested in the PFD, most of that focus seems to be on how much they will get each year, but they don’t seem to have paid that much attention over the long haul to how the oil companies are taxed. When I’ve gone to public hearings on oil taxes, the vast majority of people who support the industry positions say they work in the field or have a relative who does. (Part 1 of 2)<br />Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-8365309831290232402017-04-11T14:25:13.519-08:002017-04-11T14:25:13.519-08:00Let’s start at the beginning ‘Come on all my might...Let’s start at the beginning ‘Come on all my mighty fellow Alaskans who get all these state benefits for free. Let's stop whining and grow up and pay our fair share’, so translated it comes out as ‘Let's stop whining and grow up and those of us who make more than X number of dollars pay our fair share and those who don’t pay nothing.’ You are framing this as a matter of class and that for some reason you think that I feel an income tax is unfair because I pay and others don’t. I am a numbers person Steve, when I think of a fair tax for Alaska, Henry the VIII does not come to mind. In your whole first response I think only three sentences were devoted to the Alaskan tax issue. You seem to be channeling you inner Bernie Sanders here. I want all people to be engaged with their government not just a small elite who pays taxes. I am not going to argue class with you. Shoot me some numbers.<br /><br />Let’s look the governor’s limiting the PFD to $1,000. It was across the board and effected everyone. I will argue that if he decides to run again more than a few people will vote against him for doing that. That’s what happens when you have some ownership in the government.<br /><br />To summarize I think a sales tax that exempt’s food, medical care, day care, and clothing is better. I think a sales tax that has a cap of x amount of dollars for an individual purchase is better. I think a sales tax that taxes tourists and out of state people visiting Alaska is better. I think a sales tax is better because in the long run it is less complicated. (Last time I looked the federal tax code was at 4,037 pages). I think as sales tax would be better because it would increase the tax base and collect taxes from everyone (even drug dealers would have to pay when they buy something). And, you know what, people might look for ways to barter to avoid the tax and that might be a good thing.<br />One more time you want to tax people who produce I want to tax people who consume. That is where we disagree.<br /><br />As for the work issue. I was being serious. What will happen when we have more people than jobs? About 30% of my job has gone away because of automation (lucky for me my employer found 40% more stuff for me to do). A guaranteed income? Will people have to do some public service to get it? My concern and question is, what will people do with their time? Will it be like you are retired at 25?<br />oliver opticnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-16334000894619633422017-04-10T15:51:47.312-08:002017-04-10T15:51:47.312-08:00Oliver, we may not agree on the tax, but at least ...Oliver, we may not agree on the tax, but at least I’d like to get to the point where we know exactly which points we disagree on. I’ve laid out specifics, but you’ve just said you disagree. If you don’t spell out what you object to on the tax issue, then we surely won’t ever agree. But if you do, then we’ll probably find areas of agreement and narrow down the areas of disagreement. Then we can more closely examine those points latter. <br /><br />But for now, I’d like to clarify two specific things you did say in your comment. <br /><br />1. You write, “Wanting more people to have some skin in the game does not I think, ‘implies a moral shortcoming’.”<br /><br />I didn’t write that wanting people to have more skin in the game implies a moral shortcoming. <br /><br />I wrote that people who think that the poor aren’t paying their fair share are probably are basing that on Protestant work ethic assumptions. We’ve all been drenched in the idea of the work ethic to the extent we don’t even realize it frames how we see things, like the economic fairness of income versus sales taser. It’s a value system that tells us that work is inherently good and that the poor are poor because they don’t have the necessary moral fiber to work hard. That's a relatively new concept and it's not even now universally held.<br /><br />My point was that American culture puts the blame for poverty squarely on the poor individual. And the wealthy often credit their success solely on their own hard work. Other cultures recognize that the system as a whole puts obstacles up for some people, and gives others special passes to the good life. (The tall and beautiful have it easier than the short and homely, for example.) The wealthy push the myth hard: that anyone who wants to work hard can do well and there are enough examples of such people to make that persuasive. But those examples are the exception. <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2015/07/economic-mobility-in-the-united-states" rel="nofollow">Studies show that kids born into low-income families can expect very different futures from those born into higher-income families.</a> It’s the system, not the individual. Though the lack of hope, because of the system, may make some low-income folks behave in ways that seem to validate stereotypes about them. And just as the media highlight the rags-to-riches stories, they also highlight these stereotypes of the poor. And we all absorb them and use them to interpret situations unconsciously.<br /><br />These are narratives that all Americans carry. Middle class and even lower-class people have internalized these stories, and they are used by wealthy people to get not so wealthy people to oppose things like income taxes. Even though, for example, someone making $50,000 would probably be better off with an Alaska income tax than with sales taxes. (I haven't checked the numbers, but if we also count the benefits people get from better public services, I'm sure I could show this.)<br /><br /><br /><br />2. You write at the end, “I read that at some point it the future that we will have more people than jobs for them. Then what are we going to do? And, what do people do when they have nothing to do?”<br /><br />You’re picking up on my point about the system putting people out of work. Maybe we agree on something. But I’d like you to clarify what you mean by that question: “what do people do when they have nothing to do?” <br /><br />Are you asking because you don’t have any idea? Or is that a rhetorical question? I could guess what you mean, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth. So, I'm asking you to explain what that question meant to convey. Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-3923230451107494592017-04-10T09:04:30.912-08:002017-04-10T09:04:30.912-08:00We are never going to agree on the tax thing. But ...We are never going to agree on the tax thing. But go back and read your original post ‘Come on all my mighty fellow Alaskans who get all these state benefits for free. Let's stop whining and grow up and pay our fair share’. Wanting more people to have some skin in the game does not I think, ‘implies a moral shortcoming’. (also I am not a ‘wealthy conservative’. I think this year after 34 years at my job I will make $50,000 for the first time this year). <br />That being said your comments about the nature work, I read that at some point it the future that we will have more people than jobs for them. Then what are we going to do? And, what do people do when they have nothing to do?<br /><br />Oliveroliver_opticnoreply@blogger.com