lethal wrote:Your proposal is not nearly the type of comprehensive reform that I thought you wanted. This is really minor in the grand scheme of things. I'm going to assume that you want this structure to be revenue neutral to the current one.

Sec 1 is the code section for individual income taxes. Reg Sec 1.1-1 through 1.1-3 are the regulations for it. Each one refers to or is referred to by 10 million other regulations. Each of those would have to be rewritten or amended. Are you going to stick that in the budget too?

This isn't even taking into account the regs for all the other taxes that you're eliminating and all the code sections and regs that refer to them.

On the budget side, if you're eliminating SS withholding, etc, I assume you're actually going to put what would've gone in there into the general budget and hoping Congress allocates it to SS or basically earmarks it. Given that SS is a pretty regressive part of the tax structure, hey that's not a bad idea.

Given all that, I'm not even sure why reforming the individual tax system is all that big a deal. For most taxpayers, it isn't all that hard. For some richer taxpayers, it is harder. Most tax withholding is automatically calculated, so compliance really isn't all that time consuming.

Individual income taxes make up a small minority of the taxes collected by the federal government. If you want real tax reform, look to the Sub C code.

**Disclaimer - I have no professional vested interest in the individual income tax code. My practice is almost exclusively international corporate work.

Werthless wrote:Before I waste my time finding some quotes from the General Theory, I want you to tell me why it matters to you.

Demonizes was my word. He just asserted that savings during a recession were bad, and contributed to a deeper recession because he defined savings as the gap between personal income and consumption. Thus, savings was bad because savings implies lack of consumption, hurting GDP. Do you disagree with it?

Bakestar wrote:I'm only slightly aware of this Republican "Teabagging" movement. I'm not necessarily questioning the sincerity of legitimacy of their message, but my question is whether the organizers are fully aware of "alternate" meanings for that term...

VoxOrion wrote:

Bakestar wrote:I'm only slightly aware of this Republican "Teabagging" movement. I'm not necessarily questioning the sincerity of legitimacy of their message, but my question is whether the organizers are fully aware of "alternate" meanings for that term...

Actually, they're well aware. You're really missing out if you don't show up to see the "demonstrations" in person.

Bakestar wrote:OK, good.

I live in north Jersey; the Republican Party is illegal here.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Bakestar wrote:OK, good.

I live in north Jersey; the Republican Party is illegal here.

It's alright if you're in Somerset County or points north and west thereof.

Bakestar wrote:Is he a Transformer or something?

Ivy-league egghead intellectual types!

VoxOrion wrote:

Bakestar wrote:Is he a Transformer or something?

Ivy-league egghead intellectual types!

You're letting me down. I was going to ask if he was a member of GWAR and figured I'd leave that to you.

Alan Wolfe in TNR wrote:The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy. To me, perhaps because so little of the means of production lies under my control, this is a remarkably uninteresting subject. I think of the whole question of governmental intervention as a matter of technique. Sometimes the market does pretty well and it pays to rely on it. Sometimes it runs into very rough patches and then you need government to regulate it and correct its course. No matters of deep philosophy or religious meaning are at stake when we discuss such matters. A society simply does what it has to do.

Tomorrow, the Department of Justice plans to release largely underacted versions of three Bush-era memorandums that critics suspect contain legal justification for torture and the broad use of executive power during wartime, according to an administration official. The critical question: how much does the administration withhold in the name of national security?
...
The Journal reported yesterday that the administration was leaning towards a comprehensive redaction of the operational details revealed by a memo, leaving intact the legal analysis used to justify them. That Solomonic compromise would not satisfy civil libertarians and would probably anger many Democrats in Congress. Depending on the scope of the blacked out parts, the administration will be forced to justify its decisions in a federal court, next week. That would put it in the position of having to repeat classification arguments made by the Bush administration in 2007.

Though several senior administration officials said that the Journal story does not reflect the current state of thinking, they would not disclose what decisions had been made.

Various news reports suggest that most of Obama's national security team favors the full release of the memos; Attorney General Eric Holder and White House counsel Greg Craig have lobbied for full release; CIA director Leon Panetta, who last week notified employees that the CIA's secret detention facilities would be shut down, has transmitted the concerns of the agency's field officers, who worry that full disclosure would hamper their efforts to question terrorists. Chief counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan favors releasing the legal analysis but not the specific techniques used; National Security Adviser James Jones and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair count themselves in the transparency camp. Several members of Obama's Office of Legal Counsel urged the release of the memos before they joined the administration.

Pro-disclosure advocates have urged Obama to balance the trust he needs from CIA officials with the trust he earned from the many transparency advocates who backed his campaign. Obama vowed that "sunlight was the best disinfectant" for secret policies. During the campaign, he meant it.

VoxOrion wrote:On Topic:

Alan Wolfe in TNR wrote:The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy. To me, perhaps because so little of the means of production lies under my control, this is a remarkably uninteresting subject. I think of the whole question of governmental intervention as a matter of technique. Sometimes the market does pretty well and it pays to rely on it. Sometimes it runs into very rough patches and then you need government to regulate it and correct its course. No matters of deep philosophy or religious meaning are at stake when we discuss such matters. A society simply does what it has to do.

Link

It makes perfect sense for an eighteenth century thinker to conclude that humanity would flourish under the market. For a twentieth century thinker committed to the same ideal, government was an essential tool to the same end.

Werthless wrote:I don't really understand his unstated logic.

It’s true that Adam Smith argued in favor of the market, just as John Maynard Keynes made the case for state intervention. But liberalism, as I define it, means as many people as possible should have as much say as feasible over the direction their lives will take. Autonomy and equality are goals that transcend the classical/modern divide.

VoxOrion wrote:

Werthless wrote:I don't really understand his unstated logic.

It's in the link to the article that the article I posted is referencing.

It’s true that Adam Smith argued in favor of the market, just as John Maynard Keynes made the case for state intervention. But liberalism, as I define it, means as many people as possible should have as much say as feasible over the direction their lives will take. Autonomy and equality are goals that transcend the classical/modern divide.

Link

Werthless wrote:
I guess I don't view the modern liberal, as embodied in Democratic policy proposals, as a classical liberal in the Adam Smith mold. I don't really understand his unstated logic.

Werthless wrote: Classical liberals called themselves liberals because of their solution... freedom from government 3rd party interference allows man to thrive economically. They figured that the most effective and thus most moral path to widespread prosperity was freedom of men to pursue their economic goals relatively inhibited. The modern liberal masquerades under the name of liberal falsely, in my opinion....