Let's Tax The Rich!!!

[youbet]

I took it from the off-the-wall questions you were asking in post #281.

I did not misrepresent your views. I asked you a question. The same as you asking the questions in post #281.

Why don't we drop this as it has to be boring and irrelevant to others and will likely result in the thread being closed. Have a good morning!

 

[jdw_fire]

I took it from the off-the-wall questions you were asking in post #281.

I did not misrepresent your views. I asked you a question. The same as you asking the questions in post #281.

Why don't we drop this as it has to be boring and irrelevant to others and will likely result in the thread being closed? Have a good morning!

the question you asked of me was not even close to the question i asked of ha. he was complaining about not getting his money's worth from anything the government pays for. so i asked him if he would like to do with out the public services. and then you ask me about getting rid of private schools? i never said anything negative about private schools (unlike ha's statement about public services). my questions werent "off-the-wall" and in no way led to your questions. you were just being antagonistic. what you did was wrong, why wont you just admit it?

 

[ERD50]

are you thinking that our kids would be better educated if we got rid of public schools? i think not, i think a far fewer children would go to school if families were required to pay tuition for private schools.

It's not an either/or. A voucher system solves that quite handily.

Take the money we already spend on public education, offer every student a voucher for that amount, and let them spend it at either the public or the private school of their choice.

Everyone gets an education, and there would be more choice and competition. Win-Win.

BTW, I'd suggest we slowly roll that out in a measured way (not just throw a bunch of cash out there like the Govt did with Cash for Clunkers or EV subsidies). Many people already choose to pay for private schools. So start off with a modest voucher - say $500/year. That might be a tipping point for a few on-the-fence parents, not disruptive. Increase it each year until you manageably reach parity. Go faster/higher in schools that are at the point of needing to build new classrooms.

And along the way, for every student that accepts that $500, $1,000, $2,000 voucher - they are relieving the public school of somewhere around $10,000 expense.

Is there a problem with that?

-ERD50

 

[Westernskies]

is there a problem with that?-erd50

The NEA

 

[FinanceDude]

are you thinking that our kids would be better educated if we got rid of public schools? i think not, i think a far fewer children would go to school if families were required to pay tuition for private schools.

Probably, because the local communities would NOT cut property taxes, they would just spend the money on other things........

 

[FinanceDude]

It's not an either/or. A voucher system solves that quite handily.

Take the money we already spend on public education, offer every student a voucher for that amount, and let them spend it at either the public or the private school of their choice.

Everyone gets an education, and there would be more choice and competition. Win-Win.

BTW, I'd suggest we slowly roll that out in a measured way (not just throw a bunch of cash out there like the Govt did with Cash for Clunkers or EV subsidies). Many people already choose to pay for private schools. So start off with a modest voucher - say $500/year. That might be a tipping point for a few on-the-fence parents, not disruptive. Increase it each year until you manageably reach parity. Go faster/higher in schools that are at the point of needing to build new classrooms.

And along the way, for every student that accepts that $500, $1,000, $2,000 voucher - they are relieving the public school of somewhere around $10,000 expense.

Is there a problem with that?

-ERD50

States like Wisconsin have something called "Chapter 220". Basically, kids are allowed school choice. If they don't want their kids going to a local school that doesn't meet their needs, they are allowed to apply to any school in the area, and pay $6000 a year for the kid to go there. Grants and financial aid are available based on household income. Our local HS holds about 85 "spots" a year for Chapter 220 kids, out of 1420 kids. Since we started accepting 220 students about 10 years ago, our athletic program has improved greatly, along woth music and art........

 

[HFWR]

One of the problems with vouchers is availability. Lots of choices in a metro area, but not so many in west Texas, eastern Kentucky, etc.

 

[missionfinder]

This whole fuss is fundamentally how do we match up taxation with spending.

That's a fundamental flaw, imho. The fuss shouldn't be how we match up taxation with spending. It should be how me match spending with taxation.

 

[photoguy]

if you or ha (or anyone) have a suggestion for improving the performance we get from public services by all means speak up, but not paying for them or running up the national debt cus you dont wanna collect the taxes necessary to pay for them isnt the solution.

I like the idea of the statistical value-add analysis conducted by LA times to evaluate teacher performance and believe things like pay/hiring should be based in *some* part on that (maybe a large part). However, I think most teacher unions were very opposed to that analysis.

 

[Mulligan]

It's not an either/or. A voucher system solves that quite handily.

Take the money we already spend on public education, offer every student a voucher for that amount, and let them spend it at either the public or the private school of their choice.

Everyone gets an education, and there would be more choice and competition. Win-Win.

BTW, I'd suggest we slowly roll that out in a measured way (not just throw a bunch of cash out there like the Govt did with Cash for Clunkers or EV subsidies). Many people already choose to pay for private schools. So start off with a modest voucher - say $500/year. That might be a tipping point for a few on-the-fence parents, not disruptive. Increase it each year until you manageably reach parity. Go faster/higher in schools that are at the point of needing to build new classrooms.

And along the way, for every student that accepts that $500, $1,000, $2,000 voucher - they are relieving the public school of somewhere around $10,000 expense.

Is there a problem with that?

-ERD50

I dont think giving public education more money (or private) will solve the problem, but for a different reason. While most kids say they want an education, it is never THE IMPORTANT thing to them short term. It is always behind realtionship problems, texting, planning for the weekend, and hormones. What kept the whole thing glued together was strong parenting making sure they went to school ready to learn. 30 years ago, me getting trouble at home if I didnt do my work, motivated me to learn. I know I am speaking in generalities (because some schools are better than others I know), but the destruction of the family unit and its lack of emphasis on learning has really hurt education.

 

[sheehs1]

Pretended to be about lowering government expenditures and fiscal responsibility but instead oversaw incredible increases in federal expenditure and debt? Yeah, thanks I know what they did. They violated the core promise of the Republican party and put us into this debilitating debt situation that has ballooned to the point where we can't escape. The impressive thing about Bush the younger is that he did that after Clinton had things looking like we were actually going to pay off our national debt in a decade or two.

It was Clinton that in 1999 signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act.

""The bill that ultimately repealed the Act was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54–44 vote in the Senate[10] and by a bi-partisan 343–86 vote in the House of Representatives.[11] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[12]""

Also it was the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that paved the way for the mess created by derivatives as it failed to regulate the derivatives market. Also signed by Clinton.

Clinton signed into law the 2 biggest pieces of legislation that allowed "greed to take hold" and ultimately led to the financial crisis.
Most don't know this.

 

[Independent]

It's not an either/or. A voucher system solves that quite handily.

Take the money we already spend on public education, offer every student a voucher for that amount, and let them spend it at either the public or the private school of their choice.

Everyone gets an education, and there would be more choice and competition. Win-Win.

BTW, I'd suggest we slowly roll that out in a measured way (not just throw a bunch of cash out there like the Govt did with Cash for Clunkers or EV subsidies). Many people already choose to pay for private schools. So start off with a modest voucher - say $500/year. That might be a tipping point for a few on-the-fence parents, not disruptive. Increase it each year until you manageably reach parity. Go faster/higher in schools that are at the point of needing to build new classrooms.

And along the way, for every student that accepts that $500, $1,000, $2,000 voucher - they are relieving the public school of somewhere around $10,000 expense.

Is there a problem with that?

-ERD50

I've always thought vouchers were a good idea. The problem that I see is the possibility that the public schools get left with the most difficult students from the least supportive families. So to me it's important that the voucher is less than the average per student revenue of the tax district.

Charter schools that operate inside the public system are another idea, as is choice between public schools. In my state, any student can go to school in an adjoining district and the (substantial) state aid follows the student. The "race to the top" federal program has a specific line item for charter schools.

It's interesting that with Wisconsin teachers in the news, there hasn't been much talk about one of the oldest voucher systems Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Homepage

I think we're lucky that schools are still heavily local, as that gives us a natural way to try lots of these experiments.

 

[sheehs1]

It's not an either/or. A voucher system solves that quite handily.

-ERD50

Now...there is an idea. ! A voucher system...that applies to everyone for ALL pubic services and entitlements from the government during their lifetime. This includes education, health care, medicaid, medicare, SSN...etc. What one doesn't use from one bucket, one can transfer to a bucket one does use.
It pushes the burden back onto the individual to use it judiciously.

 

[Independent]

well you can use a charitable remainder trust to get around ever paying the cap gains.

I can avoid paying taxes on regular earned income by giving my income to charity. So, it seems reasonable to me that I can avoid taxes on capital gains by giving the gain to charity.

However, CRTs seem to be expressly set up to avoid more tax than the gift would justify.

It seems to me that if I set up a CRT with myself as the beneficiary and fund it with appreciated assets, I should be able to deduct the cost basis of the assets as a charitable contribution in the year I set up the trust. After that, I should pay taxes on my income at the normal income tax rates. (Of course, in my world the tax rate on capital income should be the same as the tax rate on labor income, so the phrase "at the normal income tax rates" is unnecessary.) Eventually the trust ends and the charity gets the remainder, I'm not sure that I see any taxable event at that point.

 

[explanade]

It was Clinton that in 1999 signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act.

""The bill that ultimately repealed the Act was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54–44 vote in the Senate[10] and by a bi-partisan 343–86 vote in the House of Representatives.[11] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[12]""

Also it was the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that paved the way for the mess created by derivatives as it failed to regulate the derivatives market. Also signed by Clinton.

Clinton signed into law the 2 biggest pieces of legislation that allowed "greed to take hold" and ultimately led to the financial crisis.
Most don't know this.

What does that have to do with the budget? Budget was fine in 2001 and then was messed up way before 2008 when you know what hit the fan.

Some of Clinton's policies were messed up. But the economy was great, especially his second term, and he left the budget in a lot better condition than it was in when he took office.

And the financial meltdown could be partly blamed on those laws he signed. But then there's Greenspan, there's lax SEC and CFTC enforcement under Bush, etc.

 

[Texas Proud]

I'd say the correct word is "deferred". We currently allow step up in basis at death (one of those things that makes zero sense to me and should be changed), other than that, cap gains eventually get paid.

If this is a really big deal, it's possible to design systems for taxing unrealized gains.

Past history has shown that rich people can defer that tax until the next time cap gains go down... you would be surprised how many death taxes I did where the deferred gains was a big percent of the estate...

I will say that my mom's estate is about 75% deferred gains right now... and we have no plans on selling anything...

 

[Texas Proud]

It was Clinton that in 1999 signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act.

""The bill that ultimately repealed the Act was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54–44 vote in the Senate[10] and by a bi-partisan 343–86 vote in the House of Representatives.[11] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[12]""

Also it was the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that paved the way for the mess created by derivatives as it failed to regulate the derivatives market. Also signed by Clinton.

Clinton signed into law the 2 biggest pieces of legislation that allowed "greed to take hold" and ultimately led to the financial crisis.
Most don't know this.

Hey, I am not a Clinton fan at all.... but trying to blame him for this crisis is a big stretch IMO... the Repubs were pushing for these two bills.. any President in office would have signed them... you do not think either Bush or Reagan would have vetoed them do you

Heck, I will bash Clinton for a lot of things, but this is not one of them....

 

[REWahoo]

YouTube - they call me mister pig

 

[HFWR]

That's a fundamental flaw, imho. The fuss shouldn't be how we match up taxation with spending. It should be how me match spending with taxation.

+1

What's the quote: "the surest way to get bad laws repealed is by rigorously enforcing them." Or something like that...

 

[M Paquette]

That's a fundamental flaw, imho. The fuss shouldn't be how we match up taxation with spending. It should be how me match spending with taxation.

Based on what I'm seeing in this thread, there's an even more fundamental disagreement as to how we as a society should function, and what our expectations from government should be.

I have my own suspicions as to how well the societies that would emerge from various ideologies I sense backing some posts would function in the Real World.

 

[M Paquette]

Now...there is an idea. ! A voucher system...that applies to everyone for ALL pubic services and entitlements from the government during their lifetime. This includes education, health care, medicaid, medicare, SSN...etc. What one doesn't use from one bucket, one can transfer to a bucket one does use.
It pushes the burden back onto the individual to use it judiciously.

Or you could just let me keep my money and spend in on these services as I want. Unless the 'voucher system' is intended to be one of those wealth redistribution schemes in disguise...

 

[FinanceDude]

And the financial meltdown could be partly blamed on those laws he signed. But then there's Greenspan, there's lax SEC and CFTC enforcement under Bush, etc.

Lax SEC and CFTC enforcement were prevalent under Clinton, Bush, AND now Obama..........

 

[Independent]

Past history has shown that rich people can defer that tax until the next time cap gains go down... you would be surprised how many death taxes I did where the deferred gains was a big percent of the estate...

I will say that my mom's estate is about 75% deferred gains right now... and we have no plans on selling anything...

I'm not surprised that a lot of people hold appreciated assets to death - that's the rational response to an irrational system.

But I think we should change the system.

 

[kombat]

Re: Public vs. Private Schools

Here's what gets my goat. In my jurisdiction (Ontario, Canada), parents who opt to send their kids to private schooling get to deduct the tuition from their taxes. The reasoning being that since they're not burdening the public school system with their children, they get back a portion of their tax money spent to educate their child, so they can spend it in the private system instead.

But child-free taxpayers are not afforded a way to recoup the same portion of their taxes that are collected to educate their (non-existent) children in the public system.

Why the double-standard? Private-school parents are refunded their public school tax dollars because they're not using the public schools. But neither are child-free couples, yet they don't get any of their money back. Hypocrisy, or fair?

 

[explanade]

Well politicians, even those who advocate cutting taxes, use property and local taxes as a way to offset whatever cuts to state income taxes they push through.

We've had Republican governors here in CA do that as well as push through increases in various fees on the sly.

So of course they're not going to give back your property taxes. But people buy real estate based on the school district, which at least out here has a big effect on prices. So they pay more to be in a highly-rated school district and thus, not only get a bigger mortgage but higher property taxes. Then they may send kinds to private schools on top of that.

But when they sell the property, it's going to fetch more because of the school district.