Quote (Thor123422 @ 8 Apr 2021 20:28)
Look at how often Bob accuses me of being a communist instead of engaging with what I post lol. He's like a perfect example of the kind of person who lives in a rural town and doesn't understand the most basic facts of the world.
Reported for flaming and harassment. I was not in this thread. If you wish to discuss me with Matt, take it to PM or discord. Will also note that I address topics. When you seek to consistently derail topics, you become unworthy of addressing.
This topic is a case in point. This is not a topic about your disdain for rural folks. Several points of topic: I live in a city, and have a college degree. While you attempt to demean those who disagree with you, I simply offer a reasoned viewpoint that angers you because you can't address.
Regarding the topic: Tax choice would be great! Tax choice is what you are voting on when you vote on your state senator and representative, mayor, governor, and city council. Note, those are State level congressional seats, as well as state and city level offices. The majority of the personal tax you are paying (unless in Texas) is at the state level, and voting in those who support the programs most impactful to you is how you gain choice.
At the Federal level, you will never have a choice. The very reason the Conservative position is "small government" is to limit how much the Federal Government is leeching from the States. The existence of the Federal Government is meant to serve four basic purposes: Insure the National Defense, Insure the States are abiding by the Constitution (and it's Amendments), Insure interstate commerce flows freely, and mediate disputes between the states. That's it. No social welfare programs, entitlements, anything along those lines were written into the Constitution or ever intended by the founders. Thus, if one state has a healthy social safety net, and the other state has no safety net but lower taxes, an entrepreneur may want to do business in the lower tax state. If another state is has taxes between the other two, less of a safety net, but much higher infrastructure, then many of those who prefer stable and "safe" commerce and living may go there. In yet another system where education is everything, and the State funds the best schools in the nation, some may want to move there. And so on and so forth with medicine right down the line to athletics, power, etc.
So, if we had a "choice", I would say the first thing to do would be eliminate FICA at the federal level and in the short term, toss it down to the States, with a deadline of 8 years for each state to decide if and how it's going to handle and continue to tax and pay out these programs. Second would be to eliminate virtually all federal spending outside military, veteran support, and functionally necessary spending for DC and the Federal Court Systems, and the pittance the Federal Government puts towards the Interstate Freeway system. That would cut our federal budget all the way back down to around $1.5 Trillion/year, and the lack of any special interest flow into Washington at that point due to it's released power would cut the majority of lobbying interest out of the Federal Government. It would have the dual impact of completely removing the FICA requirements from both personal taxes and employer taxes at the federal level, as well as allowing for the personal federal income tax to be slashed by over half.
Meanwhile, the States could opt to maintain FICA, or they could slash the SSI portion, dropping more money into the pockets of their constituents in order to invest directly into their own retirement plans such as 401K, which have a much higher return, and act to stimulate the economy in a much greater fashion. I doubt any state would sacrifice the medical portions of FICA, but having direct control and access to all the incomes, rather than the "trickle down" they get from the Federal Government would provide a great number of the States more in things like Medicaid and Medicare than they're currently receiving, as their citizens are paying out more than the State is currently taking in. Among other benefits would be the ability to take up some of the extra direct tax revenues the Federal Government would be dropping. Thus, rather than relying on the trickle down economics of Federal Taxing and Spending, the states benefit from their own citizens and can serve their own citizens directly. At that point, how the State chooses to spend it's taxpayer's money would also help determine which state each person or family wishes to live in.
Likewise, there's a large level of "State" spending, most especially in blue states, that highly favors cities, and takes away from small towns and rural areas. The same way that a lot of the taxing being done by the Federal Government needs to be dropped back to the States, many of the States' taxing levels need to drop back down to the city/town/county level, so as to directly positively impact the actual tax spender, not some city hundreds of miles away. The Federalization of the US is a bad thing, and is the primary reason WHY there's no "choice" in where your taxes go. As it stands now with a bloated Federal Government that has no real check on it's power over the states? If the Federal Government wishes to take $2 Trillion and simply give it away to a foreign nation? They can! And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. And yes, that's YOUR money they're spending.
Anyhow, my thoughts on the tax choice topic.
This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Apr 9 2021 12:24am