The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    Wherein we Abolish the Income Tax, Obviate the Debt Ceiling, and End the Deficit. Fuck Income, Tax Wealth

    By jollyroger on Sat, 06/11/2011 - 6:24pm |

    A truly simplified method for funding the government.  A balanced budget that Lenin could love.

    Fuck income, tax wealth.

    We eliminate all deficits by the following arithmetic:

    Each fiscal year, we total up last year's expenditures.  (E)

    We total up the combined wealth of the nation (W)

    We exempt an amount equal to 200 times the poverty level (200P)

    We  assess individual non exempt wealth (W-200P) as necessary to equal E.  Probably between 1 and 5%, but always exactly the amount spent.

    Hence no deficit.  The debt stays steady at 14 trillion, and becomes an increasingly trivial fraction of gdp.

    Class war, y'all.

     

    Comments

    Oh I like this one!

    We talk alot about how we need to 'incentivize saving', but that's only half true. We want working class families to save more, and the rich to save much less. The top 10% of the population income-wise are hoarding cash and have no need for more savings, with their average 5 million in net worth. And as they hoard cash that suppresses aggregate demand and so lowers wages across the working class.

    So economically it would be much more efficient than income tax or consumption tax. It stimulates aggregate demand, encourages saving amongst those who need to, and takes money from those who have the least use for it.

    What's not to like...?


    by Cho on Sat, 06/11/2011 - 7:05pm

    Plus, by making expenditure decisions "revenue neutral"  we enable our selves (as we collectively exercise our will through  congress) to make decisions based upon our needs--the opposite of the way the pugs have fucked us for 20 years by negating every Dem defict repair through tax breaks that just equal the new revenue--this is the mirror image.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 06/11/2011 - 7:11pm

    This is very dangerous thinking.  I like it.  It makes too much sense so our pols will never entertain such thinking without extreme pressure from the prols.  For now, class war against the rich is "off the table".  America demands unique solutions, and all that, but not that unique.  Someday.  Maybe.  After an upsurge of criminal approaches to survival among worker bees threatens the gentry's very existence.  If such a thing is even possible.


    by miguelitoh2o on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 11:48am

      If such a thing is even possible.

    Given the crossover between war and police power, I'm afraid it's just where we are going, and the warondrugs=warongangs=waronorganized minority resistance.  I'm gonna do a post on it as soon as I think it through.  I think the real reason the ruling class apparatchiks keep an obviously failed drug policy is that it enables minorty control..The racial setencing disparity isn't a bug, it's a feature.  It means they can invade the ghetto in force at any time and if you watch the jurisprudence that just got a real "atta boy" in that last no-knock case.

    Remember, the Latino vote is what the repugnants fear more than anything (even the african-american vote!)


    by jollyroger on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 6:12pm

    the repugnants fear

     

    Cf  John C,. Calhoun in the Senate: "Don't steal all of Mexico, you idiots!  Do you want 10,000,000 brown voters?  Just take the top half."


    by jollyroger on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 6:23pm

    Would the $230,000 attack/guard/play with your kids guard dog be counted too, if so at what rate?  If the dog is taxed at its buying price, this is definitely class war, the rich deserve to protect themselves from the rabid masses, especially as we wind down the local and state police forces.

    The 30,000 sq. ft. house, the jet and the Bugatti OK, yet I am assuming the offshore bank accounts are tax free?

    Could the dogs be depreciated as a necessary business expense, at say $30K a year as the average working life of such a dog might be 7 years?


    by NCD on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 1:16pm

    Yes, the dog counts, unless a shelter adoption (or nuts free, in which case he's a pitiable pet not a valuable stud)

    At replacement cost, like any insurance valuation

    Yes, this is defnintely class war, don't you read the valedictory in the post?

    Sorry, offshore wealth is taxable wealth.  Hide it better.

    Why are local police and state services diminishing?  We still will have sales tax, which taxes that part of your income which you don't save.  We get you coming and going.  Biut we tax you 8-9% sales tax for spending, less for saving.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 6:08pm

    Now I've read the dog story.  It's sensible.  I always advise guys with young kids to give the kid a big dog--in five years, your kid can't stand to have you around-you can't protect her-she sneaks out.  The dog goes with her.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 6:18pm

    Let us just collect all our taxes from toll booths.

    I mean, sell the damn streets and roads and freeways to private contractors.

    And every two blocks or so you have to pay a toll.

    It would take care of all our car emission probs and obesity!

    People would think, fuck, I can just walk to the store.

    just thinkin!!!


    by Richard Day on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 6:59pm

     sell the damn street

    Just the naming rights-hence, the old New York State Theatre at lincoln center--The David H. Koch...

     Why not The Goldman, Sachs White House", The Walmart Library of Congress" (what the fuck, they really own them already...)


    by jollyroger on Sun, 06/12/2011 - 7:31pm

    Capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist.

     

    ...if capital incomes are more concentrated than incomes from labor (a rather uncontroversial fact), personal income distribution will also get more unequal The only way to halt this process, (Piketty) argues, is to impose a global progressive tax on wealth – global in order to prevent (among other things) the transfer of assets to countries without such levies. A global tax, in this scheme, would restrict the concentration of wealth and limit the income flowing to capital.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/29/2014 - 12:07pm

      Well, if capitalism and democracy can't co-exist, then there has never been democracy.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 01/29/2014 - 3:00pm

    Piketty points to a brief period when the poisonous impact of capital accumulation was moderated by unusual factors

     

    ""The six decades between 1914 and 1973 stand out from the past and future, according to Piketty, because the rate of economic growth exceeded the after-tax rate of return on capital. Since then, the rate of growth of the economy has declined, while the return on capital is rising to its pre-World War I levels.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/29/2014 - 3:10pm

    The book looks interesting. I will have to see if I can raise the capital needed to buy it.

    I understand the gloomy forecast regarding inevitable inequality. The need to approach the matter as global system sounds like the author hasn't given up on democracy per se but has sketched out the scope of work needed for us to intervene in the ongoing process.


    by moat on Wed, 01/29/2014 - 5:55pm

    raise the capital needed to buy it.

     

    Myself, I don't read books, but I do listen to Terry Gross and Leonard Lopate for the book tour.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/29/2014 - 8:28pm