America going broke, I say flat tax
 

Please try to sway me from the idea of running a flat 7% across the board. The way I see it, if this were implemented we would start pulling out of debt slowley but surely.

NY janitor making $33,000 a year pays an effective tax rate of 25%. And the effective tax rate for a resident of the Park Avenue building, earning an average of $1.2 million annually? A cool 14.7%

http://www.google.com/url?source=img...6b8cYkJsqPAI4Q

-Buts ... buts... the janitor only has to pay like 8,000 and you want ME to give you 250,000?

-yes

-But ... erm...

-Shut up and pay your share

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I'm kind of interested and upbeat about the collective of rich folks, headed by Bill Gates I believe, that is campaigning for higher taxes on themselves and their tax bracket to pay their fair share.

And what's funny is they're saying "What?! Shut up, shut up! Sheesh. Keep your money, we'll figure out a better way" ... because they're not having any luck convincing them to let them pay their fair share yet.

Everyone should get zapped 22% of their earnings until we get our **** together. I'm poor and I'm for raising taxes on everybody. I don't mind. I've been living paycheck to paycheck for 6 years now. I already get taxed at 20% roughly. I take home a whopping 11k a year after taxes. I eats a lotta canned food :p:

Make it X% for everyone, so that the rich can't "But, but..." and close some damn tax loopholes FIRST

I also think it'd probably be a good idea to more closely monitor who gets Welfare benefits, food stamps (EBT) and the like.

My best friend's fiancee's sister has food stamps + is on welfare, yet she drives a 2010 Mustang and she and her husband both have iPhones and new laptops, and go out to eat at like, Red Lobster at least twice a week.

It would be pretty sweet if they actually monitored whether or not they were incurring necessary expenses in order to receive the benefits, like watching closely where the income goes.

I'm not against people having nice things, I just think that too many people abuse government benefits and **** things up for everyone doing things like this. I know plenty of people who aren't receiving any government aid who don't do the things they do. Ridiculous.

And yes - the taxing of all Americans is something that would be pretty damn helpful.

Well I live from welfare benefits and I can assure you there's no way I'm going to be able to live that expensive from... What's it... 1200 dollars a month.
Because of the province I live in I can buy a semi-attached house with a lot of help from my parents and a mortgage. But that's just my luck.
Eitherway, they do monitor these benefits very closely here. It's tough. Sometimes there's a thin line between being able to work and not being able to work. Especially for cases like me. At first glance I seem perfectly 'normal', but still...

Eitherway, it's a risky thing to decide who can has a benefit or not. But listening to your story I think there should indeed be some stricter rules there. I am just so afraid for the lives of the people who's need for such a benefit gets misjudged :(

I actually emailed my professor weeks ago, and just moments ago emailed my entire Sociology class about something we read in one of our books about taxes. It was a graph showing that from 1970 basically everyone's taxes have increased at the same rate with the exception of the rich. They've definitely gotten the most tax break... Which seems unfair and retarded to me since they are making the most money. If I can locate that graph I'll post it, I remember being pretty shocked by it.

With welfare... Here's the thing. Welfare gets abused a lot and I do think it should be monitored way more closely. The majority of people don't abuse it and legit need it to survive. THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH WELFARE is that it doesn't give most people much of an incentive to strive to better themselves.

Let's take an example... A woman with three kids gets government assistance. She has a low paying job and hardly any education. She is a single mother who doesn't get child support check regularly (another huge issue which needs fixed). She works hard over the years and gets a small raise. YAY! Well not really, because if that raise puts her over a certain amount of income, she loses government assistance. So they counter each other out. She either has the same amount, or even less money from working hard for a raise because the government assistance got dropped.

So what's the incentive to be socially mobile?? Make more money so you can lose welfare assistance. Does anyone else see the problem here?


Also s_k I don't know you personally obviously. But I really can't bring myself to see how you couldn't hold a job. You sit around all day and collect a government check without any apparent desire to hold a job. It sounds to me like your own laziness or something is preventing you from working. It's hard for me to believe you couldn't be a janitor or do some kind of low end job. Maybe deep down you just don't want to do a low end job so you sit around all day and collect your government aid. And I know you'll say "you don't quite understand how i function :):):)" but I'm just callin it like I see it. You aren't retarded.

I think too many people get too many government benefits for retarded reasons.

One simple question: Would you hire me from what you know about me now?

Fuck no I wouldn't hire you, but that has more to do with my worries regarding smiley face graffiti all over the walls and inappropriate hugging of every female that walks through the door.

Seriously though, I jut consider you a weird guy from what I know (and you may think I am weird, no offense taken on my apart). It doesn't seem to me like you have a debilitating disorder or that you can't function normally enough to do some sort of job. Again, I don't know you personally but you seem to have generally well thought out ideas and you aren't mentally retarded and I really just don't see how you couldn't hold a job. I do think some of it may be laziness since you seem content without even trying anymore.

I just think it's weak to live off the government and not try to somehow benefit society and just get complacent collecting a check for doing nothing

Let's put it this way; I was even told to **** off at places where I worked voluntarily.
They (reïntegration) have officially told me it's impossible to get me a job.

I'm not so sure about that, so I'm keeping my eyes open for opportunities all the time.
But it's completely useless to do this the regular way. There's millions of people in this country and most of them are a lot easier to handle as an employee.

My last job was at an institution for mentally disabled people. E.g. down syndrome and such. I was (literally!) told that I provided them with more problems than the down syndrome people. I don't really see why myself, but that's usually exactly the point. People somehow don't know how to handle me. I don't see what I do wrong, they don't even see what I do wrong, they just want to get rid of me.

Eitherway, things like that are killing me. And I'm not going to go trough nerve-wrecking job interviews that cost me months of my life, these things really destroy me, only to find out after a couple of months that they don't want me to work there anymore. It's just not worth it. At this point in time I work all day long for my friends, forum etc. I don't think I'm abusing the money I get in any way. I do think though that a lot more effort should be put by the government in getting people like me to work. It should be possible, but in the current dutch climate there really isn't space for people who are even the slightest bit different.

But as I said, I keep my eyes open. I know some people with companies who know about my situation, I drink coffee in my local record store regularly, just waiting for one of them to offer me a job (I don't care if I get paid, I just like to do something 'real').

Eitherway. I hope you understand a bit more now.
But, Dirty. Whatever you do, never ever call me lazy again.
Because that's just bull**** coming from someone who hasn't got the slightest idea what he's on about. Not getting paid for a job doesn't mean not doing anything.

I don't mind explaining a bit, but you probably shouldn't jump to conclusions BEFORE you let me explain.

P.s.: Would you like to trade your job for being a full-time autist? I would, regardless of what your job is.

1. Yes, flat tax is a good idea, at least as far as taxes go.

2. The economy crisis lies within the perpetual bailouts of failed banking.