Understanding the Dynamics of American Taxation

The following has been wrongly credited to David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. a professor of economics at the University of Georgia. He makes clear on his own website (http://davidk.myweb.uga.edu/) that it is not his work.

But, it’s a fairly accurate assessment of America’s current, broken tax system.


Explaining Our Current Tax System


Because it is tax season. . .Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Because you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free, but what about the other six men - the paying customers?

How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.And so:The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings."I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!""Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!""That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!""Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him.

But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.


The current Democratic tax proposal would raise taxes and force many of those now paying no income tax onto the tax rolls by 2011. That is the only that paln MAY ultimately be "revenue neutral" (as more higher income people will, no doubt defer more of their income, reducing revenues), raising tax rates on many of the lower paid Americasn who don't have that option would increase revenues from that particular (and larger) sector.

For any tax system to be “fair,” EVERYONE must pay something and the fairest way is either a flat percentage or even better still, a consumption tax (NRST) that would tax based on consumption, without punishing/burdening productivity/income.

The Folly of Geraldo

In the aftermath of the VA Tech shootings Geraldo Rivera (one of FoxNews many resident Liberals) said, “Our children need to be protected.”

The fact that so many otherwise rational people would agree with Rivera only proves that the infantilizing of America is nearly complete.

The “children” on America’s College campuses are, in many cases, older than some of the men and women serving in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

As the great Mark Steyn put it, “Nonetheless, it’s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.”

Just as terrible is the need for many to rationalize the actions of misfits and loners, deranged people who do such deranged things.

In the wake of Columbine, one of the primary myths that evolved was that of Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold as “bullied nerds who took revenge out for years of bullying.”

In fact, Kliebold was clinically depressed and Harris was a text book socio-path who took delight in bullying others. They planned Columbine to be the biggest mass murder in world history, not a mere school shooting and if the propane bombs they set up had gone off, it’s estimated that another 600 people would’ve been killed that day.

The same mythology is appearing in the wake of the VA Tech shootings – Cho Seung-Hui as a “shy and bullied immigrant taking revenge.”

Once again, nothing could be further from the truth.

In the end, Virginia Tech must be Liviu Librescu’s story, one of self-sacrifice for others and not Cho Seung-Hui’s story of pathetic pathological dysfunction.

Cho Seung-Hui was a failure, like Kliebold and Harris, Professor Librescu remains a hero in a defiant and heroic action that will live on as long as the memory of the Virginia Tech massacre does.

Behind The Liberal Support for Gun Control

What’s with blaming an inanimate object for the actions of humans?

Gun control advocates advocate “object control” for a problem (violence) that really is all about “people control.”

As is typical, Liberals can’t even assess the problem correctly.

The problem in the LIRR shooting wasn’t the gun, but Colin Ferguson.

The problem in the Luby’s Luncheonette rampage wasn’t the gun, it was George Hennard.

And the problem in the Virginia Tech (VT) rampage wasn’t the guns used, but deranged, loser, loner Cho Seung-Hui.

Part of the Liberal disdain for guns is that blaming the object or tool, allows them to retain sympathy for the deranged.

I don’t know, I have absolutely no sympathy for the likes of Ferguson, Hennard and Seung-Hui. My sympathy is reserved exclusively for the victims.

Gun control isn’t violence control.

Hell, a nationwide gun ban wouldn’t come close to banning mass murder!

The largest mass murder in U.S. history remains the Happyland Social Club fire. On March 25th, 1990 Julio Gonzalez used a dollar’s worth of gasoline, a small container and a makeshift wick to kill 87 people in the Happyland Social Club.

Gun control isn’t violence control, not by a long shot.

Ironically enough, statistics show that guns are used far more often in self or home defense than they are in crimes, so it would seem that guns save far more lives than they damage each year.

As much “sympathy” as Liberals routinely muster for the depraved, they are often extremely short on sympathy for regular people – shopkeepers, homeowners, and others who protect themselves with guns.

There was certainly little sympathy from the Left for 27 y/o Ronald Dixon, the Brooklyn Navy Vet who shot an intruder in his home as the assailant made his way upstairs where Dixon’s young daughter’s room was, just as there’s generally little Liberal sympathy for store-owners who use guns to protect their stores.

But there's plenty of underlying sympathy for the dispossessed, the maladjusted and other fellow malcontents...the very kind of folks who commit the above kinds of incidents.

That’s the primary reason why Liberals would rather blame guns (an inanimate object) then people like George Hennard, or Colin Ferguson, or Cho Seung-Hui.

And, of course, the Left would rather forget all about the likes of Peter Odighizuwa, the Nigerian national who went on a shooting spree on the grounds of the Appalachian School of Law.

After all, Peter Odighizuwa’s case shows why gun bans fail and armed civilians can stop such incidents in their tracks.

As John Lott noted, “The quick response by two of the students, Mikael Gross, 34, and Tracy Bridges, 25, undoubtedly saved multiple lives," Lott reported.

"According to Lott: Having just returned from lunch, Gross was outside the law school building when Odighizuwa began shooting. Bridges was inside, waiting for class to start.

"When the sound of shooting erupted, panic ensued. "People were running everywhere. They were jumping behind cars, running out in front of traffic, trying to get away," Gross said.

"Instead of joining in the chaos, Gross and Bridges ran to their cars and got their guns. Joined by an unarmed Ted Besen, an ex-Marine and police officer, the three men approached the shooter from different sides.

"I aimed my gun at him, and Peter tossed his gun down," Bridges recalled. "Ted approached Peter, and Peter hit Ted in the jaw. Ted pushed him back, and we all jumped on."

Wrote Lott: "What is so remarkable is that out of 280 separate news stories (from a computerized Nexis-Lexis search) in the week after the event, just four stories mentioned that the students who stopped the attack had guns.

So, why the misplaced sympathies?Why the Left’s sympathy for the “dispossessed,” the “disenfranchised’ and the chronically maladjusted?

Well, it could be that most of those who “protect themselves with guns” are property owners and “people of privilege.”

That’s certainly the case for Ron Dixon and most of the poor shopkeepers prosecuted in New York for defending their stores with illegal guns. It’s certainly the case for Ted Besen, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges.

The likes of George Hennard, Colin Ferguson and Cho Seung-Hui are far more typical of the kinds of people Liberals tend to reserve their sympathies for – angry losers who find current America “unfair, and over-burdening.”

That’s NOT America.

America is NOT innately unfair. It is NOT “racist, sexist, homophobic,” except to the grossly emotionally disturbed and chronically maladjusted.

So, in a sense, Liberals relate to and agree with the worldview of many of these pathetic losers, so instead of blaming the deranged gunmen, they blame the guns.

It’s really about as simple as that.

TODAY Wednesday 4/18/2007 Partial Birth Abortion is ILLEGAL

Today, Wednesday, April 18th, 2007, the Supreme Court upheld (by a 5 to 4 majority) the 2003 Congressional ban on Partial Birth or Third Trimester abortions, which was signed onto by G W Bush.

Given that there is no doubt that a child, in that last trimester, IS a viable life (premature infants have survived outside the womb as early as three months premature), this ruling merely affirms the right of the viable to life.

Sam Alito was the deciding vote. Good riddance Sandra Day O’Connor, who set back an earlier ban.

Obama Weighs in on the VA Tech Tragedy and Ace Weighs in on Obama

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Barack Obama compared the violence at Virginia Tech to the “verbal violence of Don Imus” yesterday. The outrageous comment is chronicled in Ben Smith’s blog;

“But while Obama mourns the slain students, he takes the massacre more as a theme than as a point of discussion.

"Maybe nothing could have been done to prevent it," he says toward the end.

"So he moves quickly to the abstract: Violence, and the general place of violence in American life.

"There's also another kind of violence that we're going to have to think about. It's not necessarily the physical violence, but the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways," he said, and goes on to catalogue other forms of "violence."

"There's the "verbal violence" of Imus."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0407/Obama_on_Virginia_Tech_and_Violence.html

As Ace (at Ace of Spades HQ) put it, "Then there's the "violence" of conscience of a shameless politician attempting to score points on the still-cooling bodies of the dead, and the "violence" perpetrated against the English language by a near-retard who can't comprehend the subtle distinction between a slight and a slaughter."

http://www.ace.mu.nu/ 4/17/2007


Yeah, that just about sums it up perfectly.

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While I understand Obama’s regret over getting in so late on the Imus pile-on, using the VA Tech massacre as a springboard to revisit the Imus flap is not just cheesy, but nauseatingly disgusting.

I guess Obama really is like most politicians, the closer you look the emptier the suit seems.

American Thinker also chronicles the Obama speech with its article; Obama Not Ready for Prime Time?


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/04/obama_not_ready_for_prime_time.html

Tony Blair is Right Again

What’s the world coming to?
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First Tony Blair (“The Bill Clinton of England”) supported the invasion of Iraq, and now he blames political correctness for downplaying the disproportionate black crime rate in England.
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Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. Those remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.
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But what’s led to those comments?
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Well, according to the Sun, “Police numbers disclosed that violent crime leapt 22 per cent last year, with female rape increasing by 27 per cent — from 8,990 to 11,441.
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“Overall, police recorded 5,899,450 crimes compared with 5,525,316 the previous year.
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“That represented a RISE of 7 per cent.
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“The disturbing statistics showed:
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 “Murder, manslaughter and killing of infants JUMPED by 18 per cent, from 891 to 1,048. Violence against individuals ROSE 28 per cent from 650,474 cases to 835,101.
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 “Wounding and violence involving weapons was up 11 per cent from 28,796 cases to 32,104. Offences under the Firearms Act LEAPED from 3,247 to 3,572. Assaults on police officers were UP 12 per cent to 33,742.
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“Last night’s statistics followed the revelation in January that the use of firearms was rampant.
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“A report showed a 35 per cent rise in gun crime, to 9,974 offences.
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“And officials admitted yesterday that possession of firearms, including sub-machine guns, was “out of control” in Birmingham, Manchester and three London boroughs.” <
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Black community leaders reacted after PM Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognize that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".
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Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.
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Remember the days when Americans used to look to places to like England, France (which also has a surging violent crime rate) and Germany (ditto) as examples of low crime nations that America should model itself after?

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Well, the truth is Blair is largely right and the British Home Office minister, Lady Scotland is completely wrong.

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Blair is right that violence is NOT a natural outgrowth of poverty.

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It's also NOT exclusively the purview of "black culture," but Underclass culture and as Charles Murray noted a decade ago in The Coming White Underclass, that culture cuts across ethnic lines.

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One of Europe's major problems is a growing and frankly vilely anti-European Muslim population. Islamic culture remains Medieval. Moreover, it is fiercely anti-modern, which, of course, makes it decidedly anti-Western.

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Aside from the large influx of unassimilable Muslims, there is also a large influx of Africans and Carribeans (especially in England and France, former Colonial powers). the problem with those groups is that the vast majority of those folks do not come to the West with First World skill sets.

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There's a huge difference between someone like Ayann Hirsi Ali (born in Somalia) and now a noted author and member of Parliment in the Netherlands and the legons of trogladites who set fires to hundreds of cars during weeks of rioting in France last summer.

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It's skill sets not culture. Those with high skill sets tend to deal well with First World economies, while those with low skill sets do not. The problem that much of Western Europe is now facing is a problem all too familiar to America - the underclass. A group of overwhelmingly reckless and irresponsible people, many of whom have been bred in dependancy, and feel entitled to public support.

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This pits the underclass against those who produce and often against society at large, which they often blame for their own problems.

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One of the vital questions facing the West today is "How do we deal with the underclass?"

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It's a question that should have been dealt with more seriously decades ago, but it is certainly becoming more pressing with each passing year. It is positively dysgenic for societies to allow those dependent on public assistance to breed at will.

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Poverty is caused by behaviors - reckless and irresponsible behaviors. It stands to reason that people who are so reckless and irresponsible as not to be able to meet their own most basic needs, are also, at that point (while wards of the state), unfit parents.

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Sadly, that may be a long time coming.

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Let's hope it doesn't come too late.

The Abject Folly of Gun Control

In the recent Virginia Tech rampage, many observers point to the fact that a foreign national ( Cho Seung-Hui) being able to legally purchase a gun proves the need for more stringent gun control, but what it really proves is the abject folly of gun bans!

We already have strict laws on gun registration and convicted felons, people with a history of mental disorders and foreign nationals are already barred from legally owning guns.

Yet, those groups generally have little problem getting guns "illegally," or what I prefer to call, "extra-legally" or outside the law.

That merely proves that gun bans work about as well as drug bans, which is to say, not at all.

I wish it weren't true, but violent people are always going to do violent things and get the tools by which to carry them out and as I said, many Americans depend on that (SADLY so) for their jobs. We are and always have been a relatively violent society and it's probably true that a certain amount of violence comes with being a free and open society.

Given that we'll never have a gun-free society, as no one has ever suggested disarming the police or military, and thefts from those two organizations account for a large number of the guns on the black market, we're never going to get rid of gun violence either.

The most draconian gun bans (like the ones in NYC & D.C.) only succeed in disarming honest, law-abiding citizens. In fact, they disarm people like the students killed at VA Tech.

They do not disarm those intent on harming them.

You see how that works?

If person-X is already intent on breaking the laws against murder, he's not going to be deterred by a few extra laws against "carrying a concealed weapon," or "committing a felony with a gun," etc.

Gun control has never worked!

Places like NYC & D.C. with the nation's strictest gun laws have also had among the highest rates of gun crime.

Rudy Giuliani inherited NYC's strict gun laws.

In other words, gun control did NOTHING to bring down NYC's crime rate during his tenure, Bill Bratton's "Community Policing" DID.

Bratton instituted a program where cops swept squeegee men off NYC streets, arrested "aggressive panhandlers," went after "quality of life" crimes and ran those perps through the system, finding (unsurprisingly) that many of those who routinely engaged in "quality of life" crimes (like public urination, public drunkenness and turnstile jumping) also had outstanding warrants for more serious crimes.

During Giuliani's tenure getting guns off NYC's streets was a top priority, one that resulted in random "stop & frisks" in "targeted neighborhoods" (ie. inner city nabes)...that policy was highlighted in the Amadou Diallo killing.

The Giuliani administration greatly reduced crime, dropping the murder rate that had reached over 2,000/year under Liberal Dem Dave Dinkins, to around 500/year, but that administration did not eradicate NYC's drug problem, nor did it get guns off the streets.

Criminals don't obey laws, guns are too easy to make and cops can't act proactively, as they arrive in response to and after the crime has been committed.

What gun bans effectively do is to disarm the honest, law-abiding citizens, and outlaw violent self-defense (which is a basic and fundamental right we all share) making it even easier for miscreants to hunt the law-abiding, like "fish in a barrel."

The lesson of Luby's was clear.

Guns were banned in that diner, so even the military men from nearby Fort Hood were unarmed (leaving their weapons in their cars) when George Hennard came calling.

The gun ban didn't work.

ONE armed patron could've prevented that attack. A bunch of armed patrons would've almost certainly stopped it dead in its tracks.

The lesson from the LIRR shooting rampage was clear.

NYC's gun ban didn't stop Colin Ferguson from getting that gun and killing all those people. The gun ban didn't work.

One armed rider on that LIRR train that night could've stopped that rampage. A bunch of armed LIRR passengers almost certainly would've stopped it.

A ban on illegal aliens would've also done much to stop that one rampage.

The lesson from Virginia Tech is clear too.

Guns were banned on VT's campus and that ban only disarmed the law-abiding students who would be the victims of this tragedy.

One armed student could've ended that rampage and a bunch of armed students would've almost certainly stopped it early on.

Banning things never works.

We haven't been able to successfully ban drugs and we haven't been able to successfully ban guns either.

And the problem isn't those THINGS.

The problem is malicious behavior, which is something that bans fail to address.

There's no way to stop malicious behavior by fiat (law), because the law can only be applied AFTER the fact.

In places were gun laws are strictest (NYC, Wash, D.C.) only the law-abiding and most likely victims are disarmed, making them easier targets, as the thugs cannot be disarmed by mere law.

Gun bans do not address malicious behavior, so their goal is not "reducing violence."

If it were, the fact that violence actually increases under such bans would give those who support such bans pause for thought - it doesn't, so that is NOT their aim.

There is ONLY one effective way to deal with malicious, malevolent behavior and that's to encourage all those in society to oppose it, violently when necessary and to confront it, with force, whenever malicious behavior is exhibited.

If the goal is reducing violence/malicious behavior, then it's not a matter of banning a single tool, among many, that can be used to that end, a tool that can and, more often than not, IS used for defense, but to encourage and celebrate vigorous personal defense.