U.S. Politics - We all laugh at Arizona edition

[TerraPrime]

Continue.

[The Undead Martyr]

Why Arizona? Texas too scary for you?

[karaddin]

I thought we had already had this edition last year or the year before?

[The Winged Shadow]

There can never be enough 'Laugh at Arizona' editions :P

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Why Arizona? Texas too scary for you?

Because Florida was too obvious?

[Usotsuki]

It's rude to laugh at anyone's wang, even a superpower's, it can lead to self-esteem issues and voting Republican.

[ants]

On the issue of using biometrics to track who is working where - isn't this an area where people who are anti-government and pro-privacy have huge issues with? So for example they don't want police to be able to access fingerprints in these databases, and they want DNA records purged where the person was found innocent.

So would this have a hope in hell of being allowed?

[ants]

ericxihnWell, that's one way to interpret the article.

Agreed. I would have interprested Nate Silver's blog as saying there was a problem coming up. And he seems to be contradicting the first article about interest - interest on debt is pretty insignificant from his analysis.

[ants]

Istakhr

Is that a correct way of looking at this? Since all the Baby boomer's america will also be left to Gen Y and future generations, if as a result of these debts US is left for Gen Y, for example 2050 US with more net wealth per person than the US they inherited, suppose US of 1970 does it not mean they left their kids with more money? Isn't the total balance sheet more important than just the amout of debt?

PS: Of course wealth distribution should also be taken to account.

What you're saying is correct, you do need to look at both sides. But at the same time, a lot of the debt that is being wracked up is going to pay for baby boomer entitlements, or fixing their problems such as wars and getting the US out of recession. There is actually very little going into infrastructure or education, so there is an argument the baby boomers are borrowing so they can spend now, and the next generations will have to pay that back with little in the way of assets. Indeed, on things like youth unemployment you can argue the next generations are being doubly screwed.

[awesome possum]

Have any of you heard about this basketful of stupid that some Republican governors are cooking up? Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Sam Brownback in Kansas and reportedly Scott Walker in Wisconsin (among others) have announced or are set to announce that one of their major goals is to abolish the state income tax and likely make up for it by raising the sales tax.

Jindal proposes ending the state income tax

The governor did not release details of his proposal, but his office released a statement confirming that the taxes are targets of a broader tax reform plan.\

"Our goal is to eliminate all personal income tax and all corporate income tax in a revenue neutral manner," Jindal said in the statement.

He did not confirm reports that he will seek an increase in sales taxes in order to offset lost income tax revenue, but said: "We want to keep the sales tax as low and flat as possible."

It really is like these scumbags learned nothing from this past election. So now they're going for - as Krugman called it - reverse robinhoodism.

Eliminating the income tax and making up for it with sales tax would effectively take from the poor and middle class (who pay a higher percentage of their total income on sales taxes) and give to the rich. It's absolutely shameful, or it would be, if these assholes felt shame.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Things Arizona is awesome at:

Medical cannabis

Gun rights

Speed limits

The outdoors

Taking care of your unwanted grandparents

Things Arizona sucks at

Letting your unwanted grandparents vote for crazy assholes

[Ken Stone]

Eliminating the income tax and making up for it with sales tax would effectively take from the poor and middle class (who pay a higher percentage of their total income on sales taxes) and give to the rich. It's absolutely shameful, or it would be, if these assholes felt shame.

Rich people have more money meaning they buy more (and more expensive) stuff. Wouldn't they end up paying more in sales tax too? In a world where resources are limited and we are trying to reduce consumption, doesn't a tax on consumption make the most sense?

[Fez]

Things Arizona sucks at

Letting your unwanted grandparents vote for crazy assholes

Wasting an insane amount of water by having golf courses in a desert.

[awesome possum]

Rich people have more money meaning they buy more (and more expensive) stuff. Wouldn't they end up paying more in sales tax too? In a world where resources are limited and we are trying to reduce consumption, doesn't a tax on consumption make the most sense?

It might, but what's to stop these rich people from taking a weekend trip to New Hampshire, Oregon, or Delaware (just kidding, no one wants to visit Delaware), states with no sales tax to buy their more expensive stuff?

If the state income tax were to be abolished and sales taxes increased to make up for it, the rich would see about a 3% increase in their money while the poor and middle class would see a 3% decrease in their money. This is nothing more than a naked attempt for this scumbag politicians to give more money to their rich masters.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Wasting an insane amount of water by having golf courses in a desert.

There's actually a pretty good reason for that (sort of). Back at the beginning of the 20th century a bunch of corrupt guys got Phoenix a ton of water rights from the Feds. There are a bunch of giant reservoirs surrounding Phoenix. The crazy thing is, they are not legally allowed to share that water with anyone else (which eventually led to the state capitol being moved from Prescott/Tucson to there). Tucson runs short of water every summer, and Phoenix has ton of it. They can either leave it in the reservoirs to evaporate, or they can pour it onto their lawns/swimming pools/golf courses. Legally, there's nothing else they can do, unless they want to renegotiate the water rights, which would probably mean giving all that water to Los Angeles and San Diego.

[Ken Stone]

It might, but what's to stop these rich people from taking a weekend trip to New Hampshire, Oregon, or Delaware (just kidding, no one wants to visit Delaware), states with no sales tax to buy their more expensive stuff?

If the state income tax were to be abolished and sales taxes increased to make up for it, the rich would see about a 3% increase in their money while the poor and middle class would see a 3% decrease in their money. This is nothing more than a naked attempt for this scumbag politicians to give more money to their rich masters.

Isn't it more like people who save their money will pay less taxes and people who spend their money on non-necessities will pay more?

[Fragile Bird]

No. Basic deductions mean that people with lower income pay a low rate of income taxes. I don't know what kind of sales tax they are talking about, but the form of sales tax now being used in all 1st world nations is a value added tax, meaning all goods and services are taxed. That would mean more stuff is taxed, and unless the state is also planning on creating a sales tax credit for lower income persons, the tax will seriously hit the poor and the middle class.

Even if it it not a goods and services tax, sales taxes still hit lower income persons disproportionately. There are many studies out there explaining why a graduated rate of income tax is the fairest system to use - here's the Wikipedia page for an intro. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

There are many arguments for using different forms of tax systems, or tweeking the one being used in the US today, but no one has put into practice anything fairer than the graduated system AFAIK.

[Fez]

There's actually a pretty good reason for that (sort of). Back at the beginning of the 20th century a bunch of corrupt guys got Phoenix a ton of water rights from the Feds. There are a bunch of giant reservoirs surrounding Phoenix. The crazy thing is, they are not legally allowed to share that water with anyone else (which eventually led to the state capitol being moved from Prescott/Tucson to there). Tucson runs short of water every summer, and Phoenix has ton of it. They can either leave it in the reservoirs to evaporate, or they can pour it onto their lawns/swimming pools/golf courses. Legally, there's nothing else they can do, unless they want to renegotiate the water rights, which would probably mean giving all that water to Los Angeles and San Diego.

Yikes.

[Shryke]

Rich people have more money meaning they buy more (and more expensive) stuff. Wouldn't they end up paying more in sales tax too? In a world where resources are limited and we are trying to reduce consumption, doesn't a tax on consumption make the most sense?

No. Because consumption does not rise at the same rate as income. The rich spend a smaller percentage of their income.

[Robin Of House Hill]

The problem with using a sales tax instead of an income tax, is that it discourages people from buying. In an overheated economy, it would be beneficial, but in the current one that is barely holding its own, it would create more problems than it would solve.