DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: R.R. on October 26, 2008, 12:26:03 PM
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Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference -- just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need -- the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
http://artpredator.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/not-funny-not-waving-but-drowning/ (http://artpredator.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/not-funny-not-waving-but-drowning/)
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ROFL
I love it!
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ditto :D
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If you had written it, it was clever, but snide. Since you just ct and pasted it, it was more snide than clever, like the guy who wrote it was the waiter who did the work, and you were the deserving homeless guy, for example.
Obama proposed raising wealthy people's taxes in order to lower the middle class people's taxes. He has never proposed taxing anyone to pay the indolent, so this is not really a valid satire, just a snide one.
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Obama proposed raising wealthy people's taxes in order to lower the middle class people's taxes. He has never proposed taxing anyone to pay the indolent, so this is not really a valid satire, just a snide one.
Obama also plans to tax the rich to pay for his health care plan.
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Obama also plans to tax the rich to pay for his health care plan.
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Good for him. The rich will get health care out of it just like everyone else.
Socialism is the way to go.
Republicans suck. Better to spend money on the health care of Americans than on useless endless wars fought on bogus pretensions.
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Obama also plans to tax the rich to pay for his health care plan.
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Good for him. The rich will get health care out of it just like everyone else.
Yea, how appropriate that Xo pay for Rush Limbaugh's, Karl Rove's, and Dick Cheney's health care.
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Obama also plans to tax the rich to pay for his health care plan.
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Good for him. The rich will get health care out of it just like everyone else.
Yea, how appropriate that Xo pay for Rush Limbaugh's, Karl Rove's, and Dick Cheney's health care.
I would think that just one of them would be sufficient to pay for mine.
Every time you buy anything at all, you are sharing the costs with others. Manufacturing just ONE simple gadget like a pen, or a notebook would cost a huge amount of money. But when many people buy the identical item, it is more affordable for all.
Being as Rush, Rove and Cheney are paying for my health care, why should I worry about me paying for theirs, any more than I care who I am collectively buying pens. notebook, or catfood with?
That is a very feeble argument, by the way.
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Good for him. The rich will get health care out of it just like everyone else.
Not if they means test, like they will your ss payments.
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Being as Rush, Rove and Cheney are paying for my health care, why should I worry about me paying for theirs, any more than I care who I am collectively buying pens. notebook, or catfood with?
Hey, as long as your happy paying their healthcare, cool
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I am not in favor of means tests for Social Security or Medicare. I have never said that I was.
The entire idea of insurance and of medicare is shared risk. I am fine with this.
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I am not in favor of means tests for Social Security or Medicare. I have never said that I was.
Those with means don't need SS payments also. It should go to those less fortunate.
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Every time you buy anything at all, you are sharing the costs with others. Manufacturing just ONE simple gadget like a pen, or a notebook would cost a huge amount of money. But when many people buy the identical item, it is more affordable for all.
Being as Rush, Rove and Cheney are paying for my health care, why should I worry about me paying for theirs, any more than I care who I am collectively buying pens. notebook, or catfood with?
That is a very feeble argument, by the way.
Indeed. No one is arguing against shared costs. You've ignored the substantial difference between voluntary shared costs and forcing people to pay into a system regardless of whether they need to or want to. One might as well argue that I'm helping to pay for your mafia protection so why should I care if you help pay for mine. You've equated apples and oranges with basic argument that they're both fruit. So yes, your argument is indeed quite feeble.
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I am not in favor of means tests for Social Security or Medicare. I have never said that I was.
Those with means don't need SS payments also. It should go to those less fortunate.
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I disagree. Everyone who pays out, should receive what they were promised. If you feel sorry for the less fortunate, you are allowed to donate anything you wish to them. Perhaps the more fortunate will help in this. That is also okay by me.
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. You've ignored the substantial difference between voluntary shared costs and forcing people to pay into a system regardless of whether they need to or want to. One might as well argue that I'm helping to pay for your mafia protection so why should I care if you help pay for mine. You've equated apples and oranges with basic argument that they're both fruit. So yes, your argument is indeed quite feeble.
No, if you choose to live in this society, you play by the rules, or go elsewhere. You may have an inherent human right to prance around buck-naked, but you have chosen to live in a society where this is not allowed. The rules say you pay into Social Security and hide your tallywhacker from public view.
You can live in a number of places and avoid both social security payments and clothing, I do not deny this. But if you are going to live in the USA, you gotta follow the rules. It's all apples. There are no oranges.
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It's all apples. There are no oranges.
Ahem. "You are free to live with any delusion you wish."
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I disagree. Everyone who pays out, should receive what they were promised.
Until they change the law. Never underestimate the power of the greedy have-nots.
If nothing else, they can vote.
The mob should have the same right to determine where the thresholds are for a SS means test as they have to determine how much is too much for someone to earn.
Stroke of a pen, law of the land.
Hello means tested Social Security.
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Go right ahead. Float away on your vast puffy cloud of delusions.
Return when the Ron Paul ReLOVEution has occurred, or on any 30th of February you choose.
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When that guy returns to that restraunt , he will learn the real consequence of redistribution.
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Go right ahead. Float away on your vast puffy cloud of delusions.
Return when the Ron Paul ReLOVEution has occurred, or on any 30th of February you choose.
I thought you were all for redistribution?
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck[/youtube]
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When that guy returns to that restraunt , he will learn the real consequence of redistribution.
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So you actually believe that this entire scene with the stiffed waiter and the homeless guy actually happened?
It's pretty obvious that it is just a dumb story to make a rather absurd point.
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The literal nazi, strikes again
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So you actually believe that this entire scene with the stiffed waiter and the homeless guy actually happened?
It's possible, depends on how much of a-hole the writer really is. Most servers do not wear any sort of political garb / buttons / etc, because they don't want to possibly get stiffed on tips because of this. That being said, I do remember a couple of occasions where I was served by people wearing ITMFA tee-shirts - I guess they thought people on the "other side" were too dumb to know what they meant (a common failing among the left.)
I know one guy that always brought a pile of singles into a restaurant. After he was seated, he would put a small pile of singles onto the table, and say to the waiter: "That's your tip. Every time you do something I like, I'll add to the pile, and every time you do something I don't like, I'll take away from the pile."
I only ate at a restaurant with him that one time. And I passed the waitress a $10 bill folded into an origami peacock as we were leaving, just because she had to put up with his a-holery.
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Here in Miami, Canadians and others who come from places where waiters are actually paid a living wage often leave tips that the locals consider too small. In many of the snootier restaurants they have this custom of sticking a tip of 17 to 20% on each and every check. The cheaper restaurants never do this, just the ones where the wait staff already seems to do pretty well. They never add a paltry 10 or 15%, it's always more than the usual custom, which is around 15% for good service.
My policy is that if they tell me how much I have to tip, that is exactly what they will get...to the penny. Never a cent more.
I can say this, that in such places the service is almost always pretty good. Also, there are fewer smiley faces drawn on the check.
In other places, good service seems to be more dependent on management than decent tipping.
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While I don't like the Obama plan for healthcare (it isn't socialist at all) I don't mind redistribution of wealth. Why should I?
I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why redistributing wealth is such a horrid nightmare. The nation of Denmark does it and still has financial success. If we actually took pride in our public services and established good public services (which we certainly could, I don't think that we're too stupid to do so) then we'd even get our money's worth.
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There a lots of little cute stories like this that are making the rounds via email. They are total distortions and/or absolute misrepresentations of Obama's stances.
A truer representation would have been for the person who ate the restaurant to take up a collection of pennies from everyone in the restaurant and taken everyone involved (the restaurant patrons, all the waiters, the homeless people outside and himself) to the hospital for check ups, flu shots and any other procedure they may need.
But that wouldn't get McCain any votes. Just like any other realities would.
What the right would love to have everyone believe is that Obama wants to rob them and then make them watch utterly undeserving (in their eyes) people receive that which was taken from them in cold, hard cash to be spent on booze or drugs.
And that is an utter lie.
Grow up, people.
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I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why redistributing wealth is such a horrid nightmare.
The same reason a mugging is a horrid affair.
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I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why redistributing wealth is such a horrid nightmare.
The same reason a mugging is a horrid affair.
This is what we're dealing with. A segment of the nation equates taxes used to provide health care to an entire nation as a "mugging".
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I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why redistributing wealth is such a horrid nightmare.
The same reason a mugging is a horrid affair.
I don't equate lifting people out of poverty to a mugging.
That argument is not rational.
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I've already stated that i would have no problem with funding UHC with sales taxes. Everybody pays that way.
You and your ilk want to get UHC by taxing the rich.
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Taking property from one person at the point of a gun, no matter the justification, for another's use is a mugging.
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Taking property from one person at the point of a gun, no matter the justification, for another's use is a mugging.
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Do you consider paying the IRS to be armed robbery?
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Taking property from one person at the point of a gun, no matter the justification, for another's use is a mugging.
So, how can you possibly justify driving on roads that were built with other peoples' and your money? How can you possibly pay Walmart's low, low prices knowing they are so low because of Walmart's bargaining power?
Maybe tomorrow, you should go ahead and start hiring your own army, sherriff's patrol and garbage disposal system since you are soooooo tired of being MUGGED at the point of a gun for others' benefit.
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Again the top 1% of the population owns 38% of all the wealth. This is a higher proportion than the top 1% of any other developed nation. The US ranks more with Mexico and Portugal in this respect.
This is NOT a healthy thing for a country. A middle-class country is by definition, a stable and prosperous one. A country that has a highly skewed distribution tends to be unstable, corrupt and poor.
Perhaps BT and his billionaire buddies think taxes are like getting mugged, but when the income gets too skewed, what you have is revolution, and then you have kidnappings and murders and the sort of stuff that has plagued Colombia since 1948: a constant, unending civil war which benefits no one.
Progressive taxes are the one way that those who have benefited far beyond their labors can pay for their good luck. And no, it is not talent that allows louts like Carl Icahn and Donald Trump to get ahead. Mostly it is having been born rich and then gotten lucky. And there are hundreds more guys like Trump than there are like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
People live better, live longer and enjoy life more in places like Denmark, Sweden and Finland than in the US. Swedes, Danes and Finns are luckily not the braggarts that some Americans are, and have never sought to spread their governmental systems by force abroad. It's not like the US has been at all that successful at it, either. Observe how long it took Taiwan, South Korea and the Philipines to become democratic.
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uhm
shouldn`t america spend alittle energy making money?
all this talk about spreading the weath and fixing our economy.
I don`t hear about puting money into the country.
making goods and services for other countris to increase the flow of money into america.
isn`t this important?
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When that guy returns to that restraunt , he will learn the real consequence of redistribution.
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So you actually believe that this entire scene with the stiffed waiter and the homeless guy actually happened?
It's pretty obvious that it is just a dumb story to make a rather absurd point.
If it hypotheticly happened then he will hypothetically learn what hypotheticaly stiffed waiters do to their hypotheticaly skinflint patrons.
Do you think it impossible that this redistribution actually happened?
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but wouldn`t it be more accurate that the waiter gets a $1 tip and the homeless guy gets $1 and the admin that gets the rest of that money will be angry those two got too much money?
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but wouldn`t it be more accurate that the waiter gets a $1 tip and the homeless guy gets $1 and the admin that gets the rest of that money will be angry those two got too much money?
Frankly I think that the waiter is unlikely to change his vote just because a McCain supporter stiffed him.
That panhandler might tho.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul is the old fashioned way to get Pauls support.
Unfortuneately , Peter ther waiter is a productive hard working person , produceing value with his effort. Paul has nothing further to give you after you have bought his vote.
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shouldn`t america spend alittle energy making money?
all this talk about spreading the weath and fixing our economy.
I don`t hear about puting money into the country.
making goods and services for other countris to increase the flow of money into america.
isn`t this important?
Of course. Most people make far money from being productive than they ever get from the government.
I think Obama's idea of taking away tax breaks of companies that move jobs offshore, and rewarding those who create jobs within the US is more important than tax policy.
What Obama has advocated is basically going back to the tax base we had in the Olebush years, and is no more Socialist than that.
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shouldn`t america spend alittle energy making money?
all this talk about spreading the weath and fixing our economy.
I don`t hear about puting money into the country.
making goods and services for other countris to increase the flow of money into america.
isn`t this important?
Of course. Most people make far money from being productive than they ever get from the government.
I think Obama's idea of taking away tax breaks of companies that move jobs offshore, and rewarding those who create jobs within the US is more important than tax policy.
What Obama has advocated is basically going back to the tax base we had in the Olebush years, and is no more Socialist than that.
Olbush lost an election for allowing that tax increase , if he had vetoed it he would have had four more of his own.
Raising taxes on our companys doesn't give the overseas company a compeditive advantage? If keeping jobs here rather than there is important then we don't want to raise taxes .
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i don`t recall any business stating taxes are are reason jobs are outsourced overseas.
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i don`t recall any business stating taxes are are reason jobs are outsourced overseas.
Oh?
I will look for that later , but on a general principal , how would higher taxes here , be any advantage to companys here that had to pay them?
How would employees paying high taxes be an advantage to a company that had a choiice to pay employees in a lower tax environment instead?
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Olbush lost an election for allowing that tax increase , if he had vetoed it he would have had four more of his own.
Raising taxes on our companys doesn't give the overseas company a compeditive advantage? If keeping jobs here rather than there is important then we don't want to raise taxes .
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When you talk about companies in other countries, you are often talking about competing with companies that pay their employees four dollars a day. What the US needs to do is to make products that cannot be made competitively abroad because we have the technology and patents and they don't.
If they lower taxes on US companies, there is absolutely no guarantee that the decrease in taxes will be passed on to the consumers at all.
Olebush claimed that his new taxes were "user fees" or some other deceptive thing of that nature. He refused to admit that they were actually new taxes. His flaw was in saying "Read my lips, No New Taxes", when he knew damned well that he would in fact have to raise taxes.
Stanley Tool Co. has moved its corporate headquarters to Bermuda. Of course, nearly all the work done to run the company is done in the US, but corporate taxes go to Bermuda, which does not seem to have any corporate taxes at all. Being as Bermuda has a teensy population, the property taxes and other taxes are enough to make them welcome there. Forget that Bermuda has no pool of corporate executives, or even an actual market for Stanley Tools.
How can the US compete with that? By treating Stanley Tools as a foreign company, for starters.
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I don`t know if it good for anybody,but if it happens the government better show some results.
it`s onething to pay taxes it`s another to not see pothole being fixed or crime still rising.
here in s.f. were constantly getting fee increases and taxes ,but crime still goes up and potholes untouched.
only recently we got a big gang bust by I.C.E.(a federal angecy)not SFPD and one of the board of supervisor had the nerve to complain of excessive force.
all this money and none has resulted in lowering crime.
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Olbush lost an election for allowing that tax increase , if he had vetoed it he would have had four more of his own.
Raising taxes on our companys doesn't give the overseas company a compeditive advantage? If keeping jobs here rather than there is important then we don't want to raise taxes .
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When you talk about companies in other countries, you are often talking about competing with companies that pay their employees four dollars a day. What the US needs to do is to make products that cannot be made competitively abroad because we have the technology and patents and they don't.
If they lower taxes on US companies, there is absolutely no guarantee that the decrease in taxes will be passed on to the consumers at all.
Olebush claimed that his new taxes were "user fees" or some other deceptive thing of that nature. He refused to admit that they were actually new taxes. His flaw was in saying "Read my lips, No New Taxes", when he knew damned well that he would in fact have to raise taxes.
Stanley Tool Co. has moved its corporate headquarters to Bermuda. Of course, nearly all the work done to run the company is done in the US, but corporate taxes go to Bermuda, which does not seem to have any corporate taxes at all. Being as Bermuda has a teensy population, the property taxes and other taxes are enough to make them welcome there. Forget that Bermuda has no pool of corporate executives, or even an actual market for Stanley Tools.
How can the US compete with that? By treating Stanley Tools as a foreign company, for starters.
So we raise the hurdles?
The taxes are not the only factor , but they do not help keep jobs in the USA.
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So we raise the hurdles?
The taxes are not the only factor , but they do not help keep jobs in the USA.
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What hurdles?
Seriously, if the government dropped every corporate tax to zero, do you really think you would see the price dropped on anything?
I suggest that this would not happen.
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Brass Wrote:
>>So, how can you possibly justify driving on roads that were built with other peoples' and your money? [...] Maybe tomorrow, you should go ahead and start hiring your own army, sherriff's patrol and garbage disposal system since you are soooooo tired of being MUGGED at the point of a gun for others' benefit.<<
The problem with this is BT, nor anyone else is saying we should pay no taxes. The things you mentioned are exactly why we need to pay taxes and are the only real function of government. It's not the same as taking from someone to give to someone else you believe needs it. Every dollar you earn represent life. You gave some of your life (time) to earn it. How dare anyone decide what I gave my life for isn't mine!
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>>I suggest that this would not happen.<<
Does the government do anything but impede trade?
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How dare anyone decide what I gave my life for isn't mine!
Psst! what you gave your life for isn't all yours! In fact, most of it you are going to have to give to others.
Not unless you live on some desert island somewhere. If you wish to benefit from others as your customers, service workers, the teachers of your children, the builders of your home, well then, you are going to have to pay them something. They are unlikely to want to work for you for free just to glory in the shine of your amazing personality.
O! The unfairness!
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He can't be that stupid.
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Taking property from one person at the point of a gun, no matter the justification, for another's use is a mugging.
I'm inclined to say, "so?"
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So, how can you possibly justify driving on roads that were built with other peoples' and your money
Because roads are paved via a flat tax on fuel use, the more you use the more you pay.
How could you justify saying 95% of Americans should get a fuel tax cut and that 5% should shoulder the burden.
Why not round up that 5%, steal their property and send them to a concentration camp, but don't forget to pull their gold fillings.
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So, how can you possibly justify driving on roads that were built with other peoples' and your money
Because roads are paved via a flat tax on fuel use, the more you use the more you pay.
How could you justify saying 95% of Americans should get a fuel tax cut and that 5% should shoulder the burden.
Why not round up that 5%, steal their property and send them to a concentration camp, but don't forget to pull their gold fillings.
And the army?
Schools?
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I'm inclined to say, "so?"
Will you still say so when they come after you?
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And the army?
Schools?
Schools are funded by property tax, calculated at the same millage rate for everyone. If you house is worth more, you pay more.
They funded the military prior to the 16th with tariffs, duties and contributions from the states.
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And the army?
Schools?
Schools are funded by property tax, calculated at the same millage rate for everyone. If you house is worth more, you pay more.
They funded the military prior to the 16th with tariffs, duties and contributions from the states.
OMG! How horrible! People paying more when they have a higher level of wealth??????
Jesus GOD!!! Make it stop!!!!
And, here we are like a bunch of saps, owning houses and being mugged of our dollars by the local government to pay for public schools for kids WE DON'T EVEN HAVE (some of us) and for people WHO DO HAVE KIDS BUT DON'T OWN HOUSES!!!!!
OH GODS THE HORROR!!!!
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They pay at the same flat rate. It is not a progressive tax.
I guess your sarcastic reply means you have nothing serious to add to this discussion.
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They pay at the same flat rate. It is not a progressive tax.
I guess your sarcastic reply means you have nothing serious to add to this discussion.
I guess your indication of HOW I say something is your way of saying you have nothing serious with which to rebut.
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I have been countering your points all along, gently reminding you that the items you bring up are not funded by a progressive income tax, except for the military.
For example, police and fire departments are funded with local tax dollars.
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I have been countering your points all along, gently reminding you that the items you bring up are not funded by a progressive income tax, except for the military.
For example, police and fire departments are funded with local tax dollars.
You admitted that the more expensive your house, the more property tax you pay. How is that not your precious talking point "punishing success"?
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And if you buy more at the store you pay more sales tax. But you are taxed at the same rate.
How is that not your precious talking point "punishing success"?
Punishing success means you tax those who are successful at a different rate.
This is not rocket science. It is equal treatment under the law.
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I suggest that this would not happen.<<
Does the government do anything but impede trade?
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What do you think the Department of Commerce is for?
It appears you are still back in 1980, sitting on Reagan's knee.
"The government is the problem."
If this were actually true and Reagan believed it were true, he would have shut the sucker down, now, wouldn;t he?
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>>What do you think the Department of Commerce is for?<<
I didn't think you'd know.
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There is a Japaneese story od Judge Ooka.
Once a tax was levyed on houses , it was the Judges opinion that the houses of the wealthy were bigger and had more windows and doors so he levvyed the tax as a certain number of yen per door and a ceertain number of yen per window , so that the hovels of the poor would pay much less than the manses of the wealthy .
But there was a Merchant who in order to save himself from the tax boarded up all his doors but one and all of his windows but one , though his house was large he payed no more than the mite owed by a poor household.
The man was brought before Judge Ooka and he smugly stated that he was in obedience to the letter of the law .
Judge Ooka considered this case only a moment before he congradulated this man on his wisdom , praising his thrift and his cunning both Judge Ooka came down from the bench and shook the mans hand promiseing that with wisdom like that the man should be excused from the tax entirely.
The rich man was very pleased to accept Judge Ooka's proposal that he pay nothing for tax and said so in frount of the large assembled audience.
So be it , proclaimed the Judge , you shall owe no tax , and you shall have no door.
The Judge ordered a carpenter be sent to the house in question to seal the remaining door and window before the man should be allowed to return home.
After a few days of sleeping on the street and in the feilds the rich man realised that he was not popular with the townsfolk who were laughing at his predicament , he appealed to judge Ooka for an oppurtunity to pay his tax and open his door.
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There is a Japaneese story od Judge Ooka.
Once a tax was levyed on houses , it was the Judges opinion that the houses of the wealthy were bigger and had more windows and doors so he levvyed the tax as a certain number of yen per door and a ceertain number of yen per window , so that the hovels of the poor would pay much less than the manses of the wealthy .
But there was a Merchant who in order to save himself from the tax boarded up all his doors but one and all of his windows but one , though his house was large he payed no more than the mite owed by a poor household.
The man was brought before Judge Ooka and he smugly stated that he was in obedience to the letter of the law .
Judge Ooka considered this case only a moment before he congradulated this man on his wisdom , praising his thrift and his cunning both Judge Ooka came down from the bench and shook the mans hand promiseing that with wisdom like that the man should be excused from the tax entirely.
The rich man was very pleased to accept Judge Ooka's proposal that he pay nothing for tax and said so in frount of the large assembled audience.
So be it , proclaimed the Judge , you shall owe no tax , and you shall have no door.
The Judge ordered a carpenter be sent to the house in question to seal the remaining door and window before the man should be allowed to return home.
After a few days of sleeping on the street and in the feilds the rich man realised that he was not popular with the townsfolk who were laughing at his predicament , he appealed to judge Ooka for an oppurtunity to pay his tax and open his door.
This is EXACTLY the way things are now. The rich have extra resources that allow them to pay even LESS tax than the poor.
If we had a flat tax rate, the rich would wind up getting out of ALL their tax.
If you have more, you should pay a higher rate.
I don't think a move from 36% to 39% is an outrageous leap.
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And if you buy more at the store you pay more sales tax. But you are taxed at the same rate.
How is that not your precious talking point "punishing success"?
Punishing success means you tax those who are successful at a different rate.
This is not rocket science. It is equal treatment under the law.
And you'll tax internet purchases, correct?
Food?
Overseas imports?
What about duty free zones?
Never quite as simple as you'd like it to be.
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For those who tend to play at being obtuse, you'll notice my quibble with the tax system is that some people are taxed at different rates than others.
If the internet is taxed odds are that the rate would be the same for everyone.
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For those who tend to play at being obtuse, you'll notice my quibble with the tax system is that some people are taxed at different rates than others.
If the internet is taxed odds are that the rate would be the same for everyone.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember you being ok with people paying extra for extra speed, right? Would those people then be taxed at the same rate even though they are paying more and getting preference on the internet the way they get preference at every other gd thing they get by paying extra?
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There is a Japaneese story od Judge Ooka.
Once a tax was levyed on houses , it was the Judges opinion that the houses of the wealthy were bigger and had more windows and doors so he levvyed the tax as a certain number of yen per door and a ceertain number of yen per window , so that the hovels of the poor would pay much less than the manses of the wealthy .
But there was a Merchant who in order to save himself from the tax boarded up all his doors but one and all of his windows but one , though his house was large he payed no more than the mite owed by a poor household.
The man was brought before Judge Ooka and he smugly stated that he was in obedience to the letter of the law .
Judge Ooka considered this case only a moment before he congradulated this man on his wisdom , praising his thrift and his cunning both Judge Ooka came down from the bench and shook the mans hand promiseing that with wisdom like that the man should be excused from the tax entirely.
The rich man was very pleased to accept Judge Ooka's proposal that he pay nothing for tax and said so in frount of the large assembled audience.
So be it , proclaimed the Judge , you shall owe no tax , and you shall have no door.
The Judge ordered a carpenter be sent to the house in question to seal the remaining door and window before the man should be allowed to return home.
After a few days of sleeping on the street and in the feilds the rich man realised that he was not popular with the townsfolk who were laughing at his predicament , he appealed to judge Ooka for an oppurtunity to pay his tax and open his door.
This is EXACTLY the way things are now. The rich have extra resources that allow them to pay even LESS tax than the poor.
If we had a flat tax rate, the rich would wind up getting out of ALL their tax.
If you have more, you should pay a higher rate.
I don't think a move from 36% to 39% is an outrageous leap.
Unfortuneately we don't have Judge Ooka keeping the people who write these laws from leaveing windows open in the back. If poor people wrote the law they might be simpler.
http://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com/2004/06/29/108852798237769818/ (http://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com/2004/06/29/108852798237769818/)