Obama wins

Impending_Doom66 said:
I'm just curious you say we don't pay for education but then where does the money come from? China, a money tree? Seriously people pay taxes and the government goes and blows them on a stupid war or they have all their porkbarrel projects. Granted alot of money doesn't come from taxing the poor but it is still a significant amount. If you want manditory community service then it shouldn't just be reserved for young people. Also you say I have time to post in a forum but is it so wrong for me to have freetime. I'm sorry with every minute of my free time should I be slaving away to see what I can do for my community. I mean god forbid I should have an hour to myself.
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You seriously think that the taxes you pay individually are equivalent to the amount of benefits you got from the government, let alone your education? First of all, most of the taxes in this country contrary to popular belief are already paid by rich people, something like the top 10% pay like 70% of the US tax revenue. The fact that the government is allocating rich people's money to you is not a trivial issue, and you should stop being bitter about the government not looking out for you, when clearly it is. You pay for some of the government, but if you're as poor as you say you are, you can hardly say that you're paying for anywhere near half of it, let alone the whole thing.

I'm not judging you, I'm just pointing out the fact that the government gave you something for cheaper than you would have got it if you had to buy it in the free market.

Second of all, the government is able to provide education at a discounted price. This is because the education system is ultimately a monopsony, where the government is the sole supplier of labor, etc. I won't go in depth because clearly there isn't a point in discussing this with you, but the government is able to obtain labor at a wage that is cheaper than the market clearing price. It's awfully hard to find a job as a teacher in a non-public school, because there aren't that many in the first place due to the difficulties involved in competing with the government, meaning you will pretty much be forced to work at the margin.


Third, pork is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, it is not a good thing in general when money is wasted. However, in our current system, the money tends to get wasted in various different ways. When you denounce the pork that other people receive, be prepared to take a close look at the benefits you've gotten from porkbarrel spending in your favor. It may be possible that you may not even have considered that nice thing your congressman got for your state as pork.

Finally, free time is time you have after you do everything you need to do. It is a condition, not a right. Quite frankly, I don't care what you do in your free time since its none of my business. But the fact that you do have free time is an indicator that you are not on a margin that requires you to give up something important, like food, in order to do community service. I will even go so far as to predict that you have more than 2 hours of free time every day, let alone a week. So if you were forced to do mandatory service, you would be able to adapt quite easily, unlike the dirt poor immigrant that is forced to work 3 jobs just so he can feed his family. If the government wanted you to pay back part of your education by doing service, then that is something you need to do before you go play soulcalibur or whatever.

As for the point about reserving it for young people, a student doesn't have the same responsibilities as an adult. If you were an adult, the chances of you actually being on that margin are actually rather high. Many adults don't actually have very much free time. Also, people in school are more useful because after a certain period of time after not being educated, you just get rusty. I know after I was in 6th or 7th grade, my parents didn't know a damn thing about my homework, because they've just been out of school that long. Pretty much, its a rationing tool at its core that takes into account diminishing marginal returns. The least harm, and the most benefit will come from such a program by focusing on a specific group that is most likely to help and least likely to be harmed. Any policy that doesn't take account things like reality is stupid in my opinion. Also, young people are the most likely to get valuable lessons out of doing community service. Like how to care for your community. So there's an ulterior motive in this as well, but a practical motive in the fact that schools REALLY need help.

Also, don't take this the wrong way. I believe that you have the right to not want to do community service. I just don't think you can honestly say however, that the community service is "unfair".
 
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iKotomi said:
I'm not judging you, I'm just pointing out the fact that the government gave you something for cheaper than you would have got it if you had to buy it in the free market.
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In the free market, I get a choice on if I want to buy or not, be it product or service.
 
You got me there. Not everyone wants or needs an education. However, education is considered something so important that we let the government take care of it because it is so costly to an individual. Its a natural fact that in the free market, not everybody buys a particular good. Far from it actually. Education is a luxury, and quite frankly its not even a choice between education and giving up something else. For many people, it would be completely unaffordable because it is outside of their potential budget set. Because in general, we want much much more people getting an education than would get under a market equilibrium, we have the government subsidize it for us in the form of actually running the system and making it available to all.

Chances are, the people that don't have one aren't actually earning enough money to pay income taxes in the first place. The increase in the gap of income distribution between rich and poor isn't just a matter of "unfair" taxes or business practices. The main issue is the significant increase in the returns of higher education in the past few decades. The amount of people getting higher education hasn't increased very much in the past few decades, while the amount of money that these people earn has. Part of this is the fault of public education not preparing enough students well enough, due to lack of funding, inefficient teaching, the fact that even though the education is available kids have to work and don't go to school, and other arguments that are still being developed such as the importance of education before the age at which people start going to kindergarten. But even that is so much better than nothing. If you think the world is a better place where only rich people can get an education, I'm sorry for you, you were born 200 years too late. I'd rather live in a place where people at least have a fighting chance to be rich.

Maybe it is unfair that rich people are picking up most of the bill. But I think that universal education is important enough to be considered a public good. The playing field is just too uneven at the start without it.
 
I have to agree with Kotomi about one thing: education is one thing that does not work under a free market system. Leaving education to an elite minority only creates a world where ignorance runs rampant and the gap between social classes widens to an insurmountable distance. Education, even moreso than health care, needs to be universal and available to everyone at the best quality possible.
 
iKotomi said:
Maybe it is unfair that rich people are picking up most of the bill. But I think that universal education is important enough to be considered a public good. The playing field is just too uneven at the start without it.
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sure education is important, and I would gladly donate some of my money to help it along, as long as its my fair share. The fundamental concept of me having to foot most of the bill just because I have more is repulsive. Not to say I mind giving more, but at least give me some sort of incentive to do so.

And it goes beyond education by far. Being forced to foot most the bill for every bad governmental decision that i had no part of. There would be no room to complain if i paid 70% of the taxes and got 70% of the say in matters, or if i paid an equal share and got equal say, but thats not how it stands.

Its infuriating to see a bad decision made and go 'yup, im going to get to pay to clean this mess up'
 
I just love how people are blaming Obama for all of this, when the tax system has been in place for what, almost a hundred years? Great.
 
Sorry, I just had to put this. :p


Seriously thou, big challenges up ahead. Hope he's ready to take them head on. :)
 
You do realize that even though you are taxed more, because you have more income, you are able to save a larger percentage of your income after taxes? The idea behind the progressive tax is that the marginal utility of an additional dollar is much higher for a poor person than a rich person, since regardless of income, there is a fixed amount of consumption that is necessary to live.

Should a person that spends 30% of his income on necessities pay the same percentage of his income in taxes as a person who spends 5% of his income on necessities (not because he's spending less, but he's earning more)? The richer person may pay more in nominal value, but the poor person pays more in relative value of his money. If you study economics at all, the first thing you need to understand is the fact that relative valules are much more important than nominal values. To me it seems the most fair when the relative value of the last dollar a person has paid in taxes is equal across income brackets, and that so happens to require a progressive system due to its relationship with nominal values.
 
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