Re: Salon: SS Reform: "Bush's Dirty Little Secret"

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 02/10/05 

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 23:31:31 GMT

On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:15:53 -0800, Courageous <dontwant@spam.com>
wrote:

>>FTR, I don't advocate taxing "the rich" per se, but simply following
>>the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of sound
>>taxation policy: "ability to pay" (OK, that does mean the rich, no
>>question about it) and "beneficiary pay" (largely but not entirely --
>>perhaps not even mostly -- the rich).
>
>*shrug*.
>
>Let's be frank.

Count on it.

>One can only feasibly tax excess.

Defined as...?

>One cannot get blood out of a turnip.

Uh-oh. Here it comes. "Income is wealth, but wealth is not wealth."

That about it?

>I believe that, if we are to tax in order to have government,
>what is fair game is disposable income.

ROTFL!! That is _exactly_ the lie I predicted above: you now claim
that because assets are not a "flow," they are not "blood" and thus
cannot be got from a turnip. Whereas income is a "flow," like blood,
so it _can_ be got from a turnip.

That about it?

So, if a billionaire manages his affairs so incompetently as to have
no income (or so shrewdly as to have no "disposable" income), asking
him to pay even one dollar of his billions in taxes would be trying to
"get blood from a turnip," and is not permissible.

But if a poor working guy who has _no_ assets but does have some
"disposable" income, that's fair game for taxation.

That about it?

Thought so. Sometimes I scare myself.

> People have different ideas on
>how to achieve that.

Yes, and people have different ideas on what constitutes an "excess"
suitable for taxation. For lying elitist apologists for privilege,
all the mansions, yachts, jets, ski lodges, Ferraris, vacation
ranches, etc. owned by a billionaire are not "excess" because they are
assets, not income, while the lonely little dollar a poor working
stiff would spend on a video rental is "excess" because it is income,
and should thus be taxed away from him so he doesn't spend it on his
wasteful, conspicuous consumption.

That about it?

Are you starting to understand yet just how deeply, irredeemably evil
such views are?

-- Roy L