America's Tax Burden To Rise

So it begins (maybe):

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So they're already cutting pensions, but the notion of raise taxes (some of the highest taxes are in NJ) might have to put on the table now.

I'm surprised nobody has suggested franchise taxes or state corporate taxes, since .

Texas, which has no personal income tax but sales/use and franchise taxes, have seen yet another year of increasing revenue from taxes collected. And now, Chaos's report shows that personal income taxes collected by states who issue such taxes are still declining.

So, is it time for those states to get out of the stone-age and actually think for once about state revenue, or will they continue to milk their citizens for whatever little they are worth and continue this death spiral to oblivion?

Only time will tell.

I thought you objected to taxing businesses? Or am I misreading something in there? I probably am.

Most states are hopelessly dependent on federal funding for the big stuff like interstate highways and infrastructure, it's a byproduct of the modern age. Sadly, that's not going to change anytime soon. In order for states to have economic independence, they need to have commerce. Most states do that by offering favorable tax rates to large companies to get them to setup headquarters there. So, in order for states to increase their revenue, they either need to tax the people or risk losing business investment. Sooner or later, we either need to accept a lower standard of life or be prepared to pay a lot more in taxes both personally and commercially. There really is not a level of downsizing of government that changes that, and that's why economists and (basically every realistic person) thinks the tea party are nincompoops.

I'd be fine with paying higher taxes if I could see tangible benefits from it. All those lovely socialist countries in Europe that actually provide for their citizens at the cost of a considerable tax come to mind.

What I see more likely happening is something like the current game being played by ISPs: corporations strong-arm the government into subsidizing them, then they continue to stick it to consumers with shitty service and high fees. Why would I want to throw my money at infrastructure that won't benefit me?

Seriously, I have never seen a tax a democrat did not support.

I don't object taxing businesses, or being taxed period.

I object the use of the money for wasteful and unproductive projects.

That is one of the things that the federal government should provide. Especially since they started taxing citizens.

As structuring and legal standpoints, you are correct.

However, it doesn't matter where the company is located if they have NEXUS in the state (state taxable income for those who don't know what NEXUS is).

For example, if a Texas company (doesn't matter what structure it is) has a store in Indiana and sells to both Indiana and non-Indiana citizens, then that Texas company has NEXUS in Indiana, and are subject to Indiana taxes (and local taxes too). The amounts depend on the person in question that they sold it to, and if the product is taken outside the state (delivery, where the person who purchased the product takes ownership of the product). If it is a service company, that's simple, since all services are subject to the state the it was performed. Tangible property, it gets tricky.

So, you are partially correct, and you are partially incorrect.

There are ways to encourage businesses. A Union state would be looked at negatively from foreign (to the state) investments, especially when it comes to labor and production expenses. Another way a state can influence a business is their business tax burdens (property, income, franchise, and so on). Lastly, the state's regulations on the industry that the business is in directly influences said investments.

Business friendly states generally have less regulations, lower tax burdens, and are not unionized. Those states also are the ones that prosper the most from business tax revenue, because they are able to encourage businesses, and therefor able to collect said revenue.

The business unfriendly states have no choice but to tax their citizens, and you also find that they are the ones who are bankrupt, who's citizens are fleeing, and the ones that are harder to recover from. So, like I said before, stone age.

You may. I won't.

My standard of living has increased, and my state tax burden has not. So, there goes your hypothesis.

Unless Texas becomes a blue state that is. That is the only way I can see my standard of living to decrease AND my state tax burden to increase...
And yet, you fail to realize that it is cutting wasteful spending is the whole point of "downsizing" government.

But I would like for you to argue how increasing spending and taxes has helped out Michigan, or Vermont, or New Jersey, or even California.

What one person considers wasteful, others consider essential. I don't need instruction on economics from the guy that thought posting the cover of an econ book somehow disproved 5 decades of statistical analysis.

I would consider spending millions of dollars on how to allocate millions of dollars wasteful spending.

Explain then, how encouraging people to not work is helpful to the economy.

Wait, that requires you to actually have taken an economics course. I suggest you do that first.

You're talking about corporate subsidies, right?

No, wait, you must be referring to how private corporations pay people so little (and lobby to keep it that way) that citizens are better off on the government dole.

Or were you just talking about politicians and their complete inability to do ***-all these days? I sort of encourage the idea that they don't do anything because they seem to be very good at making things worse, especially owing to corporate lobbyists buying them off en masse.

Or paying farmers not to grow anything...

Let's see. Welfare is still at the same rate it was when the minimum wage was $5.25/hr, $140 a month plus food stamps which vary between state, but usually average around $133 a month.

So that's about $273 a month with ~$133 of it only able to purchase qualifying food. Versus a minimum wage job which pays (Federal min) $7.25/hr. Let's now incorporate the effect of the ACA and use a 29 hour work week.

$7.25 * 29 * 4 = $841 * .80 (Federal & State taxes plus standard deductions) = $672.80.

So we have $273 vs. $672.80 for a single person per month. So nope, still better to work for your money then collect welfare and food stamps.

You forgot that living expenses are typically lower due to section 8 housing, and not to mention that typically a person would have children, and or disability, it factors in.

But if you're factoring in work for a lot of people you also have to factor in the cost of transportation, now it's fine in big cities where there's public transportation, but (and I can't stress this enough) not everyone lives in big cities.

Maybe for a single male with no dependents (I know that your food stamp numbers are wrong for my state, not sure on welfare, I'd have to check with my friend who works for the department that administrates that), but start throwing in the money for having dependents and things change fast. And there's section 8 housing and similar forms of housing to account for. Don't tell me you can pay your bills and rent on less than $700 a month, at least not living on your own.

Anecdotally, since I'm feeling too lazy to look it up, more women seem to be on government assistance than men. I know the numbers of homeless women versus homeless men are quite disproportionate (far more homeless men).

I'll give you credit, though, you didn't make the usual error of assuming a full 40-hour week. Actually getting 40 hours consistently would be just barely enough for a single person to scrape by (and get massively screwed the instant they need to pay for anything above ~$50, e.g., almost any kind of vehicle repair -- ditto missing a single day of work).

Yeah, people shouldn't be making wages so low that they are living check to check. But that is our system of subsidizing corporation's profit margins.

$273 per person, which includes children too.

A single mother with 2 children equals $819. A 2 parent household with 2 children equals $1,092. That's not including any additional benefits for living with no job. Which is nearly free rent, cable, and cell phones.

Why should we pay for people to produce kids?

Name a corporate subsidy. I know you, and a few others, likes to go back to that excuse, but go ahead and name a few. I doubt you can name some.

And you are ok with that? Because I'm not.

If 1,100 bucks a month for a single mother of 2 seems like encouragement not to work, you are supremely stupid. In even the cheapest places in America, that's about half of what you need to survive as a single parent of 2, and that's if they're all in good health.



How about the estimated 100 billion paid out in grants and tax credit to companies in 2013? A few hundred million of that going to Merk, who then sent 98% of it's recordable income abroad to shell corporations? Government is paying them to research medicine so they can make boatloads of money and not even pay taxes on it.

Also, no, I'm not ok with farm subsidy, but why is it that when wasteful spending comes up, it's always poor people in inner cities that are the target and never the ridiculous amount of other welfare spending?

Wut?

Also, just because it pisses me off when people refer to government cell phones as "Obamaphones," the program to provide limited telephone communication to the impoverished dates back to at least Reagan.

a.) Farm subsidies were the first thing I thought of but I opted to use a broader term.

b.) "Too big to fail" bailouts not ringing many bells for you? In a properly capitalist economy, we let the *** expire and permit someone else to move in, rather than bolstering shitty car companies and banks that both caused the crisis and profited hugely from it. That's pretty much the ultimate form of paying someone to not work: "Screw up hard enough, kids, and we'll give you a couple trillion in spite of your record-setting profit margins."

c.) I think this is the first time I've ever mentioned corporate subsidy around here, so I don't know where you got this ridiculous notion that I fall back on it constantly.

d.) I'm going to assume that your failure to respond to the rest of what I said implies tacit agreement.

And, just to be clear, I am not especially interested in having a pointless debate with you, but I sure wasn't going to let you start in on your usual "Damn those poor people" rant without bringing up how many rich people (by means of their corporations) have sucked dry the teats of Uncle Sam, too.

Just going by some raw numbers for a single person.

Food stamp info:
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Welfare info I was using NJ's amount, but maximum is $203 so add another $63 tops if you want.
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As far as housing goes, no idea how that works with welfare, but using the 29 hour work week, you need at least two jobs to support yourself it seems.

Both options would have you living paycheck to paycheck or benefit to benefit.

Don't forget, too, that those are the maximum values. Individual benefits can and often are quite a bit lower than that.

Yeah, you have to be disabled, unable to work, etc. to get the full $203.

Most individuals are getting limited to no assistance, regardless of whether they might really need it. Welfare is primarily aimed at breeders, because obviously the most important people are those too poor to buy condoms and too stupid to avoid procreation.

But, again, individual welfare, whether legitimate or fraudulent, is a long way from the sole form of wasted government money and it is quite disingenuous to take a whip to the lowest of the low without simultaneously recognizing the billionaires who play the same kinds of games.

I would love to see what would happened if all subsidies were ended, oil, farm, corporate, etc.

People might actually get a fair chance to compete.

The economy would implode if it was done quickly, it would go into recession or possibly depression if done at a moderate pace, and it wouldn't happen at all if attempted at a slow pace (give lobbyists 5 years and they can get any decision changed -- look at how ACA has been rewritten every 5 minutes since it got passed).

Pure, laissez-faire capitalism is pretty terrible, anyhow. Just like Marxism, it looks sensible enough on paper but it bursts into flame when exposed to reality.

In a capitalist system, the government's only role is to ensure the security of holdings (register ownership of things like property) and ensure public health. People champion capitalism without realizing that we aren't capitalist.

It seems like it all goes back to American Ego.

Perhaps the original intent on giving welfare to the 'breeders' was that it would create cheap labor by the time the offspring turned 18. Only problem is they wanted everything without working for it and refused to work cheaply.

Original 'Murica' egos begot children with even worse egos. And now it's reached its breaking point.

Could just simply be that some people don't like to watch others starve, including children and expect society to take care of everyone, including the weak, not just the strong and those who use others.

But you know, everything is a conspiracy.

Pure capitalism is what made the American economy. Only problem is capitalism crumbles with expansion.

Not everyone can be rich, and a growth economy can't last forever.