Daddy Warbucks

Elaborate a bit, especially the bolded part. If you were in this situation, and were able, what are some examples of participation and improvements you would take part in?

 

I don't really think that there's a debate to be had; it all depends on your opinion of what someone's responsibility to the world is. There are people who believe religiously that God will damn them to Hell if they don't give everything that they absolutely don't need to the poor. There are others who say "Fuck everyone else, I'ma do what I WANT!" I think that the answer is somewhere in between, and it's a lot more gray than white or black.

The only thing I see wrong with taxing the hell out of rich people is that the government is just as clueless with money as the original post about the girl buying a multi-million dollar house. At the control tower I work in, I'm bound by law to go through the military supply system whenever something breaks. So when a keyboard breaks, instead of buying one from Best Buy, I have to get a $975 one from someone's cousin. When a resistor breaks on a radar card, I can't just pluck it out and solder another two-cent resistor on it. I have to send it to Raytheon, who charges $7,000 for that service. And there's no way around it. The government just doesn't understand the value of money. How could they? They're so big that they deal with trillions of dollars. What's a thousand-dollar toilet seat matter in that perspective?

If the government was able to somehow figure out exactly how money could be used for good, I'd be all for it. Tax the fuck out of rich people, get that money to places that need help. But they aren't. That money goes toward ten-dollar rolls of toilet paper, trains to nowhere, and Toad Tunnels. And when a Congressman actually decides to give aid to another country, it ends up in a warlord's Swiss account. When we give money to an urban school, the money goes straight to administration or some retarded pet technology project instead of the kids. It just doesn't work.

I do think that people have a responsibility to give back to their fellow man. I don't think that the government should have a say in how people do it.

 

The same thing happens with big corporations. So what you are talking about isn't a problem with government per se, but just the size of an organization. Waste and inefficiency can always be improved upon.

And I would argue that most (or at the very least some) governmental functions don't act like this. I have dealt with the local departments of health and human services and they were very budget conscious. Same thing with schools. Those aren't strictly federal programs, but they receive federal funding that I think is well spent.

I have a hard time accepting this argument mostly because I come from a community and a family that would have died without government intervention. Without the WPA and various other government programs enacted during The Dust Bowl my hometown would have disappeared and people would have starved to death. Government programs can work and have done so in the past.

Even in my own lifetime I have seen people benefit greatly from government spending. When I was running an apartment complex everyone there received government as it was subsidized. And most of my tenants received other sources of government assistance. There were good apples and bad apples of course, but if you eliminated all of that funding then the bad apples would just be robbing you or begging in the streets. All of those programs can be improved in regards to waste, inefficiency, etc. but at their core they are valuable programs.

If taxes were completely voluntary how many people do you think would pay them?

 

I don't subscribe to the whole libertarian All Government Is Bad ideology; I think that there's a lot of good that the government can do. But I do think that the federal government should do less of the spending, for the reasons stated above. If we're going to have the government use wealthy people's money, then it should be done locally by people who are budget conscious. It shouldn't be in the hands of an enormous agency responsible for millions of people.

If we're going to say that the government is responsible for what's basically mandatory charity, (Not saying that this is a bad thing) then we should also make sure that they're responsible for getting as much out of that money as possible. And I really don't know how that would work. It's the nature of the beast to get more and more bloated as time goes on, because it's very easy to expand an agency's function (Hey, we have a new idea) and very difficult to take it away (But people are depending on this program! You can't get rid of it). Is waste a necessary part of the good that these programs can do?

 

A computer supply place where I live routinely supplies very large orders to government. And often, there'll be a fuckup. Sometimes a six figure fuck up. It almost always gets caught by the supplier, and they issue refunds. I've heard about $400k refunds. The government departments typically don't even open the envelope containing the refund cheque. They just shred it out of hand. Because it fucks with their budget.

The company in question has a bank account just for holding government refund's that they don't expect to be claimed - so they can hold that money for a required period and then reclaim the money. My understanding is that there's been an 8 figure balance in that account for as long as any of their financial people have been with the company.

That's for a single company, that admittedly supplies a measurable percentage of Australia's government IT hardware - but I doubt they'd have any more than 3% of that market. My understanding is that the situation is the same for pretty much everyone who supplies any substantial quantity of anything to government. I have no direct experience with US government - but I've heard the same thing happens there. I've seen the same issues when working with UK government also.

 

I don't know how local you want to get, but the problem with this is that wealthy areas would be awesome and poor areas would be extremely shitty. Sort of like high schools that rely on local property taxes for funding. The people that need help the most wouldn't be receiving any of it.

I don't know how it would work either, but I agree with you.

You can eliminate the program if you have a different way of meeting the need. But I agree that is a problem and I don't have a great answer for it.

I would say yes, to a degree. Nothing will ever be perfect, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Like Scootah said (I'm not trying to put words in his mouth, so if he doesn't agree with me using this I welcome him deleting it):

But I would still say that we should go after those that do go pissing in the bathwater. Like the idiots shredding refund checks, because they can't be pained with some extra accounting work.

 

So too local, and government help isn't properly distributed. Too broad, and a bunch of it gets wasted.

I think there's an equilibrium. Perhaps the state level would be best? For example, instead of having a massive Medicare program, maybe it'd be better to have each state have its own. Unfortunately, this could also backfire if some incompetent asshole runs one into the ground. Whoops, Indiana's Medicare just shit the bed, time to move to Ohio.

Also, this would cause businesses to move from places like Massachusetts to places like North Carolina. Fidelity did just that this year to escape a Massachusetts tax hike. Now, thanks to that tax increase, MA is actually losing revenue. It's a good thing they have government contractors who don't give a fuck, because otherwise the state would be bankrupt.

The problem with this is that it's very difficult to actually police waste because all the successes (people not wasting anymore) have such low impact. For example, Scootah's example - you could try to make it so that the government had to grab that $400,000 check. But if that organization's budget is 45 million dollars, that seems completely insignificant... especially because some retard is using 10 of those millions to build something completely unnecessary. Policing the 400k check is ridiculous when faced with that sort of stupidity.

The price of freedom is responsibility. And people are not very good at doing it.

 

Inefficiency is the price we pay for a Democratic government. Everyone seems to like to blame bureaucracy for most of the innefficiency but in my experience the bureaucratic parts of the government run things as reasonably as can be expected; it's congressional legislation that generates a lot of waste. I'm not just talking about your typical pork-barrel projects either. For example, when ARRA was passed there were two pools of money earmarked for organizations like mine: Guaranteed money based on the size of your organization (called CIP) and another pool of money that FQHCs would compete for (called FIP) by submitting proposals; best proposals got the money. However because Congress wanted to get this money spent extremely quickly there wasn't enough time to do enough preliminary planning to ensure money that was received was spent as best as it could. In the case of my organization, we got a FIP award for a proposal that we had to put together and submit in three weeks, which overlapped with some of the work being doing with the CIP money. We asked if we could combine the two projects in order to make best use of the funds but were told we weren't allowed to do that. Because we had to allocate our CIP fund before we even knew what the FIP guidelines were, we ended up with some duplication of project work. We're greatful for the additional funding because we'll be able to use it to increase our services, but at the same time are frustrated because we could've put the money to even better use had we more time to plan and more timely information from Congress.

Now we're holding our breath to see what kind of funding cuts Congress is going to enact. Just like before, we're probably going to have to scramble to react to whatever changes come down the pipe with little to no forwarning as to what we can expect. Not to say my organization is just standing idly by doing nothing while waiting for the outcome, but as usual the lack of information and expectation of quick changes is going to result in more inefficiency than would be necessary had we only been given reasonable notice and options.

 

This is TIB, what's to wonder? 75% of the internet cassanovas on this board would point out some meaningless physical flaw of hers and claim they wouldn't hit it because that flaw puts her below their standards while in reality 100% of them would rail her like no tomorrow.

 

[asskissing] I know you pop in and out, but I hope you're sticking around in this thread because your posts are always insightful, even when I disagree. [/asskissing]

This is the only part I really disagree with in your post. If people are willing to pay absurd amounts of money to watch me throw a ball, my only responsibility to those people is to throw the fuck out of that ball. As has been said in this thread before, most of us here (and the entire middle-class in the US) are far wealthier than a great deal of the world. However, we don't feel obligated, nor do we feel the rest of the middle-class is obligated to spend their extra money/time on providing for the needy before we provide ourselves luxuries. Sure it would be nice, just as it would be nice if the wealthy did so, but it's not really an obligation.

Edit: Just to clarify my position, I'm not saying "fuck the poor, charity is for bitches," just that we don't hate middle-class people aren't involved in charity, and that I'm not inclined to hate a rich person who isn't either.

 

I don't know if I'm accurately characterizing sloppypig's perspective or merely making a related point, but if you are Tom Brady (or Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett), any amount of reflection will show that you didn't actually do any of this on your own. To use Brady:

You played a game that was invented and perfected by others that came before you
You tossed a ball in a public park
You played in city sports leagues
You had coaches, and teammates, and referees and helpful parents
You played on your local high school sports team, which was provided for with public education funds
You played at a public university, supported by other people

Most importantly...you were born as Tom Brady. You're bigger, stronger, more athletic, etc. than 99% (at least) of the population, before you even pick up the ball. You were born holding a straight flush. Whether you then win the hand is up to you, but it's a nice starting position.

The idea of the self-made man is a myth. Even Bill Gates became Bill Gates by getting free time on the computers at University of Washington as a kid.

I don't mean to devalue hard work at all. It's just that at various points in these people's lives, luck and their communities have given them a helping hand. It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask them to occasionally return the favor.

Perhaps one shouldn't be obligated per se, but if you are buying your twelfth Lamborghini while you annual contribution to charities wouldn't buy a hubcap...you might be a dick.

OK, but is it not fair to say that one's obligations (which seems like too hard a word) to perform charitable acts rises proportionally with one's actual means of doing so?

 

I'm of the belief that they should do this, but make taxes due the day before the election is held.

 

There really is too much here that I fundamentally disagree with to get deeply into it, it just won't be productive, but I do feel like I need to say this:

I'm sorry I used the example of an athlete, because it's actually a perfect example of what bugs the hell out of me - getting upset about some tiny little side-effect of a much bigger problem. Like, say, complaining that charities are poorly run instead of thinking about the desperate need for charities to exist.

I do agree with morecowbell's assessment of what I meant, yes. But more importantly, the owners are the problem, the fans are the problem, the system is the problem. We're all watching the NBA owners cooking the books to keep as much money as they can and not have to pay the slaves they own a fair percentage of what they're taking from idiots so bored and suffering from a lack of self fulfillment that they don't realize they're being sold garbage for far more than they can afford.

Of course that's an entirely different argument and has no place in this thread, but it bothered me that I used the athlete as an example. By comparison to, oh, I don't know, let's say the members of the executive board of the NCAA, any individual athlete is Mother Theresa.


Here, let's try an entirely different way to go about this:

I've spent my entire life as a working artist in various different media. Played my first gig at 12 years old, and never had a real job until I was well into my forties. At about 44, I got a teaching position in what is routinely considered one of the top two or three art schools in the country. I have a salary, I have a retirement account, I have tons of paid time off, I have a health plan that's so comprehensive that I recently broke my little pinky toe at 2AM, and with a phone call I was picked up from my apartment, taken to the health center, had a doctor laugh and say, "swweeet!" when he saw my little toe sticking out almost backwards as he popped it back into place, and got a ride back home all within less than one hour.

Before this job, I would've just popped it back in myself and not even thought about it. From 21 to 43, no health insurance at all, self employed and constantly struggling, deep in debt and always behind in all my bills. When I see all my friends now, most of whom are still in that boat, and they ask me how I'm doing, I have a stock answer for them:

"If you hear me complain, punch me in the face."

I feel absurdly lucky to be in this position. Do I think I earned it? Fuck, yes, I earned it. Does that change the fact that I feel lucky and blessed to be doing what I'm doing? No, not even a little. So I do volunteer work, I sit on the Boards of Trustees of a few organizations that give back in various ways, I do a bunch of things that make me feel like I'm not just taking this sweet ride off into the sunset and saying fuck you to anyone who's still where I was for most of my life or WAY worse.

And I'm just a fucking teacher, not making 6 figures even after including the income from my work. So extrapolate - if I own an investment banking firm working in derivatives, destroying the economy and people's lives and getting wealthy in the process, I owe the world I live in big. I should be getting up early every morning just so I can go and spoon feed the people in my local soup kitchen with spoons and bowls and soup I paid for myself while I massage their feet and lick their genitals, and I should be thankful as fucking hell for the opportunity to help people because my life is cushy on the backs of others.

 

We do have this...it's called Medicaid. The Medicare system is partially designed to subsidize what state Medicaid budgets cannot fund. In a broader context, think about states like California that have massive budget deficits. Many healthcare providers in the state face substantial Medicaid cuts or delayed payments because the state did not generate enough revenue last year to pay its bills. Without the Medicare population/payment system, many of the healthcare providers would not survive. You have to have some mix of state and national payment system to mitigate that risk.

Here's what I don't get about many of the arguments that I'm hearing on this thread. Lots of people are saying that the government is highly ineffective at managing it's budget and aren't spending the tax $$ in the appropriate places (and I don't entirely disagree with this). So let's assume we were to revert to a merit system and suggest that at the end of every tax year, each taxpayer is responsible for allocating 30% of his/her income to his/her desired cause (charity, building roads, paying for schools, healthcare, etc.). Even if we could effectively execute that type of payment system, who would you suggest administrate it? How would you effectively balance the needs?

I'm making these numbers up, but let's say that once you add up all the $$ that taxpayers want to dedicate to healthcare, it represents $1.5 trillion of the total taxes collected. What happens if the actual cost of healthcare in the following year is $2.0 trillion? Who funds the other $500 billion? Conversely, what happens if the $$ collected is $3.0 trillion? Who is responsible for re-allocating the other $500 billion to other programs that were grossly under-funded, and to which programs should those excess funds go? So now we're in an administrative dilemma where we need to elect representatives on our behalf that will re-allocate those funds appropriately. How do we do that? Well, I guess we'll have to hold an election. So what happens if our representatives do not allocate the funds the way my wife and I would like them to be allocated? Well, I guess we'll have to have another election in a couple of years so that we can vote for somebody who we believe will better serve our agenda. Hmmm...sound vaguely familiar?

In an ideal world, it would be great if we could personally spread our $$ to the community as we see fit. In a practical world, that will just never work, which is why we have the system that we do. I don't disagree that there are major issues with the administration of our national budget, but to suggest that we as a population could solve those issues on merit is pretty laughable.

 

This is the main problem I have with your argument. You sound like a bitter old man who can't accept the fact that some people who make a lot of money work hard for it, and don't just screw people the whole time. My boss is 70, has a house on the water that I would guess is in the $2 million dollar range and a 50 foot yacht. He also still consistently puts in 70 hour weeks and employs almost a hundred people. He isn't getting child labor from China and sitting on a pile of money. As has been said countless times in this thread, his success, just like that of many others, helps people. It would be nice if maybe he gives more to charity, but quit acting like the CEO/president/owner of every company is hoarding the gold in his closet while every employee is getting paid minimum wage and working a hundred times harder.

 

No, the dude sounds like an artist. Which is synonymous with sounding like someone who has wondered how they're going to buy food this week.

No matter how hard you work - if you have a seven figure net worth, you're still following your passion. If you're 70 years old, working 70 hours a week, have a 2 million dollar house and a 50' yacht? You don't need to work. You enjoy your job. It's not the same as being 32, and working a 70 hour week to feed your family. You only do that shit because you enjoy it more than you enjoy not doing it. And really? If you're one of the hundreds of American's that the bill gates foundation is chasing to give away 50% or more of your personal wealth, because doing so will have zero impact on your quality of life, or the quality of life of your family - then really? No matter how hard you worked for that money - the decent thing to do is give some of it to the needy.

And While not every rich guy is a jerk? Hang around with rich people sometime. Especially rich people who went the ivy undergrad --> Business or law school --> White collar job --> Rich guy route. Those people are very consistently jerks. People who made themselves rich from hard work and major personal risk? People who knew real financial distress and suffering from a lack of money? Entrepreneurs who built something from an idea, with venture capital from their parents retirement funds or a credit card? They tend to be more normal people. But if you get the thousand richest people in your state in a room, and throw 500 rocks at them - you've got a pretty good chance of only hitting jerks.

 

Yeah, but apart from wasting the college fund their parents saved for, they very rarely screwed anyone for the right to be a jerk.

I generally think the middle ground is where you find ok people. I mean Socialist Alliance types and Tea Party members can all go beat each other to death with the tax code. Ivy Law School Grads and Art History Grad students can go bore each other to death over the worlds most awful dinner party. Al Quaeda and The Westboro Baptists have a fucking lot in common and wouldn't it be nice if they'd nail each other to crosses or something? Homophobes and All heterosexual intercourse is rape feminists probably also don't like to think about how much they have in common. I'm sure there are some ok people in all of those groups. But they mostly suck.

For the most part though, people who suck are just annoying. They don't have the ability to actually do anything really beneficial, and they usually didn't screw anyone to get to their annoying status and when they are actually screwing people - They're usually just a mouth piece for a larger population of idle and stupid.

The ludicrously wealthy in the western first world on the other hand? It's really hard to get to be part of that club without screwing people. It's really, really hard to be genuinely wealthy without fucking a few people over. And often, those people will be the people who work for you. And you rationalize the decision to screw people over as protecting yourself, or protecting your family, or decreasing employee health benefits and increasing copays to protect the broader group of employees from people taking advantage (that just coincidentally, adds another figure to your net worth). But the reality is that you screw people. Some social obligation comes with that fact I think.

It's also, I kind of think everyone in the western first world should do more to help the desperately poor. But for the most part - it's a pointless exercise. Bob and Freida McMiddleClass from Idaho contributing an extra thousand dollars this year for their church program to provide immunizations to central china peasants? That's really nice. They should feel good about it. But a genuinely wealthy person making one tenth of the sacrifice? It means so much more to the big picture.