Agenda Items for Restoring a Conservative US

[Juice]

Algol-So there is no "gap" now? There are no private schools for the rich? There are not better public schools in upscale neighborhoods, who hire private detectives to insure that attending students actually live in that area? There are not public schools for the really smart kids to attend who can pass stringent entrance tests?

Privatization means choice and competition and doesn't mean that they don't get allocated government funding. It just means that they will hire the best teachers and get rid of teacher unions and control costs or students will not attend that school, which, if this regime is allowed to continue just means a bailout, which they are doing anyway.

I like the list WTS it looks like the one that explains all the extra billing on my cell phone bill.

[whitetrshsoldier]

All those taxes, and every other tax could be replaced by a transaction tax of 0.0002% on all electronic transactions. This would be 2 cents on $100. In its first year it would remove all government budget deficits at every level of government. In two years it would pay off the national debt and fully fund Social Security and Medicare for the next thirty years. In three years it would provide a budget surplus of $500Billion. In 5 years it could be reduced to 0.001% and still fully fund all levels of government.

This is from a study published a few years ago by a couple of Columbia University economists. The Wall Street Journal came out with a scathing editorial against it. The idea that bankers would have to pay a tax of $20,000 on a $Billion transaction was seemingly enough to grind world trade to a screeching halt. Never mind that the brokers in these trades make at least 100 times that.

Unrealist42,

This sounds good to me. An electronic tax could be less than an actual sales tax [due to it's reduced overhead], combined to be one "Fair Tax", meaning that a persons' income is retained in full and they have full power over how they contribute via taxation.

http://www.fairtax.org/

[Alun]

While I would support a simplification of the tax code, the electronic option seems somewhat arbitrary and unreliable. If we look at whose money is actually involved in these transactions, would the distribution be reasonable? Wouldn't almost all of the tax be made on stock brokers? (Of course they'd pass it on to their clients, but aren't 90% of them the rich?)

The other problem with such a solution is that I don't know how reliable it is. I mean, who knows whether rapid-stock trading would stay fashionable under those conditions, or even absent the tax. A .0002% tax certainly sounds small, but some stocks can be traded hundreds of times a day in the market today (by computers); there'd be a huge loss to taxes if that continued. Which means it wouldn't, which means the tax would actually slow down the stock market. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, since I'm skeptical of the social value of high-speed trading, but your numbers are probably a long way off in that case.

[Unrealist42]

While I would support a simplification of the tax code, the electronic option seems somewhat arbitrary and unreliable. If we look at whose money is actually involved in these transactions, would the distribution be reasonable? Wouldn't almost all of the tax be made on stock brokers? (Of course they'd pass it on to their clients, but aren't 90% of them the rich?)

The other problem with such a solution is that I don't know how reliable it is. I mean, who knows whether rapid-stock trading would stay fashionable under those conditions, or even absent the tax. A .0002% tax certainly sounds small, but some stocks can be traded hundreds of times a day in the market today (by computers); there'd be a huge loss to taxes if that continued. Which means it wouldn't, which means the tax would actually slow down the stock market. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, since I'm skeptical of the social value of high-speed trading, but your numbers are probably a long way off in that case.

The extremely low transactions costs of high speed computerized stock trades are one of the reasons for market volatility far out of reasonable expectation or market need. This tax would act to slow them down a little and make the markets more reasonable for the great majority of traders and investors. High speed computerized trading has not increased the efficiency of the markets as much as their volatility as demonstrated some months ago when the stock market plunged 800 points in a matter of seconds.

While the cumulative effect of the tax would seem high for people like stock and currency traders it would bring some sanity to these markets which they are sorely in need of. Besides, the cost per trade is still extremely low, comparable to the cost of electricity to run the computers that make the trades. They could invest in more efficient computers and entirely offset the increased cost of the tax.

The numbers were not mine, they were from respected economists who used the data available on electronic transactions. They deliberately excluded cash transactions because the data is not as precise. There is a steady movement of transactions from cash to electronic, the money this tax brings in will only increase.

If you do not wish to pay the tax just use cash. This makes the tax entirely voluntary.

Collecting the tax could be easily implemented because there are very few companies that clear electronic transactions. The tax, like the fees these companies charge, would be extracted during the transaction itself and would fall equally on both parties. Unless you are making frequent high value transactions the tax would appear non-existent.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just recently proposed a small transaction tax on international banking transactions as a permanent method for funding economic development and aid to the less developed world.

This idea is not as far fetched as many people think. It is under serious consideration in many places.

[Algol]

Algol-So there is no "gap" now? There are no private schools for the rich? There are not better public schools in upscale neighborhoods, who hire private detectives to insure that attending students actually live in that area? There are not public schools for the really smart kids to attend who can pass stringent entrance tests?

All those things do exist already, but by privitizing education would just make them all the worse. What does getting rid of the teachers union accomplish? Granted, not all teachers deserve the money they make, but there are some who deserve more. Those who deserve more need to remain in public schools because they are the ones who have the greatest chance of influencing the most children. If anything, the government needs more involvement in education, making sure that the right people are in the teaching profession. With the right instructor, a student can learn more than they would at a privitized institution. It all depends on the individual.

[whitetrshsoldier]

All those things do exist already, but by privitizing education would just make them all the worse. What does getting rid of the teachers union accomplish? Granted, not all teachers deserve the money they make, but there are some who deserve more. Those who deserve more need to remain in public schools because they are the ones who have the greatest chance of influencing the most children. If anything, the government needs more involvement in education, making sure that the right people are in the teaching profession. With the right instructor, a student can learn more than they would at a privitized institution. It all depends on the individual.

Algol,

Getting rid of any "Union" gets rid of a "collective" and restores rights to the "individuals" that you praise. Either for their "exceptionalism" or for their "failures".

Collective bargaining is simply generalizing, and doesn't do anybody any good [except for those who don't deserve it].