Comments by "Wojtek The Bear" (@wojtekthebear4958) on "Is America's Tax System Fair? | 5 Minute Video" video.

player276 Yeah, no we didn't. The first income tax we had was during the War of 1812, and the first peacetime one we had was in 1894 through the Wilson Gorman tariff. Our railroad infrastructure was still being built then, and we didn't even have much of a road system because cars weren't around yet. Highways and such didn't start being built until WW1, during the times of the income taxes. Similarly electricity was declared a public goods in the 1930's, so the governments started regulating electric companies, usually by subsidizing them in order for them to provide more electricity than they otherwise would have. As for our water infrastructure, I can't find any accurate information on its history. Basically my point is if you want to keep our power grid subsidized, and our highways working, you need to give the government some taxes to pay for it. I'm sorry, I could've sworn that welfare programs were controlled by the government. Silly me, I guess they're controlled by Santa instead. Game Theory says that most people would've help the poor because it doesn't benefit their own interests, but we can't just have them dying on the street because few people want to help, so the government has to step in to fix the problem. I hate governments influencing an economy just as much as the next person, but even economics says that there are certain cases where government influence is necessary to reach a more efficient outcome.
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William Braganza Hanna Sigh, no. This is starting to get old. The roads are public sector. They are paid for through the public sector, are maintained through the public sector, and are public property. It's more like the private sector allowed to use public property if they serve the interest of the public by paying a tax to keep said public property running. I fail to see a problem with this. Just because you're so radically libertarian that you think EVERY tax is bad for some stupid reason, doesn't mean that society should suffer for it. We as a society like our streets, pathways, and transportation. Else we wouldn't be paying to drive cars and use buses. Mr. Joe Schmoe can not pay the tax all he wants and live a perfectly happy life biking to work or whatever, but in order to use government paid for and maintained roads, he needs to pay into the government fund that keeps them running. By the way, there are two alternative to this. Either no one pays for the roads and they become unusable, or private entities form monopolies on the road and force tolls down your throat so they themselves can maintain the roads. Of course, being companies, they are going to try to maximize profits, so the tolls are going to be a lot more expensive than the tax you currently pay.
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So instead you want to completely destroy our infrastructure, electricity generation, water infrastructure, and starve the poor because you don't want to pay taxes? Okay, go live in your anarchic society and tell me how it works out for you. Internet libertarians annoy me.
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player276 I never made a specification on government. Your state and local governments still need tax money just like the federal government does, and if you want them taking over more jobs (like repairing interstate highways as that is currently handed at the national level thanks to the power of regulating interstate commerce falling to Congress), you would need to pay them more money. I also didn't contradict myself, though I should've explained myself better. I meant on an individual level compared to a societal level. Individually, a middle class or upper class person sees little reason to give money as it doesn't benefit them in any way. Compound this with asymmetric information as the donators don't know which non-profit is good/efficient and which ones aren't, and you're left with many people not donating. On a societal level, we can't morally have our poor starving to death though, so the government decides to intervene. I can bring up a good government initiative too! Here is the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC (https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-income-tax-credit/eitc-earned-income-tax-credit-questions-and-answers). Basically if you earned an income, but it's below a certain threshold, the government will actually subsidize your income instead of taxing you. It's a negative income tax. Not only is this highly supported by economists, but it incentives the poor to try and find work, and increases their percentage saving by giving the money to them as a lump some instead of throughout the year. Of course, as a welfare program on its own, it'd need some changes, but it has shown a lot of promise (http://www.nber.org/digest/aug06/w11729.html). Also, the poor are mostly poor due to inefficiencies in the market, bad investments, and a slowly transitioning economy due to free trade. While the government could do a better job alleviating these issues, it was not a direct cause of them. I'm a little curious though, where do you think the government's influence is too great? I'm not trying to be facetious; I honestly don't know the specifics of what markets the government is operating in.
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William Braganza Hanna Uh, there was an economic system in place between feudalism and capitalism. It's called mercantilism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism). Anyway, yes, the infrastructure was funded through taxes once again. The bulk of our interstate highway system was built in the 1950's thanks to Eisenhower's Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Notice how it says Federal Aid. Basically the federal government would pay 90% of the construction costs for the highways as long as the state forked over the extra 10% Where did this money come from? This is taken directly from the Department of Transportation's website: "the Revenue Act increased some of the existing user taxes, established new ones, and provided that most of the revenues from these taxes should be credited to the HTF (Highway Trust Fund)" (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/fifahiwy/fifahi05.htm). So taxes. It was funded by new taxes, specifically on gas and cars. You also just used random words that sounded good. How is a financial system fascist? I didn't know my finances were extremely nationalistic and protectionist. Sure, they can be controlled partially by the government (socialism), but that's different from fascism. Also, do you know why something like the interstate highway bill was needed? Economics dictates that there are four areas where government intervention can be necessary. Those are: natural monopolies, private versus public benefits (carbon tax), asymmetric information, and public goods. The highways are considered a public good. The reason being that as public goods aren't excludable. Technically highways are a common good, but the same theory applies in this case. Because no one can be excluded from using the highway and it is non-rival to a point, no one will volunteer to pay for it (why would they when someone else could and they'd still benefit?) so no one in the society pays for it. This leads to a decaying infrastructure system. The government knows this, so they force anyone who many use the highway system, mainly people who drives cars (car tax) and use gas (gas tax) to pay a small fee that will go into the Highway Trust Fund to maintain the infrastructure. That is, unless you want to privatize our infrastructure. That would most likely lead to tolls everywhere, making our road network excludable), and create a natural monopoly in most all areas thanks to the fixed costs of setting up shop. Then the government would have to step in to regulate the monopoly just like they do for our water and electricity.
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William Braganza Hanna Consumers. It's pretty evident. Roads were created through state programs, consumers drive cars on said roads. Cars require fuel. Fuel is taxed to pay for roads. If you think taxation should be illegal, then you have a few things to learn. Namely, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
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William Braganza Hanna Wow, name calling, I've never seen that before. What's the point in even arguing that I'm not a socialist if you won't even listen. Once again it's like repeatedly smashing my head against a brick wall. Also, I know what fascism is, but the context in which you used it made no sense. Are you trying to say that the New York Stock Exchange is state owned? Or Goldman Sachs? Or all the community credit unions? It makes no sense.
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Wouldn't be the first time Prager has stretched the truth so much to be full of crap.
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Frankly.....yes. Taxes are often used for many great things that wouldn't be performed efficiently otherwise. For instance, our road network is funded 99% by taxes. Unless you want toll roads literally everywhere, heavily adding to commute times, and creating monopolies in many areas, this is the only way to do it. Our military is something else the government provides, which can't be provided by the free market. Sure, we'd still have private security companies to be hired out, but they wouldn't be strong enough if a national actor decided they didn't like the US. There are many ore example of stuff like this too.
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Let's make generalized statements about the poor because that doesn't seem like one of the dumbest things I could possibly do! Also if you think that the poor not wanting to work hard, which isn't even true but whatever, is communist, then you REALLY need to brush up o what communism actually is.
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William Braganza Hanna I gave you two different sources saying the state did, including the name of the bill and an account by the Department of Transportation. I also gave you the fund the money is in. Heck, here's their balance sheet (https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/51300-2016-03-HighwayTrustFund.pdf). Yet somehow you're right without providing any sources? Nazi Germany, a fascist country, was very protectionist during the Great Depression and extremely nationalistic. Usually when we have the leader of a country telling his supporters that they are a superior race than people from the countries around them, blame everything on another group (the Jews), and demand lost territory to the point of declaring war (http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=162), we label them as nationalistic. Let's look at socialist countries like Vietnam and China, shall we? Both countries are participating in the global market. Vietnam is a part of the TPP, a free trade agreement and very much something a protectionist country wouldn't join, and we have yet to see a war from them to reclaim lost territory. Now onto made up terms. There's no such thing as fascist economics. Hitler, a fascist, and Mussolini, also a fascist, practiced Keynesian economics (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2003/08/lew-rockwell/hitler-was-a-keynesian/). Its evident by them increasing government spending during the depression through building a highway network of their own, increasing their military, and other general public works policies. That's a uniquely Keynesian ideology. Do you know what other countries started practicing Keynesianism at the time? Britain, the United States, France, and just about every other developed country. It was just that Germany was the first country to adopt it, and they took it to a level that the other developed nations never did. Also, where was my straw man? If there actually was one, then I'm sorry and that wasn't my intentions, but I'm pretty confident that I didn't make one.
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William Braganza Hanna I already told you that. Here is exactly what I said, "Where did this money come from? This is taken directly from the Department of Transportation's website: 'the Revenue Act increased some of the existing user taxes, established new ones, and provided that most of the revenues from these taxes should be credited to the HTF (Highway Trust Fund)' (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/fifahiwy/fifahi05.htm). So taxes. It was funded by new taxes, specifically on gas and cars." If that's not enough for you, have another source (http://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/budget-explainer-highway-trust-fund). In it they say: "The HTF receives the vast majority of its revenue — around 87% in 2014 — from excise taxes on motor fuel, commonly known as the 'gas tax.'"
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William Braganza Hanna Well let's look at this using economics shall we? The first thing to note is that you can't dissociate one from the other. The tax on fuel creates a price floor of sorts above the equilibrium price of fuel. People can then choose to pay for the fuel and also the tax, or not. The two are interconnected though, and it creates exclusivity for our road network, fixing the public goods problem I already mentioned. There is another problem that this alleviates too though, and that is the problem of negative externalities. The carbon emissions and pollution caused by the use of the gas isn't taken into account when deciding the equilibrium market wage for a product. These leads to an overconsumption of the good, and an over creation of the negative externality. This can be seen in the smog in China, San Francisco, and so forth. The smog created in China is expected to kill up to half a million people each year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10555816/Chinas-airpocalypse-kills-350000-to-500000-each-year.html), but that's not factored into the price of the good. So to fix this problems, economics dictates that this is one of the areas that governments should intervene in by either increasing the price of the good to a level similar to the societal level (akin to what's shown here http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/beginning-economic-analysis/section_08/c802d86f838111dfb5ac4679c60a3ba9.jpg). The gas tax is just a way of doing this by raising the price of gas and therefore decreasing quantity demanded.
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William Braganza Hanna I directly answered it already. Consumers voluntarily pay. That's the whole point of quantity demanded in economics. You're trying to catch me up, and then seemingly ignore what I say in order to cry, "Aha!"
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William Braganza Hanna The roads don't generate profit. Why would they generate profit? What are you even talking about? Heck, the fund for our infrastructure system doesn't even have enough money to fully maintain everything (http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/252950-feds-highway-funding-will-last-until-june-2016), and yet you think it somehow makes a profit? The roads provide a positive externality through the ease and speed of getting across the city and nation, probably helping our productivity, but they do not directly produce any income. Even if they did though, it'd be meager compared to the taxes paid, and would most likely just be deducted from them. So if I paid a $3.00 tax on my gas and the road somehow generated an income per person of 50¢, the tax would just fall to $2.50. It's a more efficient system that way.
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William Braganza Hanna This isn't rocket science! In order for a road to make a profit, it needs some way of generating revenue. If it was a private enterprise, it would be through tolls, but no one wants to pay tolls everywhere and it would be incredibly inefficient. This means that the government, which is only trying to recoup costs instead of actually generate a profit, instead uses a gas tax instead of a toll (as tolls are very infrequent). The gas on tax is way cheaper in both time and money for those that use roads. Finally, roads are not a for profit enterprise, never have been, and it is completely idiotic to think such a basic need as roads should be made for profit. It is a welfare enhancing system the way it is, and completely utilitarian. Let's keep it that way.
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William Braganza Hanna The investors are the people. The people are benefiting from actually having a road network instead of walking to work. This indirectly increases productivity. I still fail to see what you problem is. The whole goal of the road system was to increase the productivity/welfare of the people; it was never meant to be for profit. As our GDP shows, it has done just that. That's like asking why the military isn't for profit. Perhaps because the government has different goals in developing said military? You seriously need to read a Country is not a Company (https://hbr.org/1996/01/a-country-is-not-a-company). People who criticize economics without understanding basic economics infuriate me to no end.
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William Braganza Hanna Too bad I'm not totalitarian. I just agree with modern economics that there are certain areas that is makes sense for the government to intervene in. At least I also know how stocks work. Last I checked, me owning shares in Coca-Cola didn't get me free Coke, nor did it guarantee me a share of their profits or even a discount on the Coke I do buy.. Dividends are voluntary after all. Let me ask you this then. Why do you think roads should be run for profit? Why do you think that in order to go to work, I have to own shares in the roads that lead me there? Or that to go to the grocery store, I need to own shares in those roads? It sucks to be poor then, as they have to pay terrible tolls on all the roads they go on since they can't pay to own shares, like it would even do anything if they could though. Your logic is so horrible that it's astounding.
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William Braganza Hanna Your question is simple. They're not running at a deficit. They're revenue neutral. Furthermore, the stagnating shares of Coca Cola has nothing to do with what the share actually gives you. It doesn't give you a discount, it doesn't give you free items, and it doesn't even guarantee you a dividend. Also, Coke's stock isn't stagnating. It's shares have gained in price. In 2012 one share would cost $35. Today it's $42 (http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/KO). That's after they did a stock split too (http://www.coca-colacompany.com/press-center/image-library/the-coca-cola-company-stock-split-history). So why you think they're stagnating I have no idea.
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William Braganza Hanna I didn't complicate my response. Your question was inherently flawed, making it simple to answer. My answer was just me basically saying your question was flawed. What's complicated about that? I also never said government itself was revenue neutral, just that this specific program is. This program has nothing to do with the government's deficit, as the government has created a specific tax to pay for it. Without the program there'd be no tax, so total costs and revenue would fall by the same amount, not helping the current deficit at all. Government programs like Medicare, Social Security, and the military are contributing to our debt. This is why it helps to actually know what you're talking about. Still, I guess if you through neverending claims out, statistically you're bound to get one right eventually. Maybe that day will come soon?
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William Braganza Hanna Sure, fine whatever you say. I'm done here. You're insane, can't create any actual arguments, and haven't been able to make one claim that wasn't easily disproven. Go on calling me a socialist/fascist/totalitarian (as you just showed you totally know what those are), I'm going to do things not related to smashing my head on a break wall multiple times.
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William Braganza Hanna Me ending the argument doesn't mean I give in. Once you actually make a good claim, then I'll give in. I'm just done arguing because you're being ridiculously stupid.
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William Braganza Hanna Also, we only spend about $40 billion a year on our highways (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12043/01-19-highwayspending_brief.pdf)
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William Braganza Hanna Oh shut up already! We get it; you have some deep seated hatred of taxes. They must've killed your father or something. It does change the fact that things like roads, which require taxes to operate, are welfare maximizing the way they are, and privatizing them would only ruin that.
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William Braganza Hanna Well before the government created the highway system we were a mixed economy. After we were a mixed economy. I see no problem here.
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William Braganza Hanna He asked for an example. Usually that requires, you know, giving an example. We don't need your generalized talk about how government is evil, we need specific examples showing a public good working when controlled by the private sector and failing when taken over by the government.
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William Braganza Hanna Um.....okay? We'll just ignore this then, 'then give an example of it working well' (taken directly from his message) Anyway, this is getting very boring very fast. Do you have anything else to say, preferably something that isn't a horrible regurgitated talking point? I'm not a socialist and never will be; I just follow modern economic thinking. You on the other hand, can't think critically to save your life, and it really hurts your arguments. Seriously what even is a fascist financial system? It's not even a thing. Even Wikipedia says that there's either no distinctive economic organization within fascist countries, or that they have an absence of economic thinking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism#cite_note-2). Words. Learn to use them.
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William Braganza Hanna Regulation and state ownership are two completely different things. Utility companies are regulated to keep their costs down due to their monopoly over an area, but they are not directly controlled by the government. Also, regulation has been with us since, oh, our inception. Look up Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge. In 1785, two years after we gained our independence, the Charles River Bridge was given a charter by the state of Massachusetts to construct a bridge over, well, the Charles River. So if government regulation existed before the term fascism existed, and we've been a mixed economy since then (as well as literally ever other nation on Earth), are we still fascist? Anyway, besides having their companies be forced to provide annual financial statements to get rid of asymmetric information, NYSE isn't regulated. Do you know why that regulation exists? Well, you see. There was this little company called Enron. They used to be very regulated by the government until they pleaded with them to be set free, and the government complied. Then there stock price shot up magnificently and they were voted the most innovative company in 2000. Great, right? Well then they went bankrupt without warning and everyone lost money. It turns out they were misrepresenting their financial records by using all but falsified statements. The accounting firm that audited them was also in financial trouble and was given some side payments and 'special services' to keep them afloat, so they made sure everything was reported to be squeaky clean. And that's how we got the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and the accompanying regulation. Turns out private enterprises aren't always the most trustworthy people.
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SgtLion I really don't give a crap if you're advocating for communism or not, but I do give a shit that your plan would fail horribly. Communal farms (and anything really) don't work because of the Tragedy of the Commons. Basically, as there's no incentive to do otherwise, people will over-farm, graze, hunt, fish, etc the land until it becomes useless as it's in their individual self interest. That's why farmland was privatized in the first place, it ended up being horribly inefficient after feudal times. Private property exists not to keep the rich in power or whatever, but because it's been found to be extremely beneficial to our economy. There was actually a few tribes of Native American fur traders that were amazing at what they did because, unlike their fellow Natives Americans, they actually had a rudimentary system of private property set up. This stopped things like over-farming and over-hunting. Here's a good article on the subject:https://fee.org/articles/native-americans-loved-private-property/
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William Braganza Hanna Fine then, I'll just quote your source directly. "Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics." Wow, you're claim was easy to disprove.
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William Braganza Hanna I'm not; as I said before that was taken directly from the source YOU linked me. Either you admit that your source has its faults and that fascism doesn't exist in a financial context, or accept that exact quote from it. Your pick.
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William Braganza Hanna Whatever you say.
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William Braganza Hanna Just whatever you say. I can't be bothered enough to argue with a wall.
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Colton Wayment Why not? It's not money that you're generously giving the government, but money that they are entitled to. If you don't pay, they have to acquire compensation through other means. I can't just buy a good or service without paying for it.
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William Braganza Hanna Colton Wayment Apparently neither of you have heard of a social contract before. That's great that you guys don't like where your money is going, but the majority disagrees, and you'll never guess who wins this argument. See, if people truly wanted a small, unintrusive government, we'd have more people like Ron Paul and Donald Trump in government, but instead they like the benefits a larger government provides, so they vote for the politicians that promise them these things. As the majority, they beat you, the minority. Sorry most people get what they want?
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