Taxes, time to pay your fair share

[thrash]

tjamz;191799 wrote:
The way the electoral college is now it is set up to grant larger numbers of votes for more populated states (read East/West coast) since it is based on the number of members of the Senate & House. In my opinion, more Democrats would vote in ND and more Republicans in MN if there were no electoral college (using those two states as an example) since their votes would actually count.

The current algorithm blends total population and statehood. The ratio of EC votes to humans is higher in lower populated states like ND, since you get one selector per senator and per representative. This effectively gives residents of ND more "say" per warm body than residents of california, even though california aggregately has much more say in things.

Under today's system, the ratio of electoral power between CA and ND is 55:3. Under a purely representational system, it would be 53:1

[Guest]

Ok...can we at least agree to split the electoral college if (in ND) 2/3 vote Repub and 1/3 vote dem (needing >33% of the vote to even get one vote in ND)

[GarageAlchemist]

tjamz;191801 wrote:
And this thread just spun wildly out of control.....

why? government provided health care is a big part of many countries tax policy

[integra_gsr98]

The government should NOT provide health care to its citizens.

/thread

[StangerBanger96]

GarageAlchemist;191837 wrote:
why? government provided health care is a big part of many countries tax policy

It's not the governments responsibility to provide universal healthcare. We wouldn't be able to afford it either unless you wanted astronomically high tax rates. It would hurt the nation more than it would help it.

[DaveH]

I know "healthcare" is the latest big political football, but it doesn't really make sense. It's much more important to have food and shelter than it is to have healthcare. Without food and shelter you don't need healthcare. The government should supply everyone with food and shelter, that would make much more sense than government supplied health insurance.

:icon_albino:

[2slo50h]

StangerBanger96;191843 wrote:
It's not the governments responsibility to provide universal healthcare. We wouldn't be able to afford it either unless you wanted astronomically high tax rates. It would hurt the nation more than it would help it.

Of course universal healthcare is not in the budget, with the estimated **$60 Billion **that will be needed to pay for our returning vets injury and post dramatic stress.

:icon_thumleft:

[Guest]

GarageAlchemist;191837 wrote:
why? government provided health care is a big part of many countries pay outrageous amounts of tax

Fixed your post for you.

[StangerBanger96]

2slo50h;191854 wrote:
Of course universal healthcare is not in the budget, with the estimated **$60 Billion **that will be needed to pay for our returning vets injury and post dramatic stress.

:icon_thumleft:

Regardless of the view on the war, troop funding is more important than universal healthcare. That will never happen and never should.

[Guest]

If you want healthcare to stop being so expensive you need a couple things to happen:

1. Stop allowing prescription drugs to be advertised on TV. PERIOD. 90% of the time I watch those commercials and think "hmmm....on any given day I could have some of those symptoms"....and i'm not alone, more people DEMAND prescription drugs than ever before and Dr.'s are afraid to not prescribe them for fear of lawsuits....which brings me to #2

2. Frivolous law suits. They need to end. Period. Dr's charge so much because they have to carry crazy amounts of insurance. If a Dr forgets his watch inside you, absolutely you should sue him...if your incision doesn't heal w/o a scar, you have no case. Sorry.

I could go on, but I'm tired....Dave/thrash should have more input on this topic as well.

[DrifterExtreme]

just to make this clear i'm going back to the taxes being an equal percentage no matter the income.

now i don't care if your unable to pay your bills or are on wellfare.. or w/e

it is not my duty( talking mostly about my parents) to help your ass pay bills. who thought it would be a good idea to help out poor ppl. i think if you were smart enough to succeed in life why should you pay more in taxes then someone who makes minimum wage.

considering the amount my parents pay in every year would really piss me off if i was in there shoe's. i mean we have all these system's setup for poor yet the middle class gets the short end of the deal. i don't get it, and don't tell me it is because we can "afford" to pay in more. that is a shitty excuse to take from the rich and give to the poor.

so i'm all for taxes being equal...

[torbs]

Hilary (or most Democraps it seems like) is kinda like Robin Hood...Take from the rich and give to the poor...and heath...NO WAY IN FUCK will I pay in to cover peoples asses who are too lazy to get/purchase health insurance...it shouldn't be the governments responsibility to pay in for others' laziness. We all know that it isn't hard to get a job full time right outa high school that pays $9-15/hour...with that amount of money, funding one's own health insurance shouldn't be a problem (that and several companys pay for it anyway). If somebody can't afford it because they have too many kids, then that's their own damn fault...This may sound harsh, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. It shouldn't be the government's responsibility to cover up people's own fuckups.

And Matt, nice to see that we can agree on something when it comes to $$$ (equal tax for all)

[DelSlow]

torbs;191877 wrote:
blah blah balh i watch FOX News i know about politics blah.

Fixed it for ya..

[Guest]

DrifterExtreme;191873 wrote:
just to make this clear i'm going back to the taxes being an equal percentage no matter the income.

now i don't care if your unable to pay your bills or are on wellfare.. or w/e

it is not my duty( talking mostly about my parents) to help your ass pay bills. who thought it would be a good idea to help out poor ppl. i think if you were smart enough to succeed in life why should you pay more in taxes then someone who makes minimum wage.

considering the amount my parents pay in every year would really piss me off if i was in there shoe's. i mean we have all these system's setup for poor yet the middle class gets the short end of the deal. i don't get it, and don't tell me it is because we can "afford" to pay in more. that is a shitty excuse to take from the rich and give to the poor.

so i'm all for taxes being equal...

This is a bit harsh here Matt. But to address your points:

I also am for an equal percentage of income being taxed.

Welfare has its place. Unfortunately, there are many who abuse the system, but there are circumstances where I can see it justified. For example....a construction worker making say $40k/year has a family. On his way to work one morning he hits a patch of ice and loses control of his vehicle and rolls into a ditch injuring his neck, making him unable to work/walk/function by himself. His wife and kids now need to make a decision, either put him in a nursing home (which will bankrupt them) or the spouse has to stay home and care for her husband (which will bankrupt them). Prior to this accident they made plenty enough to pay all of their bills, since this, however, their income completely went away. What is your solution? Evict them from their homes, leave them on the street to fend for themselves? What does that say about our society? Why not assist them with their needs? It will be less of a burden on society if we do it that way (help them vs. shun them).

Also, if you were to completely squash the welfare/medicaid system you do realize that something like 80 to 90% of the nursing homes patients would be forced to leave their facilities since a good portion of them are on welfare/medicaid. Who do you propose take care of them? How do you expect them to pay for their medication and other bills?

I also pay in my fair share of taxes, but you know what, I'm kinda glad about that. I've certainly had a few good things go my way in my career. Mostly it was right place, right time, but I can tell you I make more money in the higher tax bracket that I'm currently in than I did when I was in a lower tax bracket (I have a lot more deductions/write offs now as well)

[Guest]

torbs;191877 wrote:
We all know that it isn't hard to get a job full time right outa high school that pays $9-15/hour...with that amount of money, funding one's own health insurance shouldn't be a problem (that and several companys pay for it anyway).

so the average wage you list is ~$12/hour. While that is true in FARGO, it is not true of everywhere. To get the level of insurance I have (which honestly isn't that great...high deductibles, high co-pay) from BCBS I would have to pay $625/month. At $12/hour you earn $1920/month before taxes...figure ~30% for taxes so you took home $1344/month. Average rent in fargo is what? $500/month minimum? so now you have $1125/month in expenses before you eat/own a car/pay for renters insurance/car insurance/etc.... If you can do all those things for $209/month you are better at saving money than anyone I know. Yes, there are employers that pay for your health insurance, and yes, you could maybe knock ~$200/month off the insurance if single (more kids generally doesn't add to the cost....1 costs as much as 20)

[Guest]

another interesting article I came across....not necessarily relating to anything:

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/fammgmt/fs577.pdf

[DaveH]

tjamz;191903 wrote:
another interesting article I came across....not necessarily relating to anything:

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/fammgmt/fs577.pdf

LOL, this thread just went wildly out of control again. ha!

It is a interesting article, I'd have to say they are allowing too much for housing. You can easily get a decent place for at least $100-150 less than that. $578 a month for transportation! WTF?!!?! You can buy a $1500-2000 beater and be fine. I'd say $250 a month is plenty for transportation.

But, my main beef is.... Why is this "generic" 24 year old lady a single mom with 2 kids (ages 4 and 6)? WTF was she thinking? Ok, sometime the Father may have been killed in an accident or whatever.

[thrash]

I think the #1 problem with healthcare is that individuals don't know what it costs.

Nobody ever says "no" to going to the doctor, doing whatever the doctor suggests, etc. Part of the reason is that nobody directly feels/knows the cost of care -- their very-low-co-pay or very-low-deductible insurance pays.

All of us know what getting car work done costs.. and everytime we "need" something done to our cars, we think... "do i just skip this, do i do it but cover it out of pcoket.... do i do an alternate repair for now and cover it out of pocket... or do i go with what the body shop says and submit the whole thing to insurance?"

people also know that high deductible auto policies save them money.

people seem to forget what they know about car insurance when they think about health insurance. The pricing system is the essential instrument of marketplace effectiveness in a capitalist system.. and when the consumers don't know what something costs, they don't know enough to decide to say no.

effectively, this means that the cost has no reason to decline. Naturally this is unsustainable and healthcare costs have exploded.

The #1 thing I'd do is completely decouple health insurance from employment. There are so many people that are choosing a job or staying in a job because that is where their health insurance comes from. If you've tried to get health coverage as an independent entity, you know how spendy it is and what a hassle it is. This contributes to peoples job insecurity, and most companies only provide a basic health plan with few options. If you give individuals conrol of their health insurance, more of them will choose high deductible policies. This means fewer claims are filed, and it means people are close to the true-price of services... meaning that they'll tend to use less of them or use them more wisely.

This will of course tend to decreease the demand for health services... and it will also decrease the amount of hassle providers go through filing insurance paperwork on an $80 visit. So generally, with fewer low-cost transations, and fewer transactions over all, and the administrative overhead per transaction going down.. it should be possible for providers to charge less (or be more efficient at their current price levels)

There's a private clinic I've read about that doesn't accept any insurance whatsoever.. just cash. Their costs are about 30% of usual-and-customary-cost. They make plenty of money, and their customers save lots of money.

Government health care moves the problem in the opposite direction. While people can get a vague idea of what things cost and what their options are today... once you've got government care... everybody's health is everybody's problem.. so its nobody's problem, and nobody knows what they're spending on themselves. In every "buffet" style service situation, there are some people that take tremendous advantage of the buffet.. to their own detriment and to the detriment of those that subsidize the whole affair.

Foreign heads of state that have universal healthcare generally come to the US to get work done on themselves. That's all you need to know.

[Guest]

DaveH;191913 wrote:
LOL, this thread just went wildly out of control again. ha!

It is a interesting article, I'd have to say they are allowing too much for housing. You can easily get a decent place for at least $100-150 less than that. $578 a month for transportation! WTF?!!?! You can buy a $1500-2000 beater and be fine. I'd say $250 a month is plenty for transportation.

But, my main beef is.... Why is this "generic" 24 year old lady a single mom with 2 kids (ages 4 and 6)? WTF was she thinking? Ok, sometime the Father may have been killed in an accident or whatever.

I didn't read the whole article, but I can say that if I were in rural ND, I would not want to trust my beater vehicle to travel ~20 miles to/from work (fairly common in central ND) in the winter....especially if I had to have my children riding with me. I'm assuming that the article figures things above the minimum and closer to the average....but even if it didn't

40miles/day = 200+/week
beater car gets ~20mpg, so 10+gallons/week $30/week...so $120/month....just to get to work
odds are there will be car payments, even on the beater...figure $150/month for 2 years...then repeat as car is worn out.
wear/tear= $50/month (guessing...no idea actually)
Insurance on financed vehicle=$75/month
figure another 400 miles/month for misc travel (sporting events for kids, daycare, shopping in bigger towns to save money on clothing/food/etc.. etc, etc, etc.....) so 20 gallons/month = $60

total= $455/month

[DaveH]

I was just thinking that this would be in Fargo, if it was rural North Dakota the mother/kids would be living with her parents. There is no other reason for her to live in rural ND.

:icon_albino:

tjamz;191922 wrote:
I didn't read the whole article, but I can say that if I were in rural ND, I would not want to trust my beater vehicle to travel ~20 miles to/from work (fairly common in central ND) in the winter....especially if I had to have my children riding with me. I'm assuming that the article figures things above the minimum and closer to the average....but even if it didn't

40miles/day = 200+/week
beater car gets ~20mpg, so 10+gallons/week $30/week...so $120/month....just to get to work
odds are there will be car payments, even on the beater...figure $150/month for 2 years...then repeat as car is worn out.
wear/tear= $50/month (guessing...no idea actually)
Insurance on financed vehicle=$75/month
figure another 400 miles/month for misc travel (sporting events for kids, daycare, shopping in bigger towns to save money on clothing/food/etc.. etc, etc, etc.....) so 20 gallons/month = $60

total= $455/month