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From: rafferty@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Tax reform (another screwing, without vaseline)
Message-ID: <361@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 23:52:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-e.361
Posted: Tue Jun 11 23:52:30 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Jun-85 00:19:48 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 41

> >    Under the current system I loose around 35% of my pay to various
> > taxes. Under Reagans plan this figure will climb to about 40%. I am
> > being taxed like I was a rich man, which I am not because I am single
> > without deductions and a spouse to feed and I can't afford a small
> > house. Under Regans plan, I might be better to go on the dole and at
> > least enjoy the 40% more free time that I now waste fulfilling my
> > social obligations.
> 
> You're being taxed worse than a rich man.  Under Reagan's proposal, the
> rich will make out like gangbusters.  My qualm is that I see little
> reason to tax ANYONE at a different rate than anyone else...  the
> so-called flat-rate taxation system.  Since when is there a correlation
> between a person's income and the burden he places on state and
> federally funded works?  If Raegan wanted a moral and just tax he would
> propose a flat-rate tax.
>
> [Lord Frith]

What about the fact that there is a certain amount of money that every
person really needs?  If it costs, lets say, $7,500 a year for a person to
subsist, does it make sense that a family of three, making 15,000 a year,
shouldpay the government out of their subsistance money, while the Yuppie
making $100,000 a year should only be paying taxes out of his cocaine money
instead???  The way that you're talking, it even seems that you'd prefer if
people were paying the same amount no matter what.  That would be even more
ridiculous.

I think that if we tried this flat tax rate system, we would all be in deep
shit, when the poor people suddenly realize what's happening to them. 

(Didn't someone once say that revolutions occur when the poor are
 disgruntled, and are then led by the middle-class, who overthrow the
 upper-class who, in turn, simply replace the old middle-class. )

----
            Colin Rafferty { Math Department, Carnegie-Mellon University }

"According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold,
and according to convention, there is an order.  In truth, there are atoms
and a void."
                -Democritus(400 B.C.)