Japan's Hometown Tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#91

Post by chuckkir » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #86

Frondo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; For those of us living in urban areas, we're simply vastly underrepresented in federal government, and quite a few of us don't like it.

So you want to reduce the representation from the "fly-over states" so that all elections and all federal government decisions are decided by California and New York? That's not going to work very well, and would lead to the secession of about 90% of the states, and then you'd find out that your urban paradises depend absolutely on the rest of the country to exist. The founding fathers set up a pretty good system, an…

Actually, according to the original plan, the House of Representatives should have grown so that each member represents a roughly equal number of constituents (excepting very small population states which still get one). At some point it was capped at 435 (I presume for space reasons) and the disparity of representation has increased since. So it seems that more power has been transferred to rural states than the founders had originally envisioned.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#92

Post by hyperpape » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #62

hyperpape wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is admittedly 27 years old, but at the time Savage Inequalities was written, the range was anywhere from $3k-15k/student: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Inequalities . I don't remember much of the book, but I remember the description of East St. Louis: raw sewage repeatedly backing up into the schools.

Today, Camden spends $30k/student, more than many wealthy NJ counties: https://www.nj.com/education/2017/05/the_50_school_districts... . Almost all of it is state money. Great Neck is about $34k, but the range for expensive NY suburbs is $25-35k. https://www.empirecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/sbs1... Which is comically high all around. Montgomery County, an expensive DC suburb where housing is more than most…

Cherry-picking a few NJ schools doesn't show much. It would be nice to see an aggregate comparison. This article does that at the state level, and is somewhat conciliatory to your POV. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/arne-duncan-school.... That said, another commenter pointed out that aggregating by state is doesn't really capture what we're interested in.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#93

Post by Silfen » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #86

Frondo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; For those of us living in urban areas, we're simply vastly underrepresented in federal government, and quite a few of us don't like it.

So you want to reduce the representation from the "fly-over states" so that all elections and all federal government decisions are decided by California and New York? That's not going to work very well, and would lead to the secession of about 90% of the states, and then you'd find out that your urban paradises depend absolutely on the rest of the country to exist. The founding fathers set up a pretty good system, an…

You should extend more generosity to the point GP makes. You can believe in adjusting the system so that representation is more equal without doing away with the protections for small states. For example, you can greatly increase the size of the House. It's the original first amendment! http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/its-ti...

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#94

Post by jki275 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

smw wrote: post #90

jki275 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to reduce the representation from the "fly-over states" so that all elections and all federal government decisions are decided by California and New York? That's not going to work very well, and would lead to the secession of about 90% of the states, and then you'd find out that your urban paradises depend absolutely on the rest of the country to exist. The founding fathers set up a pretty good system, an…

I think the math suggests that the rest of the country depends on the 'urban paradises' to fund it, at this point. Sure, less populous states grow food, but if they broke off, it seems likely they'd want to sell that excess food for something like market value, no?

Maybe. Or maybe they'd decide to sell all their food elsewhere and you'd have food riots in your urban paradises.

But the contention is evidently that we need to remove their representation in federal government because people don't understand how the federal government was set up.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#95

Post by jki275 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

Silfen wrote: post #93

jki275 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to reduce the representation from the "fly-over states" so that all elections and all federal government decisions are decided by California and New York? That's not going to work very well, and would lead to the secession of about 90% of the states, and then you'd find out that your urban paradises depend absolutely on the rest of the country to exist. The founding fathers set up a pretty good system, an…

You should extend more generosity to the point GP makes. You can believe in adjusting the system so that representation is more equal without doing away with the protections for small states. For example, you can greatly increase the size of the House. It's the original first amendment! http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/its-ti...

The house already adequately represents the people, that's how it was designed.

Expanding the house doesn't change representation.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#96

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #95

Silfen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should extend more generosity to the point GP makes. You can believe in adjusting the system so that representation is more equal without doing away with the protections for small states. For example, you can greatly increase the size of the House. It's the original first amendment! http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/its-ti...

The house already adequately represents the people, that's how it was designed. Expanding the house doesn't change representation.

> The house already adequately represents the people

By what standard?

> that's how it was designed.

That may have been the design goal, but it's debatable whether the original design met the goal, and key elements of the original design (the original representation ratio) were not fixed in the Constitution or preserved over time.

> Expanding the house doesn't change representation.

It changes both the equality of representation (reducing quantization artifacts) and the proximity of Representatives to the represented, both of which are key elements of representation.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#97

Post by bllguo » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #86

Frondo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; For those of us living in urban areas, we're simply vastly underrepresented in federal government, and quite a few of us don't like it.

So you want to reduce the representation from the "fly-over states" so that all elections and all federal government decisions are decided by California and New York? That's not going to work very well, and would lead to the secession of about 90% of the states, and then you'd find out that your urban paradises depend absolutely on the rest of the country to exist. The founding fathers set up a pretty good system, an…

an absurd strawman. To you there's no way to increase representation from more populous states without letting decisions be dominated by CA and NY? Can we argue in good faith here?

Pretty sure the rest of the country depends on states like CA and NY as well. It is hardly a one-way street.

There are many objective criticisms of the system. Like election methods, for instance. I personally think it's ridiculous to suggest that our understanding of governance and political systems hasn't increased enough to substantially improve the US. It's been 300 years.

I would point to the amendment system as evidence that the founding fathers knew they hadn't made a perfect system. I would point to the fact that they explicitly warned against political parties to show that the system is not at all what they intended. And lastly I want to say that this deification of the founding fathers is a big part of the problem.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#98

Post by adrianmonk » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

resoluteteeth wrote: post #10

Couching this in terms of Japanese culture is unhelpful in my opinion. The return gifts probably wouldn't exist in the first place elsewhere, but allowing them is simply a blatant loophole that various local governments have cynically abused to increase their revenue and this is something that would happen in any country. The biggest problem is that some local governments are apparently giving return gifts that have…

If Japanese culture works how the article describes, it seems relevant. The bidding war wouldn't happen without the return gifts, and it could be stopped by eliminating them.

But in order to change a law or rule, there must be the political will to do it. Japanese culture appears to give the return gifts a plausible pretext. If you oppose the return gifts, it could sound like you don't understand tradition.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#99

Post by coldtea » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #19

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand I have always lived in Northern Italy, and around half of my taxes go to the poorer regions of Italy, mostly to be squandered by corruption, clientelism, and organized crime. Heh, funny that richer parts of the EU say this about Italy itself.

That's just because their unwashed masses are only familiar with economic migrants from Southern Italy. If you paid any of them a holiday to Turin or Milan they wouldn't know what befell them, they couldn't even identify the country!

Thanks for the subtle racism towards southern italians...

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#100

Post by megaman2 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #66

megaman2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but there's absolutely zero reason to allow the return gifts in the first place There are reasons, but just ones that you don't agree with or haven't thought of. You need to understand that reciprocation is in the culture, and people are not purely rational economic actors. It's entirely possible some towns would outright refuse 'assistance' without being able to reciprocate somehow.

This is a thing, definitely, but I don't think it's something we can't talk about and criticize. The fact that this cultural tradition has caused a well-intentioned(ish, if you're rural) tax law to become a big loop hole is a bad thing. I'm certain if they thought this was going to be an issue (with small towns refusing the money) some more reasonable solution could be found. The town I grew up in, Boston, receives a…

I agree with you that we should be able to talk about it and criticize it, but I think declaring 'there are no reasons for this' requires more thoughts on the perspectives of the individuals or entities involved.

Certainly it is a (somewhat mitigated) loophole that can be exploited, so in that respect it is not good. But weighed against the positive impact for the rural towns and the connection it makes back to hometowns, you could argue it's worth it.