Japan's Hometown Tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#101

Post by jki275 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:43 PM UTC

chuckkir wrote: post #91

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…

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 fou…

The rural states' power in federal government is largely imaginary. In many elections, they have gone overwhelmingly for the losing candidate. If you look at a county by county map of the last election and then realize that the winner of the election actually lost the popular vote even after taking something like 85% of the counties in the US and you can still make the argument that the population centers should have more representation it's really just a naked left wing power grab at that point -- and likely an argument made by someone who has never really lived in rural America and doesn't understand it.

Yes, you have more people in the population centers. They're generally a very homogenous group by political thought, and vote almost as a left wing bloc in most cases. You're simply arguing that the left should be more powerful than it is. Nobody cries about the electoral college until a Republican wins. Nobody cries about representation when the left is in power.

There are things that are wrong in the US political system, but the electoral college and the house representation aren't those things. They're the best of the bad solutions to keeping away from a tyranny.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#102

Post by delinka » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:44 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #99

HarryHirsch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Are Souther Italians their own race?

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#103

Post by narag » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

pgz wrote: post #2

I always found this system very interesting, since the citizen can decide how some of their tax money is spent (besides voting). 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.

...around half of my taxes go to the poorer regions...

And then the cause of the problem is presented as if it were the solution.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#104

Post by Silfen » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #89

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California and New York are the size of countries. Why couldn't they function on their own as countries? I think a lot of states would be better served if they operated more autonomously and the federal government managed less of their business. I get that in certain cases that's not the optimal situation for resource allocation but freedom has a price.

I don’t think this would necessarily result in more freedom. Remember that when the question of states versus the federal government was definitively answered a century and a half ago, the side in favor of more autonomy for individual states was pushing for that so that they could continue to own people as property.

At the risk of opening the world's largest pressurized can of worms... sort of. There is an argument to be made that The South cared about state's rights only in the instrumental sense that it allowed them to protect slavery. They were also in favor of stronger federal government when it protected slavery, e.g. fugitive slave laws.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#105

Post by aurelianito » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

The mechanism used in Japan to compensate for the brain-drain should be used worldwide.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#106

Post by labster » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

blattimwind wrote: post #24

21 wrote: post #11

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 Everybody says that, Catalonia that it pays more to Spain that it receives back, California and New York to the rest of US... But it's the only way to have nation states, otherwise we'd have to go back to city states (which some people like Taleb actually advice).

Tax redistribution inside nations or in nation unions (like the EU) is pretty much an investment. It generally generates more money than spent on it. E.g. Germany is the largest net contributor to the EU, but guess what would happen if Germany decided to stop putting out those few billions a year. Yeah, not so good for the economy (not just of Germany, pretty much everyone). Turns out, those few billions spurred trad…

> It's literally "one stick, alone, weak — many sticks, together, stronk".

So that's why they say those people are living in the sticks.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#107

Post by rtomanek » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #14

pgz wrote: post #2

I always found this system very interesting, since the citizen can decide how some of their tax money is spent (besides voting). 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.

> 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.

Not sure what you find funny about it?

And I don't think they do. Some people, sure. Every population has a bunch of people who would say things like that. Because they can, because they enjoy it, it likely makes them feel better, or so they think.

And there are people who enjoy listening to them and repeating what they say.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#108

Post by megaman2 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

jfroma wrote: post #82

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.

Isn't the person donating to their hometown the tax, giving something to the town (reciprocation) for the education and childhood they had in the hometown in the first place? Where does the reciprocation ends? You give money to your hometown because you have very found memories and you feel grateful about the education etc., your hometown sends you plums, you send a pie to thank the plums, then they respond back with…

Ha, well, if you take your (pathological) example and apply the 30% reciprocation value rule, then no, it does not go ad infinitum, but there is eventually the floor of $0.

But more practically speaking, from the perspective of say, the mayor of a town in Japan - he has revenue being conciously directed towards him from mostly anonymous citizens of the country. Reciving a real (monetary) gift from someone you hardly know definitely would require a reciprocation. In some ways, sure, you're reciprocating to your hometown for your education/etc, but it's not being seen that way from the town's perspective.

There's also the factor that the redirected tax revenue is a physical thing, where as the 'education and life experience' imbued upon a child growing up is a rather non tangible gift .

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#109

Post by rayiner » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

hyperpape wrote: post #92

rayiner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I highlighted Camden and Great Neck specifically because they were specifically named in the book cited by OP, and show how the funding gap has closed since 1991.

As to the idea that aggregating by state doesn't capture what we're interested in: the second image in your link shows that, accounting for federal funding, poor school districts get more money in almost every state, including most of the most populous ones: California, Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, etc. The only populous states where poor districts receive less than rich ones are New York and Pennsylvania, and in both states the delta is less than 10%.

Now, if you're talking about comparing between states, that would be very misleading. All it does is set up specious comparisons: e.g., Baltimore, MD gets half as much as Scarsdale, NY, conveniently ignoring the fact that the rich MD suburbs around Baltimore also get half as much as Scarsdale.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#110

Post by dmurray » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #80

dmurray wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could function as independent countries, for better or worse. But it generally looks like states don't want more autonomy: over 240 years the US federal government has taken on more and more power at the expense of the states, facing minimal resistance apart from a single bloody civil war where the heroes are universally agreed to be the side fighting for more powers for the federal government.

> civil war where the heroes are universally agreed to be the side fighting for more powers for the federal government. The Union wasn't fighting for more powers for the federal government, just for the integrity of the existing federal government and it's powers. The war resulted in some expansion of federal power, but that wasn't what motivated the Union.

Sure, that's a reasonable way to look at it, and the only way consistent with having the victors write the history books. In the same way that the Commerce Clause always allowed the federal government to regulate growing wheat for personal consumption, the Constitution already allowed the federal government to forbid slavery - it just took a civil war or a supreme court hearing to make sure everyone agreed on that. Under that view, the 13th Amendment was legally redundant, but was passed just to leave absolutely no room for doubt.