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USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

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Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#201

Post by schoen »

tunesmith wrote: post #163
Cshelton wrote: post #106

I'm seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it's from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance. My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclus…

I think this is a case of seeing what you want to see. According to the Trustees Report, SS is only in deficit if you don't factor in interest income. [1] It's projected to deplete its trust fund in 2034. Please resist the urge to argue that the trust fund doesn't exist. That 2034 date can easily be extended through minor tweaks, check out any of the ideas from the late Robert M. Ball. The flat tax is regressive. Reg…

> The flat tax is regressive.

Strictly speaking, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation and is neither progressive nor regressive.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#202

Post by amscanne »

shmageggy wrote: post #127
Cshelton wrote: post #106

I'm seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it's from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance. My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclus…

> Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State/Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate/other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I'd have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Feder…

> This seems like a pretty poor argument for a flat tax and in fact could be seen as an argument against it. If raising top end bracket taxes didn't increase overall income, then it must be the case that it reduced the tax burden on lower incomes -- which is the entire point of progressive taxes. So progressive taxes work, let's keep them!

Not necessarily. That would be true if the absolute $$$ collected were the same, but that's not what is asserted.

Consider the following: 10 people earn $10 and pay $1 in tax. 10 people earn $20 and pay $5 tax.

The total tax collected is 20% of all income.

Suppose the government raises tax rates such that the $20 earners will now pay $8 tax.

Say 4 of the high earners stop working as much (since their marginal rates are so high).

Now you've got: 14 people earn $10 and pay $1. 6 people earn $20 and pay $8 tax.

The government now collects 24% of all income. It also collects a higher proportion from the lower income people than it did before. It has lower revenues and people are, on average, poorer. In other words, everyone loses.

So you can't just look at effective tax rates to determine whether raising top end tax brackets was good or not.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#203

Post by schoen »

kbenson wrote: post #149
Cshelton wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain how flat tax rate across any income level, while removing the current tax code, would be considered regressive? I have not heard that argument before. The proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level. Anything that would counteract any "regressive" tax system would have to happen on the personal income side. Which means better education, opportunities, etc., to increase income levels. I'd sup…

> Please explain how flat tax rate across any income level, while removing the current tax code, would be considered regressive? I have not heard that argument before. It's regressive in that it causes the poor to pay more than they do now. With regard to taxes, progressive and regressive have specific meaning. > The proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level. I don't believe this is true. You'll have to…

> It's regressive in that it causes the poor to pay more than they do now. With regard to taxes, progressive and regressive have specific meaning.

Under that meaning, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation. It is not an example of a regressive tax.

Increasing the amount that poor people pay makes a tax scheme relatively more regressive, but if it's no more regressive than a flat tax, it's still not "regressive".

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#204

Post by runeks »

kzrdude wrote: post #141
xienze wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security/other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept. The problem is that there are a lot of people who believe that SS isn't broken because you can simply increase retirement age, make people pay in more, and other assorted band-aids. SS will be "solvent" until it suddenly isn't, and people need to realize…

Retirement age must increase. People are living longer than when retirement pensions were first designed. It was easy to introduce, people weren't expected to live that long then and now they do.

The retirement age increasing isn't strictly necessary just because people live longer. As long as a stable rate of interest exists, retirees can save up enough money and keep living off the interest payments. All that's required is that they're able to save up the same amount in the same time frame (provided the rate of interest doesn't change). Unfortunately, we haven't had a stable rate of interest for over a century.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#205

Post by Cshelton »

bobwaycott wrote: post #198
Cshelton wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain how flat tax rate across any income level, while removing the current tax code, would be considered regressive? I have not heard that argument before. The proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level. Anything that would counteract any "regressive" tax system would have to happen on the personal income side. Which means better education, opportunities, etc., to increase income levels. I'd sup…

The basic point in simplest form is that the less money a person earns, the greater the impact of paying 20% of their income in taxes is in terms of real dollars left to live on. A family earning $50K will have $40K left after federal taxes to live on. A family earning $250K will have $200K left to live on. One of these families is hurt more than the other by a flat tax. This is what is meant when a flat tax is criti…

Thanks for the explanation of what he meant. I was thinking more macro, but by regressive, people seem to mean the micro aspect of it. I don't believe it would take a very complicated tax code, if we started over, to make sure the lower brackets are not regressive. Even just using standard deductions, child tax credits (cost of living higher), etc.

A single "family" of one making 50k though should most likely be paying their portion of tax, whatever the tax rate is. At some point an individual has to be accountable and live within their means.

So in the end, the tax rate would be flat, but effective tax rate would not.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#206

Post by kbenson »

Cshelton wrote: post #196
kbenson wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please explain how flat tax rate across any income level, while removing the current tax code, would be considered regressive? I have not heard that argument before. It's regressive in that it causes the poor to pay more than they do now. With regard to taxes, progressive and regressive have specific meaning. > The proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level. I don't believe this is true. You'll have to…

What I meant by the proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level is under a flat tax scenario, leaving out all tax rules today of exemptions/credits. If the rate is 10%, the proportion of tax is the same, whether you make $10 or $1 million, you are still paying 10% of your income. Yes, the effective tax rate collected. The reference you provided only supports my claim. It looks like the effective tax rate,…

I think the problem here is that your inference that a flat tax rate would be good because the total amount of income taxes collected each year as a percent of total income hasn't change has had no supporting evidence presented, and it's such a leap to most people that they don't even understand that's the argument you're making.

Exactly why do you believe that since the total percentage of income collected hasn't really changed that means a flat tax is a good idea? The reason for a progressive tax is not to raise the total amount of taxes collected, but to change which people it is collected from proportionally. I'm not sure what the total percentage collected has to do with that.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#207

Post by TillE »

pacaro wrote: post #157
bigtimeidiot wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security/other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept. Why is running a budget surplus necessarily a "good thing"? Seems like if people are willing to trade real assets for paper, we should do that as long as there are willing counterparties.

Always running a surplus is presumably as bad a thing as always running a deficit, but if you can run a surplus On sunny days, then you don't need austerity measures on rainy days

Austerity measures are exactly the wrong strategy for "rainy days", no matter what your debts look like. See how the US bounced back fairly quickly from the 2008 crisis after the stimulus, while countries like the UK are still tightening their belts, because the cuts they've made to date have not had the desired effect.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#208

Post by _pastel »

Can anyone give me some intuition into why 77k people are employed by the Social Security Administration? [1] That's bigger than Google, and I didn't think their scope was that wide.

[1] http://usafacts.org/government-finances/employment?compariso... under "Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity". The combined count is "n/a" - maybe that's because the State & Local count has some overlap with the Federal count? So I took the maximum of the two.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#209

Post by nxc18 »

dandare wrote: post #146
javajosh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How deeply did you delve into the site? You should look at the "10-K 2017" report, linked at the bottom of the page, first. http://usafacts.org/resources/USAFacts_10-K_2017.PDF I believe this addresses (at least) your first two points. And moreover, it is a remarkable document because it reads something like an anatomical description of the organism. Your point about world finance is strange: That is not what this th…

Thanks for the feedback. IMHO the report is unreadable for most ordinary people. Also PDF is a very problematic format, difficult to search, impossible to scan-read, not always possible to copy/paste to a table. The data itself is not the problem, but the form factor is. The other things are not meant to be a criticism, just suggestions for what the ideal solution could look like. OG tags define what image and descri…

I think you're grasping when you claim that PDF is a "very problematic format":

* full text search works fine; much better than on your site. Try searching "hospital" in both and see which gets better results (spoiler: its the PDF) * Yes, a comprehensive report is impossible to scan-read. That is kind of the point of a comprehensive resource, don't you think? At best, scan reading your site (an opaque javascript visualization) leads to an incomplete understanding; scan reading is rubbish for understanding. * If you want to do Excel-style data analysis, neither your site nor the PDf is the best choice; you should be looking at original sources, just like the USA Facts team did.

Giving people a pile of facts from which to cherry-pick for arguments isn't helpful. Promoting a deeper understanding of the government and its workings does. USA Fact's visualizations, tied back to the Constitution (perhaps the most underappreciated document of our time), promotes deep understanding.

USA Facts ultimately does a much better job serving two audiences: 1) the people who need a better understanding of the big picture of government (on the main site) 2) the people who want to dig in and understand the nitty-gritty - the PDF.

You have a good product, and I normally wouldn't be so harsh in my criticism, but the arrogance in your statements demands correction.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#210

Post by StreamBright »

_pastel wrote: post #208

Can anyone give me some intuition into why 77k people are employed by the Social Security Administration? [1] That's bigger than Google, and I didn't think their scope was that wide. [1] http://usafacts.org/government-finances/employment?compariso... under "Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity". The combined count is "n/a" - maybe that's because the State & Local count has some overlap with…

It might have to do something with efficiency.
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