No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees • Hacker News Board

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#71

Post by twoodfin » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 7:45 PM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #59

ojbyrne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding on state tax gets you there. California, for example, has a top rate of 10.3%.

One small point: at the income level where the 39.6% bracket applies, you are almost certainly itemizing deductions (especially if you live in a state with an income tax). In that case, every dollar of state tax paid is deductible for federal purposes, measurably lowering the effective combined rate.

There's a good argument for eliminating that deduction, as it effectively grants high tax states and localities a subsidy from the residents of low tax states and localities.

That being said, the deduction doesn't take away the full force of the tax. Some quick math tells me that 40% federal + 10% state - the deduction is a 46% marginal rate.

Medicare/Medicaid FICA has been uncapped since the '90's, and adds 2.9% or 1.45%, depending on how you want to count the employer "contribution". Next year for top earners it goes up another .9% to help pay for ACA.

So I don't think claiming marginal income rates are approaching 50% at the high end is unfair. Does anyone doubt that a popular "fix" for Social Security will be to uncap that tax as well? Then we'd be talking 60%+ if you discount the accounting fiction of the employer contribution. Or are self-employed.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#72

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 7:45 PM UTC

Prophasi wrote: post #56

joezydeco wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GOP's voting record is enough to show that they can publicly proclaim support for public infrastructure, education, civil rights, and healthcare but then do exactly the opposite when it comes to legislation.

Sure. But now you're contrasting the philosophy with what politicians actually do in office. If your argument is that politicians engage in lying and hypocrisy, I don't think you'll find many takers. But I sincerely hope you'd assert the same (with tweaked parameters) for Democrats.

No, I believe I was contrasting the GOP's line

'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.'

With the reality:

'I was on my own, I made it with the assistance of resources that government provides, and you can do the same if we actually wanted to support that mode of government in the future, but we don't.'

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#73

Post by twoodfin » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 7:52 PM UTC

cantankerous wrote: post #52

twoodfin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody…

I agree with you on infrastructure spending except for one nuance. Usually telecom companies laying down infrastructure are given rights of way and easements that make their jobs much, much, less expensive. That is to say, if we lived in a private property, capitalist utopia, laying down thousands of miles of fiber would be orders of magnitude more expensive and possibly completely intractable. Government plays a rol…

Usually telecom companies laying down infrastructure are given rights of way and easements that make their jobs much, much, less expensive.

Is it traditional for states and localities to just give this stuff away? If they're not accepting competitive bids for the right to lay fiber, they're leaving money on the table.

Certainly when it comes to things like wireless spectrum, the Feds have auctions for billions of dollars.

Here's a pre-dot com crash article that suggests at least for some areas these rights weren't given away:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-06-04/business/9906040...

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#74

Post by mrj » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 8:20 PM UTC

astine wrote: post #70

mrj wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, well, the private sector is immensely corrupt, too. Witness the news from Wall Street on just about any given day. It's not fair to point to one thing the government screwed up and say that government is wholly corrupt. It is imperfect but we're supposed to be working towards a "more perfect union," not that we had achieved it already. The great thing about government is we can involve media, we can send FOIA, a…

No, no. It's one thing if crooked business men steal from and lie to one another, it's another entirely if Congress, which is supposed to prevent that (on at least some level) has an active interest in those lying and cheating business deals. The problem isn't that the government is currently actively corrupt (it isn't for the most part,) it's that the more it get's involved in the economy as member rather than a gov…

Hm, well I see your point. Direct investment in companies is risky for everybody, governments and individuals.

But what else is there? How is government supposed to create the right conditions for a market solution? The solution was supposed to be carbon credits by making using polluting materials gradually more costly over time and thereby creating the conditions for clean(er) energy to be viable in the market. But that was rejected outright as a "tax."

Government as a member in the market is bad, we can agree there. But outside of direct investment, it gets politically difficult to change anything.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#75

Post by Prophasi » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:24 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #72

Prophasi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But now you're contrasting the philosophy with what politicians actually do in office. If your argument is that politicians engage in lying and hypocrisy, I don't think you'll find many takers. But I sincerely hope you'd assert the same (with tweaked parameters) for Democrats.

No, I believe I was contrasting the GOP's line 'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.' With the reality: 'I was on my own, I made it with the assistance of resources that government provides , and you can do the same if we actually wanted to support that mode of government in the future, but we don't. '

Fair. What resources did the average Republican take advantage of that s/he now wants to kibosh? Axing roads and bridges is nowhere present in the public discussion.

Of Warren's cited examples, schools are the only plausible answer. To say that school is valuable isn't an insight, and to say that school can only be government-funded and -run is baseless.

An argument can be made that government does it the best, but it's disingenuous to say that because Republicans (along with everyone else, and forcibly) had public schooling, they give up their right to upgrade what they got, for the next generation.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#76

Post by defen » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 11:22 PM UTC

This just goes to show that the Republicans are the Stupid Party. They should be embracing this! The Internet is but one of the many wonderful fruits of the military-industrial complex. Who was President when the Internet was created? Nixon/Ford! None of this would have been possible without close collaboration between the military and private industry, so we should give more public money to both of them.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#77

Post by nateabele » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 11:36 PM UTC

Here's the thing about this entire debate: who gives a fuck?

Yes, the government, the private sector, and academia (which is funded by both government and the private sector) all had a hand in developing the technologies that collectively comprise what we know today as the internet.

But this debate isn't really about the internet. It's about the role of government and what constitutes a fair tax rate, which are two separate but related questions.

When Obama talks about roads and bridges, or public education, or the internet, or whatever, what he's really saying is 'see all this awesome stuff government has done for you? You really owe us more money.'

That might not be complete and utter bullshit if (a) government actually spent more than a tiny fraction of its revenue on those things and (b) if it wasn't an abject failure at everything else.

Instead, the large majority of government spending goes to wars of aggression, debt service (aka extortion payments to major banks, or embezzlement, depending on how you look at it), and Social Security. As we know from the Bush Sr. era, Social Security is completely fucked. Much like the briefcase full of IOUs at the end of Dumb & Dumber, there isn't a single, actual dime in the program, because Congress has borrowed against every last one.

Which brings us to the fundamental stupidity of what Obama's suggesting. And, seriously? We should give these people more money? Fuck you, sir.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#78

Post by joezydeco » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 1:35 AM UTC

Prophasi wrote: post #75

joezydeco wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I believe I was contrasting the GOP's line 'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.' With the reality: 'I was on my own, I made it with the assistance of resources that government provides , and you can do the same if we actually wanted to support that mode of government in the future, but we don't. '

Fair. What resources did the average Republican take advantage of that s/he now wants to kibosh? Axing roads and bridges is nowhere present in the public discussion. Of Warren's cited examples, schools are the only plausible answer. To say that school is valuable isn't an insight, and to say that school can only be government-funded and -run is baseless. An argument can be made that government does it the best, but i…

I don't think anyone's talking about kiboshing at this point, we're at the earlier stage trying to justify future kiboshing.

Remember that the original discussion here is over whether large government institutions are beneficial to the public or not in the long run.

What tide of public opinion is changing where the editor of the Wall Street Journal feels he needs to write an editorial literally changing the history of the internet to convince people that large institutions were NOT involved in this information age and subsequent economic boom?

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#79

Post by cloverich » Fri, Jul 27, 2012, 3:48 AM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #47

cloverich wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true of Republicans, imo the quoted argument is equally dogmatic. Its not as though its used as a simple painting of Government as symbiotic; today's liberal arguments take it much further. Something like the following: "Government invented the internet. And without government, NO ONE would have invented the internet." That, imo, is silly. PEOPLE invented the internet. There's time's and places where private in…

> today's liberal arguments take it much further. Something like the following: "Government invented the internet. And without government, NO ONE would have invented the internet." The "free market" versions of the Internet were the walled-gardens of AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. I'm not sure if you've ever used them, but I did and let me tell you - they all sucked compared to the Internet, even in 1994-95.

IMO, that's an equally weak argument. "The free market's internet 20 years ago was terrible. Therefore, all conceivable free market plans for the internet could would have been draconion and awful."

To be clear, I'm not arguing the Government funds did not play the biggest role - or even that it wasn't the best solution available. It doesn't matter if it was. Im only arguing that pointing to an example of something invented under government funded research is not justification for blanket, undirected increase in government funding. But that's how that argument is used.