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Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

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Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#91

Post by yummyfajitas »

timr wrote: post #39
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan supported sending people statements of what was in their social security. His idea was that if people never saw what was in there, they'd never miss it when it was gone. I think this is a logical extension of that idea, and its great. I'd also like to see the flip side of the receipt contain a guess for how the same tax amount would break down the following year based on curre…

It's definitely a great idea, given that members of both major political parties are absolutely loathe to touch the biggest sources of government expenditure: old person benefits (social security + medicare), and the military. Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". With greater pu…

Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state".

I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B.

http://usgovernmentspending.com/year2008_US.html#usgs30210

(Use the dropdown to select year=2008, the last year for which full data is available.)

[edit: curious why I'm being downmodded. Is posting the actual numbers so detrimental to the conversation?

edit 2: put in the federal-only numbers, thanks jbooth for pointing that out. ]

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#92

Post by natrius »

kiba wrote: post #84
timr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can define "welfare" however you like, but it doesn't change the reality that no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Old people comprise the base of both political parties.

Those elderly white men have families do they not? Maybe the family should take care of old white men instead? Or better yet, invest in technology so they rejuvenate old people to the point that they can enter the workforce and earn their living for the rest of their life(presumably several centuries).

I'm not sure how race got involved.

Many people agree with you that people should take care of themselves, and that Social Security and Medicare should be, at most, a safety net for people who would otherwise be old folks on the streets without healthcare. Such a policy is usually referred to as "means testing" retirement benefits.

Eliminating government retirement benefits altogether will never happen because no one likes seeing 70 year-olds suffering in poverty, but they don't dislike it enough to ameliorate the problem directly via charity. Humans are weird like that.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#94

Post by yummyfajitas »

timr wrote: post #80
xenophanes wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social security and medicare are "welfare" by any reasonable definition. So the welfare state is a big issue.

You can define "welfare" however you like, but it doesn't change the reality that no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Old people comprise the base of both political parties.

no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

Not true. Paul Ryan did, and even got into a fairly public fight with Paul Krugman about it [1].

http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/

[1] The fight was mostly over matters of little substance - Krugman told a few lies about Ryan which blogger Megan McCardle repeatedly debunked. The substance of the proposal was not discussed. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-kru...

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#95

Post by [deleted] »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan supported sending people statements of what was in their social security. His idea was that if people never saw what was in there, they'd never miss it when it was gone. I think this is a logical extension of that idea, and its great. I'd also like to see the flip side of the receipt contain a guess for how the same tax amount would break down the following year based on curre…

[deleted]

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#96

Post by kiba »

natrius wrote: post #92
kiba wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those elderly white men have families do they not? Maybe the family should take care of old white men instead? Or better yet, invest in technology so they rejuvenate old people to the point that they can enter the workforce and earn their living for the rest of their life(presumably several centuries).

I'm not sure how race got involved. Many people agree with you that people should take care of themselves, and that Social Security and Medicare should be, at most, a safety net for people who would otherwise be old folks on the streets without healthcare. Such a policy is usually referred to as "means testing" retirement benefits. Eliminating government retirement benefits altogether will never happen because no one…

I'm not sure how race got involved.

Ignore that. I was reading a parent's post and reply to the wrong parent comment.

Many people agree with you that people should take care of themselves, and that Social Security and Medicare should be, at most, a safety net for people who would otherwise be old folks on the streets without healthcare. Such a policy is usually referred to as "means testing" retirement benefits.

No, this is not what I advocated. I advocated that the family should resume the role of caretakers(or what been eroded by government) instead of leaving old folks alone in old people homes. Old people can then serve as babysitters, teachers, etc, to grandchildren. That is assuming, that they do have them.

Eliminating government retirement benefits altogether will never happen because no one likes seeing 70 year-olds suffering in poverty, but they don't dislike it enough to ameliorate the problem directly via charity. Humans are weird like that.

Maybe some. But this is ignoring the option of creating mutual aid societies. Fraternities organizations used to exists in large number and large number of Americans join them, regardless of their race and class. They provide orphanage, hospitals, and even home for elderly. Now the welfare state serve some of these functions, some said, poorly.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#97

Post by wtallis »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #43
hugh3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that the real cause of "selected items" is that the number of things paid for by your taxes are obviously much larger than could fit on a short list, and has a long tail. Well, of course that depends how you slice it. Break it down by department and it looks more like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_categor... The twenty-something listed departments account for 97% of the budget…

If you are ever asked to make a Pie Chart for general distribution please take this as a perfect example of what not to do. This is almost completely unreadable for 6-8% of the male population who suffer from colour-blindness (myself included).

I don't think that anybody can reliably match all 31 of those colors, particularly when the context changes from similar shades to white. Especially for the big slices, the name needs to be in the slice, not at the side of the chart. The smaller slices can have the names printed in the callout labels along with the percentages.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#98

Post by jbooth »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #91
timr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a great idea, given that members of both major political parties are absolutely loathe to touch the biggest sources of government expenditure: old person benefits (social security + medicare), and the military. Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". With greater pu…

Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B. http://…

Compared to the size of the government, or even just the deficit, it's comparatively minor. By your numbers.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#99

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #91
timr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a great idea, given that members of both major political parties are absolutely loathe to touch the biggest sources of government expenditure: old person benefits (social security + medicare), and the military. Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". With greater pu…

Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B. http://…

[deleted]

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#100

Post by jbooth »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #94
timr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can define "welfare" however you like, but it doesn't change the reality that no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Old people comprise the base of both political parties.

no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Not true. Paul Ryan did, and even got into a fairly public fight with Paul Krugman about it [1]. http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/ [1] The fight was mostly over matters of little substance - Krugman told a few lies about Ryan which blogger Megan McCardle repeatedly debunked. The substance of the…

And then he walked it back - the way I saw that conversation was Ryan walking his statements back and Krugman trying to pin him to them, or, if you'd prefer, exaggerating them -- that's just more support for "noone will touch SS".

If Ryan came out swinging and saying "YEAH i want to dismantle SS", that'd be different.

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