Fair Share?

[SmartyPants]

A) Shouldn't the employer decide himself, if he wants to help to help pay for his employees' health insurance?

A) No. I would tend to agree a bit more if the employer together with the employees chose the benefits. However, in my example I was thinking of a larger time window. The children's education that we're paying for now will be the future workforce. And, perhaps, there will be some jobs in 20 years time that nowadays don't exist. I doubt that most employers and employees would care to pay for that education today.

What the hell are you talking about?  You say an employer would have a better workforce if his employees have better health insurance.  So I point out that employers will provide health insurrance themselves if it benefits them to have healthy employees.  I don't understand why you are randomly ranting about education.  I personally believe in public education because free education is the only way to have equal opportunity.

B) Education is best left to state and local governments because they are better intuned to their own children.

B) I don't have enough information on how the tax money (and I'm speaking about all taxes) is distributed between the central and the local government in the USA. I suspect that it might be like in my country: most of it stays in the central government. Nevertheless, it seems that we agree that public education is important.

The federal government taxes everyone nationwide which leaves less money for states to collect.  The US constitution says that education is left to the states, so the federal government can't make laws regulating education.  To get around this, the federal government takes more money from its citizens and then blackmails the states into enforcing federal policy.  For example, lets say that a federal policy requires the states to have a standardized test.  If the states refuse to have a standardized test, the federal government will withhold giving money to the state.  That means that the government may tax 20% of the states income, and then refuse to return any of that money to those states.  Since the US is massive and diverse, a solution that works in one state may not work in another, so the federal one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work.  The federal government should lower taxes and education spending, so the states can tax more and spend more wisely.

[ArtDrake]

"Blackmail" is not the appropriate term,
"What the hell are you talking about?" is unnecessary, and
the United States government does not "get around" the Constitution; it merely indirectly ensures that the states perform certain tasks which are believed to be condusive to education.

[Ertxiem]

A) I'm saying that when we think about taxes, we must look at a larger time window than the current instant. From what I understood, you defend that an employer should only spend money (including what could be taxes) on things that give him profit, possibly in the near future. However, my view of taxes is more broad both in time and in space (people).

B) In my view, even in a school with 100 children, these children will have different interests and needs. So, I also think that one-size-fits-all approach may not work even at the school level. Nevertheless, I think that decentralizing is a good think. But I also think that it's up to the central government to create standards that must be followed, otherwise, there may be the temptation to make things easier for popularity reasons.

Like Duckling, I tend to think that sometimes your language, Smarty, is a bit exaggerated. I'm not offended by it, I'm just commenting.

[SmartyPants]

"Blackmail" is not the appropriate term.

You're right.  "Coercion" is a more accurate word.

The United States government does not "get around" the Constitution; it merely indirectly ensures that the states perform certain tasks which are believed to be condusive to education.

No where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government have anything to do with education.  According to the Tenth Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  Since the Constitution says Congress doesn't have the power to regulate education, Washington increase taxes and then coerce states into following the federal govenment's one-size-fits-all policy by threating to take away money that States needed to fund their schools.  If that isn't a way to "get around" the Constitution, then I don't know what is.

A) I'm saying that when we think about taxes, we must look at a larger time window than the current instant. From what I understood, you defend that an employer should only spend money (including what could be taxes) on things that give him profit, possibly in the near future. However, my view of taxes is more broad both in time and in space (people).

I understand that government and tax dollars are needed to do things that the free market doesn't address such as infrastructure, security, and regulation, but why should the government get involved in things that individuals and organizations can do themselves.

But I also think that it's up to the central government to create standards that must be followed, otherwise, there may be the temptation to make things easier for popularity reasons.

If anything, the bigger the system, the more they dumb things down.  Texas is the second most populated state in the US.  The entire state uses the same standarized test.  They design the test so that anyone is able to pass it with enough hard work, so they lower the standards of the high-performing schools to the same level as low-performing schools.  Maybe my local school district should of be able to give higher standards then the school full of students who aren't fluent in English.  Now imagine if everyone is given the same standards as the dumbest schools in the country.

[CraigStern]

the Constitution says Congress doesn't have the power to regulate education

I studied Constitutional law pretty extensively back in law school, and I definitely don't remember seeing any language like that in there. Could you please cite the clause you're referring to?

[SmartyPants]

No where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government have anything to do with education.

I studied Constitutional law pretty extensively back in law school, and I definitely don't remember seeing any language like that in there. Could you please cite the clause you're referring to?

Since you are the expert on Constitutional law, you know that the "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  Since there isn't any clause which gives the federal government authority over education, education is "reserved to the States".

[CraigStern]

Right--there isn't actually any language saying that Congress cannot offer financial incentives to the states to undertake certain actions with regard to education. Even the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court do not think that this runs afoul of the 10th Amendment. For examples of legislation that does, see New York v. United States and Printz v. United States.

[SmartyPants]

Craig, you got to read everything so you don't take something out of context:

The US constitution says that education is left to the states, so the federal government can't make laws regulating education.  To get around this, the federal government takes more money from its citizens and then coerces the states into enforcing federal policy. Since the US is massive and diverse, a solution that works in one state may not work in another, so the federal one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work.  The federal government should lower taxes and education spending, so the states can tax more and spend more wisely.

I was trying to explain to Duckling that the federal government doesn't have the power to regulate education, so they use federal grants to "get around" the Constitution and to unofficially regulate education.  I never said it was unconstitutional to use federal grants to pressure states into enforcing policies that the federal government doesn't have the power to regulate.

[ArtDrake]

Sorry, Mr. Stern. That was my fault. I left the conversation at a point where someone attempting to reply to SmartyPants might lack the full context of his argument without extensive backreading.

[SmartyPants]

Does it sound reasonable for people who lose 0% to 15% of their income to federal income taxes to say that the people who lose 28% to 35% of their income aren't paying their fair share?

[ArtDrake]

It depends on what each is getting in return for those percentages of their income.

[SmartyPants]

It depends on what each is getting in return for those percentages of their income.

Do you think the bottom 50% of Americans who don't pay any federal income taxes get more from the government then they pay into it?  Is it right for them to say that the rich aren't paying their fair share?

Fun fact: The wealthy paid a greater percentage of the total federal income taxes under Bush then Clinton.

[CraigStern]

For what it's worth, it looks like Reagan was on the Democrats' side on this one:

http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/the-reagan-speech-todays-gop-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

[SmartyPants]

For what it's worth, it looks like Reagan was on the Democrats' side on this one:
http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/the-reagan-speech-todays-gop-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

Excuse me for not taking your link to a bias website seriously. 

Your link is taking things out of context.  Reagan's supply-side economics and Obama's Keynesian economics don't share similar beliefs on taxes.  When Obama is talking about closing "loopholes", he is talking about taxing the rich more for capital gains (despite the detrimental harm it would do to the stock market).  When Reagan is talking about closing "loopholes", he is talking about removing unreasonable tax breaks and tax shelters.  Obama wants to "spread the wealth around", while Reagan broadened the tax base, decreased capital gains, decreased overall taxes, and improved the economy.
Current Republicans want tax reform where they can close tax loopholes that people abuse, while Democrats mostly want to raise the taxes on high income earners so they can spend more.

[CraigStern]

Are you saying that that footage of Reagan is fraudulent? Clearly he was in favor of closing that particular tax loophole, whatever his broader philosophies were.