OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by thejeff

I'll agree with your single mom example. It's a silly system. A more graduated drop as you earned more would make far more sense.

Yes, I agree.

Originally Posted by thejeff

And universal health care would make a lot of those issues go away. Having health care tied to employment leads to a lot of problems and results in a system that costs more and produces worse results than other "developed" countries.

Government running healthcare is not the way to proceed. First the working class should not pay for the healthcare of those who are lazy and choose not to work. I could understand those who are temporarily out of work or disabled, but not those who choose to remain out of work despite no health problems. Second we don't want to provide free healthcare for illegal aliens as it only provides them more reasons for sneaking across the border. Any illegal aliens have trouble finding work which naturally increases the rate of crime. I believe anyone should be allowed to stay in America as long as they pass health and background tests... this would help keep out criminals and STDs. The third problem with government run healthcare is we know the government poorly runs a majority of responsibilities thus we don't want to be giving the government any new responsibilities until the previous ones have been fixed. The main reason is because once the government owns something it NEVER lets it go and the country doesn't need a new Major problem.

Originally Posted by thejeff

More importantly, I'm not sure how a flat tax addresses any of your concerns. I assume you're talking about a single income tax rate with no (or minimal) exemptions or deductions? Simplifying parts of the tax code would have benefits, but I don't see what that has to do with the actual flat part of the flat tax. You could equally well remove the deductions and keep graduated tax rates, or have a single rate with all the complex deductions.
A flat tax would also raise rates at the lower end and, especially if you also remove the deductions for her children, make your example single mom's situation worse.

Well the flat tax should first be tested in two small sections of America. Then any problems/imbalances can be identified and adjusted and gradually expand into the rest of America. I've heard the flat tax has worked terrific for the Russian government. The purpose of the flat tax is so when someone like Bill Gates earns 12.8 billion in a year he would pay a solid flat tax... even an 8% tax means 1 billion dallors. In my opinion the flat tax should gradually increase depending on income, thus the single mom would pay 1%.