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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Way OT: RE: @Home's 119 domain names up for sale
[I know, I know, don't feed the trolls. But some are just too cute not to. Just this once.] Matthew Black wrote: It's kind of funny that people keep making these general claims as though the money is wasted or goes to some unproductive purpose. Personally, I don't consider subsidized housing for the lower-class to be wasteful or a misuse of money. I wonder how many people who decry wasteful government spending would consider road and highway construction a waste of money. > If traffic moves to slow to work for your pleasure, get a job > closer to home or vice versa. After all, this is the land of > opportunity and nobody FORCED you to buy a home far from work. > Highway spending is all government financed, but few complain > about that as a waste. Funny you should say that with the pork laden highway bill that just went through Congress. There were 6371 individual special (i.e. pork) projects in the huge bill. I'd say spending $223 million to build one of the largest bridges in the country to an island Alaska with 50 residents is a severe misallocation of limited resources. That kind of spending IS a waste. Discussion of government spending often spins into a discussion of simplifying the tax code or attempts to make it fairer. Keep in mind that almost all of the tax code consists of rules lobbied by and for corporate Amerika. Very little of the income tax code applies to individuals. As to the fairness question, most of the lower and middle class class are in a higher marginal tax bracket than the well-to-do. The latter get a 7.6% marginal tax break (no FICA or Medicare). So the middle class pay 32.6%; the wealthy pay 20% or less. Talk about disincentives! It matters how you look at income taxes (figures never lie, but liars figure). The top 3% of earners pay about 40% of all income taxes. The top 1/12% pay about 10% of the taxes. Why do the super rich guys want a flat tax? And the other obvious problem, you pay a lot of taxes, probably more than you realize, besides income tax. A nice reference from the definitive source: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_139.html -- Crist J. Clark [email protected] Globalstar Communications (408) 933-4387
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