Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Jack,

All the intellegence in this country won’t mean squat, if we don’t have a sudden attack of common sense.

Decisions need to be made in the clear light of logic and not be muddied by emotions.

In 1984, Orwell talks about how a ‘hierarchical society is based on ignorance’

Relentlessly devaluing the sacred values of birth, wealth, and appearance? Where? When? Oh, the pitiful inbred aristocracy! Soon to be usurped by the smart, poor, unattractive, luckless and unconnected. Such a sad day that will be. Maybe we can install a chip in the brains of the overly intelligent that will play a loud sound every thirty seconds or so. That should even the playing field.

What do we do?

Well, if you’re the Republican party you demonize anyone with a brain and an education by painting them as one of the “intellectual elite” who should be feared and ridiculed by the rank and file.

Ah… So this is why Republicans want an end to free Public Schooling. So the Natural Intelligence, emotional or otherwise, of those poor lower classes can be improved by not giving them an education at all.

Burt

Intellectual elite (as we commonly define it) is not synonymous with people with brains and educations. In fact, a lot of those prominent in the softer disciplines really don’t have much of either. As long as we get poster boys like Ward Churchill, suspicion is understandable.

Aldous

I expect you are talking about vouchers, which are a form of public education. Not all publicly funded education needs to be delivered in state owned and run facilities, as our very successful university system demonstrates every day.

My question about what do we do comes from a real dilemma.

I believe that most of us are operating with a societal model in our minds that no longer reflects reality. We have missed the extreme dynamism of our own society and still have an outlook shaped by and before the 1960s. Classes, in the sense we think of them, have largely disappeared from the U.S. They have been replaced by a fluid system that nobody has successfully categorized.

As one example, I was looking into affirmative action programs, a real relic of the 1960s. Programs have morphed into a de-facto way to keep Asian American students out of university in the numbers their achievements would warrant. If affirmative action programs were removed tomorrow, the numbers of white students would remain about the same, but Asian enrollment would grow. How does this fit into any traditional model when a group of recent immigrants could displace what sociologist would call the power elite?

Jack,

You cannot just wave socioeconomics aside with a wave of your hand. There still are areas in this country that don’t place a premium on education.
Second class educations mean second class citizens.
Until we can drag these folks kicking and screaming into this century they won’t have a chance at being part of your “Power elite”.
Asian immigrants are more motivated, and therefore should have the opportunity to succeed.
Entrance to higher learning should be based on achievement, not race or riches. That would give all an equal chance to to excel.

Rocky

You are right about some subcultures. And I agree that we should judge people by the content of their characters and their talents, not their race or backgrounds. This is happening more often now than ever before.

My point is that equal opportunity will not lead to greater equality. On the contrary, it is likely to lead in the opposite direction because as you resolve success to a single variable (ability or intelligence) you create less ambiguous hierarchies. Ability is not distributed fairly throughout the population.

The problem is further exacerbated by free choice. People obviously tend to find their friends, business partners and marriage prospects among those they associate with. As they can increasingly associate with people like themselves, inequality grows.

Consider two couple, Smith and Jones. Mr. Smith is an executive; Mr. Jones a worker. Smith married a woman he met in college. Jones married his HS sweetheart. A generation ago, maybe Smith made $100K (today’s dollars) and Jones $50.

Neither of their wives worked so the Smith family made $50 more that the Jones. Today, all the spouses work. The college educated Smiths make $100 each. The HS educated Jones make $50 each. Now the Smiths make $100 more than the Jones. It is the same percentage, but a lot bigger in real money. If the Smiths are reasonably good investors, they will be independently wealthy in a short time. Jones will be working for wages their whole lives.

Jack,

From your model I have to make the assumption that Mr. & Mrs. Jones do no investing at all.

You seem to make the distinction that because the Smiths are collage educated their ability to invest is much greater. This is nopt always the case.

What you fail to mention is lifestyle.
I know folks that have a greater lifestyle need than me and therefore have less money to invest than I do. Conversely, I also know people that make nearly what I do and have a lesser lifestyle need, therefore freeing up far more capital to invest with.
I’d guess my point would be do you want your lifestyle affected now or later?

BTW the Jones may someday win the Lotto.

Jack, that is precisely why crime pays in America, for far too many. I don’t however buy your premise that intelligence supercedes wealth as a determinant of success. There are simply far too many offsrping of wealth with intelligence levels commonly distributed throughout the population, who are successful by most standards. Intelligence was not their determinant factor, access and wealth was. Look at child actors of parent actors. There are a host of them without superior intelligence or talent, but, they are successful because of the training their parents wealth bought them and the access to the industry which their parents provided. Just one example.

Jack, but to get to the heart of your question about inequality I will offer this.

No functional lasting scheme to equalize wealth or intelligence exists. Our nation’s founding documents do not guarantee equality of anything other than opportunity to seek and strive. To the extent that our society can remove impediments to those opportunities to seek and strive equally with others, we can fulfill the promise of our Constitution. That means removing racial, educational, gender based, and poverty driven barriers to the point that the greatest number of Americans possible have the opportunity to learn what they need to know, and recieve fair and competitive evaluation by society for the opportunities which are available.

This in no way implies that competitive advantages of wealth, access, and intelligence are bad or should be precluded in anyway. It simply means that everyone else who lacks these advantages have the access to the education, jobs, and positions of responsibility which their diligent seeking and striving efforts qualify them for.

Utopia does not, and cannot exist here. Intrinsic equality does not exist. But the concept of individual rights to freedom and opportunity to strive and seek, is an ideal laid out in our founding documents that like all ideals, may never be achieved, but striving and seeking to realize that ideal can and will benefit the nation and go a very long distance in time toward preserving the union from corrupt forces that would divide and conquer the very idea of a United States, land of the free and home of brave idealistic dreamers who refuse to be intimidated from their noblest and most productive dreams.

Classes, in the sense we think of them, have largely disappeared from the U.S.

Bullshit.

If affirmative action programs were removed tomorrow, the numbers of white students would remain about the same, but Asian enrollment would grow.

And black and Hispanic enrollments would… do what, Jack?

Seriously, most Asians can afford to send their kids to college. The same can’t be said for too many blacks and Hispanics.

I’m all for advancement on merit - and granted, the number of blacks and Hispanics who can afford college is growing - but there are some very real gaps related to your seven-item list that need to be bridged before we abolish affirmative action.

If you want to offer solutions, then by all means, lets hear ‘em. But go push the social Darwinism somewhere else.

Jack,

You know I like your articles normally, you are good at putting across your point of view. But this article is nonsense. Obviously everyone wants a society where status and wealth are based on merit rather than on birth. What are you argueing? Where is your evidence?

Last time we talked about social mobility here I linked to a number of articles containing research showing that countries such as Sweden and France had higher social and wealth mobility than the US, and that social mobility in the US is falling, not rising. Here’s an article from that radical left-wing rabble-rouser The Economist.

I think I linked to this article last time. Here’s a bit from the executive summary:

International comparisons indicate that intergenerational mobility in Britain is of the same order of magnitude as in the US, but that these countries are substantially less mobile than Canada and the Nordic countries. Germany also looks to be more mobile than the UK and US

Or this from an article in Review of Economics and Statistics:

the United States is substantially less mobile than previous research indicated. Estimates of intergenerational mobility arc significantly lower for families with little or no wealth.

Or this from the journal Social Science Research:

Comparing two cohorts (sons who were 11-15 years old in 1969 vs. sons who were at the same age in 1979) from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this paper shows that the transmission of high-income status significantly increased while the transmission of low-income status remained stable. These results suggest that it has now become easier for high-income sons to maintain their economically advantaged status than in the past. In contrast, low-income sons’ chances of escaping from their economic disadvantage have not increased to the same extent.

There is much more evidence to support the idea that birth still plays the major part in social status. Where is your evidence that we are now living in an age of meritocracy?

The question of inequality is not always one of virtue. Opportunity is a question as well, and where you come from can be important to where you go. The key to optimizing this system is not a laissez faire approach which just assumes the potentially successful will succeed, but instead an approach where we actively search out talent at all levels of society.

The law of the jungle does not always work. Some of our greatest inventions were created by inventors who barely saw a dime for their work, and in fact were shoved aside by those who were more vicious, and more competitive in a business sense. In this society, we have to keep an open mind as to who can succeed and how.

Jack,

Ward Churchill is your poster boy, not mine.

I am not advocating the type of society I describe, but I think it is what we are getting.

Paul – I wasn’t only talking about the U.S. or the U.S. compared to others. It is a modern phenomenon. I think the Euros, with their emphasis on standardized tests probably produce a more merit based university population. But merit is not always such a good thing.

I used to believe in completely in merit and still do think it should be dominant. But my experience is beginning to tell me that merit alone may create a whole new set of problems and will sort our people in to pernicious classes. We need a certain amount of “unfairness” to produce a good society.

You have to have more variables than merit alone and you need more chance for randomness.

Affirmative action is a good example again (this time in the opposite direction) I oppose race-based affirmative action for moral reasons. But in theory the idea that you would bring in outsiders is a good one because a group made up of what we think of as the best and the brightest might not be.

In university, I believe we should set a threshold requirement needed to succeed. It might be a minimum GPA and SAT. There may be 1000 people qualified for only 100 slots. At that time, we should just employ random chance. The incoming class would be as good, probably more diverse and it would cost a lot less to do it. It would be as “fair” as the current system.

There is an interesting case study of something like this. During WWII the U.S. Navy was searching for U-Boats without a lot of success. Expert captains and analysts thought they knew where to look and applied their intelligence to the problem. Then they tried a counter intuitive strategy of using random chance within a system of determined probabilities in their searches. They produced better results than the experts. The same often works with stock picking and even sometimes with diagnosis of diseases.

One more thing. If you eliminate all the other criteria except merit, what does that mean for who gets what? If all other inputs are equalized, you are left with the genetic components of intelligence. I am not sure if I like that better than a little unfairness.

Burt,

My poster children are Chelsea Clinton (got drunk 3 years ago and still graduated Oxford w/ honors I think) and Jenna Bush (got arrested drinking with a fake ID and some pills, still gets away with smokin pot, and attends where?).

We’ll see how this meritocracy thing pans out after Bush43 is out of office…

Jack

From my work with admissions at a major university, I know two things about standardized tests. 1) they are noisy (full of random error) such that from day-to-day an individual’s score can vary significantly, and 2) they are not the best predictors of success, and are in fact the poorest of those measures usually used (tests, grades, and interviews). That they are biased against some socio-economically deprived subgroups is well documented. I’ve proposed many times that prediction of success (in school) be done multivariately by finding the optimal predictor based on what can be gleaned from grades, test scores, socio-economic and racial/ethnic background, extracurricular activities, and interviews/application letters. It would probably surprise you to find out that the predictive ability of test scores varies depending upon socio-economic and racial/ethnic background. That is, a lower test score for a minority predicts the same success for a white, middle class male with a higher score. By using a score with a cut-off that is invariant by category, we practice de facto discrimination.

Does this bother you?

In re Jack’s comment about the university vis a vis public schools: That’s a false analogy and you know it. Uversities are responsible for universal schooling, only for those that move on to higher education; public schools have responsibility for educating all the citizenry. I respect you when you argue straight; this is beneath you.

Wimp,

I would have been surprised if your data showed anything else and I wouldn’t be surprised that if a conservative agreed with you he would still argue against affirmative action.

I would also suspect many don’t get the statistics you’re applying. I.e. an advantaged student with a rating of 12 would do worse than a disadvantaged student with a rating of 12. This is because the advantaged student came out of a group mean of 18 (he was worse than his average predictor)vs. a group mean of 10 for the disadvantaged (he was better than his average predictor). Of course, you have pick the correct predictors.

Wimp,

Interesting comment. Even a perfect standardized test is like taking a photograph of runners in a race: it indicates position but only implies speed if time and distance are equal. Even the slowest runner can appear to be faster than the fleetest with a sufficient head start.

Nevertheless, I don’t understand why you combine the germane cultural condition of socioeconomic status with the irrelevant genetic condition of race and ethnicity.

I think that only the truly hard-core aristocrats would object to affirmative action programs based upon the former criteria, but the racism and chauvinism inherent in the latter criteria is palpably obvious.

Are you suggesting that race and ethnicity are innate indicators of academic success or intelligence? If so, doesn’t that betray a profound, albeit latent, racism and ethnic chauvinism on the part of those who support racial and ethnic affirmative action? Conversely, if they are not, why do affirmative action programs include these superfluous conditions when they are solely intended to ameliorate disparities in socioeconomic status? If we want affirmative action programs to promote cultural diversity, shouldn’t they be predicated upon cultural instead of genetic signifiers?

The solution is twofold. Congress must bar any organization that accepts federal funding of any kind from considering any racial, sexual, religious or ethnic criteria in the way in which it conducts itself. Simultaneously, it must rescind its funding of any organization that did not engage in a positive and proactive manner to include individuals from lower socioeconomic positions in its operations.

If we desire a meritocracy, we must endeavor to exclude racism and ethnocentricity from our society in all of their abhorrent manifestations.

Jack:
“Classes, in the sense we think of them, have largely disappeared from the U.S.”
AP:
“Bullshit.”

The Irony of such a statement is simply stunning, isn’t it?

George W. Bush is a perfect example of the indisputable fact that within our nations Wealthy Class, a complete lack of common sense and intelligence does not keep the rich and well-connected from becoming monstrously powerful.

He is the poster-boy of the ruling American Aristocracy, rather than an honest and truly democratic meritocracy.

Currently our president is a dry drunk, cocaine-sniffing, furtively secretive, totally dishonest, irresponsible C student who failed at each and every one of his assorted businesses. If we did live in a country governed by meritocracy, a man such as W would never have been given the opportunity to occupy the White House.
It was ONLY by the chance of his birth and a pre-existing network of powerful business and political connections that this total loser, this pampered n’er-do-well born into the extreme affluence of an oil dynasty, could manage to hold such ultimate power over us all.
Indeed, this willfully ignorant smirking rich boy (who unabashedly admits that he never reads anything) is an inarticulate and obviously incompetant embarrassment to the entire nation — an insult to the good sense and intelligence of everyone whose birth took place outside his social class.

Jack:
“Beyond that, our society through its technology and organizations has been relentlessly devaluing all the others, leaving intelligence as dominant determiner of success.”

This grandiose claim really only applies (and barely at that) when we speak of the (rapidly shrinking) middle class of this nation, and applies not at all to the lower classes. To say otherwise is to either totally fool oneself, or is an attempt to fool others with a pitifully naive notion of American fairness and equality that has never actually existed.

I know this because I grew up a middle class kid surrounded by the rich sons and daughters of an Old Money hierarchical class structure. I observed that the majority of these people barely applied themselves in school, while being provided with everything — including time and every other luxury one could name — certain in the knowledge that all would go well for them — which of course, it did.
It always has, and always will.
Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of those who fall below this class of people has to work their asses off competing for scholarship funds, or taking out enormous student loans, holding down part or full time jobs — therefore, frequently going without sleep, and often ordinary necessities in order to attend the same universities that they do.
And despite the many good things that we accomplish while standing in the shade of the upper classes, and the educations we manage to receive through our own efforts, we must never fool ourselves with the idea that it will be easy to acquire the amount of wealth that they are born into — simply because we don’t have the last names and the hefty trustfunds they start out with. Nor should we deceive ourselves into thinking that our educational merits are somehow going to provide us with the same kind of opportunities that they are automatically given through family connections alone.

No. The sad but conspicuous reality is, wealthy people have a whole network of others in their class who are intent on making sure that their peers will forever hold the reins of power and influence within this country.
Of course, this is not to say that a few of us commoners won’t manage to join the prejudiced and enormously wealthy inner circle — because indeed, some of us do. And among those, intelligence, innovation, and/or talent may indeed be the reason. But such a feat is quite often accomplished by other means as well — for instance, the sheer dumb luck of circumstance — or a complete and total lack of morality, might actually be the deciding factor in joining their ranks.
Indeed, if one digs into the backgrounds and unique personal histories of such families, one will very often find that a reprobate progenitor was actually the founding source of so much wealth and influence. And not surprisingly, the greed along with the criminal mindset, is all too frequently handed down - much like a family heirloom.

Aldous:
“Ah… So this is why Republicans want an end to free Public Schooling. So the Natural Intelligence, emotional or otherwise, of those poor lower classes can be improved by not giving them an education at all.”

Right. The Wealthy (of whom the vast majority are Republican) need dumb Sheep to lead in perpetuity. Providing assistance to the middle and lower classes to acquire knowledge, and creating an atmosphere that encourages curiousity and skepticism has always been considered an extremely dangerous idea among the ruling classes of the world. The goal of these people is for us to only gain the ability to obey, and to learn only enough so that we will be fearful of the consequences of not doing so.
True intelligence can only lead to questions that the wealthy cannot, and are in fact, unwilling to answer. And so, there is no better way to produce Sheep than to completely thwart the intelligence and crush the curiousity and skepticism of the unwashed masses while they are still children. These days the rich and powerful not only want to do this, they’re also searching for ways to make money from it!
Really, when you think about it, this has got to be the best inside joke of all!

David:
“Utopia does not, and cannot exist here. Intrinsic equality does not exist. But the concept of individual rights to freedom and opportunity to strive and seek, is an ideal laid out in our founding documents that like all ideals, may never be achieved, but striving and seeking to realize that ideal can and will benefit the nation and go a very long distance in time toward preserving the union from corrupt forces that would divide and conquer the very idea of a United States, land of the free and home of brave idealistic dreamers who refuse to be intimidated from their noblest and most productive dreams.”

Perfectly eloquent, and entirely truthful!!!

I would not oppose using different scores for different groups if we could demonstrate that the group membership consistently produced statistically biased results. The bias part is hard to figure. A test that consistently showed that old men ran slower than young men would not be biased, since it would be an accurate predictor.

But I think you missed my point about admissions. I don’t really care what criteria you use to set the threshold requirement, as long as it is consistent and a reasonable predictor of academic success. I don’t care who is in the initial group. My concern is with true diversity (diversity of outlook) and I think you get a better chance at that if you don’t micromanage the process. I know that practitioners don’t like to hear that restricted random chance can produce a better outcome, but it often can. You set up the system and then let it work. There is a lot of research that indicates this statistical methods work best at managing risk on all kinds of things from picking stocks to diagnosing sickness.

And if the system we design is producing unbiased results (i.e. those who it selects actually subsequently perform best in the academic environment) I actually don’t care about skin color and ethnicity. If I did, that would be racist.

Re public schools – that is a whole new topic, but let me give my short statement.

I believe in public schools. I am a product of public schools and public universities. My kids go to public schools and my daughter attends the public University of Virginia (Jefferson’s university), which I think is excellent. Given a choice, most people will NOT opt for private schools. But that fact that people have a choice keeps the education establishment honest. It is like that with any monopolist.

Potential competition keeps them in line. Right now, the well off have options. They can afford private schools or (as I did) move to a place that has good public schools. That is why we get good service from the school systems - leverage. I just want to give the poor the same kind of leverage I enjoy. If it wasn’t for the powerful teachers’ unions and the educational establishment, liberals would be all over this issue on my side. I want to empower the poor, and that is the truth, because I want them or at least their kids to stop being poor. A good education is the key and despite all the money spent on bad schools, they are not getting it in most big urban districts.

Chuck Hanrahan

Insightful question and I appreciate the opportunity to address it.

The ultimate predictor of success isn’t race, it’s innate ability. Unfortunately, the tests are flawed in that they are miscalibrated for some racial strata, so the predictive equation needs to be stratified to account for it. The theory that explains the miscalibration is that the test makers select items that enhance the difference between the top performers and the bottom performers, which then produces a bias for those at the top and against those at the bottom. If you have a historically underperforming group, due to historic disadvantage, then items which contain some non-intellectual, culturally specific information are preferentially selected. They distinguish the groups, but not on innate ability. Since these items are obviously biased, some statistical method must be used to recalibrate them for the various cultural subgroups, often defined by race or ethnicity, but sometimes by economic disadvantage.

The technological ability we have to correct this has been disgracefully neglected by both the right and left in order to further their political agenda. I don’t know how to overcome this, but I hope a wider understanding of the issue will help.

Adrienne,

A quick word about wealth from our friend Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America:

“What is important for democracies is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way, there are rich men, but they do not form a class.”

If you want to level the playing field and promote the idea that everyone has a relatively equal opportunity to achieve success in a classless and socially mobile society, we need to change the tax code so that the relative tax burden placed upon income is based solely upon its nature.

In other words, all income is not created equal, and some income is derived from activities that are more socioeconomically productive than others. Those that are more productive should taxed the least (thereby encouraging productive behavior), and those that are the least productive should be taxed the most.

There are only three ways that private entities can acquire property (legally):

1) They can earn it. (An Earned Income Tax on Labor)

2) Their money can earn it. (An Earned Income Tax on Property)

3) They can be given it. (An Unearned Income Tax)

I hope that everyone this side of Jay Gatsby believes that the first activity is the most productive and should be taxed the least, and that the second should be taxed at a higher rate than the first.

When it comes to the third category, the Unearned Income Tax, I would propose we pick a reasonable number, say $100,000, and tax the recipient of any amount greater than that at the rate of 100%. This would essentially abolish large gifts and inheritance, which would make our economy more productive in two ways. Everyone would have to earn their own money; and when they did, they’d be able to keep more of it.

Finally, an Unearned Income Tax avoids the spurious allegation of a “Death Tax” because it taxes the recipient, not the estate.

The bottom line: if everyone had to earn their own way in the world, we’d have a society that provides its members with a much more equal opportunity to pursue and achieve (rather than be given) economic happiness.

Wimp,

I was with you 100% until you the phrase “cultural subgroups’ in referring to race and ethnicity. Rich and poor, yes. Black and white, or men and women, or Jew and Gentile, or Irish and Italian, no. Not in my America.

In an egalitarian and colorblind culture, race and ethnicity can only be one thing: genetic, not cultural subgroups.

As long as you contend that those individuals from lower socioeconomic groups who have encountered “histoical disadvantages” merit affirmative action regardless of race or ethnicity, I’m with you all the way. As soon as you turn superfluous genetic criteria into cultural signifiers, however, you’ve lost me.

Rocky said,
Entrance to higher learning should be based on achievement, not race or riches. That would give all an equal chance to to excel.
What’s this a liberal that doesn’t like the quota system? There maybe a little hope for them after all.

Chuck

$100,000 is not much money these days. It is less than the price of an average family home and much less than an average family home in most high growth areas.

Operationally, would this $100,000 be cumulative or yearly? If it is cumulative, you would probably prevent parents from paying for their kids educations. Or if I send my daughter through college, I can’t give her any other gifts nor can she inherit anything.

Earning money on money sounds nefarious, but may or may not be. Taxing it is very inefficient. Why? Because it pushes people into non-productive assets. A person who invests in stock (that produces something) gets killed by taxes. A person who invests in something like gold or jewels, that appreciate, can probably get away with avoiding taxes.

Mixing your two taxes together, how much would the jewelry be worth if you gave it as a gift. If you paid $10,000 thirty years ago, what is it worth today? What if the recipient never sells it? It is not easy to estimate values.

Consider this. You own a small lot next to your home. You would like to give it to your son so that he can build a house for his family. The land is worth $30,000. BUT there are ten very large black walnut trees growing on the property. They have no monetary value as growing trees, but are worth $12,000 each as lumber. Is the property worth $30,000 or $150,000?

You see how complicated it gets. And you throw all this power to the government. How much do you trust the government? Before you answer, consider that George Bush, a Republican controlled Congress and very soon a Republican Supreme court currently control the government. Many times, you will have a government you don’t like. Still trust them.

The only power we have to resist government tyranny is our control of private property. If the government can confiscate it with taxes, we have no defense at all.

When taxes are high or arbitrary, people figure out ways to hide their income and their wealth. They store wealth in portable and concealable things instead of in productive enterprise. This was the fate of almost all societies before our own market economies. You really don’t want to go back to it.

Ron,

“Entrance to higher learning should be based on achievement, not race or riches. That would give all an equal chance to to excel.
What’s this a liberal that doesn’t like the quota system? There maybe a little hope for them after all.”

Do you assume that because I am able to spell, use words with more than two syllables and am mostly coherent, that I am a liberal?

My opinions have always been my own I don’t speak from someone’s playbook, and I find it hard to respect people that do. I try to do my own research, but I also try to admit it when I am wrong.
To ask the question again, does that brand me as a liberal?

To paraphrase my favorite philosopher;

“I wouldn’t want to join a group that would have me as a member”.
Groucho Marks

Hey Jack, how do you feel about abolishing the practice of giving preferential treatment to the progeny of alumnis? How come you didn’t bring that up first? Wouldn’t that open up far more seats?

Excellent post on the taxes, Chuck. Not surprising to see Jack struggling to find a good argument against it. :)

Preferential treatment to alumni is a bad idea too. Although a lot of that is done for marketing reasons without any pretense of fairness. I don’t think that would open up very many more seats, but I really don’t know. I would abolish the practice.

You don’t have to struggle to be against those tax proposals. They would quickly lead the country to financial ruin and set up a government tyranny. I do wonder why liberals are so enamored by governments when you know that Republicans, who you evidently don’t think are good at the job, will be running the governments much of the time.

I believe in a balance between private enterprise, governments and society and don’t find the currently dynamic particularly troubling in general, although I would tinker will most of the details.

They would quickly lead the country to financial ruin and set up a government tyranny.

Untrue, Jack. Until the 60’s, the top bracket was taxed at over 90% and the country did very well indeed.

AP

The top bracket was high for earned income. But it was a bracket, not the total tax burden and not a confiscation of everything more than $100,000, which is not very much money. The tax code also came with so many loopholes that the rich guys didn’t end up paying very much.

If you look at data from the CBO, you find that in 1979 (before the Reagan cuts), the top quintile paid 65.1% of income taxes. After Reagan’s cuts, in 1985 they were paying 70%. In 2002 they were up to 82.2%. A few more tax cuts and they may be paying all the income taxes. If you cut and simplify at the same time, you often get more cash from the wealthy.

Anyway, we can discuss the relative merits of progressive taxation, with the inevitable deductions and complications. Chuck’s proposals were fairly simple and just unworkable.

Jack, do you have a link to that info? Assuming it’s correct, that’s hardly surprising: the top 20% makes a hell of a lot more money, and they’re making it at an exponentially increasing rate.

And if you check, you’ll find that the upward movement in individual tax liability numbers is directly correlated to the downward trend for taxes on business.

A more accurate measure is taxes as a percentage of income. The tax rate on the top 20% has steadily dropped since 1979 - plummetted, if you want to go back to the 90% rate in the 60s. The net effect is the rich spend more of their money overseas, the government is starved for funds, and Republicans keep borrowing money from China to make up the difference.

jack:

I want to empower the poor, and that is the truth, because I want them or at least their kids to stop being poor.

I thought the premise of your article was that there will always be poor… some people will naturally excel, while others naturally do not, and this will always create economic inequality? To say that your goal is to stop the poor, or the children of the poor, from staying poor is to imply that you want to create equal outcomes, which you have previously argued against. Indeed, your own article says that unequal outcomes are inevitable, and will increase if road blocks to success are removed.

Equality is impossible and probably undesirable, but people don’t have to be poor. Some people will always be poor because of their choices. I want to give people the opportunity to get out of their predicaments. Those that choose to take the opportunity will be better off.

AP - http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3089&sequence=11 for the historical figures. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5746&sequence=1 for today and tomorrow.

You will notice that the lowest 60% of the population pays only 16 ½ (Share of Total Federal Tax Liabilities) People in the lowest income groups effectively pay nothing. There just is not much oppression of the poor in our tax system. It is a myth based on previous places and times.

just is not much oppression of the poor in our tax system.

Ah, the topic change. The original point was that the rich could pay a hell of a lot more (90% up until the 60’s) and it wouldn’t “quickly lead the country to financial ruin and set up a government tyranny.”

Jack,

“You will notice that the lowest 60% of the population pays only 16 ½ (Share of Total Federal Tax Liabilities) People in the lowest income groups effectively pay nothing.”

I have to agree with AP on this one.

Why would we expect the lowest income groups to pay the greatest amount of taxes?
Those that are put upon are those in the middle, those that can’t afford a tax lawyer to find the loopholes that will save them money at tax time.

I don’t understand what the top percentile are bitching about.

AP, Rocky

I don’t think the rich are currently paying too much as a percentage of the total. The subject was tax rates. As I recall the proposal was to tax gifts etc at 100% after a certain level. The reason I quoted the statistics was to show that lower tax RATES usually bring in more money from the rich. The rich (like others) respond to circumstances. They are much more able to take advantage of loopholes or just aspects of financial planning that minimize tax exposure. On the very basic level, they can choose to consume rather than invest. This makes everyone poorer.

My figures for the poor were tangential. They just contradict the idea that the poor are paying all the taxes. BTW that 16% is not only the poor. It is the lower 60% of the population – most people in America pay very little in Federal taxes, despite the rhetoric.

The wealthy already spend as much as they want to. The reduction in taxes paid by the wealthy only represented an increase in their savings rate and net worth, not a direct economic stimulus via consumption.

When people say the bottom 60% pay 16% of the taxes, how much are the bottom 60% worth or earn? I’m confident it’s less than 16% of the nations net worth or income.

Dave

And you would be wrong. The tax rate at the bottom 60% is lower. So the 16% of taxes they pay is based on a higher income than on a correspondingly higher income, taxed at a higher rate.

If you drill into the CBO tables I referenced above, you find that they earn about 27% before taxes and 30% after. This is before transfer payments are included.

The problem we have with our trade deficit and low savings rates indicate that we don?t require economic (fiscal) stimulus of consumption; we require investment, so you proved my point about the taxes.

jack,

Income is only a small part of the wealth and earnings of the rich. They may get paid $1,000,000 in a year, but they are taxed on only (for example) $500,000. So even if they pay 30% of $500k equals $150k, it’s a rate of only 15%. And that doesn’t include the offshore shelters, untaxed benefits, and increases in portfolio or land holdings or etc… etc… etc… Making their percentage smaller still.

And you’re right about the savings. But, it doesn’t help that only 1% of the populace are saving 90% of the money.

You have a point about wealth, but earnings are earnings and taxable, unless you can duck them. That is why it is better to have simple taxes at lower rates. It is undeniable that we are getting more money from the rich now than ever before in our tax system.

I hope you are not proposing a “wealth tax”. That has been tried and it doesn’t work.

Many tax proposals sound good as ways to soak the rich. There is a problem, however. The rich who made the money themselves are clever enough to outsmart the government bureaucrats. Those who inherited the money can afford to hire someone who is smart enough. Anything you make very complicated or onerous produces negative results.

Ask yourself why you have a tax system. If the goal is to raise money from those who have the most of it, our system works well now. You might change it just a little to raise revenue, but it works. If your goal is to redistribute wealth, it does a less good job. Usually the goals of wealth redistribution and wealth creation are in conflict. Inequality increased under Clinton and decreased under Bush (so far). It had little to do with taxes and a lot to do with a faster growing economy.

It is a simple mathematical truth. You can only be so poor. You can essentially have zero income. But there are few practical limits on how rich you can be. Economic growth will make some people rich. You know that puzzle. If you have a small town with ten people in it and nobody has a job, you have perfect equality. If one person finds work, suddenly there is a great disparity.

Jack,

As a teacher in an urban school district I’d like to fill you in on some of your misconceptions…

Jack: If it wasn�t for the powerful teachers� unions and the educational establishment, liberals would be all over this issue on my side. I want to empower the poor, and that is the truth, because I want them or at least their kids to stop being poor. A good education is the key and despite all the money spent on bad schools, they are not getting it in most big urban districts.

First of all, there are still a number of states without teacher unions (because they are still illegal in those states). The reason kids don’t necessarily get the education that they deserve deals with many factors of which the majority are out of the school’s control:

1. Students of a lower SES group move from district to district at a MUCH higher rate than kids of higher SES. The end result being missed information. This would only be solved if every school in every city across the nation taught the same thing on the same day as everyone else (and that’s never going to happen)

2. High school students from lower SES backgrounds work much more after school and have a lot less time for studying, homework, and other intellectual stimulants (I know they aren’t the only ones who work, but from personal experience they work much more…I have students with two and three jobs and who still manage to stay in school)

3. Urban schools have a plethera of problems stemming from the communities they are in such as gangs. Many of the students who drop out are involved in gangs and other criminal activities, and according to North Carolina statistics, 80% of our prison population are high school drop outs.

4. Standardized tests are a load of crap. The fact they they remain our major source of determining intelligence is one of our biggest problems in the eductation system. They are bias, irrelevant, and a nuisance. If we would spend less time teaching to tests, and more time engaging our students, we would be much more successful. However, for schools to keep funding they have to do a dog and pony show with these tests and they are never going to have the results they want with the inner city schools.

5. If you’re concerned about all the money being pent on inner city schools I propose you go to some schools and look at their textbooks (what year were they published—some of the ones I have had to use in my classes have been older than me). Then take a look at what kind of technology is being used in those schools and what state the school is in overall. My guess is you will not see the money you claim is there. Oh, don’t get me wrong, money is being spent, but not on the actual education of our students. Check out the money it takes to run a school where 85% (or more) of the students are on free and reduced lunch. Or how much money it takes to run a special education class. You see, that is where a large proportion of money is going…not to mention the amount of money used to research, buy, and score those “wonderful” standardized tests.

It’s much easier to blame the educational community for the failing schools. However, we rarely ever account the neccessary but often lacking parental involvement. People learn by what they see and what they know. We can expose people to things in our classrooms but, in the end success must be intrinsic. And, children need the support of more than just the teachers they see for a few hours a day.

You are right that our schools are in serious peril, but we must look at the bigger picture here. Educators and unions cannot be scapegoated for our societies defaults. We may have set up affirmative action to “level the playing field” but the tests being used for college entrance are still culturally biased and therefore we’re not doing much anyhow. It’s a complex issue and one that cannot really be solved in some political debate blog. But, clearing up misconceptions is a first step.