I'd love to check your math, but since you don't show your work, let me ask if you included these in your "net":

1. Social Security payouts starting at 65
   
2. Estimation of private cost of replacing Medicare benefits (which will be higher than actual cost of Medicare benefits)
   
3. Estimation of private costs of services ordinarily provided by the Federal & local government (e.g. roads, fire service, police, national defense, unemployment benefits, food stamps, parks, public schools, national weather service, etc.)
   

You also mention a 3% APR return on your money, which I'm curious how you're using. Are you adding in an "opportunity cost" of taxes by assuming people would have saved 100% of what they currently pay as taxes in an investment that earns them a compounding 3% APY?

I'm also curious how you're estimating the effect of a 6% sales tax. It seems to me that you'd have to make a few assumptions about 401K savings/investment rates, and the amount of money spend on things that are generally exempted (like housing, education, medical costs), and on top of that factor that into your Federal tax calculations as a deduction.

Which actually raises another thought, what kind of average income tax deduction are you using? The standard, or some estimated itemized deduction? For that matter, are you calculating based on a single individual, or a household income (since that's the what the $55K/yr median income is, the median household income).

I guess even without asking all of those, your calculation for $55,000/yr was an effective tax rate of just over 24%. That's not what I'd call draconian by international standards, especially if you have calculated a worst-case scenario (e.g. filing singly w/no deductions, no estimation of benefits, added a 6% tax to 100% of income for sales tax, and another 3% APY on top for "opportunity costs").

In case you want to save yourself the trouble, you can always just check the CBO's own estimates on effective federal tax rates. It's written in 2004 though, so it doesn't include Obama's tax cuts.

Here is the same data broken down for one year, so you can compare with your own W2 to see how close it is (it should be within a few thousand depending on how much you make and what deductions you take)
http://i45.tinypic.com/11j3cdg.png

I am assuming a standard deduction ($5,700) plus the personal exemption ($3650). Its not perfect, because different states have different levels of income/sales tax, and there are other taxes I am not including (social security paid by the employer, gas, alcohol, cigarettes, property tax, duties, etc. etc) - but it should be pretty close. Clearly everyone has different rates of saving/spending so I had to make some assumptions to get a number (namely that every dollar you make you will eventually spend). If you consider the taxes I left out, it should be pretty close.

As far as the interest, I am assuming you would replace your annual taxation with an annual contribution into a investment vehicle at 3% APR.

The numbers aren't perfect...but they are pretty darn close as you can get...so what do you think Net?

^imstellar, don't get sucked into NR's word games. He likes to confuse the issues he disagrees with by using loose logic and straw man arguments, and eventually using ever changing tangents he'll take you down a winding rabbit hole where the only way he'll debate you is if he sets the debate criteria. Usually that means some unrealistic hypothetical "what if" where some crazed Bill Gates gazillionare decides to wreak havoc unto the masses because there's no almighty white knight government to protect them.

Trust me, it's not worth it. He's silly. Remember, he thought Nazism was okay in his book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

the average of all the incomes = about $55/k is not the same thing as
the average american makes $55/k

also, it's not all about your pocket.

are those 10 years really wasted? i assume you got to live reasonably well and in reasonably good health. you probably even got to buy cool shit, go out to dinners and see some movies.

i've said it before, glass houses don't provide much perspective.

$1.4 million dollars for good health, some cool shit, dinners, and some movies? 12 years slaving 40 hours a week without a dime towards you or your family?

Yeah I agree the government needs to raise money, but $1.4 million on average per person? I can see giving maybe 1-2 years of my life, maybe 5-10% of my annual income...but $1.4 million, come on.

Maybe you don't realize what $1.4 million really is. You can take a 7 day all-you-can-eat Caribbean cruise for $70 a day. So thats ~20,000 days or 54 years you could spend on a cruise ship for the same price of that tax bill. But I guess a TV, a few dinners, and some movies is just as good?

>> ^peggedbea:
i assume you got to live reasonably well and in reasonably good health. you probably even got to buy cool shit, go out to dinners and see some movies.

oh and this has been on my mind lately, i got an awesome new job working with severely disabled adults.
i'm not talking about all those notorious ethnic medicaid scammers. my clients are very severely disabled, most of them since birth.
from very low functioning autism to spina bifida and traumatic brain injuries. the services i provide are paid for by a waiver of medicaid, presently there is a 7 year long waiting list to receive medicaid waiver benefits in my state. which is appalling. some of my clients have been without physical or occupational therapy or the funds to help make their homes accessible for 10 years because of low availability of funds.

what is the libertarian solution to making sure these people are cared for and have the highest quality of life possible?
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.
but milton friedman and ayn rand say i'm wrong.
so what is the solution? sometimes people with disabilities are born into poverty too. and i refuse to accept that their dignity, health and quality of life just aren't as important as your bank statement.

sounds like a higher quality of life than most of world.
perspective.
>> ^imstellar28:
But I guess a TV, a few dinners, and some movies is just as good?
>> ^peggedbea:
i assume you got to live reasonably well and in reasonably good health. you probably even got to buy cool shit, go out to dinners and see some movies.

>> ^peggedbea:
what is the libertarian solution to making sure these people are cared for and have the highest quality of life possible?
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.
but milton friedman and ayn rand say i'm wrong.
so what is the solution? sometimes people with disabilities are born into poverty too. and i refuse to accept that their dignity, health and quality of life just aren't as important as your bank statement.


It's simple. The libertarian solution is to let them die. Actually, that's more of an Objectivist solution...they're far nuttier than your average libertarian. Libertarians generally just claim that personal charities will handle all that kind of problem (taking care of those who can't take care of themselves). Note that they cannot point to any place or time where that's actually been successful, but burying their heads in the sand is apparently more comfortable than dealing with reality.

>> ^peggedbea:
what is the libertarian solution to making sure these people are cared for and have the highest quality of life possible?
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.
but milton friedman and ayn rand say i'm wrong.
so what is the solution? sometimes people with disabilities are born into poverty too. and i refuse to accept that their dignity, health and quality of life just aren't as important as your bank statement.


Not all Libertarianism is shades of Friedman and Rand. The truth is charities would take care of those without if people didn't A) think there's already a welfare system in place to take care of everyone and B) they weren't already taxed so much currently. You sound like you already understand that the welfare system is broken if there's a 7 year wait for medicaid benefits for these people, yet I don't imagine you'll attribute that to poor government management. The military spending is enough to take care of every poor soul in this country, but the fact that politicians from the two party system are content on raising military budgets while people are suffering domestically should be the biggest indicator that they're not capable of handling the welfare responsibly and legitimately!

Taxation of this magnitude is immoral. They're saying they own your labor if they can directly steal from what you earn, and then they can use that money any way they choose to use it. They claim they want to help, but they're too busy dumping bucketfuls of the stolen money into the military and prison industrial complex, while those on welfare and social security have drudge through the harassment of red tape to get any help.

I'd take any system outside of government and bet it would work more efficiently and better than government. Any of them. If I learned there was a place where old people were dying because they didn't have funds for health care (and there wasn't a nanny state already devised to take care of them), you better believe I'd be there to help in what way I could. Not wanting the government stealing from you does not mean you are against helping others. You honestly think everyone around you is a cretin who is selfish and unwilling to help those in need? When did we become so cynical of our neighbors? If this is the case, then we should just throw in the towel on humanity now, because we certainly don't have a chance, government or no government.

I wouldn't use the word responsible, but I think that taking care of the sick, weak, and poor is certainly a healthy virtue. What you are ignoring is the magnitude of taxation. $1.4 million. I thought the graph would make it clear enough, but for all the money the average person makes, what do we get? We have enough money in this country pouring out of our pockets that charities should have a hard time finding people to help.

Look at the graph again, that graph is the reason why our society is crap, why people die without health care, why people starve in the streets - the money isn't going into the pockets of you and me, its going into the pockets of whomever courts the politicians. A trillion dollar military, a trillion dollar bureaucracy, a trillion dollar who-knows-what else.

Seriously, $1.4 million...its absolute insanity no matter what your political or social persuasion.>> ^peggedbea:
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.

And just to show that it isn't just the government I have a problem with...its also the corporate culture. I do believe in the markets, but I don't believe in immoral corporations (any more than immoral individuals) or some brainwashing notion of "The American Dream". Its already enough to be Uncle Sam's 12 year, $1.4 million dollar slave, but guess what, you are probably also a slave to J.P. Morgan as well.

Here is a graph of how many years you slave to pay off nothing but the interest on the average American home ($250,000). This doesn't even include the principle - if you included that you'd have to almost double the years (yes you pay more in interest than you do the principle over a 30 year loan):
http://i48.tinypic.com/2nl4sbc.png

Adding it all up:
http://i50.tinypic.com/2zz0wpi.png

America...the land of the free. Free to be a slave for 20-30 years of your life...

So, what do we waste all that money on then?

"59 1/2 retirement age"

I'd rather cut my balls off than be put out to pasture that young.

I'd be more than happy to help you spend all that money
>> ^Ryjkyj:
So, what do we waste all that money on then?


Love your job eh? I think 30ish sounds more like it to me...
>> ^chilaxe:
"59 1/2 retirement age"
I'd rather cut my balls off than be put out to pasture that young.

>> ^imstellar28:

Love your job eh? I think 30ish sounds more like it to me...
>> ^chilaxe:
"59 1/2 retirement age"
I'd rather cut my balls off than be put out to pasture that young.



My conclusion was that consciousness doesn't really exist, so we might as well use our illusion of it to make our partners and ourselves gobs of money. I don't know anyone who couldn't use an extra 25k lying around.

The end result is fixed anyway... 100,000 people die every day of a curable disease - aging - but after a while, we bring about Engineered Negligible Senescence. Combine that with using genetic and neuro tech to create genuine human equality, and most of the petty things humans always cared about fade away.

Sorry, man, but a million bucks just ain't what it used to be. And like has been said before, what's the difference between that and paying for private fire protection, police protection, road usage, parks, etc, etc, etc.

Not to mention the fact that anybody who is ok with losing a third or half of their income to taxes probably wouldn't believe that a totally free society would even be sustainable without collapsing into some elitist oligarchy, which would take away your freedoms all over again.

I'd be thrilled if we could reduce government waste. But I'm really not interested in blanket statements about how we're taxed "too much", as if that has any meaning. Find some wasteful government programs you want to cut, and I'll support you all the way. Figure out a way to put an end to the government cronyism and you have my vote. But get specific or go away.

You stop paying taxes and bridges start to fall apart.

"charities would handle need", can you point to any instance where this has worked better than federally mandated social programs?

also, charities, theoretically, reserve the right to refuse services based on lifestyle choices and proselytize at will. governments don't.

if we are upset because our tax dollars are going to fund aggression, foreign occupations, war and a prison state, then fuck yeah i'm with you.
if we are bitching that our tax dollars are providing much needed social services, then... meh.

do those social services need innovation and renovation? could they be run better? absolutely.
could we stop foreign aggression and bloated defense budgets and save billions and still have the funds to provide social services and infrastructure in a vastly superior fashion than we ever have before? fuck yes!
do those services need to be abolished? that's dangerous.

as far as your willingness to help people who's needs aren't met by a nanny state: may i point you to somalia? algeria? the sudan? DR congo, perhaps? or how about the 17% of american children who belong to the "working poor" and don't ask for state assistance?

also, let's talk about CPS.
I have had personal and professional dealings with CPS that lead me to believe that it is severely underfunded and that has led to its gross incompetence. however, i still think it's a very important service.
so if, theoretically, charities would take care of the poor. who is going to take on the nasty job of removing, investigating, and protecting children from abuse?
here's a hint: law enforcement is severely ill-equipped to handle this all by itself, the needs of those children reach far beyond arresting offenders. and in a lot of counties in the country, women and children are still property.






>> ^blankfist:
>> ^peggedbea:
what is the libertarian solution to making sure these people are cared for and have the highest quality of life possible?
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.
but milton friedman and ayn rand say i'm wrong.
so what is the solution? sometimes people with disabilities are born into poverty too. and i refuse to accept that their dignity, health and quality of life just aren't as important as your bank statement.

Not all Libertarianism is shades of Friedman and Rand. The truth is charities would take care of those without if people didn't A) think there's already a welfare system in place to take care of everyone and B) they weren't already taxed so much currently. You sound like you already understand that the welfare system is broken if there's a 7 year wait for medicaid benefits for these people, yet I don't imagine you'll attribute that to poor government management. The military spending is enough to take care of every poor soul in this country, but the fact that politicians from the two party system are content on raising military budgets while people are suffering domestically should be the biggest indicator that they're not capable of handling the welfare responsibly and legitimately!
Taxation of this magnitude is immoral. They're saying they own your labor if they can directly steal from what you earn, and then they can use that money any way they choose to use it. They claim they want to help, but they're too busy dumping bucketfuls of the stolen money into the military and prison industrial complex, while those on welfare and social security have drudge through the harassment of red tape to get any help.
I'd take any system outside of government and bet it would work more efficiently and better than government. Any of them. If I learned there was a place where old people were dying because they didn't have funds for health care (and there wasn't a nanny state already devised to take care of them), you better believe I'd be there to help in what way I could. Not wanting the government stealing from you does not mean you are against helping others. You honestly think everyone around you is a cretin who is selfish and unwilling to help those in need? When did we become so cynical of our neighbors? If this is the case, then we should just throw in the towel on humanity now, because we certainly don't have a chance, government or no government.

@imstellar28, those seem like pretty reasonable assumptions. The numbers you get are a little on the high side for me, but that's mostly due to pre-tax employer benefits like 401k and health insurance.

To me, I think I'm generally okay with what I'm getting in return for my tax dollars. There are things I want my government to spend less on (e.g. defense), and there are things I want it to spend more on (research, health care, enforcement of consumer protections, etc.).

Dollar for dollar, most of what you pay in tax over your lifetime is for Medicare and Social Security, and both start paying you back when you hit 65. I haven't seen a study examining whether what you get back matches what you put in, but I bet it's close if you adjust for inflation (and if you don't, I'm sure you get many many more dollars out than you put in).

I think it's part of the general contract as being a citizen of the United States. I pay taxes, and in return I get a variety of public services, some of which directly benefit me (yay, GPS!), some benefit me indirectly (public education, welfare), some will benefit me directly in the future (Medicare, Social Security), and some probably will do more harm than good to me (farm subsidies, tax cuts for oil companies, etc.).

I have a mechanism for helping change how that stuff works, and if I feel too put out I'm free to pack my bags and emigrate to some other corner of the globe that'll take me.

I don't think I'm a slave to my government any more than I'm a slave to the bank that owns my mortgage.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm not against taxes- but I would like better appropriation of those taxes. The Defense budget as a percentage of GDP is absolutely obscene.

Why aren't the wingnuts crowing about that government spending program? Answer: because they're racist xenophobes worried that the A-rabs will come and steal their women.

Graaawwrrr! I'm feelin' flamey tonight!

I think a more likely reason is because they are directly benefiting from those dollars. When those budgets are spent on numerous contractors in conservative districts, its like a subsidy.>> ^dag:
I'm not against taxes- but I would like better appropriation of those taxes. The Defense budget as a percentage of GDP is absolutely obscene.
Why aren't the wingnuts crowing about that government spending program? Answer: because they're racist xenophobes worried that the A-rabs will come and steal their women.
Graaawwrrr! I'm feelin' flamey tonight!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

No I really don't think it's that deep. It's about needing to "kick ass" and protect America from the rampaging hordes outside of our borders.
>> ^longde:
I think a more likely reason is because they are directly benefiting from those dollars. When those budgets are spent on numerous contractors in conservative districts, its like a subsidy.>> ^dag:
I'm not against taxes- but I would like better appropriation of those taxes. The Defense budget as a percentage of GDP is absolutely obscene.
Why aren't the wingnuts crowing about that government spending program? Answer: because they're racist xenophobes worried that the A-rabs will come and steal their women.
Graaawwrrr! I'm feelin' flamey tonight!

@dag, I think it's a mix of both. Republicans may be unanimous and vociferous about it, since the whole chest-thumping tough guy image is part of how they appeal to their base, but the people who wind up on the committees that write the defense budgets are all getting a flood of money from the military-industrial complex, regardless of whether they're Democrats or Republicans.

There's also the whole problem Republicans have with economics. According to them, government spending cannot possibly create jobs...unless they're defense contracts, or unless it's spending that brings money into their district. Preferably it's both. It's a politically safe way for them to bring pork back to their district, while pretending to be against wasteful government spending.

The defense companies know that, which is why they intentionally designed the F-22 program so that construction of the planes would involve parts being made in 48 different states. Makes it hard to vote to kill the F-22 program when for 96% of the Senate a vote to kill it will also cost their state jobs.