poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (07/09/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Tue 9 July 85 Volume 5 Number 29
Contents: Space
Welfare
Taxes
Seatbelts
[I'm still on vacation... --JoSH]
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Date: 27 Jun 85 01:57 EDT (Thu)
From: _Bob <Carter@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Space Living
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin at Almsa-2>
... I have
contempt for the body, and consider it nothing but a life-support system
for the mind, which is the *real* person
PS -- By the way, I am not suffering any such disease, nor am I weak;
I'm large and rather strong -- I just don't regard physical strength and
condition as very important.
Will, you d*mned well would regard them as important if you weren't
in such good health. Nothing will convince you about the fallacy of
mind-body dualism faster than trying to think clearly after a longish
illness.
Er, you have Descartes before the hearse.
_B
[Even a moderate case of hay fever will apprise you of this basic fact.
... which is another good reason to live in space, maybe? --JoSH]
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Date: Wed, 26 Jun 85 15:32:39 CDT
From: William Martin <control@ALMSA-1>
Subject: Basic SDI / Star Wars Defense Question
This question is so simple and obvious that I can't believe I haven't already
run across it clearly stated and answered, but I sure don't recall doing so:
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| If the SDI is hugely expensive and yet ineffectual and worthless, why |
| are the Soviets against our attempting to create and deploy it? |
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One would expect that they would simply say nothing on the topic,
meanwhile snickering quietly at our folly behind closed doors.
Or are they reasoning that their public opposition to it will *encourage*
us to go ahead with it -- if they remained quiet on the issue, we would
drop it, so they talk it up to keep the pot boiling?
Or are they insecure enough about the issue that, if we went ahead with
a really-worthless Star Wars defense, investing billions with no return,
they would feel compelled to invest in their own version of a worthless
space defense system? So they are trying to save themselves from this fate?
Or do they believe it is a great and workable idea, and really fear it
as a true defense against their strategic weaponry?
[Note: I have no real idea if SDI is good or bad, feasible or impossible.
However, the above questions could be answered regardless of the true
quality and value of an SDI system.]
Will Martin
[This question is being discussed in some detail on ARMS-D --JoSH]
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Date: Thursday, 27 June 1985 02:09:17 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa
Subject: Cash to the Poor
A study done at CMU has shown that giving cash payments to the poor is the
least desirable form of welfare. Least desirable to the government that is.
It is the most desirable form welfare recepients, and reduces the incentive
to get off welfare. Vouchers, such as food stamps, seem to be the best
compromise between low administration costs and minimizing the desirability
of the benefit, for a given level of benefits. This is in fact the position
of the Reagan administration, which is sponsering experiments in expanding
vouchers to include rents. Experiments to lower administration costs, such
as a food stamp credit card, are also underway.
Let's not forget that one of the underlying features of most income tax
plans since the days of the Communist Manifesto is progressivity, which is
related to the ability to pay. If you believe in the ability to pay idea,
then the tax rate should be some fraction of income minus necessities (food,
clothing, shelter, transportation, etc.). Since calculating necessities for
each person is a pain, the tax system uses a curve (tax brackets) with some
deductions. A flat tax with zero bracket doesn't necessarily provide the
desired curve.
[One of the commest arguing points in conventional social-programs debate
is the question of whether the poor are lazy bums who would rather get
welfare than work, or unfortunates who try as hard as they can but are
forced into poverty by inclement circumstances. The universally
ignored fact is that the question is *irrelevant* to the debate.
The germane questions are these: Does the program offer a haven for
the lazy, *whether or not* they coincide with the current poor?
And does the program make people lazy (eg, by propaganda to reduce
the social stigma attached to handouts) who otherwise would not be?
--JoSH]
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Date: 7 Jul 1985 09:35-PDT
From: king@Kestrel.ARPA
Subject: Hmmm.
Gee, I sent in a statement on the order of "...nobody should receive the
franchise until they are self-supporting..." and I didn't see a single
counterflame.
There must be a problem with my outbound mail service...
-dick
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Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1985 18:27 EDT
From: Dean Sutherland <Sutherland@TL-20A.ARPA>
Subject: quote from Lincoln
I thought you might be interested in this quote from Abe Lincoln:
"You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help small
men by tearing down big men. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot
keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the
brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds. You cannot establish security on
borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's
initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them
what they could and should do for themselves."
Dean F. Sutherland
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Date: Thu, 27 Jun 85 14:35:38 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@Almsa-2>
Subject: Sales tax
I *hate* sales taxes. I don't know why anybody would NOT *hate* sales
taxes. Maybe that means they really ARE the best taxes, as long as
they are totally visible, not concealed back up the chain of
supply, like most VAT proposals would do...
Right now, I have to pay $2.13 to buy a $1.99 hamburger special due to
state and local [St. Louis, MO] taxes. If there were no income,
property, excise, or other taxes, just a *whole bunch* of national,
state, and local sales taxes, what would a $1.99 hamburger cost, anyway?
(Assume the current level of government income and expenditure --
nothing changed except the tax-collection mechanism, and the savings
achieved by reducing the IRS and state revenue dept's to a smaller
organization that only has to monitor retail sales are to be
disregarded for now.)
$3.00?
$5.00?
$10e99?
(At what point does the revolution come, by the way? :-)
Will
"I'm mad as hell and I just keep taking it anyway!"
PS -- For now, buy as much as you can mail-order across state lines to
avoid sales taxes. I know some states (NY & NJ, especially) are trying
out mechanisms to catch and tax these transactions. So if you want
something, buy it now and save your money later. I'd buy my groceries
by mail-order if the shipping didn't eat up the savings.... :-) WM
[The best estimates I've found indicate that the total government
takeoff at all levels in the US comes to about 45% of the GNP.
If this can be taken as a guide, your $1.99 hamburger would incur
a tax of $1.63, for a total of $3.62. Its obviousness is one
of the main reasons I prefer a sales tax-- I hold the present
"painless" system to be basically dishonest, quite apart from its
being theft. --JoSH]
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Date: 28 Jun 85 15:49:43 EDT
From: Tim <WEINRICH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Taxes
One of the many problems with governments is that they have a tendency
to create an upwards-redistribution of wealth. They tend to take more from
the poor people than they are giving back, and they tend to do the opposite
for richer people. Programs like welfare and social security are designed
to fight this tendency; yet you dont have to study these programs very
carefully to discover that they are often unsuccessful. More than half (I
dont remember the exact statistics) of the money our government presently
pours into such programs winds up in the hands of middle-or-upper class folks
who collect salaries for distributing the money.
Given that ideas like this dont often work very well, and given the
libertarian orientation of the digest I'm sending to, I'm not about to
suggest that the tax system should be progressive (like it is now, more
or less) in a further attempt to fight the upwards redistribution of
wealth. But do we really need to make matters worse by installing a
regressive tax system?
A rich person who is smart enough to worry about the future will not
spend every penny he makes. He'll invest. A poor person who is smart
enough to worry about the future will invest some money too, if and only
if he is making more than enough money to survive on. But a poor person
is forced to spend a larger fraction of his income than a richer person
merely because a larger fraction is necessary for survival.
In this sense, the sales tax seems to me to be a regressive tax. (In
fact, by this same argument it is of questionable value to make an
exemption for investments - but thats another matter.) You can try to
offset this by having a higher sales tax on luxuries, but we try to do
that already, and I'm not sure I find the results very satisfying.
On the other hand, I certainly understand the desire to allow the
government less information about our private lives. But it would be
nice to implement this thru some other means than a sales tax. Cant we
think of a better alternative?
(An aside to the libertarians: Isnt the libertarian cause unpopular
enough already? Do the libertarians, who are already frequently accused
of favoring the rich man, really need to advocate a sales tax to make
themselves even more unpopular? I know that libertarians dont like
politics, but politics is not the same thing as tact...)
Twinerik
[This is either crazy, or money-worship. Unless you are Scrooge McDuck,
money isn't desireable for its own sake alone, to lounge in a pile of;
it is only of use to spend. The idea that someone saving his money
is avoiding a sales tax assumes that the saver somehow gets value for
his money without spending it. But that's loopy--whether you put
your money in a bank, or stuff it in a mattress, it is of no use to you--
in real terms, as if you didn't get it at all-- *until you spend it
on a good or service*. At which point you pay the tax. So I claim
that a sales tax is perfectly flat. If you are of a mind to help the
poor, merely exempt food, clothing, and shelter from the tax. --JoSH]
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Date: Tue, 2 Jul 85 12:59:20 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <wmartin@Almsa-2>
Subject: Seatbelts & passengers
The seatbelt discussions I have seen in various places have just about
all been from the drivers' viewpoint. However, I believe the "mandatory
seatbelt laws" in those states which have them also mandate that front-seat
*passengers* also wear the belts. How can this be justified? Most of the
arguments in favor I have seen have concentrated on keeping control of
the car, etc. That couldn't apply to a passenger.
A losse passenger could fly into the driver in a collision, and that could
have ill effects, but then why would these laws include only *front-seat*
passengers and specifically exclude *rear-seat* passengers? They are
even more likely to endanger the driver, coming at the back of his/her
head in a collision.
Also, exactly how can this be enforced? Does the driver get a ticket
if the passenger is unbelted? Suppose the passenger refuses to
cooperate, and is physically powerful enough that the driver cannot
force the passenger to comply, nor force him/her out of the car?
Would that be an acceptable excuse? Could the *passenger* then be given
the ticket? Suppose the passenger has no driver's license -- how can
tickets against someone with nothing to lose be enforced, if there
is no way to assess points against a license or suspend it? (Maybe
the same way as a jaywalking ticket is enforced? Sounds like a good
reason to always carry false ID, so you can really be immune to such
sanctions!)
As a non-driver who has ridden in certain cars where the seatbelts
simply do not fit me, I have a modicum of interest in this issue...
Will Martin
[In NJ, the passenger gets a ticket. In theory, there is no reason
why they couldn't formally charge you with a crime, and take you
to jail in irons, forcing you to post bail--Ie, I don't believe
that you have any legal protection against such a proceeding.
However, I haven't heard of it ever happening. Bob Carter should
be considered the expert on NJ legal matters, however-- Any comments,
Bob? --JoSH]
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End of POLI-SCI Digest
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