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 Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Sounds like wealth redistribution to me; otherwise you'd always get exactly what your taxes pay for. You don't - and so it is.
LOL, what kind of logic is this? Sometimes taxation is redistribution, sometimes it isn't. If you want to argue otherwise, let's do so after you come down off of your acid-trip.
Well, somebody does. And when other people's kids (not yours, not your nephews, nieces, cousins, or anyone you even know remotely) go to that school your taxes paid for, you get wealth redistribution. You think the poor people in your neighborhood (the ones who pay less taxes than you and whose kids actually go to that school) are getting more or less return on their tax dollar?
It's impossible to tell objectively. If you have a kid that goes to that school, your benefit is quite tangible. However, a well funded school does more than just teach kids math. A good school attracts citizens to your town, which in turn attracts businesses and jobs. Property values increase. Crime goes down. Imagine your town without a school. Do you still want to live there?
The school provides equality of opportunity, which is what the government should be doing (and ALL the government should be doing, btw). Just because there are unequal outcomes doesn't mean that anything is being forcefully redistributed.
What unequal opportunities exist now that would be remedied by implementing the socialist version of medicare?
The pension is fixed regardless of how much you paid into SS taxes. If you paid more taxes, you don't get bigger social security checks than someone who paid less taxes. Where do you suppose that extra money you paid into it goes? I'll give you a hint: some people pay less than their share into social security; others pay more.
The pension is NOT fixed. Please go get your facts straight. If you paid more in, you get a bigger pension. So can we at least be done with this part of the argument? Oh and another salient point is that income subject to SS taxes is capped. So if you make $1M/year you pay the same tax as someone making $130K per year, and you both get the maximum benefit.
...and some pay more for that expectation than others.
No, everybody pays 1.45%
And yet rich people still pay more taxes than poor people. Do rich people get an extra bridge out of the deal somewhere? I dint no dat.
Car ownership is obviously higher among rich people, is it not? So are they not getting a disproportionate benefit from the bridge? Do rich people buy more stuff at the store? How does that stuff get to the store? Did it come over the bridge? So who's getting a greater return on that bridge?
It's the exact same thing as the examples you just gave; medicare and social security are precisely the government taking from the haves and giving to the have nots. It doesn't matter how many times you try to deny it, it's still a fact.
No, it absolutely isn't. Being a "have" doesn't prevent you from getting benefits. So nothing is being taken away.
I think it is you who is lacking the IQ, because you clearly understand the concept of redistribution, but you don't seem to grasp how it applies to things that aren't obviously 100% based on it. You assume just because a rich person also gets a social security check when they turn 65 they must be getting back exactly what they contributed. That's not how it works. Duh.
Actually, that's exactly how Social Security works. They index your monthly earnings over your lifetime, and then pay you a proportion of those earnings. So the amount you get is directly proportional to the amount you put in. Those who pay more, get more. And those who pay less, get less.
Haha, "When Trump says 'x' he really means 'some long convoluted interpretation of complex economics that he couldn't begin to understand himself'."
I knew you would do this. It's sad really. It's not like I'm going way out on a limb to extract the meaning of Trump's words. It's perfectly reasonable to ask who and what he is referring to. And I think that is obvious. It's only not obvious if you're deranged and blinded by your partisan desire to shit on the guy.
Go ahead professor demagogue.....tell us who "they" is? Who was Trump talking about? Surely that's a reasonable question to ask? Surely it's not crazy foil-hat 3d chess nonsense to suggest that the pronoun "they" refers to some people who actually exist. Who might they be? And what exactly is Trump's beef with them?
Is Trump being supported by young people sick of paying for the healthy retirement of the elderly? Is that Trump's base? Or are his supporters made up of middle class and wealthy people sick of paying all the bills for the underclass? Think about the answer to that and tell me what kind of "redistribution" Trump might be referring to.
The wealthy are taxed more than the poor, but when they all turn 65, they get the same (on average) in return for those taxes regardless of what they paid into it.
WRONG!!
Is there a correlation between wealth and life expectancy? Is it fair to say that wealthy people (on average) will use more medicare than poor people will (on average) merely because of the fact that they are alive for more years?
That is by definition wealth redistribution
No it isn't. But before we have this argument, can you define exactly what you mean by "wealth redistribution". Because I think I've framed my argument clearly from the beginning as referring solely to the movement of assets from one economic class to another without ANY return whatsoever. That's most obviously what Trump was referring to as well.
But you seem to be assuming that even a narrowly-perceived inequality of outcome represents redistribution. And that's really just silly. In this democracy, the legislature has the power to levy taxes. It's in the constitution. Just because you don't like a tax, or don't believe it's necessary, doesn't mean that your wealth is being redistributed. Sometimes it is, but not always. And to suggest that all taxation is wealth redistribution is just a chincy, feckless, troll.
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