[CLUE-Talk] Taxes

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Tue, 2003-10-14 at 05:18, Jeff Cann wrote:
> On Monday 13 October 2003 10:15 pm, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> >
> > COMMENT: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was
> > the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had
> > the largest middle class in the world and Mom stayed home to raise the
> > kids.
> 
> Kevin,

"and Mom stayed home to raise the kids..." 

Well... this isn't really a tax issue, now is it? First it was a
societal issue -- mom got sick of staying home with the kids and wanted
a career. Then it became an economic issue -- many families found they
couldn't do without the second income even when mom decided she'd rather
stay home with the kids.

Now mom and dad are probably divorced and they're both working and
nobody's staying home with the kids... but I don't think taxes are to
blame... unless dad got caught fooling around with someone from the IRS,
but that's something else entirely. 

> Had you said '40 years ago', I would agree.
> 
> But, 100 years ago, people worked like dogs with no vacation, time off or any 
> thing else considered civilized by today's standards.  The average salary in 
> 1900 was $12.98/week for 59 hours.  There were no labor unions, there were 
> few (none?) labor laws, children under age of 16 worked and this was 
> considered normal.  
> 
> We're the only country in the world today without a legislative requirement 
> for vacation of employees.  Even Japan has legislation for a minimum of two 
> weeks vacation.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think the statement is a bit overbroad
-- I'm sure we're not "the only country in the world" -- though it is
common in Europe, Japan and other areas to have much stronger labor
laws, and vacation requirements.  

> The average education stopped at 8th grade.  Note that only 50% of 5-19 year 
> olds were enrolled in schools from 1900 until the *1940s*; now it's 99%).  
> There was no middle class as of today (this didn't happen until after WWII).  
> The life expectancy of men was 46.3 years, of women, 47.3.  In 1904, the 
> Supreme Court *upheld* that negros weren't allowed to vote.
> 
> > What the hell happened?
> 
> Are you asking why do we have a bunch of taxes?  Because we (citizens) have 
> more money and our elected officials decided to enact them.  Sometimes (e.g., 
> Fed. Income Tax) w/o true backing of the citizens.

Let's not forget all the additional costs and burdens our technological
advances have put on the government. Building highways, airports,
recreational facilities... 

The additional costs of electricity, phone service, computers... every
advance in technology is another hand in your pocket, really. I think
about this from time to time when I'm paying my cable bill, cell phone
bill, monthly bills for hosting... people are beset with a number of
additional monthly bills that we simply didn't have 50 years ago. The
same with the government. 

Look at military spending... we've got all kinds of additional deathly
goodies to spend tax money on these days -- we no doubt spent quite a
bit on our military 100 years ago, but we didn't have an air force to
maintain or nuclear weapons or body armor. 

> I don't think we need more taxes, I think we need better accoutability of the 
> taxes we pay.

I think we also need to have a good think on what we want (need?) our
government to provide at the federal, state and local level and see to
it that the necessary things are funded well (education) and that the
unnecessary burdens go away (building stadiums for pro sports teams
comes to mind...). 

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
http://www.dissociatedpress.net
http://www.corante.com/openmind