"DSK" wrote in message
...
Personally, I object to the flat tax on moral grounds. It is a de facto
penalty on the poor,


JimH wrote:
How so?

Because prices for goods & services are fixed, not sliding scale. Poor
people pay a greater percent of their income for basic food, clothing,
housing, etc etc... in many cases falling short of even that.

Prices are not fixed. I can buy a pair of jeans for $10 or $100. I can buy
a t shirt for $3 or $150. They both wear the same and serve the same
purpose.

I can also buy more when I have more money so the percent of my income going
for food, clothing and housing could actually be greater than those with
lesser incomes.

Finally, no one has talked about taxing food or housing.





and trivializes tax expense to the super-rich.... who BTW gain the most
from gov't services, so shouldn't they pay more?


The super rich gain the most from gov't services? How so?

Basic- they have more to lose if the gov't fails to protect their stuff

Slightly more advanced- the gov't services that the wealthy use are much
more expensive- for example, court procedings involving tenantry & land
rights, along with the whole range of services from vessel documentation
to passport issuance, for which the gov't charges a nominal fee but loses
money.

DSK


That was not an answer. In fact, it was a bunch of baloney.

A case can easily be made that the poor in fact benefit more from gov't
services than the wealthy. Welfare, housing supplements, food stamps,
health care subsidies....the list goes on and on. And in many cases, those
same folks pay absolutely no taxes.

The majority of time spent by the police is in the poor/high crime areas of
the city. Cities are also dumping more and more money per pupil on
education in the poorer sections of the city in an attempt to improve
education (money will not solve this problem).

The poor definitely benefit more from the gov't than even the middle class.