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in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/31/05 12:19 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/30/05 11:40 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

This has
nothing to do with the poor guy paying his rent. If the property is taxed
appropriately, the landlord is going to charge the renter and collect the
revenues need to pay the property taxes.

Once again, the issue is the fairness and equitability of school funding
assessments. I'm merely pointing out that in most places in the US,
schools
are disproportionately funded by landowners, and that there are many "free
riders" who get substantial discounts on their "fair share."

Yes, but you are incorrect. The landowners pass on the cost to the renters.
The only issue of fairness would be if landlords are somehow paying
unfairly
low property taxes.

You still don't get it. If public schools are supposed to be supported by
all the people, then all the people ought to pay equally to fund schools.
Renters don't pay their fair share, it's as simple as that. The inequity is
in how schools are funded. You seem to be deliberately avoiding this aspect
of the issue.

No, you don't get it.

The renters are paying their fair share as part of their rent. Unless rental
properties are not being fairly taxed, you are searching for a problem that
does not exist.

Well, that's rather my point. It's not the properties that are being
unfairly taxed, it's the residents of the community who are being unfairly
taxed.

You haven't established this, and I still don't see your point. Fortunately,
I don't know that it really matters.

I'm not surprised at your inconsistent approach to funding medical care
and
schools, given the fact that it's landowners who get soaked for schools,
and
socialists don't like landowners because they are mostly "have nots" who
are
jealous of the "haves" of society and are willing to do anything to
bring
others down to their own level. That's what socialism is all about.

I'm a landowner. I'm not a socialist. I'm also not a selfish jerk.

So why the inconsistency in your positions in re health care and school
funding?

There is no inconsistency. I believe that universal health care and
universal education should be core foundations of any society, or at least
a
goal they are striving to achieve.

But while you support income tax based funding for health care, you appear
to be supporting the disproportionate burden on landowners. Is that the
case, or do you support a change of plan for school funding to make everyone
pay their fair share?

I don't know that there is a fair share issue, you certainly haven't
demonstrated to me that there is one, but sure, I'd have no problem with
funding for schools coming from income tax.

Well, thanks. Finally, consensus.

If you'd just skipped the weird crap about landlords and renters, we could
have cut to this chase many moons ago.

I'm a landowner. I am not interested in "sticking it to landowners."

You don't argue very effectively for not doing so.

I don't think landowners are taxed unfairly.

And yet they pay more, proportionally, than renters do for schools, so why
do you see that as being "fair?" That's precisely the inconsistency I'm
talking about.

You haven't established that renters don't pay their fair share.

Sure I have.

Not in this thread.

If everybody in
the country had ethics, we wouldn't need much by way of law.

Let me know when you get some. Advocating vociferously for your own
selfish
needs is not what I would call ethics.

That's because you confuse socialist dogma with ethics. It's hardly
unethical to advocate fairness and personal responsibility.

Then I'm as ethical as can be.

So you DO believe in people paying for their own bad health rather than
shoving those costs off on others!

You can't "mandate" responsibility in this way.

Why not? ? We do it all the time. Society doesn't pay for someone's car
repairs. We require people to be personally responsible for obeying the law.
What's to stop us from "mandating" personal responsibility?

Are you going to install spy cameras at the donut shop? Or develop extensive
new pre-admittance hospital tests to decide if someone has been eating too
many salted cured meets and evaluate whether this cause their heart
problems? The whole thing is ridiculous.

I can believe in personal
responsibility without casting poor people to the wolves or instituting
daily blood testing of the population to ensure compliance with a
state-approved menu.

I agree. I'm just arguing that the definition of "poor people" eligible for
government assistance ought to be extremely restrictive.

I know you are.

This is some scary stuff you believe in Scotty. No
wonder you feel the need to carry a gun!

You forgot to take your anti-paranoia and reality-basing medication today.

I'm not the one carrying the gun! LOL.

and I think Wal-Mart is
going to fight you pretty hard to make sure as many goods as possible
aren't
in your luxury class.

Nah. They don't care about the taxes, they don't pay them, the consumer
does.

LOL. You might want to find out a little more about how taxes affect
spending, which affects the bottom line of business.

Only when the business is marginal. Wal-Mart doesn't give a damn what the
local taxes are because they have a tremendous market dominance and know
that the higher the taxes, and the less discretionary funds that a family
has available, the MORE LIKELY they are to shop at Wal-Mart. It's a key
component of their business model.

Get together with all the consumer goods companies and ask them how they
would feel about the addition of a consumer goods tax. Heehee. You'll be
ridden out of town on a rail!

Sure, they like to carp about it because it reduces the total amount of
money available for consumer spending on their products, and they are happy
to side with consumers in fighting new taxes without making it clear that
they are only doing it so the consumer will have more disposable income, but
in reality, they don't care much about the tax rates because they know
people will buy more stuff at Wal-Mart when they have less disposable
income. Remember, we're talking about Wal-Mart here, not the entire consumer
goods industry.

I'm talking about the entire consumer goods industy and avoiding an
irrellevant side argument about the particulars of Wal-Mart.

But I'm talking about Wal-Mart specifically.

Why? You are propsing a tax on all consumer goods which would obviously
affect all producers and sellers of consumer goods, not just Wal-Mart.