From everything I’ve seen, the bill would be cheaper.

My Uber-conservative parents and in-laws would give us their last dollar but thumb their nose at the idea of helping someone they don’t know.

You see that a lot with people on the right (it drives a lot of their opinions that put them on that side of things.) Fundamentally it is an inability to meaningfully experience people outside of their bubble as real people like the ones inside of it and rather than work to rationally overcome that limitation they simply treat everyone outside of that bubble like an object. Almost nothing the right does to others is an unreasonable or unacceptable way to treat an object and is usually something they would never do to someone they actually intuitively perceive as a real person.

While we can (and should) hold people responsible for working to rationally overcome those limitations, the reality is that we all have them to a greater or lesser degree and there will always be people who aren’t able to do better than they do now.

Not only is it unfair to them to maintain an environment wherein they are expected to have empathic abilities well beyond what they are able to manage (and to have them, fairly, be treated as though they are cruel and heartless for it, when if they only had to deal with situations within their grasp they’d actually be very kind and caring people) but pragmatically we just cannot expect to overcome the issues caused by that without making changes. Sociatally we cannot keep setting people up for failure and then being mad at them for the issues that failure causes.

NB it’s also important to acknowledge that none of us are able to perfectly experience strangers as exactly the same thing as people we know and love and that while people can suck more or less at this, all of us are being asked to be better at it than we reasonably can be.

The premise is solid though. Charge the people that use the thing more than those that don’t. It all breaks down though because the people that use them the most are corporations and receive the largest tax incentives.

Also, many Americans dislike taxes because they don’t want “their” money being spent on people with whom they feel no affinity. It’s always going to be a problem in large countries with diverse populations.

And if it seems like I’m beating around the bush and phrasing this comment in charitable terms, it’s because I am. Deliberately.

There are some communities in the USA that consistently vote down funding any sort of public fire department through taxes. Obviously they still need a fire department, so their “solution” is “private fire companies” with a subscription model.

These private firefighters will show up to any fire and they’ll save lives … but after they pull you out they’ll let your house burn to the ground if you didn’t buy a fire protection plan from them.

I agree. People like this are like “please charge me subscription fees for everything I do.” These are the people that will pay car manufacturers to “unlock” heated seats, etc.

Yeah no matter how much you weaken that I am not going to believe it until you produce a detailed study proving it. Especially the bit about immigrants.

Don’t take offense to them calling Americans dumb. It’s a generalization of our culture. Not you as a person.

Americans are dumb with how we deal with taxes and money and socialization of services.

Probably to some hippie stuff, like libraries, or roads, or a power grid that doesn’t shit the bed every year.

Abortions, when required, I’m sure; because many people in California are humane.

Only landowners should be allowed to vote, right?

It’s less “paying more” and more about reallocating funds. If taxes pay for Healthcare, they don’t have to pay for Healthcare so they would be happy to pay more taxes, for example. If the roads are maintained they end up paying less for vehicle maintenance. If public transportation becomes more available they pay less in car maintenance and gas (and possibly able to get rid of their car entirely, a HUGE difference financially, which would come from a likely unnoticeable increase in taxes).

If the money goes to weapons or corporate benefits or legal costs fighting to defend unconstitutional laws in court for political theater (or, as a Florida resident, paying taxes to have migrants in Texas shipped to New York, which helps literally nobody except the person paid to move them), that doesn’t chip anything away from what taxpayers already pay for, so it’s just additional cost.

Trains aren’t important because they make a lot of money. Trains are important because they make the land around them worth a lot of money. Businesses near train stations get more customers. People pay more for houses near train stations. Cities with strong transit systems have a higher GDP.

Despite this, England privatised its rail system and expects the rail companies to make a profit. Instead, English people are poorer and the government has less money.

services centralized in the hands of the government end up costing less because they have a monopoly

Where I live privately owned utility companies provide much cheaper services than govt. Also govt is very bad at providing them consistently (if people outside of big city lose electricity for example, they have to go and block nearest highway, otherwise govt just ignores their complaints)

I guess monopoly might be beneficial for some period of time but ultimately it’s bad, both in private and public sector.

I’m okay with the 30% so long as they stop using it to buy more and more expensive toys to murder brown children with. We’re not getting what we pay for as a society, but the idea that we can make that right by privatizing everything is ridiculous and just continuously doesn’t work.

Exactly, I moved from TX to OR and the money saved is pretty crazy. Sure, income taxes are higher and other things cost a little more but it was overall a huge net positive in spending/saving.

New Hampshire. Also no sales tax

One could and should argue that irrational racism is never in anyone’s actual self interest, even if they’ve convinced themselves it feels good.

That seems like saying doing crack is in the crackhead’s self interest because the want to, but we all know the detriments substantially outweigh the momentarily benefit.

Loads for me on FF mobile, here’s the full article::

Those coming to Texas for a tax break may want to turn around if they are not in the top 1 percent of earners.

A recent post on Reddit’s main economic forum included a 2018 graphic that shows Texans pay more taxes than Californians unless they are in the top 1 percent. The post is one of the highest-rated in the last month on the social media platform. It is unclear why the post was shared now.

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The graphic is of data from the sixth edition of the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy’s “Who Pays” series, which tracks tax data for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The last time the nonprofit released data was in 2018, but it is expected to release updated findings later this year.

Texans in the bottom 20 percent of income earners — those earning less than $20,900 — pay 13 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while those in the top 1 percent of income earners — those earning $617,900 or more — pay only 3.1 percent.

In California, the bottom 20 percent of income earners — those earning less than $23,200 — pay 10.5 percent in state and local taxes, while the top 20 percent — those earning $714,400 or more — pay 12.4 percent.

Texas was the second-most regressive tax state, behind only Washington. Low-income taxpayers bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden in those states, according to the nonprofit. California, meanwhile, is the most progressive tax state because people in higher tax brackets pay higher tax rates.

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“Every state has some regressive taxes on the books,” said Carl Davis, a research director at the nonprofit. “Whether that be sales tax, motor fuel tax, tobacco tax, even property tax is somewhat regressive.”

However, unlike other states, Texas has no “progressive counterbalance,” Davis said, because there is no state income tax.

Robert Peroni, a tax professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, noted that the “Who Pays” series appears to base its results on real-world data and policy. Nothing substantial has changed in the state tax-wise since 2018, Peroni said. However, all think tanks have their own viewpoints, with the nonprofit leaning liberal, Peroni added.

For its data, the nonprofit relied on IRS income tax data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey, sales tax data and property tax data from sources like the Census Bureau, Davis said.

Despite Texas’ reputation as a “low-tax, low-government state,” Peroni said most of its residents are high-taxed. States with income taxes do more to lower inequality, according to Peroni.

MORE: Texas teachers collectively pay more than any other state in school supplies

“We don’t have that; we’ve never had it, as far as I know,” Peroni said of a state income tax. “That makes it very hard to solve this inequality problem. When they say Texas is a very regressive state, it means if you’re low income, you spend 100 percent of it, you spend it. Some of it is tax-exempt, but most of that spending is taxed by sales tax.”

Peroni said there doesn’t seem to be a politician or political party in the state willing to propose a state income tax.

“State income tax seems to be a third rail politically in Texas and is rarely proposed even by the most liberal politicians,” Peroni said. “It makes it very hard to change the structure.”

shepard.price@express-news.net

If you’re using FireFox, the Tranquility Reader extension gives you a handy button to show only the content. It also suppresses the nag screen.

Safari also has a reader mode, but I’m on a PC right now and I’m too lazy to go and check.

I don’t have a subscription, just hit refresh and then stop loading the page (X in chrome) to keep the paywall from stopping you. Works for tons of websites paywalls, give it a shot.

Weird, works fine for me using Kiwi for Android. Maybe it’s because I use the uBlock extension?

It’s indeed news to someone, namely idiots in Texas who think they live in a low tax haven.

It is obvious to people who know but it is good to verify and call it out.

If you enjoy scenic drives, you’ll be really close to The Devil’s Backbone which is an awesome highway that travels across some giant limestone cliffs. My wife and I always made time for it whenever we went out there.

Mother of fuck if all the local governments teamed up on infrastructure it would be the worse nightmare I could imagine. I would quit in a second.

The only way at all public infrastructure moves forward (I do a lot of work in that sector) is in smaller governments that don’t have the leverage to sabotage their own projects. I wish I was lying. The bigger the local government the more of a cost disease obsolete crap they get. I don’t drink the water in Toronto for a reason. I know the shysters who built their stuff.

Smaller governments are willing to update their specs, they are open to ideas that make their equipment last longer, they have an incentive to having working systems instead of backcharges.

Also fun fact I have openly threaten one of those government contract cockroaches to tattle on him to every anti-government media source I could find unless he fixed the specs of a system.

Private industry is also super inefficient, and then cuts massive corners on everything.