News The Debate question I would have asked

[BobG]

I heard another story some years ago. A middle-aged fellow wanted to return to college to get a more advanced degree and get into teaching. Before his first semester he filled out his paperwork at the college. He told the secretary at the Baptist (!) college that it looked like he would not be eligible for a grant (if I am remembering the right terminology), because he had earned too much income the previous year. The secretary told him something like, "Oh, just go ahead and fill in the box with an amount smaller than" whatever the limiting income was. He asked her, "Won't they catch that in an audit?" Her reply, which says it all about the evils of big government, was: "No, the government leaves it up to the school to do the audit."

Wow, I had a similar experience. I was pretty sure I didn't qualify for Federal grants and didn't. I figured I probably wouldn't qualify for State, either, but they said to fill out the paper work, anyway, it wouldn't hurt. First the State sent me $250 - I just figured I must have been tacked on as whoever's left with whatever's left. At the end of the semester, they sent me another check for about $800. That one has me wondering. With a daughter in college, I know it raises my financial need, but I'm a little worried about getting nearly 100% of my tuition paid for when I didn't qualify for any Federal aid. I'm still waiting for them to come haul me off to jail (or at least ask for their money back).

Maybe I should take a little reassurance from the secretary's last comment? Or better yet, maybe I should take a heavier schedule.

 

[Janitor]

...
Maybe I should take a little reassurance from the secretary's last comment? Or better yet, maybe I should take a heavier schedule...

Or maybe the both of us should start voting Libertarian, or whichever party favors smaller government that doesn't try to do so much social engineering via redistribution of citizens' money?

 

[HAVOC451]

Some good reading on the Bush tax cuts and income distribution in the USA.
http://www.cbpp.org/8-25-04tax.htm

The top one percent will gain by far the most from the tax cuts even though it has already been the main beneficiary of income trends since the 1970s. Data from a separate CBO study, released in April of this year, indicate that between 1979 and 2001 (the latest year CBO examined), the average after-tax income of the top one percent of households rose by a stunning $409,000, or 139 percent, after adjusting for inflation.[1] This dwarfed the $6,300, or 17 percent, average increase among the middle fifth of the population, over this 22-year period, and the $1,100, or 8 percent, increase among the bottom fifth of the population.

Here is another article with lots of nice http://www.rationalrevolution.net/american_income_taxation.htm

Clearly, the upper quintile receives the greatest benifit while the third and fourth quintile bears the greatest burdon.

 

[russ_watters]

HAVOC, that quote is interesting because the data they use to back up their point has nothing at all to do with their point. If they want to show that taxes affect income inequality, they have to track the tax rate next to the income gap. Or are they claiming that taxes should be a putative effort to reduce income inequality?

The top one percent will gain by far the most from the tax cuts...

True - and uselessly self-evident (pointless).

edit: ok, its self-evident but I know people will miss it so I'll clarify: if you make $2 and I make $1 and the government takes half, that's $1 from you and $.5 from me. If I change that rate to 25%, you can reasonably say both:
-You benefited more than I did.
-We both benefited exactly the same.

...even though it has already been the main beneficiary of income trends since the 1970s.

Also true...and what does that have to do with the rich benefiting from tax cuts?

I know there is a name for this logical fallacy, but I can't remember what right now. The goal is to stick a lot of unrelated facts together and draw a spurious conclusion from them. The fallacy comes from people seeing that the facts are true and assuming that that means they support the conlcusion even if they are completely unrelated to it.

 

[Moonbear]

edit: ok, its self-evident but I know people will miss it so I'll clarify: if you make $2 and I make $1 and the government takes half, that's $1 from you and $.5 from me. If I change that rate to 25%, you can reasonably say both:
-You benefited more than I did.
-We both benefited exactly the same. Also true...and what does that have to do with the rich benefiting from tax cuts?

I'm glad you brought this up, because a LOT of people miss this point. The politicians use this to their advantage. This is why you hear both candidates say what sounds like completely opposite statements, and neither is lying. You can take the same data and come up with two completely different conclusions. This is why politics both frustrates and fascinates me!

I know there is a name for this logical fallacy, but I can't remember what right now. The goal is to stick a lot of unrelated facts together and draw a spurious conclusion from them. The fallacy comes from people seeing that the facts are true and assuming that that means they support the conlcusion even if they are completely unrelated to it.

Non sequitur? Or were you thinking of some other name? There were a lot of those in the debate last night. Read the transcript...it's painful.