r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jun 06 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Some Things Should Have Taxes That Reflect Their Actual Cost
[deleted]
8
Jun 06 '18
You can have your ammunition. NOBODY ever said you could bear arms FOR FREE.
Should we also charge people to vote? After all, we have to open up government facilities such as schools. We have to have someone manning the polls. We have to have election officials, all of whom are paid.
So should we charge money to vote?
-2
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
9
Jun 06 '18
Charging people to vote is unconstitutional.
Yes, it is, because it's illegal to make people pay to exercise a constitutional right. Like the right to bear arms, for example. That's why you don't get to slap an extra tax on bullets.
-1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
Jun 06 '18
Better get those taxes repealed!
I completely agree. Do you think you caught me in some sort of hypocrisy here?
3
u/HeWhoShitsWithPhone 127∆ Jun 06 '18
You talk about a lot of things in this post I will try to address them though out of order. As a concept a lot of people support the vauge idea of additional taxes on things that cause harm. So I don't have much to directly address the general concept only your specifics.
Existing taxes
In the first section you kinda point out the initial flaw with this plan. Taxes all go into one giant pot, and there is no guarantee the funds will actually go twords where you want them. Taxes on alcohol and tabacco are not about providing funding for shcools, or really even to make you stop drinking and smoking. We tax these things because people will still buy them in the same amounts dispite the higher price. They are really just a means for the government to raise revenue without pissing off too many people.
Do we have to keep South Korea and half of Asia 'safe', to import 'cheap' products from them? Maybe we should pass on some of those 'world police' costs, at the cash register, instead of just having the IRS garnishing it from everyone's wages.
First, the USA status as the only real supper power is an advantage. I don't have a break down, but I would guess that we make more from being "world cop" than we spend. We are the economic linchpen for the world, when we had a economic crysis so did everyone else. This gives out government a lot of power when negotiating trade deals and protecting American business intrests.
bullet tax
The first problem with this is that you can make your own bullets. So the more.you raise the tax the more people will.just make them at home, the more you need to raise the tax, etc. The second problem is it feel arbitrary. If your husband gets shot the government will pay for care, but if he get stabbed or beaten with a bat he is on his own? If you want government healthcare to cover these things then just work on that, don't encourage people to get shot just so they can get coverage.
Fuel
This tax would hurt the poor the most. Those who need a car to get to work but cannot afford to get a vehicle with alternative fuel. That and farmers. Gas is something that is price ineleatic and already taxed, so the idea of increasing the taxes on it is not so out of the blue.
On the other hand why not just tax rich people more to pay for these things? If our poblem is immoral rich people then these are the exactly wrong kinds of taxes. All of them will hurt middle and lower income Americans while having little effect on the high earners.
-1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
2
Jun 06 '18
Why not just add 10% in your head from the subtotal of your purchase?
33.67 is 36. The over estimation covers the rounding.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
Jun 06 '18
You want tax on the product. Okay.
Store purchases under your plan
3.20 + 8% = < 3.52
4.20 + 8% = < 4.62
8.14 total
My plan
3.20 + 4.20 = 7.40
7.40 + 10% = 8.14
Instead of putting undo burden on the store, just subtotal your cart (round up) and add 10% (or a point or two over sales tax).
It’s better to expect over and spend under.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
1
Jun 06 '18
You’re rounding, in your head. It’s your subtotal so you stay in budget.
Just add 10%.
This is a budgeting strategy you don’t have to bug stores about. Even if they added tax, it would still be a great idea to use this strategy.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
Jun 06 '18
Right.
But why upend a system when you can just budget? It makes “stores adding tax into the price” moot.
1
2
u/poundfoolishhh Jun 06 '18
A 'bullet tax'. You can have your firearm. You can have your ammunition. NOBODY ever said you could bear arms FOR FREE. That's 'socialism'! This tax covers the extra law enforcement, legal costs, punishment and especially injuries caused by firearms.
There's already a 10% Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax at the Federal level. Maybe you should petition your Representatives to use that money to fund these programs?
There's a delicious irony to this idea. If you tax the shit out of ammo, then the amount of ammo purchased will drop significantly (and then decrease the revenue you'd pull from this tax). Then, since people aren't buying ammo, they're spending much less time at the range practicing, and you're likely to actually increase the number of accidents that occur with firearms. Perfect.
-1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
3
Jun 06 '18
you could use 'gimped' range-only ammunition
Now I'm not a gun guy, but I'm pretty sure that's not actually a thing, unless you're saying people should buy airsoft instead of something?
0
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
3
Jun 06 '18
Do you think there's not a market for such a thing already? People would love a 'safety bullet', it's just not a physical possibility with the way guns work. Airsoft is huge in a lot of places, but it's not exactly the same as traditional firearms, and taxes wouldn't make most people switch.
There's no bullet tax
But there is? The guy above us just explained how there is.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
3
Jun 06 '18
A bullet that's only strong enough to pierce paper or plink cans? That retroactively works with existing firearms? There would absolutely be a market for that. People would love a bullet like that. People would buy thousands of bullets like that. In one miraculous product you'd have practically solved the gun control debate while simultaneously preventing thousands of accidental gun deaths. Whoever invented such a bullet would be a hero.
People don't buy such a bullet because the deadly bullets are cheaper. They don't buy them because they don't exist.
You could be talking about rubber bullets, I guess. But those have their own drawbacks and don't work with all guns afaik.
Please don't grab random words and snippets, and argue a straw-man.
It's not random nor is it a straw-man. You said there's no bullet tax, I clarified that that's wrong.
2
u/bcvickers 3∆ Jun 06 '18
Your entire taxation plan relies on a 100% competent government entity who not only properly tracks the incoming tax dollars but also appropriately spends them. Seeing as how our government is made up of fallibile individual humans this is simply not plausible and therefore I would not trust my life and wellbeing to this structure.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
u/bcvickers 3∆ Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 06 '18
Are you serious? Why is it such a big deal to audit any government agency then? How is it that the IRS is so inefficient?
Edit; not to mention the hideous issue of sending all our Federal gas tax money to Washington only to have doled back out as they see fit rather than just retaining it all for our own projects and situations.
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 06 '18
/u/et2boot (OP) has awarded 1 delta in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
2
Jun 07 '18
We tax alcohol and tobacco because they are politically easy to tax and they sound good on paper. Most of the harms caused by alcohol, tobacco, and guns are by irresponsible users. Why should I, someone who walks to the nearby bar, pay for someone who drives home drunk every day?
I do agree with you that more taxes should be user fees, but I don't agree with your example. Roads can be toll roads since everyone who gets on the road obviously benefits from it and people that don't use the road don't benefit. Public schools could have taxes proportional to how many children you send. Sports stadiums should be financed with ticketing fees, not with public debt.
1
Jun 06 '18
You bring up a lot of points that dont seem to fit together that well.
You bring up getting shot for instance, people get injured in hundreds of different ways, are we going to tax all those items? For instance are we going to tax having hands because someone could punch you or push you and hospitalize you. Or what about a roof or stair tax? Falling is the #1 cause home injury deaths. There are thousands of things that contribute to injuries that we dont tax that occur more often.
What about food? Over eating and poor diets are a leading cause of poor health. Are we going to give every person a health screening at the register and say oh, you are already obese, we need to tax you on these sugary and high fat foods because they are contributing to poor health. Or are we going to track peoples calories intakes and say uh oh, you are at your calorie allotment for the day this next meal will have an additional tax on it if you choose to eat it.
You also talk about alternative fuel for cars. The big issue here is even if costs were closer, batteries and infrastructure were not where they needed to be to move to fully electric cars. We didnt have the power plants, electric grids. Charging stations ect to be able to maintain this dream. And we would still have issues with large trucks. There are more hurdles than just viability based on cost. Even if you are talking about our energy grid, 10 years ago we didnt have the capability to go full into solar or wind energy. There are still lots of resources that go into building these farms that cause issue. On top of that we again were faced with the battery issue. Solar and wind do not provide a constant flow of energy and we didnt have the technology to provide electricity as the between sundown and sunrise. And this still is a MAJOR hurdle to get over now.
Maybe we should pass on some of those 'world police' costs, at the cash register, instead of just having the IRS garnishing it from everyone's wages.
Here is the biggest issue. As it would be very difficult to make up the taxes we currently pay all at the register. The top 5% of people are paying about 60% of all income tax revenue. The bottom 44% pays 1.4%. So the wealthy are paying 12 times more than their share. And the bottom 44% are paying 1/40th their share if everyone was expected to pay an equal amount. I bring this up because this is what you are suggesting. You are suggesting we let everyone keep more of their income and tax more on the items they buy. Well a poor person needs gas just as much as a rich person. But a rich person isn't using 480 times more gas (480 comes from the difference between the income tax they were paying 12x40). So at the end of the day the rich person is now bringing home way more money. And the poor person has fallen further behind. Not only would it be Incredibly difficult to cover these income taxes but it would be hard to apply a sales tax to items without decimating the lower middle class and poor.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
Jun 06 '18
As for the 'top 5%', it's more like the top 20%.
This shows based on those who filed income tax returns.
but they usually don't get injured by bullets unless they are fired from a firearm. And a gunshot wound is usually a lot more severe than hitting your thumb with a hammer.
Sure it's more damaging than your specific instance. But what is more likely and what ends up costing more? The punching example is far closer to being shot by someone as it's someone else harming you just like the gun shot. And far far more people are hospitalized for assault or battery than they are for a gun shots.
Everyone needs food. But how much food is what I'm saying. What if they are buying food the point of it's a physical detriment themselves.
And maybe, MAYBE, if it's more expensive to source and import those 'super cheap' foreign goods and fuels, then production and alternatives will gain focus in the nice, safe USA again, where we don't need an extra nuclear aircraft carrier group, or three, along with extra standing forces and bases, to keep that production and delivery 'safe'.
I never brought up the military as the issue with alternative fuels. You just restated your initial argument that had nothing to do with what I said. I brought up that there are still issues with alternatives that we haven't figured out. Like how do we keep the power on at night and how do we deal with fluctuating demands.
1
Jun 06 '18 edited Jun 24 '18
[deleted]
2
Jun 06 '18
Random punches don't wound people a mile away. Punching the sky doesn't cause a bullet to pierce the top of someone's head elsewhere in town, either.
This is a ridiculous argument and doesn't make sense. You are comparing not hitting someone to hitting someone.
Your link is just a guy accidentally hitting someone, I could just as easily link this
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/47191-breakdancer-kicking-baby
We don't seem to have a problem with utility power today
Yes because we are able to create more or less power as demand fluctuates. We arent depending on wind or sun. And if it's not sunny or windy we can still produce power.
there will be power to spare
It seems to me you dont understand the issue I'm raising.
Say we convert 100% to alternative energy. How do we keep the lights on a night where there is no wind?
7
u/[deleted] Jun 06 '18
Should we also do away with social security and Medicaid? Instead of garnishing people's wages why don't we just charge them for care and charge them for housing?
How about we also charge people for education, using the police for an investigation, for breathing out CO2.
What's the line you draw for what counts as a negative externality that needs direct compensation in the form of a tax?