Comments on: Why married women deserve Social Security benefits

By: Ron19

Ron19 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 04:37:14 +0000

Every month, 1, 2, or 4 updates are made to tens of millions of Social Security accounts by employers and the government.

Every day, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of stock transaction are recorded. Same for bank accounts.

The computer sysytem hardware and database software are available to create this kind of system.

However, even IBM has had an awful time trying to implement a smaller computerised Air Traffic Control system for the government!

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 07:12:43 +0000

The problem is really the paper. It’s not electronically tracked, has no security codes attached to it, and basically, just goes into somebody’s segmented code and is inputed by hand. Very prone to both interference and human errors. Such as when the IRS gets the “wrong taxes” and has to refund more back than it intended, somehow.

It would need more than a computer program and it would need more than the IRS> It would need a private company, which is more than the sum of both the IRS< Congress, government, the SEC, and the voters combined.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 07:10:06 +0000

It’s no more impossible than credit cards showing who paid for what from whom.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:08:23 +0000

Ymar says (#7) : It will be enough to simply have the individual decide what portion of their taxes, if anything, goes to which government funding

I’ve tried several times in the past to come up with any scheme that would actually allow citizens to direct their taxes to specific areas of government funding. I’ve never been able to do it. I think the instant you actually put pencil to paper and try to devise anything that is actually a practical plan, you run into insurmountable difficulties. I think it’s impossible.

Start with the basics: You’d need a checklist of areas of government funding. How many items? Too few, and it’s too blunt an instrument. You could use as a starting point a checklist of Executive Cabinet positions. HHS (Health and human services)? Far too blunt to be of any use whatsoever. Perhaps five subcategories there. And now we are already at too fine an instrument. Then consider: You check items off on your list. Do you apply an equal percentage to each? Are you going to weight them?

From Wikipedia: In 2011, 234 million tax returns were filed allowing the IRS to collect $2.4 trillion out of which $384 billion were attributed to mistake or fraud.
Then consider the actual government apparatus itself, *how* things actually get funded. It’s nice to think that a simple little computer programmer doing a numerical multiplexer: 234 million inputs feed, say, 100 outputs (the checklist). Within each of those “checklist areas”, you have thousands of programs. You’d have to invent from scratch a system for supplying each individual program. The weight of bureaucracy, and its inevitable problems itself, required to implement such a system compared to its effectiveness seems to me to be impossible to make worthwhile…

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 03:31:30 +0000

It will be enough to simply have the individual decide what portion of their taxes, if anything, goes to which government funding, and have it all electronically tracked like FedEx does with packages. It is not that it can’t be done… it is that the power elites in DC know that their ponzi schemes and skimming off the top would stop if they were to implement such systems.

If someone doesn’t like guns, abortion, police, or the military, they can say that they will pay 100% of their taxes, but none of it is to be directed towards those programs. So long as Congress decides which programs are funded, they have infinite power and time to bribe whichever politician or voter, is in their reach.

By: Spartacus

Spartacus — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:09:49 +0000

I guess I see this as taking us back to 1912, rather than 1788 — pre-16th Amendment, but with the Constitution well-established. That said, you do make an excellent point, and it is an interesting question how to compel states to remit their portion of the tab without overly compelling them.

By: Robert Arvanitis

Robert Arvanitis — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 01:18:26 +0000

Spartacus:

Seems we have the same principles and values. So let us now talk of methods of implementation.

The great failing of the Articles of Confederation was that it left the federal government dependent upon the stats for revenue. But the purpose of Union (and hence the Constitution) was to let the federal government draw upon the citizens directly, rather than indirectly through the several states, over which they (the Federal government) had no authority.

That said, the justifiable PURPOSES of the Federal government were limited to those enumerated — defend the borders, maintain civil order and enforce contracts.
So we are at the same place, with complementary operations to implement.

By: Danny Lemieux

Danny Lemieux — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:37:57 +0000

The line that I like to use is: “You can’t argue against laws and regulations that make it easier to raise kids and simultaneously wonder why there aren’t enough kids to pay for your old age benefits”.
In a similar vein, I make a related argument against gay marriage: “marriage isn’t about giving rights and benefits to adults, it’s about creating conditions that are conducive to raising healthy, productive children for the good of society”.

By: Spartacus

Spartacus — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 05:29:11 +0000

1) Just to clarify, my previous comment was intended as a compliment.

2) Mr. Arvanitis — I will agree with you that a flat tax would be preferable to what we have now. But would you agree with me that the 16th Amendment is the source of much growth in government and other mischief, and really, it would be better if the IRS only processed tax returns from 50 taxpayers, with names like Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, etc.? Just determine how much spending each state has committed itself to in the past year, multiply by a certain multiplier that would be uniform for all states, and that is how much they would remit to DC. Strong incentive for states to pinch their pennies, and also would help turn us back into a federal system rather than a national one. Politically difficult to achieve under normal circumstances, but fear not, abnormal circumstances are headed our way.

By: Bookworm

Bookworm — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 01:21:03 +0000

Robert Arvanitis tried to leave a comment, but Word Press rebuffed him. He emailed it to me, and I pass it on to you:

Spartacus is correct on “business litigator.”

But that’s appropriate, since the Left has attacked our values and tried mightily to undercut the cultural wisdom of the millennia.

So yes, we litigate back.

The deeper issue is to recognize the inherent contradictions of the left-agenda. We have progressive tax rates. Say it’s 10% on the first $50,000 (median), and 20% on the next $50,000. Then consider the following cases:

· Two unrelated individuals at median income. Government takes $5,000 from each, or $10,000 total.
· Married couple, each make $50,000. What should government take?
· Married couple; one supports the home and the other makes $100,000. What should government take?!

If you’re befuddled, then you are a liberal.

If you know the right answer is a flat tax to avoid this stupidity, you are correct.

If you instinctively want to protect the married pairings, then you have not completely erased the cultural wisdom. So you are now faced with the question “OK, but WHY is marriage important to society?”

If you further realize that the answer is “to create the next generation” then there is indeed hope for you.

If instead of all that you continue to grasp at the redistributionist agenda without regard to the future, you are a hopelessly lost leftist, and have no business borrowing from the future to subsidize current consumption.