Public Funding

One thing I think about a lot is the best way to accomplish revenue generation for public services and assets.

So far I can think of no ideal solution.
Currently the USA employs a mixture of taxation techniques to raise revenue.
The one that most people readily think of is the income tax. Our income tax is a graduated tax system that taxes people a greater percentage depending on the amount they make. This is, of course, completely unfair and it penalizes people for working hard to improve their own lives. In an effort to counter that unfairness we have many income tax deductions that allow people to deduct things that are costs of living for them to decrease their income tax burden. This, too, is completely unfair as it rewards people for having families and, indirectly, penalizes people who choose to have smaller (or no) families. Plus the deductions have a rule structure that is so absurd that people can spend thousands of dollars to private accountants to circumvent the taxation system with a net result of saving money.
Any system that is inherently unfair to start with that adds layers of complexity which create additional unfairness is a poor system that should be abandoned. If there MUST be an income tax it should be a flat percentage regardless of how much you make with no deductions. Unfortunately, there is a problem with this model, too. If your income is at the poverty level you end up requiring a greater percentage of your income to merely survive than those who earn significantly more than the poverty level. In addition, managing all of the income tax collection and processing requires a huge fleet of agents who are employed by the government. Their salaries and benefits and office space, etc all detract from the value of EACH AND EVERY tax dollar collected.
The income tax is, therefore, a conundrum that is a lose-lose situation for everyone.

The next most common taxation method is the sales tax. EVERYONE buys things. Rich people tend to spend significantly more than poor people because they have more money to spend. If there were a flat percentage sales tax then EVERYONE could control their level of taxation by choosing how much they spend. Of course, there is a minimum level of spending that anyone can accomplish because there is a minimal set of necessities for basic survival. This means that the poor would be taxed a higher percentage of their income than the rich in a minimalistic situation. Compounding this issue is the reality that the less the rich are spending the more they are saving or investing. The more they invest the more wealth they will accumulate, thus making the poor even poorer.

The third taxation method that affects people on a regular basis is the property tax. I, personally, find the property tax to be the least fair of the current taxation methods because it forces those who own property to pay for all of the local public services that are consumed by everyone. Renters don't (directly) pay for the schools their children attend: the landlords do.

I've thought about this a lot and the possible outcomes of changing the system. The conclusion I've come to is that a combined taxation system is necessary, but not one as convoluted and corrupted as the one we have now.

Here's the thought I have:

1. Eliminate the personal income tax and replace it with a 15% federal income tax. My paycheck currently sees more than 15% deducted for the variety of federal income-related taxes. If all of those went away and were replaced with a 15% income tax on everything the ultra-rich who avoid their income taxes would cease to be able to circumvent the taxation system so revenues would go up. In addition 85% (a complete guess that is unsubstantiated by any research) of the IRS would be able to be laid off (a one-time economic disruption) creating a large savings in cost. More revenue and lower cost means an improvement in the efficiency of the funds collected AND an expansion of the services that our tax revenues are able to provide. The majorirty of people for whom this additional taxation would become an overly large burden are probably already on some sort of assistance service. Their "benefit" could be adjusted upward to compensate for this and the difference in benefit would, essentially, be a neutralizing agent on the increased revenue for that segment of the population.
2. An investment / capital gains tax to prevent an increasingly larger and larger accumulation of wealth by the top 1% of the population. If we start with a fixed number for raw investment value (I will use $100,000 because it makes the math easy) as the baseline starting point we could apply an investment tax on the earnings that the investment makes. If your investment generates 10% return in cash each year ($10,000) then you pay the investment tax on the $10,000. The more cash dividends you earn on you investments the more raw volume of taxation you receive. Capital gains taxes work in a similar manner, but they are the value of the investment itself. Stocks and real estate are common examples of items that experience capital gains taxes. If you purchase an item for $100,000 but sell it for $1,000,000 then you have earned $900,000 on that investment. Capital gains taxes you on that earning. Because of the inherent inequality between being rich and being poor I think it is important to create taxation levels that help slow the general accumulation of wealth by the rich, but only to a point that is fair and equally applied to EVERYONE.

So, in short:
No income tax + 15% federal sales tax = more money in my wallet each week, more money for the government AND less cost.
Investment and Capital Gains task = limited wealth accumulation by the rich and a second taxation base to level the percentage of "surplus" income that is taken by the government.

Anyone have any additional thoughts on this?

A Quick and Easy Fix for the Anti-Business Environment in My State

I'm not a politician.
I never will be.
I will never run for public office because I know I would not accomplish anything.
Getting elected would simply be a waste of my time.
It would be a waste of my time because the career politicians would try to block any changes I would try to make that threatened their power base. The stupid people would try to undo any changes I tried to make for the long-term good that threatened a short-term benefit. Both entrenched political parties would try to stop me from accomplishing anything useful because it would make their inability to do so look bad.

Because I cannot accomplish anything if I were ever to get elected I will not try.


This, of course, frustrates me beyond all comprehension because I have some good ideas that are incredibly simple which would improve things in this state. They might even be applicable elsewhere to improve things in this country.

One of these ideas for this state is a way to make it less hostile to business.
This state has a reputation for VERY aggressively collecting any and all taxes that it thinks anyone owes it. It has aggressive taxation for the residents and more aggressive taxation for businesses. This has to change if it is ever to bring more business and more employment here. The way things are at this moment it is driving away good jobs and leaving the remainder to pay higher taxation on the services being applied.

Here's a quick and easy way to increase business presence (and thus, jobs) in this state:
Offer a five year 50% tax reduction for any company that creates new jobs (only applicable on the percentage of their company that the new jobs reflect). If they have employees and hire a tenth they get 50% tax cut on 10% of their profit. If they have no presence in this state and they open a factory or call center or retail outlet they get 50% tax break on the entire facility that they open. Attach a rider to this tax break: any company opting into this break MUST retain the affected positions for a total of 10 years. Failure to retain the positions for 10 years means the company must pay back the discount PLUS INTEREST.

The state government is unable to see past the "lost revenue" created by the cut to see why this is beneficial even though it is VERY SIMPLE.
Its simplicity is its beauty: some money is better than no money.
The newly created jobs will, usually, generate more taxable income for the company. That additional income will be taxed at a discounted rate, but if the company had not expanded then it wouldn't have any new revenue to tax in the first place. Some new revenue is better than no new revenue.
The newly created job will go to a person. That person will have income. That income, which did not exist before, will be taxed by the income tax. Some revenue is better than no revenue.
The newly created job will have income. That income will be used to purchase more goods and services in the state. Those goods and services are taxed. Some revenue is better than no revenue.
The person who holds this job may or may not have been unemployed before. If they were they no longer will be. This means that they will be earning their money instead of receiving an hand-out from the state while they seek a new job. No negative revenue is better than some negative revenue.
Locking in a new job for 10 years is a boon to the general economy. The tax cut is a boon to the companies that are on the edge of creating a new job but who can't quite afford it right now.
Locking in the new jobs for 10 years locks the employers into the state for that time. It makes it easier to get in and get started but harder to exit.

Since what we need is to reverse the trend of it being easy to exit and hard to start we should examine this.

Any politician is welcome to use this idea so long as they openly admit it is not their own and direct people here if they are asked whose idea if is.
Any politician who likes this idea is free to comment on the post. I am happy to share many other ideas that I think would improve the quality and diversity of available services while holding costs steady OR reducing costs while holding the quality and diversity of services constant. It's REALLY hard to reduce costs AND increase services but I even have a few ideas about where that can be done.

Yes, I think to much about everything.