July 12, 2005
-
Thatliberalmedia left a link on the prior post. It's a link to a
post that raises caution about allowing equal marriage rights for
gays. I think anyone that supports gay marriage should read
it. Its lengthy. But if you believe in gay marriage rights
you really need to know the arguments against it and this is one of the
slicker arguments I've read. It's not too slick really, but it
will pass in many circles.
Here's my response:
Thanks for the link with a differing opinion about gay marriage. The
post was well written. This person is a master at taking completely
unrelated issues and making them sound like they support their
position. Really, how does congress failing to put a 10% limit on
income tax have anything to do with gay marriage? I learned to pick up
on these kind of arguments in logic 101 in college . . . but based on
the responses to the post, many haven't learned this lesson, or want to
ignore it to support their predjudice. Rather than address each of the
authors points I will just say this: We don't have to rely on
speculation. We're not breaking new ground here. Gay marriage has been
legal in Denmark for nearly 16 years. There has been no disintigration
of traditional marriage. Gay marriages mirror their straight
counterparts in every way but one . . . they have a lower divorce rate.
I
believe that a generation from now, two at the most, the citizens of
this country will look back on this issue just like we look at blacks
being unable to drink from the same water fountain as whites: "How
could they have been so blind? How could they have thought that was
right?"
Comments (18)
Well said, I agree 100%
The essence of most right-wing religious argument is to replace relevant facts with unrelated ones. Of course this is logical to them. I doubt from seeing his comments for over a year, that thatliberalmedia cares at all about gay marriage, what he cares about is not paying taxes and not being asked to be a responsible member of his community. And he knows that the best way to get the 95% of Americans who earn less than his family does to support a political party that hurts them is to threaten their masculinity. So the gay marriage issue is presented (even in writing as good as this example may be) in a deliberately confusing way.
The only way a gay marriage can be threatening to a heterosexual marriage is if you assume that you or your partner are gay, and that with societal sanction, you will leave your spouse to hook up with someone of the same sex. But honestly, if you are that confused about your sexuality, you are probably already doing that.
One day, somewhere down the road, we definitely will look back and wonder why we are so blind to the obvious. I find this true with the gay marraige issues as well as global conservation, animal rights, cancer causes, world hunger, education....etc. Its just a matter of time. Either that or the world will look a little like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Or the Matrix. Geeeesh I hope not!
In brief defense of her bringing up seemingly unrelated points, I think she was trying to explain two concepts which are rather difficult for many to understand, namely slippery slopes, and to a much greater extent, marginal cases. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have seen people baffled by the idea that a 2% increase in taxes would cause people to work less (prime example number 1 is spewing his usual hate in the comment above mine). Such a small amount would never cause them to work less, so why should it cause anyone? And if it does, they are stupid, and apparently no attention should be paid to them at all.
I agree gay marriage will have few if any destabilizing effects on society, for the reasons you describe. Especially in the younger generations, there are simply too few people who have any opinion on it in the first place.
"what he cares about is not paying taxes and not being asked to be a responsible member of his community"
No problem with being asked. But if you call taxation and drafts asking, I'd hate to see your euphamism for "forcing at gunpoint."
If a 2% increase in taxes causes rich kids like thatliberalmedia to work less, it simply creates an opportunity for a less lazy person to work more, and re-distributes income in a positive way. It's obviously a win-win scenario, just like gay marriage.
Yeppers that is my neck and back, the top one is Kanji for Princess
A 2% tax increase doesn't affect the rich. They're already rich, why would they care? If they're working, they're either working for the love of it, or they're making so much that it doesn't even register (2% of $1M per annum? It's a rounding error). The rich are not the marginal cases. It's the man who retires 6 months earlier than he otherwise would have. Or the consultant who doesn't bother with that third or fourth project. Or the stay-at-home mom who decides it's not worth it after all to work part time and pay for nursery school. We have a finite population, and less demand for work means prices go up, across the board, for everyone, including the precious poor that thenarrator claims to cherish so much, but for his policies that make life worse for them
By the way, thenarrator describing gay marriage as a win-win (but typically not telling why) reminded me of the point I wish McArdle would have addressed in the post I linked to earlier. I don't know if you read the conservative gay activist (shocking, I know) Andrew Sullivan, but I think he makes a good case for gay marriage using socially conservative principles, especially in the last 6 paragraphs. Good para:
"Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extract-yourself-from commitment to another human being. Like straight marriage, it would foster social cohesion, emotional security, and economic prudence. Since there's no reason gays should not be allowed to adopt or be foster parents, it could also help nurture children. And its introduction would not be some sort of radical break with social custom. As it has become more acceptable for gay people to acknowledge their loves publicly, more and more have committed themselves to one another for life in full view of their families and their friends. A law institutionalizing gay marriage would merely reinforce a healthy social trend. It would also, in the wake of AIDS, qualify as a genuine public health measure. Those conservatives who deplore promiscuity among some homosexuals should be among the first to support it. Burke could have written a powerful case for it."
Whoever is lazy enough to stop working because of a minimal tax increase increases financial opportunities for less lazy people. I've explained this to you before, with a huge tax increase. If you're making $200,000 a year and you're paying $60,000 in taxes, and if you made another $100,000 and had to pay half of that in taxes, you'd be up $50,000. But if you choose not to do that. Someone else will collect that $100,000 you left on the table. They'll take it, spend it, circulate it, and pay taxes on it. I know that right-wing economists have this weird view of how an economy works, but it really is quite simple. This is why we should all favor progressive taxation (the opposite of what we have now). This is why we'd all benefit if FICA applied to all non-retirement income, except for the first million dollars in primary home sales profit, the first million in inheritance, and family farm inheritance. - If the rich paid FICA like most Americans, companies would be more willing to spread wealth around, simply because there would not be a financial disadvantage to that.
On gay marriage - the societal advantages are so obvious, they need not be stated over and over. I wasn't the one bringing a pro-discrimination viewpoint to the table, so did not need to say it over again.
Totally agree with your post -- the reasoning and logic of the link article could very well have been written by W's speechwriters for all of his bringing up totally unrelated issues during the presidential bid... Too sad that people choose to blindly espouse these views without doing some very "critical thinking" of their own, and recognize that the logic just doesn't work....... Rather makes me think of SNL's "NEVERMIND" Emily Latelly character (??not sure if that is the correct name for this Gilda Radner character)
"This is why we should all favor progressive taxation (the opposite of what we have now)."
Even you have admitted the extremely low growth plaguing European economies that have adopted your model of taxation. Yes, you justify it's still worthwhile with more subjective data (social programs, etc.) but there's no denying numbers. Economies do not grow as fast when there is high taxation because your logic is faulty. It is impossible for people to drop out of the economy and have prices stay the same. In your example, a company would have to raise it's salary for that position to get someone of similar talent, therefore driving up the cost of its' product (and all the repercussions that entails).
The problem is again you're not taking into account marginal cases. It's easy to imagine that were the tax rate 90% on that final $100,000, nearly everyone competent enough for the job would refuse it. The company would clearly have to raise it's salary dramatically. The same is true for small increases in taxation, companies just have to increase salaries more moderately.
FICA should simply be a much, much smaller flat tax applied to everyone over the bottom 10% (handicapped etc. etc.) for their entire salaries As it is, the rich pay much more into FICA than they ever take out of it. Do you realize what a massive tax increase you're calling for, in the name of removing the financial disincentive to hire low paying employees? Truly a case of the solution being worse than the problem.
This has been quite interesting. Thanks for using your site to bring up this debate, Bob!
Looking forward to more tree and nature photos.
Always interesting Bob!
thatliberalmedia confuses me. But perhaps he still doesn't understand basic economics. Right now a person making a million a year pays the same into FICA as a person making $89,000 per year (and their employer does the same). So no, no one pays "far more in than they get out" under the current system. But he seems to agree with me when he says "FICA should simply be a much, much smaller flat tax applied to everyone over the bottom 10%" which is the Ted Kennedy plan: (which is that) FICA should apply to all income over $10,000 per year. Not just to work (as it does now). Actually, that plan would be a slight national tax reduction (about 5%). It could be "revenue neutral" if adjusted to 8%+8% over $10,000 from the current 7.54%+7.54%.
Currently, of course, a person making $200,000 pays a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than a person making $75,000. I guess that's an incentive to get rich, but it still seems like a bizarre system to me.
It's nonsensical to judge to the progressivity of Social Security on an annual basis, when taxes are collected and benefits are paid off over the course of a lifetime. This table from NBER illustrates the phenomenon nicely.
For instance, for the cohort of workers born in 1945, a single-earner couple earning $10,000 (with wage growth equivalent to the Social Security Administration's "Average Wage Series"), will pay $48,951 in taxes throughout its lifetime and receive $62,679 in benefits. Thus the family receives a transfer payment of $13,727 from Social Security. In other words, the family's benefit payments exceed their and their employer's payroll tax contribution by $13,727. In the same cohort, a family earning $50,000 receives a negative transfer of $39,750. In other words, the family pays $39,750 more in taxes throughout its lifetime than it can expect to receive in benefits. A single-earner couple earning $30,000 suffers a net loss of $27,370. Therefore, among single-earner couples, there is a large money transfer from middle- and high-wage workers to low-wage workers. The same trend is evidenced for different family types.
Hmm, a more recent study by NBER says that Social Security may not be as progressive as once thought, and may even be slightly regressive. Nothing on the scale of what thenarrator suggests, to measure SS taxes over one year without taking into account benefits is just dishonesty, but over the course of a lifetime, the worst case scenario is that the current SS system has an effective progression measure of 0.998. (A value of 1 implies that Social Security makes no difference - there is no redistribution.) Most likely, it seems that the measure is just over 1.
The most that a person can pay into Social Security is $13,000 per year. 50% of which is paid by the employer as a tax on employment. So, if a person worked 40 years earning over $91,000 annually, yes, they'd personally have put in $260,000. Now, if they are retired for 20 years they'd get back a minimum of $16,000 a year, or about $300,000 back. Not great, but not terrible especially since free lifetime disability insurance gets thrown in along with free retirement health insurance. And really, if you're making $300,000, that's an anual total of 2.3% of your income. So Jesus, shut up, that's the best deal around.
Besides, ever wonder why it is called "Social Security" and not "Personal Security"? That's what separates Republicans and Libertarians from all other primates.
Retired for 20 years?? How many people are retired for 20 years? Why not be honest for once and use the average life expectancy, which is 78, and given you have to retire at 65-66 to get full benefits, that's an average of 12-13 years of retirement. Which is terrible, because according to your numbers, he'd only get back at most $208,000. And that's without accounting for inflation (which would make these numbers look much, much worse), and conveniently disregarding the fact that companies are pumping in another 260k per person trying to keep this crackpot scheme afloat. Some deal.
"That's what separates Republicans and Libertarians from all other primates."
That, and honesty, apparently, if you're a reliable standard for liberals. (God, I hope not)
Comments are closed.