1. You are misinterpreting my point about trading places. We are essentially arguing the same thing, but at different price points. Yes, your mom would gladly pay a couple thousand in taxes to jump to 30K income. But remove the arbitrary line of $24K and the same argument applies to all salaries. Someone making $10K / year would gladly pay $500 in taxes if it meant their salary could be increased to $19K / year. The point being, no matter what salary level you are at, there is always someone who would trade you places (even if it meant they had to pay a little in income tax).

2. I wasn't arguing that we should reduce taxes on the rich. I'm only saying everyone should pay something. They are not mutually exclusive. Whether it's $75B or $1B in additional tax revenue, it's still a significant amount of money that could be used. No, it's not going to solve the debt crisis, but a billion dollars still buys about 25,000 new teachers like your mom.

3. Like you, I have been on both sides of the income spectrum. The first year I filed taxes (working part-time in college), I was absolutely shocked to find out I was getting a refund check for the exact amount that I paid in. What was so special about me that I was exempt from paying my share of taxes? It wasn't a lot of money so neither paying it throughout the year nor receiving the small check back at the end of the year had any siginificant effect on me. However, 10 years later, seeing ~35% of my salary go to taxes and still having to pay more at the end of the year, I realized what all the hoopla over taxes was about. I didn't complain too much (obviously I was living better than before), but I assure you it wasn't a "barely-noticeable" tax.

Honestly, I don't think we are too far apart on our views. I applaud you for wanting to help those 10 families by paying an extra $1000 in taxes. I wish there were more people like you. But I also don't think you are giving enough respect to wealthy people. Most are not selfish, greedy and completely unware as you characterize them. As your $1T figure illustrates, they are already paying 90% of the taxes to help the less fortunate. That's pretty generous if you ask me.

Like I said before, I'm not suggesting giving the wealthy more advantages so they can further take adavantage of the poor. I'm simply saying everyone should have some skin in the game. Whether it's $10 or $500 doesn't matter. We should all be doing our part for the greater good of the community.

Interesting post. I've always been a critic of the 2 party system, but this actually made me think more about it. I'd love to hear your ideas on how to make the system better.

Small percentage or not, $1.5 billion dollars is a lot of money. At an average of $40k / year, it would be enough to hire about 35,000 teachers. Or about 25,000 new police officers. I'd say that would be far greater value than what equates to a pack of ciggarettes or a matinee movie for the 47%.

My point was that the line is arbitrary. He was mad that people complained that his mom didn't pay any taxes, and his favorite response was to say his mom would have easily traded places with them. I was pointing out that there are many that would consider $19K / year and a decent job a serious upgrade, and would happily pay a few extra dollars in taxes to get it.

I don't accept that people cannot afford to pay anything. No matter how much you make, you can afford to pay something. If you make $12K / year and go to college, paying $10 in income tax is not going alter your life and prevent you from finishing school.

It is not shortsighted to expect everyone to pay something for use of common services. It is shortsighted to foster a mentality that you get something for free because you are poor and other people will pick up the tab.

So, because you were in college and your mom was a teacher, you don't think it's fair for you to pay even $1 dollar in income taxes? But at some arbitrary number, it's fair because YOU see that as an acceptable standard of living? Who decides that? Plenty of poeple would easily trade you spots and gladly pay a few dollars if they could have your college education and your mom's secure, respectable job. We all need to pay for common services. It's really that simple.

You don't have to collect from the lowest end of the spectrum. You'd simply be returning less to them. We already process their returns, so there's no additional loss. There are many cases when the amount returned greatly exceeds the amount paid in. So, why is having everyone pay something wrong? $10 from 47% of the population turns into a really big number.

Sell, pawn, or throw pretty much everything away and get new stuff when you get there. If you are paying for the shipping, I'm willing to bet almost everything you are shipping is not worth the cost to ship it. Ship the sentimental stuff (pictures, videos, gifts, etc) and take the super important things with you on the plane. I'm pretty sure a used ink cartridge for your printer is not worth shipping across the globe and waiting 8 weeks for it.

"You are biased in favor of the products that make you money."

I'm pretty sure everyone is a little bias towards the things that make them money.

I read a wired magazine article on this same topic a few years ago.

http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

Ya, i don't quite get the anger either. Boot the machine -> Click Desktop. It's pretty much the same as Win7.

Thanks for the reply. I actually posted this by mistake in the wrong article. There was another story on /. about Mexico an its health care policy that I was intending to post to.

I'm not exactly sure what your position is on universal health care, but I do appreciate your perspective on how such things get implemented and the corrsponding consequences. You're most interesting point was "Except, who voted for this?". I hadn't thought of that really. But it does kind of lead me to my original point. Say it was put to a vote and it passed. Then the question becomes, "passed by who?". It's really easy for an enormous chunk of the population to vote in a nationwide benefit when it has little to no financial impact on them. If the only result is that it benefits you without consequence, why wouldn't you vote for it? Why not vote for free food and lodging for everyone, but at the expense of the middle to upper class?

The conservative argument against universal health care is pretty simple. If it's paid for by taxes, the middle to upper class pay significantly more than everyone else for the same service. And those people don't like doing that.

Personally, i'm on the fence about the issue. I definitely see the benefits of a simple, efficient, single payer system. And I also feel it's important that everyone has access to affordable health care. However, I do find it annoying that a huge percentage of the population pays little to no taxes but expect more and more free services from the government. I think health care is a personal responsibility that everyone needs to budget for. Similar to buying groceries or paying rent (extreme poverty cases aside), everyone has to pay. I see far too many poor people buying iPhones and $100 data plans, yet claim they cannot afford health insurance.

crap.. logged in to post and posted to wrong article.

The conservative argument against universal health care is pretty simple. If it's paid for by taxes, the middle to upper class pay significantly more than everyone else for the same service. And those people don't like doing that.

Personally, i'm on the fence about the issue. I definitely see the benefits of a simple, efficient, single payer system. And I also feel it's important that everyone has access to affordable health care. However, I do find it annoying that a huge percentage of the population pays little to no taxes but expect more and more free services from the government. I think health care is a personal responsibility that everyone needs to budget for. Similar to buying groceries or paying rent (extreme poverty cases aside), everyone has to pay. I see far too many poor people buying iPhones and $100 data plans, yet claim they cannot afford health insurance.

Just FYI, you can move up first, then move to the right to skip over sections. I think it's still an extra click or 2 to get to network settings, but not that bad.