New York State Budget Relies On Entertainment Tax 655
einer writes "Facing a budget shortfall, New York State Governor David Paterson crafts a budget that taxes iPod music downloads and other 'digitally delivered entertainment services.' On the chopping block is $700 million in school aid and $3.5 billion in health care subsidies."
Sleazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather than arguing for or against taxing non-tangible products, let me says this...
How is New York's tax system done? Isn't it income tax, property tax, and some sort of sales tax?
They have a sales tax, right? They're just extending it to non-tangible goods. How is downloaded music any different from buying a CD, in regards to taxes? Why shouldn't it be taxed?
Taxi rides, movie tickets, cable and satellite TV, seem like a bad idea to be taxed. Taxi rides are a big part in living in the city, right? Movie tickets are expensive enough already, right? And, well, cable and satellite TV, what effect will that have on people voting for him next time around?
A government in its death throes (Score:5, Insightful)
Less Government for Less Money (Score:5, Insightful)
I never got this... (Score:3, Insightful)
How the Government institutions tell folks that they should be more fiscally responsible while they run up more and more debt. I guess if I had a tax base, I wouldn't be concerned with how much I spent every year either.
Re:Issues and Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more than that. Now Apple (although probably not Amazon since they maintain they have no presence in NY) will have to collect a special tax strictly for NY residents, and pay that tax regularly to the state, and maybe file additional reports at additional expense, and no longer have the nicely uniform 99 cents/download price/image - and that's the effect on just one company alone. Multiply this by every company affected in every new area and the burden is significant.
Of course NY prides itself on being a very liberal state, and Joe Biden has said that paying taxes is a civil duty. Maybe they'll like having this happen to them. If not they can always vote some new people in - oh wait! The election is already over and you're stuck with these clowns for at least the next 2 years.
(If you say why Apple? It's because there are Apple computer stores in NYC giving the state tax people something to get their claws into.)
Re:paying the fps (Score:3, Insightful)
That's always the case, say the politicians.
They will lose more votes cutting services just a little bit than by adding another straw to your back, which is to say, cutting funds to people who get money from government.
I can't imagine why businesses are fleeing overseas, with all this bread-and-circuses genius floating around like turds tied to balloons choking things more and more each year.
Even if you think every single law and every single payment level is needed, sooner or later the arteries clog and the heart stops, choked with a hundred balloon angioplasty stents.
The politicians won't grow balls, so you have to grow them for 'em.
Cut costs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently read that New York City's entitlements policy, bloated "public service" sector, fiscal irresponsibility and system of governance were key in bringing on the bankruptcy [nypost.com] of the 70s.
Could this be a case of the tree not falling far from the apple?
The remedies in the 70s included fiscal conservatism, cutting entitlements, dealing with corruption and going after crime.
Rather than raising taxes to enable business-as-usual to continue unabated, maybe it's time state officials considered wielding the same scalpel used in the past to the body of the state today.
People are Idiots (taxachusetts rant) (Score:2, Insightful)
Take Massachusetts. They had a chance to get rid of the state income tax. They voted agianst it by a 70-30 margin. State unions and pensions that go with it are out of control. the roads and bridges despite all the taxes are crap. I believe its 80% of highway funds go to administrative costs vs 20% goes into fixing the roads. Oh and for that they get a hole in the ground that was so shodily made its killed people, and it only cost them billions to build.
It seems all the gov run agencys are bankrupt yet you have firemen getting full untaxed disability for fake injurys. One of them was caught becuase well he finished in top 3 of some major state bodybuilding competition. Come on yes physical therapy can get a guy fit, but it you have a bum back no amount of therapys going to get you that buff.
The problem is they all get away from it up here in NH and bring the politics that turned everything that way with them. Cash is king now. More people riding the cart then pulling.
Cut the Military to 1/4 of it's current budget. (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep the health care budget intact, but close the bases and scale everything down. This will reduce the need to Federal Income Tax revenue.
Then, let NY keep more than $0.66 of every dollar it contributes in Federal taxes.
We need to cut costs, but at the top where the rich benefit from gov't spending the most.
Re:paying the fps (Score:4, Insightful)
The US has on of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, so businesses move overseas to avoid that. If we lower the rates, the businesses would probably come back here, and those tax rates would actually start generating some revenue, rather than forcing business overseas and producing no revenue.
New York subsidizes the quite a few losers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Those losers being states that take in more federal tax money than they contribute. New York gives up 1/3 of it's tax revenue to states like MS,MO,AL,LA,WV,NC,SC, etc...You know, the 'conservative' states where 'small government' and 'less taxes' get a huge response.
Imagine if the Federal Government let New York keep that money in state...instant balanced budget and then some.
Re:On the positive side (Score:5, Insightful)
bleeding money. Interesting. Let's say you had a gaping leg wound that was bleeding, well, blood. For this analogy, assume you're a hemophiliac and the bleeding won't stop on it's own accord. Would you get some blood packs and inject them into your arm? No, you'd stop the bleeding (and inject blood if needed). Raising taxes doesn't stop the bleeding; cutting spending does.
Re:On the positive side (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't drink water or juice? You're actually claiming that you are forced to drink regular soda. You somehow suffer without it. Seriously?
Re:Issues and Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course NYC prides itself on being a very liberal state, and Joe Biden has said that paying taxes is a civil duty.
Fixed that for ya. Talk to anyone outside the NYC area and they'll agree that taxes are way too high. The worst part is that local tax monies are sucked up and re-distributed to NYC.
Re:On the positive side (Score:3, Insightful)
NYS driving away everything in their own region (Score:4, Insightful)
NYS has been driving out businesses just by their costs and taxes. You pay taxes for everything and every piece of paper (permit, license, ...) from the government costs at least $10 for individuals, $100 for businesses. It's so bad that you can live in NYC but any decent company (datacenters. stocks and banking) is right outside the border in NJ. The same goes for Buffalo: it used to be a big business city; they all moved to Erie, PA or Canada and now that city is as good as dead. If you look at the border-towns (eg. PA-border) the NY-side of the border has the smallest population, no businesses except for a bar and no real-estate market (people dump it way below market value). On the other side of the border (the PA-side) there is a decent sized rural town, the shopping mall and stores like Wal-Mart are literally 1/2 mile away from the border, clearly built at a location to draw out the NYS folk.
Re:I'm in favor of the Apt Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not bad. And it would be heavily progressive - if not because poor people make fewer transactions, then because most poor people are going to demand cash if it saves them 0.5%.
My "unintended consequences" spidey sense is tingling, though...
Re:On the positive side (Score:4, Insightful)
I do. It reduces medical insurance costs for everyone in the long run
Except the governor is also proposing a tax increase on health insurance too (plus auto insurance, homeowners insurance, etc). Let's drive more people off of private insurance! That'll solve all of our problems.
NY is second in per capita expenditures in the country and nearly double that of California. I've watched the state rot around me for the past 30 years. NYC was relatively immune to it since it is the financial capital of the US, but the other 95% of the state has long suffered under these types of policies. Upstate and Western NY have had a fleeing population, increasing welfare rolls and businesses looking to relocate for decades because of our wasteful spending and burdensome taxation and regulation.
Squeezing even further will just force more activity out of the state, even if people choose to still live here. Fireworks are illegal in NY, but as soon as you cross the border to PA on 15, you'll see the fireworks store. Every summer, you see hundreds of people in my tiny town setting off fireworks. Just how do you think they got them? Almost all of the population of NY is within a 2 hour drive to another state. Buy stuff in sufficient quantities and it becomes worth it to make a trip, especially if you're already going to visit friends and family in adjacent states. The suckers dumb enough to keep buying in NY will pay the extra tax and the rest of us will be boosting the economies of PA, NJ, VT, CT, etc instead of our home state.
NY needs to cut some of the sacred cows... plain and simple. That's the only way of resolving the crisis.
Re:On the positive side (Score:5, Insightful)
We have socialized healthcare - Medicare - which pays a huge chunk of our hospital bills. That's why some American politicians get the "bright" idea to tax hamburgers to discourage bad health risks & lower Medicare costs.
Me, I prefer Thomas Jefferson's view:
(updated to the modern age): "Whether my neighbor eats one hamburger, many hamburgers, or no hamburgers, matters not to me. His actions do not harm my body, my property, nor my rights, so I will allow my neighbor to eat or not eat as many burgers as he pleases." - That is the true meaning of individual liberty. Do whatever you damn well please, and respect others' rights to do the same, so long as they do not harm your body, property, or rights.
New York Taxes (Score:3, Insightful)
Try parking legally in New York City. Am I right people?
Intolerable Acts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:paying the fps (Score:4, Insightful)
And there are. But you should stop listening when someone attempts to argue that they'll raise corporate tax in lieu of income tax and that that will benefit you the individual.
Corporate taxes are paid by you, the individual, in the form of increased prices for goods and services. For a corporation a tax is just like any other cost. Labor or utilities or copper. The primary difference between tax and most other costs is that aside from the above loopholes there is little incentive to compete with other businesses to reduce tax, or to innovate, or to be more efficient than the next guy.
Whaaambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post, and the parent post are choking on their own misinformation.
The US has on of the highest corporate tax rates in the world
If you want to pick a *single* statistic, to tie your frustrations to, then that's about as bad as it gets.
I think we would all agree that the American economy remains one of the most vibrant in the world. It remains one of the most business friendly. http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/10/smallbusiness/best_countries_for_small_biz.smb/ [cnn.com]
8 years of explicitly promoting a lax regulatory environment for every category of business in the U.S. hasn't seemed to have helped keep jobs in the U.S. at all. Wages certainly haven't gone up for those making less than $50,000/yr in the last eight years.
So let's chop away at those taxes! Publicly funded law enforcement is overrated. Organized crime/gangs do a good job protecting the neighborhood. Courts? Jails? Don't need em. Let's get rid of utility regulation too! You are perfectly willing to pay way more for electricity or safe fresh water at monopoly prices?
It's time you came to the realization that taxes are a part of what makes living in this country great.
Re:A government in its death throes (Score:3, Insightful)
Increased regulation causing the State budget shortfalls? How is making decisions on tax rates regulation?
How is increasing taxes on certain transactions not regulation?
You might also want to read up on a certain Mr. Madoff, who took full advantage of a regulatory vacuum.
You mean the Bernard Madoff whose niece is a lawyer for his firm, and is married to an SEC investigator who has ignored complaints from private groups since 1999? The solution is not increased regulation, because increased government control violates individual rights and leads to increased opportunity for corruption (e.g. Madoff). The solution is competing private companies that demand transparency in exchange for their "seal of approval". You trust internet transactions that are checked by VeriSign, right? Would you be as trusting if, instead, it said "approved by the SEC"?
My best attempt at a Simple Steps to Fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Consitiutional Amendments
"No governement agency at the federal, state, or local level shall spend in excess of the previous 3 years average of income from taxes and fees collected except through a voter approved bonding" (Prevent Overspending)
"No person shall have their property tax increased beyond 3% in any calendar year, nor increased greater then 100% since the time of purchase or transfer of ownership of their primary residence by any goverment agency." (Prevent trying to steal and redistributed land through taxing people out of their homes)
"A person shall be secure in their private property and eminent domain shall be restricted for use solely for the appropriation for government owned and operated use and may not be transfered to private ownership."
(Clean up 'public use' for land stealing)
"No company shall be tax on profits in excess of 5% of net revenue by the federal government and taxed no more then 15% when combined with local and state taxes." (Limit corporate income tax, so states at most can tax corporate income at 10%)
"The pay of corporate officers of a publically traded company shall be a scale of the median salary paid by the company to it's employees and contractors and may not exceed 10 times the median salary of the company in salary and no more then 20 times the median salary in stock compensation at the time of aquisition of those stock options." (If the typical employee makes $40,000 a year then the CEO can never make more then $400,000 in a salary and cannot receive more then $800,000 is stock in a year. If they want a raise, most employees must get a raise also)
"The term of any senate or house member shall be limited to 2 terms"
Those would go a long way.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time you came to the realization that taxes are a part of what makes living in this country great.
Except that you seemed to be aiming at the feds, yet the things you mention are overwhelmingly local in nature (law enforcement, courts, jails, utilities, water). Of course there are federal aspects to these things, but most of the money is collected and spent locally.
Federal money primarily goes to social security, interest payments on debt, welfare, and the military. You could argue that these things are "part of what makes living in this country great", but you have to at least concede that the opposite viewpoint also has some merit.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:2, Insightful)
As always, everything is always Bush's fault. This has all been gone over many times here and elsewhere, that this entire recession is based in a housing/property bubble burst. The bubble was created by people who forced lenders to lend to people that were previously thought of as bad investments, by organizations such as ACORN suing banks for being racist (?) in their lending, and people like this guy:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=63siCHvuGFg (I hope this is the right video, cant get to youtube from work)
stopping any attempts to regulate at all costs.
People bitch about the past eight years, when things have only really gotten bad in the last two. We had a continually growing economy from Bush first being elected, through 9-11, and up until Democrats took congress.
I love it whenever we speak of reducing taxes, those on the left cry about "but we need cops and roads and schools" Of course we do!! Its everything else that tax dollars are being spent on that needs to stop.
Re:On the positive side (Score:3, Insightful)
State funds are our property. If those funds are spent on health care, and your neighbor does things which burden the health care system more than others, than he is doing harm to your property by effectively taking it from you.
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you could just buy some itunes giftcards which have song credits.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:3, Insightful)
It's time you came to the realization that taxes are a part of what makes living in this country great.
No, our constitution and enforcement of it through our legal system are what make this country great.
Taxes are just a necessary evil. Switching over to a system like the Fair Tax would at least bring some sanity, and perhaps 'less evil', to the endeavor.
NY should drop their income tax and replace it with a flat sales tax increase.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
I call bullshit:
source: http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/myths.html [apa.org]
Find someone to pick on besides those that are scraping by. Keep in mind that the defense budget is 54% of the federal budget in the US. I'd much rather feed hungry people than shoot them.
source: http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm [warresisters.org]
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:4, Insightful)
Since there is no tax on the purchases now and this would require new legislation so the tax could be any amount. Your $.99 download could be taxed $.51 suddenly making your songs cost $1.50 each and erasing almost any hope you'll buy online.
The thing that bothers me most about the inflammatory language used by the politicians regarding the urgency of the issue and the hot-button programs they say they have to cut to make the budget balance. In my home town of Mesa, AZ the idiot mayor and most of council were saying the budget was a mess, all these bonds were coming due, roads needed fixing and we had to close the libraries and lay off lots of police and fire personnel to balance the budget. One council member was level headed and came up with a budget that balanced the budget (or nearly so) and only cut non-essential services such as after school art programs and the funny one... slicing the monthly cell phone stipend for the council members from $3,000 to $500, over $200K in savings for the year. The council voted strongly against the centrist, level headed plan and the alarmist budget went to a public vote. Since this was all televised as a "town meeting" and many people saw that there was no 'need' to cut police and library personnel the majority budget was soundly defeated.
To this day I think the mayor and council sill get an obscene allowance for cell phone and car usage.
The biggest idiocy was that most of the council claimed the city didn't know the bonds from 14 years ago were coming due. How stupid or willfully ignorant do you have to be to not know that your budget needs to account for several million dollars of debt service?
Re:paying the fps (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A lot of the US should follow (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... counter-point time.
Funny, that. I'm a "lifelong Californian and middle-aged guy" and I disagree with you. Not about the "immigrants" part, but your leaving out the fact that we aren't talking about "immigrants" (my wife is one -- most of her family and my grandparents). It's the ones working here against the law, oversaying visas, working under fake SSNs, etc, etc, etc that are realling causing problems.
That California is yet again on the brink of bankruptcy is due in no small part to the costs generated by our unregulated under-the-table importation of poverty. What about state healthcare? Emergency rooms are closing in droves. Why? Our roads are overused, housing over priced and the tax burden shifts more and more upon the middle and upper classes and businesses to keep just the infrastructure running. Businesses are leaving the cities... and the state. The "rich/upper" income tax bracket STARTS at $44k paying nearly 10%. Know any "rich" people who make under $50k? Certainly not if they plan to live in California...
Re:paying the fps (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a bit simplistic, isn't it?
What if the tax money was being used to torture puppies? Would it be okay to evade that? What if it was some other thing you find highly morally objectionable? Be it blowing up some country you have no quarrel with or doing embryonic stem cell research. (I understand that the electorate is generally divided into either-or camps on those two topics, but I think both are a bad idea.)
I understand that NY isn't doing any of these things, but there's always something.
The fundamental reason that I believe that taxes (and corresponding spending) should be absolutely minimal is that it forces people to fund things they may find morally objectionable under threat of loss of liberty. I think liberty should trump having our personal needs met by the state.
-Peter
Re:On the positive side (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't drink water or juice? You're actually claiming that you are forced to drink regular soda. You somehow suffer without it. Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
Pick something that you consume a lot more of than the majority of the population (high-speed internet...we'll tax you on each byte transferred, etc.), and replace that with "regular soda" in your argument.
Once enough people stop drinking sugared beverages, then the government will have to put a tax on the "diet" ones to make up for the tax shortfall. Taxing non-diet soda is just another "what 'for the good of the children/fat people/whatever' reason can we use to get more tax money?" plan.
Basically, you try to convince all the people who "won't be impacted by the tax" to vote for it (or to vote for the representatives who implemented it). Then, you can get all the people impacted by this tax to vote for the "diet soda tax", because it will even things out.
Re:Cut the Military to 1/4 of it's current budget. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Less Government for Less Money (Score:4, Insightful)
You've been trolling this topic with the same inflammatory rhetoric that the above poster describes. The fact is that those items are a very small portion of our budget. Most communities in NY have volunteer fire departments, for one. They raise money for equipment in a variety of ways, and they are pretty darn effective.
We have a reduced need for jails, and local communities pay for a large portion of police forces.
Likewise, those people who do not have their own septic tanks, and rely on municipal services, pay for their sewer on the local level. Not State.
Ditto for non-state Highways, which are maintained on a local level. The Thruway is maintained too well, using the massive amount of revenue gained from confiscatory tolls, which were supposed to be eliminated a long time ago.
Take your Socialist party hat and move to Europe, where you will be welcome. NY has one of the largest education budgets on a per student level in the nation (over 20,000 per student in my area), and the education our children get has not justified the cost.
Even though we have had huge increases every year, we still have idiots clamoring for more, and meanwhile New York has been losing population for years, and businesses are not exactly chomping at the bit to move in.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:3, Insightful)
My bad, forgot to mention military. They way my brain works is that military is a given. The constitution does state "Provide for the common defense" so I see no reason why it would be cut. On the other hand, it also says "Promote general welfare" not "Provide general welfare"
Re:A lot of the US should follow (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the ones working here against the law, oversaying visas, working under fake SSNs, etc, etc, etc that are realling causing problems.
I'm sorry to break the news to you, but they provide most of the hard labor in the hospitality industry. Having worked in it, I know this from experience.
What problems do they cause?
That California is yet again on the brink of bankruptcy
And how exactly can you pin *$25+ billion* of dollars of fiscal irresponsibility on a significant minority? Do these illegal aliens spend hundreds of billions of dollars every single year on their own somehow?
unregulated under-the-table importation of poverty.
Okay, from this day forward, all restaraunts, hotels, service shops, farms, warehouses, drivers, are magically forbidden from using undocumented workers. Not only would there be a supply crisis, but you won't be able to afford going to your local restaurant or hotel. The cost of produce alone would skyrocket.
Emergency rooms are closing in droves
If you asked the people that run the hospitals, they would tell you the State isn't paying them enough to keep the doors open. They would also tell you that the emergency rooms are overwhelmed with people who can't afford to go to a doctor for non-emergency service. These are actual citizens using public services because they can't afford any other medical care.
tax burden shifts more and more upon the middle and upper classes
Okay, lets tax the hell out of the poor. Guess what? They'll leave the State too!
Your thinking is unclear and riddled with xenophobia.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder why these politicians (New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland - they are all in trouble) never had the idea to "lay off 75% of the government staff who are doing nothing but surfing the net" and "cut spending"?
It's as if the don't know how to do what every American family does every day - pinch pennies & cut spending.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
So you'd rather preach, be self-righteous, and let people starve than deal with the REAL problems that are out there? I hate this "personal responsibility" crap. I am personally responsible. So are many people that get laid off and take advantage of the Unemployment Insurance that they PAY for out of their checks. The idea that somehow people in the past were more responsible, or educated, or hardworking is just plain crap. Every time the financial markets get deregulated, predatory lending takes off, and everyone ends up broke. The idea that somehow uneducated consumers that haven't dealt their whole lives with complex financial instruments that many of the people selling them don't even fully grasp is blaming the victim.
Why don't you take the energy used to create all that hot air and use it to make some positive changes in the world? Volunteer doing literacy training so that someone who "didn't pay attention in school" can get a shot at life and be productive members of society (since you understand that's what the VAST MAJORITY of them want to do?). Go feed some people at a homeless shelter and see how our Department of Veteran's Affairs leaves those that should be heroes behind to deal with debilitating psychological disorders without a shred of help.
Either grow a heart and start being a part of the solution or shut up and sit down.
Uhm, stupid question? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your argument is that a corporation selling Product X for $8.99 will raise the price to $9.99 if their taxes go up, and the customer will happily pay that price. So why exactly doesn't said corporation sell Product X for $9.99 *now* if that's the price that customers are willing to pay?
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently not. Part of my tax money is used to kill babies, but I still have to pay it. I'm sure that tax money is used for a lot of things that we disagree with, but we are still required to pay them.
Re:Taxing consumption? (Score:2, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you
Re:Uhm, stupid question? (Score:2, Insightful)
So why exactly doesn't said corporation sell Product X for $9.99 *now* if that's the price that customers are willing to pay?
Since we're all talking theoretically, it wouldn't be, theoretically, maximizing profit.
When a government raises taxes on a business, the business plugs the new costs into their magical spread sheets and determines what price increase they'll need to maintain their profit levels and then determine how much loss in demand they'll get at those price levels, which, in-turn recalculates their new profit levels.
In the end, the business has to find the *new* maximized profit level. That might be a small price increase or it might not. It also depends on what kind of product you sell. If you're selling Ferrari's, price isn't an issue. If you're selling butter and eggs, you've got more of a problem, even for a 5 cent increase.
It might so be it that the company CANNOT increase their prices. After all, most mechanics don't work "manufacturer => Customer". It's "Manufacturer => Store => Customer". The manufacturer has to tell the store they're getting a price increase. If that store's Home Depot or Wal-Mart, they might just snub their nose at you and refuse to buy your product anymore. Why? Because THEY will make less profit, because THEY won't sell more product. Instead, Home Depot or Wal-Mart will turn to a Chinese (or Mexico or India, etc) company and import that same product type for a LOT cheaper. Now, said American (or whatever local country you're from) company just lost a major account, resulting having to layoff people.
So, getting back to your question. They don't do it now because it doesn't a) maximize profit or b) they can't because their buyers (the stores) won't take it because it doesn't maximize their profits with regards to other competitive products they could so (and make higher margins on).
This is how it works for the bulk of goods sold. There are cases like a Nintendo or Apply who gets to dictate the price of their products to stores. Which is also why you won't find an iPod or Wii at any different price at any store. If said store tried to sell it cheaper and muscle out other stores, they'll get their supply cut-off by Apple/Nintendo. Even the biggest of big, Wal-Mart, can't do this (and have tried). Wal-Mart needs iPod more than iPod needs Wal-Mart. Particularly since Wal-Mart has been trying very had to muscle in on Best Buy type electronic store market share and re-image themselves as "big" in electronics (ever notice their huge shift into HD and HD-TV's?).
So, yeah. End of the day, excessive taxes are helping kill the American economy and drive business over seas.
Simply put. It's complex. I company WILL pass the cost on to it's consumers if it can. However, when it can't, guess what? It's got to cut it's costs to maintain profit levels. And the biggest cost to companies in America is? Labor. Ever get your car repaired? yeah, that $600 2-hour job had a part that probably cost $10. Of course, what does it matter? Car insurance typically covers up how much things really cost. Just like health insurance.
Anyway. Go head. New York will just tax themselves into a worse economy. They start taxing download music, people will start pirating music. Not because it's expensive but because it'll feel "fair". Why should this guy pay $1.25 when the guy just over there is paying $1.00 for the exact same thing? That won't feel fair to people and to levy this feeling of mistreatment, they'll just pirate or claim they're not from NY.
Want an example? Ask people from Wisconsin how well their $1 tax hike on cigarettes worked? Yeah, not so good. WI LOST tax revenue. People smoked less, quite, or started buying online or carrying cases from Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.
Of course, despite high tax rates, there are loop holes. But seriously. Doesn't that just make you say WTF? If there's something so complex that it takes a team of people
Re:paying the fps (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming a classic demand curve an increased sales tax will drive down demand, but the customers that are left care less about price so the price you charge to maximize profit goes up more than the sales tax. However, with a tax on profits the price that maximizes profits does not change because there is no change to the demand curve or your costs. Basically, if you would have made more money charging more you would have already done so and if you would have made more money charging less you would have done so independent of the tax on profits.
PS: The real impact is on investing which can impact long term pricing as well as the amount of tax evasion.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:2, Insightful)
1. It's nice to see someone use some facts around here. Good work!
2. Medicaid is 1/3 of the budget.
Okay, let's get rid of it. http://publications.budget.state.ny.us/eBudget0910/fy0910littlebook/HealthCare.html [state.ny.us]
So, which would you like to eliminate first?
*Indigent elderly care AND nursing homes. Kick em out. The streets will make them tough or dead.
*Health care for children. You know, they can just grow up with a chronic illness, that way we can spend 10x more on them as adults. Or not at all and they can live or die by whatever smarts they have.
*Home care. If they can't get to the Doctor's office on their own then they need to deal with that. Or call an ambulance and take them to critical care. You know that's FAR more expensive than offering rides right? Or they can just die at home.
I'm glad you used some facts, now it's time to make some decisions based on those facts.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, my grandfather died when my mom was 11. I'm sorry my grandmother couldn't get a college education when she was the right age for that (due to depression and war) so that she could get one of those great high-paying jobs available to women in the early 60s. She did the best she could get to raise her two kids (she worked, so did my mom and my aunt), but they still needed welfare to get by.
Geez, Grandma, you mean when you were 20 you didn't prepare for the possibility that your husband would die tragically in a construction accident? Well maybe you should've paid more attention in school when your family could barely eat during the depression, and gone to college during the war, then ended sexism in the 50s so you could get a higher paying job when Grandpa bit it. It's called personal responsibility.
On the other hand, my mom tells people this story all the time as a defense of welfare, but when she lost her job she only applied to jobs she knew she couldn't get so she could keep her unemployment benefits as long as possible.
My point is that it goes both ways. You can't get rid of welfare just because some people abuse it. You'll punish the honest while the dishonest will find another way to game the system. It's just like DRM, I guess :-).
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:2, Insightful)
The bubble was created by people who forced lenders to lend to people that were previously thought of as bad investments
Maybe I'm inferring something you're not trying to say here, and I'm sorry if I am, but blaming Fannie Mae "forcing" lenders to make bad loans is about as accurate as blaming the Republicans and deregulation. As always, the truth is in between and shares elements of both sides.
The way I understand it, Clinton's changes to the CRA didn't force banks to make bad loans, but allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy mortgages from banks that were previously considered bad. Now, naturally this encouraged banks to make bad loans, which maybe in capitalistic terms is the same as saying they forced them. However, other, private investment banks were buying bad mortgages, too.
I'm sick of this whole attitude of Democrats saying, "All you have to do is look at a selective subset of the facts and its obvious it's the Republicans' fault," and the Republicans saying "Well, the liberal media only shows you one selective subset of the facts. Our selective subset of the facts makes it REALLY obvious that it was the Democrats' fault."
There's plenty of blame to go around: the people who tried to buy houses they couldn't afford, the banks who lent them money, the investors that bought mortgage-based securities, the executives that encouraged buying them, and politicians on both sides who passed laws that encouraged bad lending and deregulation that made it easier to make bad loans.
In retrospect, I think I'm misinterpreting what the parent was saying, so sorry about that, but I'm sick of people trying to say that one group's mistakes can be blamed for this whole thing.
Re:Whaaambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories
So they said, "If you're going to make shitty loans to white people, you have to make shitty loans to black people, too." It sounds like they were making shitty loans already.
I know a lot of the more conservative folks around here don't believe racism is real, but here's my opinion: Making bad loans to poor people is stupid, but making bad loans to poor white people and not to poor black people is stupid and racist.
In any case, you're just proving my point even more. Do you really think that ACORN suing banks to force them to be equal-opportunity idiots is the sole cause of the crisis? According to this [baltimoresun.com], this [mediamatters.org], and this [mcclatchydc.com], less than a quarter of the subprime loans were made by institutions that were covered by the CRA. Also, there's no data to suggest that CRA subprime loans have a higher default rate than the other 80% of subprime loans. And if ACORN sued Wells Fargo and CitiBank, how come Wells Fargo didn't go under because of all the bad loans it was forced to make in the last few years?
There's two sides to every story, and usually both sides are wrong. Certainly the government was stupid to encourage banks to make bad loans and are not without culpability here, but the banks were doing it anyway.
Re:People are Idiots (taxachusetts rant) (Score:1, Insightful)
"They had a chance to get rid of the state income tax. They voted agianst it by a 70-30 margin."
Yes, because they're not idiots: they realized that if you get rid of the state income tax, then everything the state had been paying towards local stuff would have to come out of local property taxes instead.
Re:Easy Remedy for Those Looking to Avoid (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the REAL conflict in America.
It isn't Republicans versus Democrats. It's city versus countryside, and it's been going on since 1989. Most people in the country (and suburbs) want minimal taxation and government to "butt out" of their affairs. Meanwhile city folk what free handouts like subways, hospitals, new baseball stadiums - they want to be treated like children being cared for by daddy government.
Country - independent
City - dependent
That's what almost all politics in America boils down to.