[worry]

Very nice feature segment on modern US inequality and why it's exceptional. "There's a lot of serendipity...we...everybody in this country owes their good fortune in some way to the rest of the country." just about sums it up otherwise.

[Fereydoon]

Shinrei, on 12 July 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

I feel claiming a tax credit as being a "benificiery of a government social program" is a little dishonest IMO. That's just the goverment taking less from me, not 'giving' me something.

Which means you pay less than anyone not entitled to this benefit, which makes it what it is. A benefit.

[Shinrei]

Fereydoon, on 19 August 2011 - 10:58 AM, said:

Shinrei, on 12 July 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

I feel claiming a tax credit as being a "benificiery of a government social program" is a little dishonest IMO. That's just the goverment taking less from me, not 'giving' me something.

Which means you pay less than anyone not entitled to this benefit, which makes it what it is. A benefit.

Semantics. If I don't buy creamed corn because I don't like it, I don't tally up the average amount of creamed corn that people consume in the US yearly and proudly call that a "savings".

[Obdigore]

Shinrei, on 21 August 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

Fereydoon, on 19 August 2011 - 10:58 AM, said:

Shinrei, on 12 July 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

I feel claiming a tax credit as being a "benificiery of a government social program" is a little dishonest IMO. That's just the goverment taking less from me, not 'giving' me something.

Which means you pay less than anyone not entitled to this benefit, which makes it what it is. A benefit.

Semantics. If I don't buy creamed corn because I don't like it, I don't tally up the average amount of creamed corn that people consume in the US yearly and proudly call that a "savings".

If you owe the government 10,000 based on your salary, but because you purchased a new car the Gov. gives subtracts $1,000 off that figure, somehow that isn't a good thing for you and a negative thing for the government?

Your example isn't what is happening and just confuses the issue. Any time you make the same amount as someone else and have to pay the government less because you did something the other person did not, is government aid. They are reimbursing you for your decision to do whatever you did.

[worry]

Gotta agree with DF there. It's not a matter of semantics, regardless of how it feels to the taxpayer when all is said an done.

[Shinrei]

I think tax credits are incentives because the government wants something to happen or encourage a certain behavior. By following the government's guidance, yes, one "benefits", but it still seems to me to be different conceptually than receiving food stamps or social security.

[Obdigore]

Shinrei, on 23 August 2011 - 01:37 PM, said:

I think tax credits are incentives because the government wants something to happen or encourage a certain behavior. By following the government's guidance, yes, one "benefits", but it still seems to me to be different conceptually than receiving food stamps or social security.

Of course it seems different, because it is a different program. The GI Bill is different than food stamps or social security, but would you still classify that as government aid?

What about the tax credits you get for spawning younglings? Or government assistance for buying your first house? How about farm subsidies to try and battle the mega-farms? Or corporate tax 'relief' based on running 'green' facilities?

Is all that government aid? Yes, because the government pays or helps pay for you to do it. Either by giving you money or by reducing what you owe them.

[Shinrei]

True, but by your definition it seems I should claim not buying cigarettes and not buying lottery tickets as "government benefits". The money collected from those keep my tax bill lower, after all.

[worry]

Well, it's not DF's definition, it's the actual definition. Not buying cigarettes means you don't pay the sales tax or the vice taxes associated with it, and not buying lottery tickets means you generally avoid funding lottery winners, public education (traditionally tied to property taxes), and other generally local/state projects, by this particular means. None of which has very much to do with your federal income tax.

If you are purchasing a meal that costs $15, and use a $5 gift certificate, it doesn't mean the meal cost $10 even if that's how your wallet feels. All $15 were accounted for, some by cash and some by another means with a cash value, but you didn't get a discount. Getting a tax credit is similar, in that it requires you perform some action or meet a set of criteria that has been granted a cash value. You are essentially paying some of the taxes you legitimately owe by other means besides cash, is all. Not a discount. It's not semantics, they are conceptually different elements.

[Shinrei]

Doesn't that mean your OP is grossly underestimated then? I mean, we ALL "benefit" from government in some way.

I was just defining "receiving government benefits" as meaning receiving an actual check, such as social security, from the government. Otherwise, we're leaving the definition far too wide open IMO.

[worry]

Well if you're suggesting that the disconnect is greater than these particular stats represent, I'm not going to argue with you. People underestimate and underappreciate government policies and programs across the board, and are alarmingly comfortable with the cognitive dissonance one should expect. It's the "keep your government hands of my Medicare" perspective writ large.

If your problem is just with the word "benefit" then I still think you're just off base (or alternatively, we've been using the term on and off as shorthand for a more wonky/jargony concept, and I just forgot). The italicized six items on the top of the chart are representative of the "submerged state" notion in Suzanne Mettler's article, and are still benefits in the same sense as more obvious programs like welfare and food stamps, in that they are social programs (which is the terminology used consistently, I think, to differentiate from everything we benefit from through government). So part of the article addresses your point, in that Mettler's highlighting not-so-obvious (submerged) social programs that are legitimately groupable with Medicare, UI, etc., but that's really the part that is not at issue. These are the things that are inherently true. The list is certainly representative rather than exhaustive, and that includes the submerged and non-submerged programs alike, but they're popular ones that are pretty fairly chosen. So I get what you're saying when you suggest how you're using the terminology, I just also think Mettler is using a more specific -- and accurate -- jargony phrasing that you're not giving credit.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Let's be clear on something we can all agree on.

The American system of governance is broken and it is not going to be fixed.

[Sir Thursday]

I agree with Shinrei on the distinction between a benefit and a tax credit.

Consider the situation where someone receives a tax credit for an efficient car. You can also see this as the government taxing everyone who has an inefficient car, but not those who drive an efficient one. Certainly, the government doesn't structure things that way (although to an extent they do due to tax on petrol and the like), but you could design a tax system based on that point of view that results in everyone being charged identical tax bills, so for all intents and purposes the two codes are identical. When looked at in this light, it seems foolish to state that the government not asking you to pay them money constitutes a benefit. Taking that to the logical extreme, the fact that the government doesn't ask you for 100% of your income in taxes is also a government benefit, which is absurd.

The fallacy is the assumption that certain government taxes are set in stone, whereas others are not. Income tax, sales tax etc. are just as mutable as anything else. Is tax cut across the board a government benefit? Your tax bill is the amount the government has decided you should pay them. They may distribute this into social welfare programs that you benefit from, but this is not functionally identical to just not paying the money in the first place because (a) there is a period of time where you do not have the money, and if you wished to spend it you couldn't, and ( because in many programs you do not get a say in what the money goes towards.

Then there's also the point that a dollar taken in by the government in tax does not translate to a dollar out in benefits - bureaucracy (and I mean that in the non-perjorative sense of the word) ensures that cannot be the case. Consequently, there is a substantial difference between not taxing someone and paying someone a benefit from the government's point of view, even if there isn't from the individual taxpayers'. If the government wants to pay out $5 million more in welfare, then it has to raise $6 million to pay for it, but if it wants to provide $5 million tax credits, then it only costs $5 million (all numbers are fictional, any similarities with numbers alive or dead is purely coincidental).


ST

This post has been edited by Sir Thursday: 31 August 2011 - 12:17 AM

[worry]

But the term "benefit" isn't even important, since the phrase "social program" is what we're talking about. Shinrei's initial (semantic) argument was against the phrase "beneficiary of a government social program" and he was wrong then, by definition of those terms in context. Shorthanding it to simply "benefit" as we've done was a disservice to the point of the article since it skews the argument towards what seems to be an idiosyncratically broad or narrow personal definition of the term "benefit". It happened probably due to the age of the thread and subsequent entropy/laziness, but ultimately it's an irrelevant sidetrack.

To address what you've actually said though, "benefit" still doesn't have much meaning. The distinction is between tax deduction and tax credit. The former lowers your gross income, while the latter credits you with dollar amounts AFTER what you owe, based on gross income, is calculated. Of course you benefit from both. The word "benefit" is generic rather than jargon here, and can be applied to deductions and credits, not just one or the other. Being a beneficiary of a social program has a much more specific meaning, however, and applies to every single program on the chart's list.

All that said, I don't mean to be a jerk about your well thought out post. Not your fault at all that we got too loose with the terminology.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 31 August 2011 - 12:45 AM