A Weapon in Every Hand: Support the New Military Funding
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by One Eye
By now you've seen articles pillorying the new tax plan put forth by the Economic Council. The reason for the new tax plan is so we can fund our military. When was the last time you got a weapon from the QMG? It's been a while, huh? If you want guns, you need taxes. It's that simple.
The tax plan has a 25% income tax rate and a 1% VAT on all products, except weapons which get a 5% VAT. So it's a tax decrease and a tax increase. Look at gifts. The plan raises income tax 5% and lowers VAT by 14%. We're not talking about gigantic earth shaking changes. We're talking about an evolutionary change. Now look at income for a skill 3 employee. The best salary for a worker at a Q1 company is $10/day. In most industries that gets you $7.5/day real income. That's enough to buy food for 4 days. Now that employee would get $8 or $9 - enough for food for 4 or 5 days. What does this skill 3 worker get in return for his extra taxes? Oh, about 11 Q1 weapons per month, and 6 Alliances, and maybe a Q5 hospital and a Q5 defense system. Those 11 weapons alone cost about $110. That's the revenue from the worker for 44 days. So every young player will make out better under this plan than the current plan. They'll get more more ranks faster, live in a more secure country, have more battles, and more fun.
So, if all the young players do financially better under this plan who carries the burden? The more productive players do. Yes, the very congressional representatives and EC members who support this bill are the ones who will come out of it with less money in their pockets. And why would they vote against their own self interest like this? Because it's not against their self interest. We all want a strong country. We want the new players to be involved, get in the fight, join the NG, and rank up fast. We want the nation to finally have a kick-ass military. We're a country rich in new players. And the most cost effective way for us to do damage in war is to have those young players all have Q1 weapons in their hands. We can be truly awesome, but it takes money to do that.
That's what the proposal is all about: A weapon in every hand.
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So, I would not be wrong in my assumption that I would be supplied with weapons in the next conflict if this proposal passes?
I'm still on the fence on this one. 25% is a hard pill to swallow.
Yeah, I expect it might take a little getting used to. Sleep on it?
Hey One Eye, ever thought of doing a mock up budget for the common person and then explain how it helps? I see the wisdom in this plan, but I think the folk need to see the figures you have always given them 😉
Always good to see you MedyPi 😘
I'll do that. It's a bit late at night tonight (East Cost). Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.
It's only another 25 cents out of my daily wage. But for a person making $2, it cuts their daily income to $1.50. That is not enough to buy food daily. Not only that, but this hypothetical citizen is not a high enough level to benefit from the increased military funding.
25% Isn't that much more for me now anyways with the 20% income tax. If it means that 5% will make us more secure, that that's just fine for me. And Hari does make a good point with a person making $2. But usually, that only lasts for so long and they get a better job. It only takes a couple days to get to a decent skill level to get a job paying around atleast $5 if not $8.
Anything to make my job more fun... 😃
The current job market shows 3 job listing at ~$3 for skill 1 jobs in all industries. The rest start at $2.50. At best it's barely scraping by, and even then I still have to point out that these low-level workers are not going to be seeing any weapons in their hands.
The QMG seriously thinks it can get every American a weapon every day of every war? That seems a little far fetched to me. Don't get me wrong, if they can do it then great, but this almost seems like an excuse to keep taxes high when most people will never get their weapons.
I havent been impressed with the money handling of the fed so far why would I want to trust them with more of my money, and against if we didnt spend 80% of our taxes on constructs we would have money for our military. The loss of job/income from not buying construction would far less than taking 25% of every citizens pay. Theres really only 3 main construct companies so your talking about 120 direct employees maybe another 60 for their supplies. So roughly 200 people.dividing that by 25% losing them would only equal 800 people at similar pay grade. Your taxing 10 times that number.
they've lied about dropping the taxes why would anyone believe them about what they're saying now. Even so without government running weapon production they couldnt get the weapons for the cost they're talking about here. even if the average persons pay was $20 they would get $5 in tax daily. Hes saying that each weapon cost $10 and 11 of them a month. That only leaves an excess of 40 dollar to cover everyone not making 20 dallars a day, and its assumming that their new mass consumption of weapons wont raise prices even further. And again they're trying to control the market and get large numbers of people into weapon construction. Whenever this plan fails or stops there is going to be a bunch of weapons companies going bankrupt. Look at it this way let me keep my money and I can buy 15 weapons for myself. Why would I want to pay you 36% VAT in eqivalent. This is yet again the governemnt trying to take everything they can get.
You know we spend so much time looking at income tax and why? Most of the people you are talking about in congress that is, you know the ones affected? They might pay taxes on there wages just like us but they can get around the income tax with there companies which are the real income generaters for them. You are basically telling us that the working man has to pay for everything so that the fat cat can remain fat. Give the people back there money. We need to really start looking at the Vat and how it can be used to help us and then get the income tax out of the picture all together.
@Hari. Low skill jobs will always pay poorly because low skill workers don't produce as much stuff as they consume. That's cool because they start with $5 so they can make it over the hump. After 6 days you get a skill 3 job and that's when the fun starts. No tax plan can change that. So, I can't really see how low skill employees having a hard time can be used against this plan. It affects them the least, and there is no tax plan that gives noobs a free ride.
For the most part, I'm not trying to find reasons to hate the proposal. These are just issues that come to my mind when trying to consider the implications of enacting the plan.
I was going to ask why exacty we're looking to increase our military power so suddenly, but I can't deny that weapons would allow for a greater damage output = greater combat experience.
Oh, and as an addendum to the first point:
So far, you've done a pretty good job of addressing those concerns.
@Shalmorn again: "they've lied about dropping the taxes why would anyone believe them about what they're saying now." Most everybody who runs for congress says they want to lower taxes. But nobody knew what the balance sheet was for the government back then. People just flew with the seat of their pants. Well, now we have budget data. When rational people are confronted with new data, sometimes they make new decisions.
Again, You have a valid point, up to a point. Yes if a person says they'll do one thing, and then does another, they've misspoken (or lied if its intention was to deceive.) But you'd be hard pressed to argue that one should stick with their stated goals even when they learn those goals aren't for the best.
So, if a candidate ran on the platform of supporting a strong military and said they'd cut taxes, they can't do both. They have to choose. I suppose they're damned one way or the other. I'd cut them a little slack, because we all make mistakes.
From Hari: "I was going to ask why exacty we're looking to increase our military power so suddenly..."
A: We're tired of losing all the time.
I understand that. The more notches on our belt, the better. But what practical purpose does that serve other than to be able to say "We're winners."?
@mindflay: If we could tax corporate income, then maybe we would. I haven't really looked into it because nobody knows how to do it. If you find a way let me know. VAT certainly doesn't do it.
We've looked at the VAT quite a bit, and there are still proponents for the VAT. I'll go so far as to say for most things, it doesn't matter where the revenue comes from. Mostly we remove money from the economy and use it to buy constructions, Alliances, and weapons. Now VAT only covers 4 or 5 products. (Constructions don't count because the govt both pays and collects the tax so it's a zero sum game.) Income tax covers all portions of the economy. So, if you want the revenue that's generated by a 25% income tax, you might need a 50% VAT. So, you get to chose:
1. 25% income tax
2. 50% VAT
3. Weaker military.
The economic council went with #1. Feel free to join the discussion in the forums. That's where the issue will ultimately be decided.
http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,752.0.html
Hari, you're getting existential on me. "But what practical purpose does that serve other than to be able to say 'We're winners.'?"
Do I look the the freakin' Dali Lama? I'll give it a try.
There is no point to Erep. It's just a game. In the game it's more fun to do more stuff, and to win.
So yes, it does give us the ability to say "we won!" but it does give us more. It gives more stuff for us to do in the game. More battles to fight. Imho, more stuff to do = better.
Haha. Sorry, I'm carrying this out further than it needs to be taken.
In any case, I appreciate the replies. Nothing frustrates me more than when I take the time to comment and question an article only to have the author ignore me.
We funded the military in France and still got spanked, and now the funding is being placed completely on the shoulders of workers bypassing company owners. And again if we cut back on constructions we would already have the moeny needed to fund the military.
As far as you have to change plans when you get data that says you should. Only a complete idiot would speak promising a cut back without having some idea of what we where dealing with numbers wise. So either the situation is our governemnt is full of idiots who talk and promise before knowing the facts or they're lieing. Either way I dont see how that would make me want to give them even more of my money.
French Toast had some success, and some problems. We did succeed in capturing several territories. So it was the kind of success we haven't seen for a while. I see a few reasons for why we failed.
1. The gold exploit
2. Failure to press the attack. While we pressed the attack, we had great success. When we let PEACE control the pace of the battle we lost.
3. Letting PEACE gang up on us, 8 to 1. When Atlantis pressed the attack all together we were unbeatable. As soon as we stopped, it let PEACE attack 8 countries to 1.
To the point about cutting back on constructions. We've spend about $5,000/day on constructions, and there is a proposal to cut back to $2,500/day. That still only saves us $2,500/day. That's about enough money to buy a weapon for everybody in the military once every other month. So, yeah we've cut back, but it just isn't enough money to fund the military.
As far as congress being a bunch of idiots for promising something when they don't know the numbers behind it. That's a bit harsh. I mean nobody knew any of the numbers when congress ran last. You can't expect them to run on no platform, just because everybody has no idea what's really going on.
I agree that the first step to financial accountability is to keep track of expenses. Before me, nobody did that, now I do it (special thanks to Publius for writing a script to help me with it).
Yes, what other countries do is pertinent to us. Indonesia has low taxes for everything except housing and moving tickets. Their military privately funded. They also have a lot of very rich players, who don't need any help. So that works well for them. In the US we don't have as many experienced players, but we have lots of noobs. We can get the noobs to fight effectively if we just give them a gun. So, that's why we're different.
FWIW, Sweden has a 25% income tax on all their FG industries, and a 50% income tax on constructions! Sweden is doing just fine, thanks.
I've enjoyed this exchange of ideas Shalmorn, but I'm afraid it's just you and I in this thread now. Take a look at the forums. You'll see there's a lot of thought going into this proposal, and that all the parties involved have the best interest of the US at heart.
http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,752.0.html
To speak to the "congress lied to us" sentiment, I suggest you go back and consider a couple of things. We are going to repay the bonds, and once that happens, we will not have reached the amount specified on the CTPA. For more info, please read the forums. (I don't have the specs in front of me as I'm recovering from surgery and am on my iPhone)
The current taxes dont really bother me its the fact that apparently congress seem to think they need to raise them even further. I do realize pretty much everything thats been said back to me. It just 1 gift and wood are already tax at 20% so if everything moves in perportion with you doubling the tax else where Id assume your going to double on gifts and wood too. I do think 40% would be a bit much. The only other thing that really bothers me is in the little time Ive been here I havent seen a great deal of actual good come out of government dealings. I realize much of this wasnt anything that I can rightly blame anyone for but it does erode some of the faith in the Gov. Even still Im not sure this proposed tax increase will be enough to make a big enough difference in our military. It will help but from the numbers on the forum and so estimations Ive run I really dont think it will work. Thats probably my biggest concern. We'll raise our taxes and it wont be enough which will make the gov. look dumb all over again. Im just hoping that if you pass this your sure it will be able to deliver whats promised as Im sure the average citizen would like to see some success for DC. I do wish all of you luck with this. Im just applying some pressure in hopes of making sure everything actually going to work. I know Id rather have one massive tax hike than serveral over time. Having multi tax hikes almost makes it look like we cant run the numbers on whats needed and makes it harder for everyone to balance their personal budgets. No to send the marines to kill me I am actually on your side. Though at this point they're probably out of weapons so Im probably safe 😮