🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Nov7.091428.17233@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
spawns a new thread:

> In article <1992Nov6.223952.25408@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>, thomas@McRCIM.McGill.EDU (Thomas Jelonek) writes:
> > Personally, direct democracy always makes me nervous.  Especially,

	Direct democracy is the natural consequence of the belief
	in democracy as a system.  Direct democracy suffers from
	the same ills as parliamentary democracy, just more so.
	It is about people and education, not about good or bad.
	If people are not educated, no form of democracy will ever
	work.  If they are educated, direct democracy is the way
	to fly.  Parliamentary democracy was invented by those
	with a vested interest, so they could still retain some
	form of privileges.  The excuse, of course, was that it
	was best for the people...

	Today, we are better educated (I am somewhat optimistic
	here) and better informed (at least we could be if we
	wanted to).  Media and technology make direct democracy
	a practical solution.

> > given the types of questions that are often asked.  For example, I
> > suspect that if a referendum would be held on having a flat tax rate
> > of 10% it would pass, with most people ignoring the impact such a
> > vote would have on society.
> And what impact do you believe it would have?  I think a flat tax rate
> would be an enormous improvement over the mess we have now, though I
> don't know how reasonable 10% is as a rate.

	Given our current deficit, 40% is more like it.

	The problem with flat rate is that it doesn't reflect the
	many realities of the economic environment.  If we tax all
	incomes we are discouraging savings and investments.  If
	we tax Welfare and other assistance incomes, we tax money
	that results from taxes being redistributed; this is the
	current practice and it is ludicrous.  If we tax businesses,
	they just pass it on to consumers.

	A good approach is to tax on spending (GST).  We have a
	GST and now a PST, but the morons who wish to govern us
	manage to lose money on this one, even though they kept
	the old taxes...  Harmonize the GST/PST, raise its rate,
	and we can do away with all income taxes.  The problem is
	that if we do this, reading the books will be a lot easier.
	Our bureaucrats and politicians like the books the way
	they are... it keeps secrets and it protects jobs.



--
 Alain
 [ ... usual disclaimer... ]