Cuts in taxes are legitimate improvement, but not enough. Backlashes like the ones against Obama's rule are temporary zigzags in a downward trend, and in most cases aren't even a net reversal. Without changing the basic premises that are driving the country, specific improvements are temporary, inadequate and do not solve the overall problem.

Anyone can choose to leave a job if he finds it punished beyond what he is personally willing to tolerate, and a lot of people legitimately do that. A strike is an organized movement to temporarily withhold services in order to change a policy, after which they resume what they were doing. That will not reform the country or any part of it, and neither would leaving.

Rental of residential real estate is also a nightmare; the government takes over and tells you who you must rent to, forces you to take losses from bad tenants you aren't allowed to get rid of, and a lot more. I learned about that from a US family who moved to Canada and was trampled when they tried to rent their property there -- they came running back in desperation. But the same policies are progressively being imposed here. The severity varies among the states, but Obama imposed a Federal regulation making it illegal to refuse to rent to a convicted felon.

The mortgage tax break made it possible for people to afford what they could have without higher taxes. It was not implemented as a "gift to banks, builders and cities". Banks and builders provided a service they were paid for by people who wanted what they had to offer. Cities did not increase property taxes because of the popularity of home ownership; the total taxes they collect is what they spend, which is then allocated in accordance with property values -- if the value of real estate in a city were halved, the rate would double and the taxes would be the same. Cities collect property taxes holding the property owners hostage to their own values, not because of "gifts" of deductions from income taxes.

The way it really works is that taxes and inflation keep increasing regardless of any tax breaks we get.

The mortgage deduction doesn't make people pay two to three times the cost of their home in interest. Compound interest accumulates to that level over decades whether or not the interest payments are taxed. Interest is the cost of the time value of money. People borrow to buy a home because they don't want to pay rent and wait to buy until near retirement to buy home.

The tax system should not be used to punish political enemies. It may be poetic justice that leftists pay more because of what they impose on others, but setting ever more extreme statist precedents, using taxes as a political weapon, is not good for any of us. And don't forget that there are no pure 'blue' states. No state is 'blue' unanimously, even California and New York. Every state has a wide variety of people and tens of millions of those in a minority who can't do anything about high state taxes they oppose are being hurt by Trump's double taxation as he taunts the left with his shift and shaft 'reforms'. And with state and local taxes rising everywhere, the double tax precedent is going to bite a lot more people in the future.

I agree with much of what you have said throughout this thread, but I will speak in favor of the shifting of tax burdens as a result of the proposed changes regarding deductibility of state and local taxes.

The current deduction system favors both looters and moochers in high tax states, many of whom say that they are not paying enough in taxes. They are right. They are not paying their "fair share". It is time that they felt the full burden of their actions.

Removing deductions that encourage certain behaviors is a step in the right direction toward removing distortions in the economy.

You got that right. Don't get me started. The education system as well.

Thanks

I agree with all this and all of what ewv says above it.
"While people today could also do such a strike.. I would say the vast majority are dependent on some forms of support (power, water, food), making engagement with the economy necessary."
I don't fully understand the mechanics of a strike, but I don't see why it matters if it's one person knowing how to make subsistence levels of power, water, and food for herself, or if it's three people specializing in those and trading freely, i.e. an "economy".

My fantasy is such a community already exists. It's in a free-trade zone, maybe somewhere like Sao Paulo or maybe in the Caribbean. It started as a way to get startup founders and scientists together and avoid the major countries' immigration rules. The investors set up an incuabor in a free-trade zone. They found they could get exemption from most local taxes and laws in exchange for the investment. At first it was just shifts of kids going through an accelerator program. But some of them stayed and have families there, providing all the normal support services of a small city. We haven't heard about it yet because nothing obviously exciting has happened yet. But something non-obvious and exciting is happening. There are 20 thousand people there from all around the world going through the incubator program, getting married there, sometimes having successful exits and investing in new ventures there. We haven't heard about it, though, because the exciting part is the intangible feeling there that anything is possible and you're free to try something and keep the profits if it works.

That's an absurd fantasy. We would have heard about it. I like the notion though. Maybe something like that will happen.

One could argue that without taxing the income required to pay interest to the banks, and NOT INCREASING other taxes to compensate, we are allowing the free market to better operate. I would grant you that

But the way it really works is that the government increases other taxes or creates more inflation to compensate. In practical terms the mortgage interest deduction preferentially helps banks, home builders, and cities while encouraging regular people to pay in essence about 2-3 Times the cost of the house in interest to the banks

ewv, we just have different ideas of "justice". A state that levies fees and taxes on me, that a: I didin't get to vote on, and b) are clearly just money generators (such as Oregon's new 150.00 car purchase privilege fee), are at best, unconscionable looters, simply stealing what they can,any way they can. I gain nothing from it.

However, the packaging and selling of said trash mortgages is what caused the blowups of the housing sector, due to the fact they were pretty worthless the day they were issued. You are correct that the government caused it, led by Barney Frank, who forced Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac into issuing them. That is one term where the issue was also fueled by mortgage companies and lender eager to make loans, and the profits they got from them, even though the people were clearly unqualified. That is what I mean when I say this is a complicated matter with a lot of involvement from private industry, politicians and , if we could follow the trail, a lot of campaign contributions, if not under the table deals. A lot like the "donate to the Clinton Foundation to get access" program.

I didn’t say bankers were evil. They were pursuing their own interests as everyone does. I object to the using of government power to do that. However, I can’t object to the removal of any tax really. Government should remove att tax. Of course the removal of any tax just means they will increase another because they done cut spending. We need a balanced budget rule and then removal or at least reduction of taxes one by one. But I maintain my position that the mortgage deduction was specifically promoted to help the banks, home builders, and cities. All it did was artificially raise mortgage interest rates.

I have been investigating for a few months and once I get into mayo’s concierge program I think I will be ok. The whole concierge system is a back door way for the medical profession to allow patients to pay more than the contracted insurance amounts for better care. Somehow it skirts around the insurance and Medicare rules and allows the medical people to collect the “contracted amounts” plus additional funds from the patients. Unfortunately the HMO type medicare advantage plans give terrible medical care (IMHO)

Removing a self inflicted thing like taxes doesn’t fall into my classification of a legitimate
improvement. Economic activity will improve to the point where it would have been without the tax and that’s good. And the government plays these games to make things appear better for political purposes and then puts taxes back in when economic activity recovers. It’s a game they play and I thing we would all be better off if the government didn’t print money or tax at all

What are you disagreeing with? Selling drugs in this country for profit is not an unsavory "money machine". It is competitive but subject to floors on prices because of the artificial costs.

There is nothing wrong with having a mortgage industry with the property as collateral for the loan, and the practice together with the mortgage deduction were stable for decades.

The real estate crash was caused by government pressure to issue loans to people not qualified, and the loans and their standards were approved by Federal regulators. It was pushed by welfare statists, primarily Democrats. Bush tried to curtail but gave up too easily when blocked. It was not caused by private banking, which was forced to go along, and was not caused by the tax deduction for home mortgage payments. Private banks that resisted the scheme and kept the best distance they could were not harmed by the crash.

I would respectfully disagree, the Pharmas use the US as the money machine, and still sell drugs at a profit in other countries, but because of price controls and limits, can't just sell a pill for 500.00. Essentially, people in the US subsidize people in other countries under that system.

No, but that did not support the state, the bankers and the financial system from turning it into a cottage industry. The lobbyists and special interests that fund the re-election machines are never giving money away, they are buying access to more profits. The system is gamed from the get go. A simple transaction of "lend me money, you have house for collateral" has become complex. murkey and abused. Remember the housing bubble? That was a culmination of efforts to milk the system, and the government imposing idiotic rules like forcing banks to approve loans for people with no jobs, no SSN, no citizenship, just to practice social engineering.

And vice versa: the more numerous the laws the more corrupt the state. But the solution isn't another form of tax even if 'simpler' and in that respect 'better', nor would they do that. They might make some reforms to the convoluted complexity, but they always make more rules and impose different kinds of taxes. What starts as replacement winds up as an additional tax with its own rules. Thinking "in comparison to this I wouldn't mind paying on every transaction" means that by pounding you into the ground to get you to say that they have you where they want you. But it is helpful that you report here on the state of statism in Canada. Here we are constantly propagandized as to how wonderful it is there, especially the control over medicine.

That the problem is the inappropriate statist form of government causing distortions by government force does not mean that there was anything unsavory in the mortgage deduction as a "just a gift to bankers". People wanted to buy homes, which was good, and had some justification for wanting the tax break because it was tax break. It was not a matter of evil bankers slipping in the deduction to push people to buy homes they could not afford and enslave them. No one thought that home ownership was bad or that people should not take out mortgages to do it; it was a service people wanted.

It is very complicated. Insurance is not easy, but Medicare and its rules and bureaucratic edicts have made it much worse. I don't think you can opt out of medicare even if you don't use the money, and in general can't get insurance over 65 without Medicare involvement. Once you get through the 4 month waiting period you said they require and are at least into the plan you described you can take a breath and investigate what other policies may be available (at least until choice disappears later completely). The private plans still vary quite a bit and some may be better for you than others, depending on your personal circumstances. For example an HMO type plan requiring referrals may become inconvenient if you travel a lot and have to follow 'out of network' rules. But I'm glad you at least found something you can use for now.

The anarchist trolls are 'downvoting' serious discussion rejecting their misrepresentations of Ayn Rand. Serious people can see that they don't belong here. They have no argument, just emotional lashing out at rejection of their emotional lashing out.

Ayn Rand in fact did not advocate stiking and trying to collapse the country, let alone the frenzied illegal tax resistance movement, and clearly explained why and what is required to reestablish the country.

That is not a problem with tax cuts.

The tax system in Canada is so complex that you get different answers from different tax agents, and it is getting worse. We have a sales tax that gets sent to the government and then rebated... The bureaucracy. legislation and regulations are getting worse. I would not mind getting rid of cash and paying a reasonable automatic flat tax on every money transfer. Once that tax is paid, you are done. What is left after that is yours. the less you spend, the less you pay. Getting rid os cash in this context would also have the government collecting money from all the illegal activities that are occurring (such as the drug trade).The amount of money that businesses and individuals have to pay to do their taxes is getting crazy. As Tacitus says: "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."