Ben Carson at WH breakfast prayer...

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**whembly**

This is awesome... what I REALLY like about this dude is how "un-PC" this is...

As I believe Political Correctness is doing more harm than good.

Also, skip to 17:00 if you wanna see the Prez squirm.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323452204578292302358207828.html

Whether this weekend finds you blowing two feet of snow off the driveway or counting the hours until "Downton Abbey," make time to watch the video of Dr. Ben Carson speaking to the White House prayer breakfast this week.

Seated in view to his right are Senator Jeff Sessions and President Obama. One doesn't look happy. You know something's coming when Dr. Carson says, "It's not my intention to offend anyone. But it's hard not to. The PC police are out in force everywhere."

Dr. Carson tossed over the PC police years ago. Raised by a single mother in inner-city Detroit, he was as he tells it "a horrible student with a horrible temper." Today he's director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and probably the most renowned specialist in his field.

Late in his talk he dropped two very un-PC ideas. The first is an unusual case for a flat tax: "What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called a tithe.

"We don't necessarily have to do 10% but it's the principle. He didn't say if your crops fail, don't give me any tithe or if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithe. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 billion, you put in a billion. You make $10 you put in one. Of course you've got to get rid of the loopholes. Some people say, 'Well that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made 10.' Where does it say you've got to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don't need to hurt him. It's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs."

Not surprisingly, a practicing physician has un-PC thoughts on health care:

"Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed—pretax—from the time you're born 'til the time you die. If you die, you can pass it on to your family members, and there's nobody talking about death panels. We can make contributions for people who are indigent. Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're gong to learn how to be responsible."

The Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon may not be politically correct, but he's closer to correct than we've heard in years.

**Mannahnin**

Shockingly, a guy who's brilliant in his field of specialization, may not know what he's talking about in an unrelated field.

**whembly**

Mannahnin wrote:
Shockingly, a guy who's brilliant in his field of specialization, may not know what he's talking about in an unrelated field.

Well... that's a standard canned response to anyone if you disagree with them.

**Mannahnin**

No. It's kind of a canned response to an argument of an Appeal to Authority, which seemed a major part of this artlcle. Pointing out the guy's (impressive) credentials as if they had relevance to his thoughts on taxation.

**chaos0xomega**

I for one think both ideas are quite sound (especially the second one). Note he doesn't specify that what taxes are used for. Even thought they would collect 10% from everyone the social welfare programs they might fund would mostly go to the lower end of the economic scale. And as he said, with the perception of a fair collection you might see the top end spending more money domestically instead of squirreling it away overseas, with that will come an actual trickle down effect meaning, ideally, that thebottom end would see more wealth and more opportunity (although our present economic framework might not be very effective at actually achieving the desired result).

Also, in this case his credentials are exactly why his ideas should he given credence. Do you see politics in his credentials? No? Exactly. Hes an outsider and has an outsiders perspective.

**whembly**

Mannahnin wrote:
No. It's kind of a canned response to an argument of an Appeal to Authority, which seemed a major part of this artlcle. Pointing out the guy's (impressive) credentials as if they had relevance to his thoughts on taxation.

Oh... good point.

But, I've always been a flat tax advocate for years. It just won't work in the current political environment.

I think there's a movie (biography?) about him on netflix...

EDIT: yup, it's Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (Cuba Gooding Jr plays him)

**Mannahnin**

A flat tax hurts poor people and helps rich people. It also hurts society generally as it leaves less spending money in the hands of people who are guaranteed to spend it, and spend it here, in our economy (the poor, in particular).

**Kilkrazy**

Isn't it a bit stupid to collect taxes from people who are so poor you need to collect taxes from people so that poor people don't have to pay taxes?

**Grey Templar**

It doesn't hurt the economy. Money that sits in the bank isn't sitting there. Its lent out to people that borrow it to invest in the economy. Which creates businesses which create jobs. And more people working means more money being spent. So a rich guy not spending money is not holding back the economy, its actually a reservoir of money that can be borrowed against to grow the economy.

Of course this doesn't work if you have redicliously high taxes on that money, encouraging those rich people to move their money out of the country.

I'd be up for a flat tax, while also cutting other taxes.

We should have a single federal tax and a single state tax(for each state)

No sales tax, no gas tax, just a general tax that pays for everything.

Everyone should pay the same % into the system.

**Mannahnin**

Grey Templar wrote:
It doesn't hurt the economy. Money that sits in the bank isn't sitting there. Its lent out to people that borrow it to invest in the economy. Which creates businesses which create jobs. And more people working means more money being spent. So a rich guy not spending money is not holding back the economy, its actually a reservoir of money that can be borrowed against to grow the economy.

You've accurately described the Supply Side theory. It doesn't seem to work that way in reality, though. In practice that reservoir may or may not actually be used. Whereas the money poor people have gets spent, and directly moves the economy.

**Grey Templar**

And in the end, the government doesn't have much effect on what the poor and lower middle class do with their money. They have the biggest effect on what the rich do with their money(which includes those businesses that employ everybody)

If we keep using policy that drives companies away from the country we are going to be in trouble.

**shingouki**

A fantastic speech by a very interesting speaker.I thought pretty much all he said made sense,in particular the taxation idea where everyone gives.

**Relapse**

I like a lot of the what he had to say.

**d-usa**

1) health savings account are super helpful, unless you don't have any money to put in them.
2) health savings accounts do exactly jack to reform a system that dollar for dollar has worse health outcomes than pretty much any developed country.

Shockingly a specialist in a field making huge amounts of money wants a system that doesn't tax him very much and that doesn't regulate what he does.

**LordofHats**

There's already a thing called a health savings account. It's called a savings account. I hear you can put money into it, and with some discipline not use it for frivolous things, saving it for emergencies.

**d-usa**

LordofHats wrote:
There's already a thing called a health savings account. It's called a savings account. I hear you can put money into it, and with some discipline not use it for frivolous things, saving it for emergencies.

Off course there is a difference between the two.

**LordofHats**

Yeah, but it's always baffled me that some people seem completely unwilling to save money. I make $40 a day and I have nearly 3k in my savings in 9 months (my sister on the other hand has $0 and she has a much better paying job). Sure I have the luxury of not really needing to pay much on expenses because my parents don't believe in starvation, but surely someone with a steady decent job can find the time to put in $20 a week. That's $1040 a year. Assuming someone doesn't have a chronic condition in need of regular care and takes decent care of themselves, they won't need that money unless they encounter a crisis or until they're later in life.

Especially when someone is young and doesn't need to pay for gas, food, insurance or any of that stuff, you can get a heafty head start on building a crisis fund ad build it up quickly.

**d-usa**

I hope they have nothing wrong, because $1000 won't pay for an ER visit with any kind of real testing or a day on the hospital.

**SilverMK2**

My wife and I both work and my wife has a pretty good paying job. Even so we are unable to save much money because, well, stuff happens that needs fixing, bills need paying, roof needs to be kept overhead, food must be eaten, etc.

It really pisses me off when you see people who have been living at home with their parents until their late 20's, not paying rent, bills, etc and either saving all their cash or squandering it on going out/etc, or people making 6+ figures telling me to "just save money".

I am very thankful to both my parents and my parents in law for all the support they have given me and my wife - without them we would be on the streets, even though we both work hard and try to save as much money as we can.

To return more to the topic, I have to say that Ben Carson is speaking out of his arse.

Flat tax doesn't work and dispropotionally hits the poor; those who can pay more should pay more. The person who has taken over as the head of the hospital I work at makes more in a day than I do in almost 3 weeks. 10% of his wage might be more than 10% of my wage, but that 10% of my wage is paying the grocery bill while his is sitting in the bank.

Health savings, as has been mentioned, does nothing, absolutely nothing, to fix the huge cost of the US medical system, or it's relatively poor performance. And again, people with no money still end up without the means to get medical treatment because, surprisingly, they have no fething money to put into a health savings account.

**chaos0xomega**

It might actually (if you dont have insurance). Fun fact: hospitals adjust their rates dependent on whether or.not you have insurance, what your policy covers, and how much you can afford to pay out of pocket. You can get the same treatmentfo the fraction of the cost if you claim you have no insurance... well, I'm not sure you can claim that any longer, but a couple years ago...? Yeah.

**Easy E**

For record, I love HSAs.

However, I also know that they are not helpful to a large part of the population for a number of reasons:

1. If you are already sick
2. If you get sick before you can build up a ton of money
3. If you don't have money

As for the Flat Tax. Is there a reason this idea won't die?

**LordofHats**

As for the Flat Tax. Is there a reason this idea won't die?

Because people like to make believe (and like me, are probably really bad with abstract mathematics

).

**SilverMK2**

Easy E wrote:
As for the Flat Tax. Is there a reason this idea won't die?

Because the rich (who it would benefit most) are the powerful (who have the power to do stuff)?

Besides, it will be much easier to fiddle their accounts to mitigate a 10% tax than whatever it is they are supposed to be currently paying - far less for their accountants to hide!

**chaos0xomega**

Err... the idea of flat tax means EVERYONE pays the same thing regardless of what they donated etc.

Theoretically a flat tax would be better for the redistribution of wealth, a lot of tax dodgers donate money to causes which benefit them directly (local country clubs and private schools), so even though they give to "charity" the money is used to fuel their own little segment of society rather than people who actually need the help.

**SilverMK2**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Err... the idea of flat tax means EVERYONE pays the same thing regardless of what they donated etc.

I am aware of what a flat tax is supposed to be. And if I could afford the kinds of accountants the guys pushing for it hire, I would be in favour of it too, I'm sure

Theoretically a flat tax would be better for the redistribution of wealth

Comunism is also fantastic in theory, though somewhat less than fantastic in practice...

a lot of tax dodgers donate money to causes which benefit them directly (local country clubs and private schools), so even though they give to "charity" the money is used to fuel their own little segment of society rather than people who actually need the help.

A lot of tax dodgers simply hide money or write it off as "not income", etc... They may end up paying 10%, but not on what they actuall "earn", I will be willing to bet

**azazel the cat**

My favourite part is where he suggest Christian-flavoured Sharia Law.

Late in his talk he dropped two very un-PC ideas. The first is an unusual case for a flat tax: "What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called a tithe.

**chaos0xomega**

Azazel.... you.... donkey-cave.... >.<

Silver-youre still not getting it, the point is to close the loopholes so that very little can be written off.

**Palindrome**

Loopholes could easily be closed with a variable tax rate.

**SilverMK2**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Silver-youre still not getting it, the point is to close the loopholes so that very little can be written off.

So why not do that with the existing system and make people pay what they should be paying?

If you did that, you would suddenly find billions of dollars flowing into the government treasury from all these wealthy people and giant companies who currently only pay tiny fraction of what they should be paying (if they pay anything at all - I'm looking at you Starbucks!).

And my point is, when you can afford to play the system, you find ways to play the system. Hell, in the days of the Window Tax in the UK, you had people bricking off their windows (you would generally have more windows if you were richer, so would pay more tax) so they would pay less tax.

**Easy E**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Azazel.... you.... donkey-cave.... >.<

Silver-youre still not getting it, the point is to close the loopholes so that very little can be written off.

Yes, 10% of your income. The question then becomes what is "income"? I'm guessing a working poor person has one or two sources of income such as wages and welfare. A very wealthy person has many income streams such as stock options, investments, trusts, wages, and dividends. However, will the "Flat" tax see all of these streams as simply "income"?

The simple answer is yes. Then, the reality of the political process of changing a tax system sets in, and the cynic, politican, and pragmatist in me says "Heck NO"!