Let's tax all the universities and hospitals!

Isn't that a bit simplistic though?

Don't you think it's possible that the root causes of poverty are bit more complex than "Poor people are lazy"?

The origin of many people with great wealth (except those who were born into it or the very few who simply got lucky somehow) was a great deal of determination and hard work. Mr Hershey had something he loved and tried [and failed] many times at it. But eventually he was successful after trying different ways and who doesn't know Hershey chocolate now? Although some have clear disadvantages like a disability, some people just need encouragement. (Rather than someone else making excuses for them, as said) I'm not saying their lazy, but seriously why is it always "aww, poor little poor person... you aren't going anywhere without alot of government help!". Talk about condescending and belittling.

And how is taxing hospitals and universities now going to help anything, BTW? (Getting to the topic) Talk about making tuition higher and health care higher. All the means is putting both further out of reach from the poor. They won't just roll over and let the city take it... they'll increase what they charge.
 
And how is taxing hospitals and universities now going to help anything, BTW? (Getting to the topic) Talk about making tuition higher and health care higher. All the means is putting both further out of reach from the poor. They won't just roll over and let the city take it... they'll increase what they charge.

This is exactly what I mean by drinking the kool-aid: the belief that hospitals and universities use fees and tuition solely to provide their basic service, so if we tax them, gee, that's gotta come from somewhere (because heaven knows they're operating on the thinnest of margins) and has to result in passing along these costs to their clients. Load of crap. It's precisely that fallacy that makes the public side with non-profits even as they're being gouged. Yeah, Harvard, Deaconness, BU...they can barely scrap together the money to stay open.

And again, I think we sometimes conflate our perceptions of how Boston squanders tax money with the fairness of how they get tax money. Those are two separate issues. For people that don't believe how much money is taken off the tax rolls by non-profits (not all non-profits--the one I work for now is relatively small potatoes) and especially hospitals and universities (the Church--though we love to hate them--is a relatively minor player as it does not generate the huge profits these other organizations do) I'd encourage you to follow this controversy in Pittsburgh or Cleveland where UPMC, Pitt, Carnegie Mellon (shout-out to my alma mater--go Tartans!), Case Western, Cleveland Clinic, etc. have left cities seriously strapped for cash because VAST swathes of the in-town community are taken over by these behemoths that proportionally draw huge amounts of public services in exchange for "bringing jobs to the city and creating a payroll tax base." They do, but exactly how is that different from "for-profits?"

This situation is new--only in the last 20 years have we seen the rise of the knowledge industry and the mega-non-profit but our tax structure is still based on the idea of land-grant universities, teachers' colleges and non-research hospitals. Now I LOVE the knowledge industry, love non-profits (worked for them most my life in some capacity) and like Boston precisely because that culture is so prevalent here, but that doesn't blind me to the fact that more and more burden is placed on home- and small business owners (big business too, but they also have tons of tax breaks). I really fear that if we don't come to some new "understanding" with non-profits they will kill the very cities they depend on.
 
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I agree. If there's one thing this country really needs it's another way for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer.

I knew people was going to say that but I was going to add that there will be exemptions for people under a certain income and a progressively higher consumption tax based on income, not just spending.

But I'll admit that I don't know all the kinks on how consumption tax works so don't kill me.
 
^ How can you have a consumption tax on anything other than spending?
 
Although if the poor got off their collectively lazy asses and actually worked rather than sulking about letting other people(like you) make excuses for them and fight their battles perhaps there wouldn't be such a disparity.

You are clearly a jackass so I probably shouldn't bother responding, but consider how your life would be different if you grew up in a impoverished one-parent family, in say, Camden, NJ, attending a failed public school, surrounded by drugs, guns, and vacant buildings. You're likely incapable of this level of empathy, but give it a shot.

I knew people was going to say that but I was going to add that there will be exemptions for people under a certain income and a progressively higher consumption tax based on income, not just spending.

But I'll admit that I don't know all the kinks on how consumption tax works so don't kill me.

How can you be in favor of something you know so terribly little about? Aside from the fact that eliminating a income tax in order to replace with a consumption tax based on income seems, well, generally whacky, isn't it pretty obvious that this would encourage the rich to hoard money rather than spend it, which would have a severely detrimental effect on the economy?
 
isn't it pretty obvious that this would encourage the rich to hoard money rather than spend it, which would have a severely detrimental effect on the economy?

Hmmm...I kinda thought rich people spent money. Isn't that kind of the point of being...I dunno...rich? Or are you thinking that people want to be/work to be rich so that can keep their money in a vault and admire it? I don't know any of those rich people (or maybe I know a lot of them, but they secretly live in hovels with mattresses stuffed with cash thinking to themselves "I'm rich! I'm rich!").
 
You are clearly a jackass so I probably shouldn't bother responding, but consider how your life would be different if you grew up in a impoverished one-parent family, in say, Camden, NJ, attending a failed public school, surrounded by drugs, guns, and vacant buildings. You're likely incapable of this level of empathy, but give it a shot.

Sounds like His Excellency, Deval L. Patrick. What is it that he used to say back in the 2006 campaign, hope for the best and WORK for it? I don't buy into his act hook, line and sinker like I used to but never the less, there are ways out. You have to want it badly enough. Too many people are content taking the welfare check every month and gaming the system so they can stay home and drink, smoke crack, play video games and/or watch Judge Alex. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of a stigma attached to being poor anymore. We spend far too much money fabricating a sense of dignity they've grown to believe they're entitled to. Look at all the money we've blown making the housing projects look nice - they should look like hell - people should see them and say hey, I don't want to live there.

But you're right, I'm a cold, heartless bastard - living in a society where one works their ass off to succeed only to be looked upon as the enemy will do that to you. Most people in this country have their heads so far up their ass they envision the rich as they do the Monopoly Man complete with the top hat and tails or Scrooge McDuck swimming in his pool of gold, they have no fucking idea at all how much work it took them to get there in the first place.
 
Sounds like His Excellency, Deval L. Patrick. What is it that he used to say back in the 2006 campaign, hope for the best and WORK for it? I don't buy into his act hook, line and sinker like I used to but never the less, there are ways out. You have to want it badly enough. Too many people are content taking the welfare check every month and gaming the system so they can stay home and drink, smoke crack, play video games and/or watch Judge Alex. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of a stigma attached to being poor anymore. We spend far too much money fabricating a sense of dignity they've grown to believe they're entitled to. Look at all the money we've blown making the housing projects look nice - they should look like hell - people should see them and say hey, I don't want to live there.

But you're right, I'm a cold, heartless bastard - living in a society where one works their ass off to succeed only to be looked upon as the enemy will do that to you. Most people in this country have their heads so far up their ass they envision the rich as they do the Monopoly Man complete with the top hat and tails or Scrooge McDuck swimming in his pool of gold, they have no fucking idea at all how much work it took them to get there in the first place.

We have a flip side to that coin about the poor and now the rich.

Listen I agree that there are good amount of poor people gaming the system to collect welfare checks and wasting their life in the projects. I can accept that.

What about the fucking rich elite that should be following the bankruptcy code but instead took the taxpayers for a fucking ride in the biggest bailouts to the rich bankers in History. Trillions of dollars wasted with bailouts and interest free loans from the Federal Reserve. Completely destroying the working class & savers buying power.

Goldman Sachs, BOA, Angelo Morzillo is still walking around after telling people to buy CountryWide stock after they dump that on BOA. What about Fannie Mae not filing financials for 3 years with the NYSE but their executives collecting 30 Million in bonus's. Taxpayers bailing out FNM & FRE in Trillions as Barney Frank claimed they were sound as their executives were funding his campaign. Why are these people not in JAIL?

I remember when people used to be held highly working for the GOVT to make sure their would be no corruption in the system now the corporations own the govt politicans and the working class are the peasants that continue to work for peanuts.

This is how I see the America.

The reality is the SEC & all the other govt programs are gamed against the working class. The IRS code is fucking joke. GE walks away without paying any taxes, how about the oil companies recording record profits as they continue to destroying the planet but our govt officials continue to give them tax incentives. Yeah, the politicians are looking out for the better interest of the country or human life.

I personally don't really care about the poor person that wants to live in the projects and waste their life on a $500.00 welfare check a month. It's actually pretty pathetic. I care about the Super rich becoming more rich on the back of America's Working class by destroying King Dollar.
 
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Is your world view really that simplistic? That easy? Hard workers = rich. Lazy = poor?

Could it be that the distribution of poverty and wealth might be just a bit more complex?
 
Is your world view really that simplistic? That easy? Hard workers = rich. Lazy = poor?

Could it be that the distribution of poverty and wealth might be just a bit more complex?


That is not what I said. My world view is that nobody is above the laws that were created. That is problem with America is the Elite don't follow the laws they pay off the politicans to push more regulation to keep the middle class and poor demoralized. When the elite fail they take from the taxpayers without following any bankruptcy laws. Poor people does not =Lazy people. I know alot of poor people that are very honest with intergrity and work hard for living but really don't have much ambition in life. Who cares. Poor, Rich, Middleclass, upperclass, when the laws only apply to the poor and middleclass we have problems and that is what is going on today.

The only reason things are complex is because of people's agenda and only looking out for their own self-interests. It's not a bad world we just live in a society of look what I have and look what you don't have. It's pretty fucked up.

Has anybody read the IRS handbook something like 4000 pages. It's funny the constitution is on a piece of paper. Does that tell you something
 
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I was replying to kmp, sorry I should have made that clear.
 
Isn't that a bit simplistic though?

Don't you think it's possible that the root causes of poverty are bit more complex than "Poor people are lazy"?

Simple minds look to simple answers. And if the answer feeds their ego, so much the better.
 
Is your world view really that simplistic? That easy? Hard workers = rich. Lazy = poor?

Could it be that the distribution of poverty and wealth might be just a bit more complex?

You just need to want it, man. I remember when I was in the womb thinking, "Damn, I really want daddy to be rich. I really want parents who read to me each night and instill values of hard work and delayed gratification. Mostly, I really want to attend Andover and Harvard." You know what those ghetto fetuses were wanting at the time? Crack and video games, man.
 
Serious question for kmp et al:

Is it possible you are confusing the symptom with the cause?

And, no, I'm not arguing "It's society's fault!" because that is just as intellectually lazy as "poor people are just lazy".

Poverty is a complex problem that civilizations have been dealing with for a long as there have be civilizations. It won't ever be properly solved but the fact the we wrestle with it and try to minimize it in a humane way is what makes us, well, civil.
 
Consider the environment adjacent to MIT.

Once it was highly valuable industrial land paying most of the taxes in Cambridge and employing lots of relatively poorly educated people from East Cambridge

Then things changed and for a few decades is was of very little value

Then things changed again and now in large part due to its proximity to MIT and in some part due to direct MIT investments it is once again the Jewel in Cambridge's financial jewelry box

would all of the rebirth and indeed expansion far beyond the original have happened if there had been taxes on MIT -- well we will never know -- but I'm willing to bet a lot less would have happened

Of course the historic rebirth of Kendall Sq and the spillover now heading toward Leachmere and Central sq. is unique on a regional and even global scale

But -- Boston / Cambridge region's future is inextricably tied to the Knowledge Economy and KW's -- and if that means giving the key engines of the KE a tax break -- I'm willing to support it -- particularly if the U pays something in lieu of taxes in dollars and opens itself to the community as a place for meetings, etc.

there is of course a far less direct argument for the other institutions with a sliding scale from Great Research U's to the other U's to the colleges to the Hospitals to the Museums and the Churches and finally down to the miscellaneous Not for Profits such as CLF

I think that the Umbra and Penumbra needs to be considered -- Umbra is the direct physical and social footprint of the institution, while the Penumbra is how the institution effects the surrounding geographic region -- again at the top the Great Research U's have a global penumbra (there is a fairly credible report that just counting currently viable enterprises that MIT's alumni have created a 2T$ economic impact with over 1 Million employees (incidentally nearly as much of Silicon Valley has MIT roots as that which can be traced to their own local Great Research U's)

How big is the penumbra of the MFA -- well that would be harder to quantify -- although obviously major exhibitions can have a slight global impact such as when the Asian Dept. celebrated its centennial and drew a fairly large crowd from Japan to see some of the juxtapositions of some MFA masterpieces with some loan masterpieces from Japan (including a couple from the Imperial Palace collection). Some of the works hadn't been in one room in several hundred years. Note that this phenomena will happen again later this year with a handful of French paintings that were separated about 100 years ago.

The Museum of Science will host a major exhibition of artifacts from Pompeii which will certainly draw a regional audience with some minor international tourists as well. Finally there is the temporary big and then continuing international penumbra associated with the groupies who come to see Pritzker Prize winner's work such as Piano at the Fogg, Piano at the Gardner, Foster at the MFA, Gerry at Stata, etc.

So as someone said -- tax U's? -- well its complicated
 

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