Palin as Republican VEEP

[Flunkie]

Didn't want to start a new thread just for this, but it appears that Palin is now accused of nepotism.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... UlRcLKxIg4

Shortly after she was elected governor, Palin's office signed off on hiring Deborah Richter -- who attended college for a year then worked in bookkeeping and finance jobs -- as director of a division that distributes dividends to Alaskans from the state's oil-wealth savings account.

Richter, who said she's known Palin for 13 years, was Palin's gubernatorial campaign treasurer and ran her inaugural committee.

Sharing an Investment

The Richters and Palins also shared an investment: 30 acres of rural property near a lake in Petersville, Alaska, worth $47,300, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough data.

OMFG nepotism!!! A politician guilty of nepotism? Like didn't JFK hire his brother RFK to be the US Attorney General? I guess JFK was corrupt?

[Harlowe]

That's a pretty stupid mentality, putting unqualified buddies into important positions is a big deal.

But dirty, sleazy politics is worse than nepotism - McCain camp allegedly sent out shady absentee ballots. We'll see if this story has any meat to it, if it does, he's going to lose even more credibility with voters.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/304740

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/editorial/304878

[Partha]

More people = bigger government = bigger taxbase. You forgot that third part... the money comes from somewhere. If the taxbase is bigger, then no need to raise taxes, because porportionality takes care of it.

Not necessarily. If you end up with enough kids, you have to build a new school, More people driving on roads means they break down faster. Natural disasters like Ike cause proportionately more damage, as well. If you have any satisfaction about our current infrastructure, please go back and look at your shiny bridge that fell down a while back. We are going to need massive capital investment to repair what we need to of that infrastructure, as well as build new stuff that we might want to further our strategic interests, like new nuke plants and rail networks. To wave your hand and pretend that it won't cost any more proportionally is folly of the highest magnitude.

[Select]

The fact that they didn't immediately offer to send out a new mailer to correct the problem leads me to think it's shady and not a senior moment. I'm surprised these people needed a McCain mailer to get their absentees in. It's really easy to get them off the state's website or to pick it up by hand.

[Embar Angylwrath]

You're not making any sense Partha.

More people having more kids also means more people paying taxes to build those schools. More people drinving on the roads means more taxes to pay for those roads. It's a matter of tax allocation, not insufficent taxes.

By your logic, the more the population grows, the higher the tax burden must become. If that is the case, then at some point in the future, even if every dime of every paycheck goes to taxes, it won't be enough.

Think before posting...

[Select]

Just focusing on roads here: I think Partha is trying to say that as the population grows, taxes will not only have to pay for more roads for more people, but they will have to pay to repair what already exists which will collapse under the growing population because it wasn't meant for such heavy use?

[Embar Angylwrath]

I think Partha is trying to say that as the population grows, taxes will not only have to pay for more roads for more people, but they will have to pay to repair what already exists which will collapse under the growing population because it wasn't meant for such heavy use?

Roads are good example of ecomony of scale. We didn't need a second interstate system when the population doubled in the US. Just more cars on the road. And more people to pay for the upkeep as well.
Sure, some new roads are built as population expands, but they are paid for by developers (actually, new home buyers, since the developer just passes along the cost). I guarantee you that any new infrastructure associated with new development is paid for by the development.

[Ddrak]

Just a point - road costs definitely rise faster than proportional to population increases. In the barest simple case, you start with a village. If you drop another village in, you pay the same cost for roads *within* the second village and then the additional cost for roads between the villages. This doesn't get better as you put more villages in - the costs of a transportation network are something line n*log(n) with population (it's not n^2 because you don't have to connect each new development with every other one, but you have to connect it into the network and upgrade the network components to deal with the new load).

Dd

[Klast Brell]

Sure that works for the new subdivision built where old man Hanson's farm used to be. But it does not work for the other roads in the city, county, and state that connect to the new neighborhood. The development may have paid for the cul-de-sac but they didn't pay for the widening of the county road when the population of the suburb grew.

[Kulaf]

Other than interstate highways.......it's a state funding issue imo. You want new roads in Montana......raise taxes in Montana.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Sure that works for the new subdivision built where old man Hanson's farm used to be. But it does not work for the other roads in the city, county, and state that connect to the new neighborhood. The development may have paid for the cul-de-sac but they didn't pay for the widening of the county road when the population of the suburb grew.

Yes Klast, they do. Ask anyone in urban planning. New developments always pay for any upgrades associated with the development.

[Partha]

You're not making any sense Partha.

More people having more kids also means more people paying taxes to build those schools.

Have you ever thought to ask how much more it costs now to build a school than it did in the 1960's or 1970's? Or how much more a road costs? Construction material costs have bumped up quite a bit, you know.

Now, you want to talk not making sense...by arguing that the system is eternally stable, you're removing the idea of a tax cut forever - after all, if this is the sweet spot of taxation for infrastructure, then you can never have another tax cut if you want to keep services at this level. And, of course, you have to argue that current levels of taxation also keep all your bridges up in spite of disaster, too.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Again Partha, anyhting "new" is usually associated with a development. No need to build a "new" school 20 miles outside of town if there is no kids to go there. "New" roads, "new" sewer, "new" schools, "new" police and fire.. they are all paid by the development (actually, by the people buying the houses in the development).

[Lurker]

Embar,
Can you provide some evidence? How long would the development fund police and fire? How long would the development be responsible for maintenance on roads and infrastructure? What you are saying seems very far fetched.

And of course, none of what you are saying changes reality.
1) Our current tax rates aren't generating enough income to pay for our current services
2) We can't make enough spending cuts to alter the reality of #1

[Ddrak]

What Embar's saying is simply untrue. The new development pays for anything directly inside the development but it doesn't pay for the extra lanes on the freeways that have to get put on in a few years time, or the new runways at the airports, or the extra public transport requirements, or the ultimate widening of the interstate as the cities grow, or the ongoing maintenance of the infrastructure after development. It's the fact that there's super-linear components in infrastructure costs in the addition of new people to balance the economies of scale that makes the whole thing a lot more complex than it's being portrayed.

Dd

[Partha]

Quite so, Dd. In my town, a lot of the rich folk moved way out east, and while some original roads connecting my city to their suburbs might have been partially paid for by the suburbs, they sure as hell haven't covered the cost since then of that 2 lane becoming a 4 or 6 lane in spots.

[Kulaf]

Sure they pay for it.....they pay for it by increasing the tax base with property taxes just like the rest of the town pays for it.

[Lurker]

And since that funding isn't enough and States rely on Federal money, are you advocating an increase in property taxes or the gutting of schools, police, fire, hospitals, and infrastructure? Are you advocating we abandon poorer areas?

The idiotic policy proposals you support have consequences.

[Harlowe]

Property taxes.....apparently they are an endless pot-o-gold.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Embar,
Can you provide some evidence? How long would the development fund police and fire? How long would the development be responsible for maintenance on roads and infrastructure? What you are saying seems very far fetched.

And of course, none of what you are saying changes reality.
1) Our current tax rates aren't generating enough income to pay for our current services
2) We can't make enough spending cuts to alter the reality of #1

I can speak for California. We have something called "Mello Roos" fees, which are tagged to the development. They are structured to pay for infrastructure upgrades associated with new development, (police, fire, roads, sewer, etc) and the development carries them for a looong time (20 years or so I think). They are added just like a tax. After that, the theory goes, the population base in the developed area will have reached a saturation point and the taxes generaqted from that population (either direct taxes, or indirect taxes like increased sales tax revenue frmo an increased population) would be enough to fund the maintenance of the infrastructure.

Essentially, the first generation of of the development buys the infrastructure, the future generations maintain it.

But I think you're mixing a couple of things. Lurker. This has turned to a discussion about local taxing practices, instead of national taxing practices. Are you still talking about national issues? It seems your questions are more suited to a national tax allocation issue. Police, fire, roads, sewer usually aren't in the purview of the Federal government.

I'm all for keeping most services at the state level, and paid for by state and municipal governments, funded through state and municipal taxing authorities. Whatever the people in the state decide is best for them, great. They want to add a 5% sales tax to pay for some new program? Fine. If I live in that state and I disagree with it, I can move if it offends me too much.