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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: re: prejudice and then further rambling
Message-ID: <4191@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 14:25:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4191
Posted: Wed Aug  8 14:25:28 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Aug-84 14:25:28 EDT
References: <156@utecfa.UUCP>, <5011@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 20

Ralph is right.  Remember that the purpose of taxation is to raise money.
The government's guiding principle is NOT giving people a fair break, but
getting every possible penny out of them without causing a revolution.
An appearance of fairness is useful, since it reduces the chance that any
specific group will feel exploited enough to revolt, but that's all.

The argument that old-style averaging benefitted the economy by putting
more money in the hands of people just joining the work force seems weak
to me.  One could equally contend that these are likely to be the folks
who are on relatively low salaries with minimal job security and hence
would be reluctant to make major investments right away.  (Note that I'm
not claiming this point of view is necessarily correct, just pointing out
that the question is more complex than it looks and intuition is not
necessarily sufficient to yield the right answer.)

Yes, I am one of the people who got hurt by the change in averaging.
-- 
				"Taxation is theft."
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry