Should only taxpayers be allowed to vote?

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Should only taxpayers be allowed to vote?

When Socrates and his friends were talking of voters, they were talking of land owners. In today’s terms, that means, ---- taxpayer. The core of democracy.

There are two types of citizens. The taxpayer and the taxtaker.

Once the taxpayer hands over his wealth, he loses control of where it is spent.

This is counter to the taxpayer’s wishes.

Why do taxpayers allow this situation and defer their right to spend their wealth to others?

If taxtakers had done a good job with that wealth, I do not think any would complain. That is not the case.

Should those who pay the way of our society be the ones who decide where our wealth is spent?

Since the right to do so is tied to our vote, should only taxpayers be allowed to vote on spending issues?

Regards
DL

oftenwrong wrote:QUOTE: "I agree that encouragement and incentives to participate in the vote should be available. I also tie the vote to those who actually pay for governments and not those who just feed on it.

No taxation = no representation through the vote."

Even if that disenfranchises valuable members of the Community who work abroad, and may not therefore be liable to pay UK tax?

How does he give value to the community if he is not there nor contributing to it?

Short answer though is that if whatever he has contributed is recognized by those who make the final rules then yes, he would vote. If not recognized then he would not have earned it.

Regards
DL

Shirina

I have respect for your opinions as they are usually well thought out and put.

I do not speak to most of your post as it takes us too far off the topic.

There is no doubt that the rich abuse our systems as much as or perhaps even more than the poor.

I E. They get about 5 times more in mortgage and home write-offs and other perks than the poor do for their housing.

I don't care in this O P for such discussions.

Being Canadian, and having a better political system in the first place, makes me unqualified to get into all the U S systems idiocies.

Regards
DL

"How does he give value to the community if he is not there nor contributing to it?"

Ah. Let someone else do my thinking for me. A frequent choice.

e.g. Merchant Seamen. Oil prospectors and extractors. "Our Man in xxxxxx". Charity workers/Missionaries.

http://britishexpat.com/resources/employment-and-training/expat-jobs/

oftenwrong wrote:"How does he give value to the community if he is not there nor contributing to it?"

Ah. Let someone else do my thinking for me. A frequent choice.

e.g. Merchant Seamen. Oil prospectors and extractors. "Our Man in xxxxxx". Charity workers/Missionaries.

http://britishexpat.com/resources/employment-and-training/expat-jobs/

"Let someone else do my thinking for me."

No choice when you just throw something out without examples. Oh wait. I can read your mind.

I can see those people not paying taxes to their country of origin but how does that help their countries?

If memory serves. In Canada, money made in other countries is subject to the Canadian tax man.

Regards
DL

Being Canadian, and having a better political system in the first place, makes me unqualified to get into all the U S systems idiocies.

Well, being an American I can only speak for how this idea would affect America, and that was the point of my last post. I can't comment on what would happen in Canada. However, these kinds of questions and topics can't be discussed in isolation. It's simply nonsense to even try to view such a massive change in the political system of ANY democracy as though it were taking place in a vacuum. You may see a lot of what I say as off-topic, but it's not. There are consequences to stripping the vote from the poor and they have to be discussed. Otherwise we're just verbally masturbating as one of my friends so indelicately put it.

Maybe this might be a time to pause and reflect on what constitutes the resources and wealth of a country.
I would argue that money, taxes, etc is not the only resource, nor even the most important one.

I would argue that money, taxes, etc is not the only resource, nor even the most important one.

Absolutely spot on.

I would remind GIA that much of the real labor in any nation is performed by the lowest paid workers - those who earn so little that they are exempt from income tax. These are the people who actually build the buildings, pave the roads, pick your fruit, clean your toilets, dig the ditches, operate the factory machines, cook and serve your food, and a thousand other chores that the wealthy often take for granted. Without the labors of these people, we would have nothing, and the wealthy would have no goods to sell. Labor and management is a symbiotic relationship - one cannot exist without the other. Yet management, the executive tier, receives 95% of the wealth and 100% of the credit. What a rubbish system that is, so massively unfair. And there are always those who try their best to undermine what little power these people have, whether it is trying to shut down unions, stripping away collective bargaining rights or ... taking away their right to vote.

If such a travesty were to ever happen, I would recommend every laborer in the nation simply walk off the job. Watch what happens to the economy then, watch as all of that wealth turns to ash. Laborers are not expendable resources, a commondity to be used and thrown away - and certainly not to be abused. They are human beings, and they deserve ALL the rights a wealthy person possesses. THAT is something we have yet to learn in many nations.

Shirina wrote:

Being Canadian, and having a better political system in the first place, makes me unqualified to get into all the U S systems idiocies.

Well, being an American I can only speak for how this idea would affect America, and that was the point of my last post. I can't comment on what would happen in Canada. However, these kinds of questions and topics can't be discussed in isolation. It's simply nonsense to even try to view such a massive change in the political system of ANY democracy as though it were taking place in a vacuum. You may see a lot of what I say as off-topic, but it's not. There are consequences to stripping the vote from the poor and they have to be discussed. Otherwise we're just verbally masturbating as one of my friends so indelicately put it.

I do not see the change as that massive.

There as well as here, some elections only have 40 odd % of citizens voting and those I would eliminate, basically those who have embraced the welfare system and do not want to get off it, is a rather small % I think although I do not know what it would be. Not the 47% that the right was throwing around. Perhaps two or three %.

Who knows, placing restrictions on the vote might actually make better citizens out of the majority.
One pays more attention to what he might lose than what he will not.

Regards
DL

boatlady wrote:Maybe this might be a time to pause and reflect on what constitutes the resources and wealth of a country.
I would argue that money, taxes, etc is not the only resource, nor even the most important one.

I agree. The wealth of a nation is it's people. All else pales in comparison.

Regards
DL

Shirina wrote:

I would argue that money, taxes, etc is not the only resource, nor even the most important one.

Absolutely spot on.

I would remind GIA that much of the real labor in any nation is performed by the lowest paid workers - those who earn so little that they are exempt from income tax. These are the people who actually build the buildings, pave the roads, pick your fruit, clean your toilets, dig the ditches, operate the factory machines, cook and serve your food, and a thousand other chores that the wealthy often take for granted. Without the labors of these people, we would have nothing, and the wealthy would have no goods to sell. Labor and management is a symbiotic relationship - one cannot exist without the other. Yet management, the executive tier, receives 95% of the wealth and 100% of the credit. What a rubbish system that is, so massively unfair. And there are always those who try their best to undermine what little power these people have, whether it is trying to shut down unions, stripping away collective bargaining rights or ... taking away their right to vote.

If such a travesty were to ever happen, I would recommend every laborer in the nation simply walk off the job. Watch what happens to the economy then, watch as all of that wealth turns to ash. Laborers are not expendable resources, a commondity to be used and thrown away - and certainly not to be abused. They are human beings, and they deserve ALL the rights a wealthy person possesses. THAT is something we have yet to learn in many nations.

I agree. We all need a French Revolution.

The U S is fighting the trend of increasing the minimum wage. Economists are still fighting over whether it is a good idea or not. I think that any job should pay enough to have to pay a tax on and push the worker over the poverty line.
That or be ignored altogether like paper routes etc.

A higher minimum wage also pushes the middle wage earners up the pyramid.

Regards
DL

A higher minimum wage also pushes the middle wage earners up the pyramid.


Inflation will take care of that. No need for any Revolutionaries.

Simple answer:
No

Longer answer:
A mad, divisive idea brought to the table by people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. To pay tax requires monetary income. A huge amount of crucial work is done by billions of people on this planet for no financial reward. This principle would disenfranchise those people for no morally defensible reason. It would favour a City Investment Banker who only moves money around for clients over an unpaid volunteer street worker feeding starving homeless people in a soup kitchen. It is reminiscent of the rule in Northern Ireland that only property owners could vote (still the case in the 1960's). This directly discriminated against the Roman Catholic community who tended to be in (apologies for the generalisation) working class occupations and live in rented social housing. The whole concept is wicked and readily corruptible with no good ending likely from the standpoint of social justice, cohesion and stability.

Liking both of your answers Chas

The recent ECHR decision that Prisoners should have the right to vote has probably settled this argument too.

Precisely OW, not only that, making the rule that only taxpayers were allowed to vote, which government would we have in all the time? the Tories of course!!! because with that rule we would end up with an elitist vote continually would we not?

Allegations of electoral malpractice in England and Wales 2000-2006

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/electoral_commission_pdf_file/0015/12228/IntFindsreAllegations21March_25132-18641__E__N__S__W__.pdf

Which basically means then OW, that they can check out the malpractice and even if found guilty cannot be bloody prosecuted for them? am I right OW?

If the law was changed so that it was only tax payers who could vote, it would mean that nearly everyone in Britain would be eligible, including those under the current voting age, as no one exempt from paying Value Added Tax....and this as it's name states, is a tax.........

Nice one

astradt1 wrote:-
no one is exempt from paying Value Added Tax

There are also taxes on booze, fags, gambling and air passengers, and that's before we mention council tax and road tax. The vast majority of people will pay one or more of those. And isn't national insurance just a tax by another name?

Tax tax tax tax tax everywhere you look is it not Ivan?