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Do you actually want a response to this post? Because the bolded part is a shitpost if I've ever seen one, and it's making me want to bail on this "debate."

Let me ask you, have you ever googled your own question? "What's wrong with a flat tax?" On the first page, there's a recent article from the (conservative) National Review, the (liberal) Washington Post, and 9 responses collated by US News both for and against. I really can't say anything that they haven't already said, because I'm probably dumber and definitely less informed on tax politics than everyone who wrote one of those articles. I don't have any problem with a flat tax in theory, I just think that in practice, so much has to change before it's even feasible that it's not worth talking about up front. Make the changes required to make it practical first, then start collapsing the tax rates. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, maybe the promise of a flat tax being implemented in the near future would energize us and motivate us to make big changes to our government. You're free to think that, and you're free to disagree with all of those opinions above who don't think it would work. But to ask, "What's wrong with a flat tax," as if nobody's ever considered it... I dunno man. I don't want to come off as smug or arrogant, I really don't, and I apologize that I do sometimes come off that way. I try hard to engage in genuine debate here.

As Kerry points out, a flat income tax wouldn't do shit to simplify the tax code. Graduated income taxes aren't complicated. "Hey, your first 'A' dollars of income are taxed at 'X' percent, the next 'B' dollars are taxed at 'Y' percent, etc." You could print the entire thing on a 3x5 index card, it's an excel formula that anyone can write in about 3 minutes, yadda yadda. The reason the tax code is so complicated is this -- what is "income?" A flat tax of x% on your income does not get any simpler when there are volumes upon volumes of regulation defining what counts as income. A flat tax does not close any loopholes. Frankly, proposing a flat tax is one of the silliest things in politics. Do you want to close loopholes and simplify the tax code? Great, no problem -- step 1, fix politics, get rid of special interests, reform campaign finance laws, etc etc etc. Simple, let's get right on that and we'll be done by lunch tomorrow. Beyond that, at current federal spending levels, the flat tax would have to be something like 30% in order to balance the budget. In other words, most people would see a huge increase in their tax bills, and the very richest would see a slight decrease. Flat tax proponents will argue two things now -- one, the federal government should be much smaller, say, whatever we can pay for with a 14% flat tax or whatever number they happen to like today. Which, sure, fine, you can want that all you want, but in the meanwhile the federal government isn't that small, and lobbying for a flat tax before doing the massive cuts necessary to shrink the government is putting the cart before the horse. Or two, they'll argue that cutting taxes will boost the economy so much that the government will actually yield more revenues, which, I mean, it's 2017, if you still believe in the fantasy of supply side economics and the magic of the Laffer curve then I don't even know what to say. Go move to Kansas. That's the problem with a flat tax in a nutshell. With no other changes, it's going to lead to either increased taxes on you, me, and pretty much everyone who really can't afford that right now, or it's going to result in massive deficits and borrowing on a scale we haven't seen since WWII. And why? Because it's "fair?"

Join the Reserves. $200/mo for my family. Sorry, I have no useful advise.

How do you feel about that?

nm

Liberals are dangerous! Liberals are too inept to be dangerous!

Guns don't kill people, liberals kill people.

Yeah, libruls are a bunch of pussy cucks who take shit from everyone! Yeah, libruls are a bunch of violent assholes who don't take shit from anyone!

You're not going to put the 1.6 in the NB I assume, and nobody would want it if you did, so if you do the swap you're going from two sellable cars down to 1 sellable car and a plastidipped roller. I'd take option 1 off the table because to me it doesn't make financial sense. If you don't want to drive the NA in the winter, I'd introduce option 3, sell both and buy something else. But really, the NA isn't something you need to wax with a diaper, it's rare-ish but not anything you have to go nuts over. I'd just fix it up, sell the NB and rock it as a daily. Keep the BRG hard top with it, hard tops are as good as $1000 in cash but even better when the colors actually match. eta: If you were going to track it I'd say keep the NB, other than the paint it actually looks pretty nice and it'd be a lot less work.

You want the government to defend you from foreign threats, correct? That requires weaponry. Weaponry requires raw materials and skilled labor. Raw materials need to be produced and transported to areas with skilled labor, then transported to military installations for troops to be trained on its use, then deployed to ports so that it can be deployed effectively. The Eisenhower Interstate system is an integral part of the US national defense infrastructure. Eisenhower himself saw the German highway system and thought, "Goddamn, that's way more efficient than a hodgepodge of state/local/private roads!" I like the idea of libertarianism, I really do, even called myself a libertarian for a number of years, but where it frustrates me is when people stubbornly adhere to an ideal rather than accept the fact that some things just work better when the government gets involved. Not everything works better with government, that much is true. Lots of people having cars was really good for economy in the 50s and 60s, but if the government had stepped in and built a bunch of cars for everyone we'd all be driving around in crap-ass trabants, dying in droves and polluting ourselves to death. Competition was good for the car industry and the government could have stayed out of the way even more, if you ask me. Public housing is another one, everyone having a house is a good thing for the economy but when the government gets involved it tends to go to shit, because the free market can just do it better. The value of roads is hard for single company to realize since the up front costs are so massive, and competition becomes a challenge. The free market doesn't do so well there. Same with parks, some parks might attract a lot of tourists and therefore be profitable, but other parks might be worth saving (IMHO) but no private company could make a profit doing so. At the end of the day, results matter, not ideology. I'd rather live in a country that works better than one that doesn't, even if it means compromising on free market ideals every once in a while.

My off-lease C-Max Energi is a really, really nice car for the price. 2 years old, 26k miles, loaded with every option, 45mpg (my current average), for $16k. With both motors working it scoots pretty well, instant torque from electric motor is awesome. Cargo space is a weak spot but I would buy again in a heartbeat.

Or a mechanical issue, really no amount of skill can help you there. I didn't take safety all that seriously until I had a brake failure and touched a wall. Ended up OK but it easily could have been bad, and part of the reason it ended up OK was because of a gravel trap and a well built tire wall.

Saw one of the rollovers on FB this morning, Saturn SC2 race car. Rookie driver, owner says simple driver error and he didn't roll until he hit the tires so it wasn't "ledge" related but those crumbling tire walls do raise their own concerns...

Mighty Car Mods RoadKill (Motor Trend Channel) Bad Obsession Motorsports Regular Car Reviews Tom's Turbo Garage DRIVE

Wow. Ten years I've been doing this, never seen this anywhere else.

Oof. Part of the appeal was the $100 funday which made up for all of the other sins (lack of facilities). I have fond memories there but that's steep.

Yikes! Sounds like a bunch of rollovers waiting to happen.

How's the new surface?

With a slow clap and a standing ovation, probably. She's an idiot.

No, he's right in a way. Many of our elected leaders "suck shit through a tube." They don't need to "stop shit like this" with an iron fist, they can try to spread tolerance. For instance, for all of W. Bush's many faults, he re-iterated over and over that we are not at war with Islam. When some crazy fuckwit called Obama a Muslim (as though it's an insult?), Candidate McCain shut her down and took her mic away. Fuck, there are about a million examples for McCain alone of him calling out ignorance and preaching tolerance. And then we have "47% of voters won't take responsibility for their lives" Romney, and "Basket of Deplorables" Clinton, and "Nasty Woman" Trump who capitalize on divisions for political gain. But in another, more accurate way, he's wrong. We get the elected officials we deserve, and our stupid-ass ape brains don't deserve shit at the moment. When Obama made the slightest deference to the concerns of BLM, the organized Right launched a concerted campaign to declare such talk "divisive." "Most divisive president in history," they say of the guy who says that maybe we should listen to people's concerns. Kathy Griffin isn't the problem, and Donald Trump, despite being a massive fucking problem, didn't vote himself into office. As long as we say "We're too divided in this country" out of one side of our mouths, and "liberal hypocrites" out the other, this is what we deserve.

This is just another example of dimwitted conservative hypocrites trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want to try and convince you that "political correctness" is the problem and that people are "too easily offended" these days, but when one d-list celebrity exercises her free speech rights it's "crossing a line." (FTR, the above is not a sincerely held belief, I'm just trying to score cheap political points by pointing out conservative hypocrisy. Did I win? How many points did I get? Can I cash them in at Chuck E Cheese's?) To be fair, not many people in Hollywood or elsewhere are defending Kathy Griffin on this. She was forced to apologize and she lost her job, and if the outrage over Don Imus is any indication of how the right would have reacted then what we can conclude is that some people will defend their "side" regardless of how moronic it is, but overall mainstream Americans have limits. It's frustrating that when shit happens like this the only thing people really care about is how many imaginary points they'll get by feigning interest and sharing it on the internet. Meanwhile our duly elected leader is so goddamn fucking stupid that he thinks global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese, and is basing decisions on this completely nonsense belief.

Pretty much this. When my wife is a dick to me and I get upset and act dickish back, then she gets even more dickish. It's a bad cycle. Likewise, when my wife is a dick to me and I do something nice for her in retaliation, she instantly feels bad and does something nice for me back. Love is a choice you have to make every day. Being nice to someone who's a dick and/or annoys you is the hardest thing to do, but you choose to do it and it works. When people say that marriage takes effort, this is what they mean, strive be the better person at every turn and you'll build each other up instead of tearing each other down. I'm not saying every marriage can work, I've seen marriages fail that have no hope of rescue, but I've also seen plenty marriages fail because people choose to stop loving each other. Just make sure that's not the case.

The graffiti ITR attracted so much attention at the ITR expos I went to years ago, you'd think it was a Bugatti or something. http://ekhatch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/graffiti-integra-14.jpg http://ekhatch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/graffiti-integra-15.jpg http://ekhatch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/graffiti-integra-111.jpg Definitely a cool look if you can find the right artist. I think that Evo looks a little sloppy but w/e, I couldn't do any better.

Now wait a goddamn second, I'm not a lawyer but I did pay attention in high school physics; if you had as well you'd know the difference between speed and velocity. All speed measuring devices, be it VASCAR or RADAR or LIDAR are calculating speed, aka distance over time, aka a motherfuckin' average. RADAR and LIDAR don't measure velocity because velocity requires fancy fucking calculus to figure out. All they do is measure distance, they're just fancy range finders with a built in stop watch. Car is 400 feet away. Car is 396 feet away. Car traveled 4 feet in x seconds. Average speed over those 4 feet is... In other words, the "science" is exactly like VASCAR. VASCAR becomes a lot more accurate the longer the distance. Use a stopwatch to measure a baseball pitch and yeah, you're going to a wildly inaccurate answer. Use a stopwatch to record how long it takes for a cruise ship to go from Miami to San Juan and you're going to get a pretty fucking accurate average speed. Your dumbass link uses, what, 100ft? Normal VASCAR distances are more like 660. It's a lot more accurate than you give it credit for.