more on the tax idea

the more i think about it, the more i think that designing the curve so that it is sufficiently progressive to ramp up the right way while being sufficiently generous to benefit recipients will lead to a massive revenue shortage as tax dollars get converted to benefit dollars and bleed the place dry.

i tried to think about the current system and what its 'curve' would look like, and i think it would do almost exactly the wrong thing at a number of points.

in particular, the transition from a benefit to income (the way tax and withdrawal of benefits while you're working your way off a benefit) would look a little bit like this:


this is the whole problem in a nutshell. there's a bloody sharp rise in the curve (the tax rates there are a bastard) to keep the welfare system generous (to the few with no income at all) but withdraw quickly enough to not cost the state a shitload.

designing a system so that you can be both generous and cheap unsurprisingly works about as well as showing up to a party at the Kennedy compound with an assault rifle- you don't get very far.

this is irking me... i hate the notion of massive EMTR's but i'm not a great fan of slugging the state with an unpayable bill or cutting welfare payments back to the utmost frugality.

what to do, what to do...

[NOTE: i realise of course that this is all idle thinking as i can't actually apply any of these ideas, but it's an interesting quandary nevertheless.]