8/26    How many poeple here would find the following tax system to be
        acceptable:
        A flat income tax of 15 % is paid by everyone, *but* it's based on
        your first job right out of college, and stays fixed even as your
        income increases.  So if you work at walmart for a year and then
        go into investment banking, you're still taxed at the flat 15%
        rate based on your walmart salary, while the guy who got the ibanking
        job right out of college pays six times what you do in taxes.
        Imagine also that everyone who moves into the state starts at the
        rate of their first california job.  Hence when an out of stater
        takes a job, they might pay four times what their co-workers pay,
        since the co-workers are paying based on happening to have a low
        paying job 15 years ago when they graduated college in California.
        Sound fair?
        Or does it sound like a perverse nightmare that would fuck up the whole
        labor market for the state and totally distort the tax base?
        \_ I didn't think the current tax system could be any more broken
           than it already is.  I was wrong.
        \_ I'm guessing this was intended as a Prop. 13 analogy.
           \_ Yes. I wanted to see if any of the pro-prop 13 crowd would be
              willing to defend the same system applied to fucking up the
              labor market as they're using to fuck up the real estate market.
              \_ Then get a real analogy.  Yours is silly.
           \_ Hm, I guess.  It's a poor analogy since a job != a house.  I
              can get a crummy job for a day and then get a high paying one.
              If I get a crummy house, I pay less property taxes.  If I get an
              expensive house, I pay more.  The analogy falls over at step 1.
              \_ It continues to be poor: changing income tax rates don't
                 screw over retired people on a fixed income.
        \_ When I graduate, I'll make sure I tell Google or whomever to
           postpone my start date by a month, so that I'll have time to take up
           a job at Walmart for a few weeks.
        \_ How do idiots like this get into Cal? Is it really that easy?
        \_ broken analogy.  When/if I buy a new home, I pay new taxes.