If you're talking about just not paying federal taxes, then sure you can scratch the police part. But schools + roads get a lot of federal funding and still same thing stands for military. But before the United States had a federal system? You mean the brief period in between breaking free from the UK and before the…

Actually I think it's just the numbers come from servers (which shows they're doing pretty well despite the sob stories that even the low end of tippers generally leave 15%. This suggests that truly low tips are probably for poor service that didn't deserve it.

If everyone else is getting standard tips, and just that server is getting nothing then..they probably are poor servers. This sort of thing doesn't depend on one off night (the way the minimum wage top off works is per pay period. So it would have to be a whole 2 weeks at the minimum of the vast majority of customers…

Well generally speaking, education spending does have a very high return on investment, so yes it should result in extra economic output. I don't think the economy was doing so hot back in the middle ages when there weren't any public schools right?

Yes - if she's surly or rude that's her fault. Part of her job is to make the dining experience pleasant (And no, it's not to bring you food, the whole point of restaurants is to provide a dining-out experience. That's why the tip is substantially lower when it's take out - the tip is for the additional services of…

It's a divisive issue and guarantees a bunch of comments and pageviews

For the time that there was no power - yes. I don't think they would even charge you for it.

Only if you want to forgo all use of roads, the legal system, police, any other public services, pay back the cost of your education(adjusted for inflation and the standard interest rate that would be given to unsubsidized student loans), agree to not hire any employees or do any business with any us citizen without…

Well actually 2-3% revenue from just one single change in the tax code and one source is pretty massive. That's double the amount to cover the social security shortfall for example. Or 0.0004% of the amount IRS is paying to stay on XP, which everyone is making such a huge ruckus about.

Yep - and if you put less than the amount needed to service the interest on the debt, the united states would just go into more debt borrowing to service it.

Well first off you're ensuring only the top 1% can be elected officials, even most upper-middle class people don't have the savings to let them work for 4-8 years without getting paid. Also, CIA/DHS/NSA arguably have an even bigger defense role nowadays than the military. Unless you plan on having the military just…

If they actually just let people allocate funds to what they think is correct, it might actually work. Especially since the more liberal states tend to be richest and provide more tax revenues than the red states. Some areas that get overlooked, like say scientific research may get overlooked by a lot of people - but…

You know what, $10,000 isn't that much - especially if you compare how much tuition costs compared with other countries that have subsidized education. If 10k can buy quality affordable education for every student, that's definitely worth it.

To be fair, chicken feet and wings are still chicken meat - no reason they'd be considered different from meet from any other part of a chicken. It's the other stuff that's worrying - but tbh, with the impossibly low funding of school lunches it's no wonder that they have to stretch the dollar with soy protein.

This was a reply to a post from a very long time ago. But I think you missed the main thrust of my post. My entire post was saying how I didn't think it was like stealing, but more like trespassing. Both the joyriding and couch crashing examples I used, I assumed that noone else was going to be renting your couch -…

Mm, well that's tradition for you. I mean, either you're in the group of people who thinks weddings are a very important life moment worth going all out for, or you're not and think it's going to court and signing a bunch of legal documents. In that regard - most weddings that aren't just signing up in a court house…

I think that falls in the "not make the customer wait if we could avoid it category". Why didn't you just say it was on hold for someone who was coming right back, but you'll have a new one out in 15 minutes.

I'm not. I understand the overburdening the environment is a serious issue, and I favour policies to reduce human impact through energy efficiency, policies etc. But all things equal I think that it's better to have children in a society that is wealthy enough to foster them, than in societies that are too poor to.

Mm I guess it depends on your point of view then. If it is purely about minimizing environmental impact, then yes limiting all births is best. (and also preventing any thirdworld countries from developing too). I think it's important for global population to live within sustainable limits, but the real decision is…

Actually I think it's more selfless to have a child in a first world country - where there are adequate resources to raise and support a child and low birth rates are causing population problems (esp. if you are in Japan/Europe) . If anything, it is more selfish to have a child in a third world country, where there…