Yeah, we’ve gotten no value out of money spent on public education including all the breakthroughs made at public universities, the interstate highway system, public libraries, cleaner air and water, decades long research without immediate payoff that’s created the Internet and computer science, the cures and pharmaceuticals developed National Institutes of health, the CDC, the world’s largest military, national parks and forests, Social Security, unemployment insurance, FEMA (when it’s worked in the past), the Fed, the SEC, FDIC, our courts and Justice Dept., social programs that have given the poor some equal opportunities, a space program that’s put satellites into orbit for communications, weather observation, etc., a democracy that has existed for 200 + years and has been a model for many of those that have followed…
So much wasted value…gimme a break. What other nations then do you cite as getting better bounce for their tax revenues, may I ask? Yes, there will always be a need for vigilance to cut back on waste, but don’t forget that soooooooooo much of it is kicked back to pockets in the public sector, usually far more than what a bureaucrat sees.
At the same time taxes like medicare or social security probably inhibit business investment since businesses have to pay 6.2% and 1.45% for their employees.
While Bandit’s view can be seen as a bit simplistic, it is not without merit. The type of waste he is talking about is when the government spends on something that isn’t or can be viewed as infrastructure (which is everything you cited Snag, except maybe for education). Whenever the government enters the public sector these things typically happen: a) government doesn’t try too hard to look for the best price; b) always pays it bills regardless of quality or work; and, c) doesn’t know in a timely manner when it longer needs a service/good. In the long run, this leads to government produced inflation, the kind of inflation experienced during the Carter administation.
I’m reminded of a breakthrough moment I had in college. I was talking to a friend. Like a lot of geeks, I think NASA is really cool, but we’ve spent trillions on NASA over the years and we don’t really seem to have gotten anything back from our investment…
He replied “you mean like the semiconductor industry?”
Sometimes you need to look beyond one inefficient beaurocrat (says a corporate employee hanging on the 'net right now - yeah, corporations are perfectly efficient) and look toward the really big picture - including the consequences that aren’t obvious.
[While I’m posting, I should correct myself again: When government enters the private sector… :smack: ]
Well, this is what we were taught in my econ classes of yore (again, IANAE). However, do note that like regular schmoes, corporations can and often do enter bankruptcy, so there will eventually be an end to their inefficient/wasteful spending. The US government will not, or at least, will have an extremely difficult time doing so.
Because I believe both that the government serves some essential functions and I believe in fiscal responsibility. That is, I believe taxes should be non-zero to pay for essential activities, but that they should be as low as possible.
I oppose the Bush tax cuts because primarily, while I moderately agree that they help things (in the short-term, at least), I think the government needs to balance the budget. Less importantly, I don’t think there was a real need to stimulate growth at all. If you take away manifacturing jobs, the rest of the job market looks fairly healthy. This goes way off-topic, but I really feel that a lot of manifacturers just used 9/11 as an excuse to lay people off and move to Mexico. And finally, I recognize that not all tax cuts are the same; that is, some encourage investment (for example, by cutting a capital gains tax) while some others probably do not (for example, by lowering personal income tax for the wealthy).
I don’t disagree that these things can and do happen. Some of these problems can be ammended through legislation, others require scrutiny by both the legislative and executive branches of government to get them under control. Perhaps it is time to demand the outlawing of no-contract bids and the like. Or stiffer penalties, even banishment from office for those that abuse the system.
Most of all, I think that we the people are the government, and that it is important for fiscal watchdogs to alert us to such problems and it is our duty to insist on the necessary fixes. And who watches the watchdogs? Again, it is the public’s duty to do so. We have to hold their accounting accountable.
Often little is done about such waste between election cycles, so that when people get fed up they throw out one group and bring in another which is not usually a long term solution to the problem. We need to put people in office that tend more towards being public servants, rather than serving their own lust for power.
In the short run yes, however it may help on the other end as those taxes allow people to continue spending. Most people’s SS tax is used for suplimentary spending in retirement. And as disabiilty insurance, or in providing medical care to keep people alive, those taxes can allow som additional purchases by customers.
Actually,there are plans towards a national health insurance program to specifically reduce the costs that health care burdens business with. If they paid a little more in taxes but nothing to insurance providers, it could free up a lot of capital. Adding 45 million more people to the insurance rolls would be a strong bargaining chip for bringing rates down. They’re not going to all get sick at once. In fact, they may stay healther longer. We could also have cheaper drugs if medicare could use it’s bargaining power. And we could put into place regulations to streamline the wasteful insurance process that buries everyone in needless paperwork thus saving hundreds of billions over decades.
Lastly, if we reinvested some money away from, say, nuclear proliferation towards multilateral reduction of such weapons worldwide so as to reduce our expenditures on them, we might free up money that has been off limits since the cold war that goes into a black hole, paying for something that we hope we never use. Likewise, there are also tens or hundreds of billions spent on some super secret black-box defense programs that are accountable only to a few people in the nation. Cull the ones that aren’t bearing fruit.
But gee, no spending cuts there being suggested on that stuff, are there? As if cutting food stamps will make an impact.
Sure, but if you start talking about the government outsourcing functions (often where some of these arguements end up - though here we are just talking "can’t pay for an education, can’t have one) because “corporations do it more efficiently” you’ve jimmied market forces by handing out government contracts. I think the definition of “graft” and “slush” is where government and corporations intersect.