How does that present an “ethical dilemma”?
The ethical dilemma is having higher taxes for the the extremely wealthy.
One could argue that it is unethical to take more from them. Or that it is unethical to take a higher percentage. Or that a given percentage is above the ethical maximum.
Most people see that as a dilemma. Anyone would agree that if there was no benefit or need, then we shouldn’t do it. So, at some point, you have to judge if the benefit or need makes it worth it.
One could argue, but until one does argue I see no reason to devote attention to this point.
To the contrary, I would argue* that there are many obvious ways in which the very existence of a superrich class is destructive of the civic health of a democracy (or republic, whatever), and taxing away the very largest fortunes might be an urgently important thing to do even if the government has no particular use for the money (which it does – it always does).
*But such arguments would belong in a separate thread.
Almost everyone in American politics, & indeed, almost everyone in America, is deluded, seeing only a fantasy world. Not only will our debts come home to roost, but our massive wealth production, which we expect to get us out, is physically unsustainable. Our topsoil & fisheries are both nearly tapped out.
It’s funny. People really are just the same as the legendary Dutch tulip speculators.
Sure; there was a massive jump in revenues due primarily to an economic boom, fuelled by the tech bubble.
Under Bill Clinton, the U.S. federal government raised spending every single year. 1993 to 2000, eight straight years of spending increases.
So far under George Bush 2.0, spending increases every year.
But this is nothing new. Under Bush 1.0, spending increases every year.
Under Reagan? Spending increases every year.
Under Carter? Spending increases every year.
Under Ford? Okay, he didn’t last long, but guess what?
Nixon? Spending increases every year.
The last time the United States federal government spend less money than they had the year before was in 1965, under Johnson - and that was the one time he did it. Spending has gone up FORTY YEARS IN A ROW. The truth is that it simply may be that the United States federal government is systematically incapable of controlling spending.
Sam, I do have to take issue with two of your comments:
So you recently switched citizenship?
Looking at your own cite, there is no reason to believe this is true.
I hate it when I do that.
Perhaps… But Democrats have always been the part of Big Government, at least the party that admts they are. Republicans like to talk about smaller government, but once they’re in power they never, ever do anything about it. Maybe the Democrats are the reverse. Maybe they just talk about big government programs but once they get into power they govern as fiscal conservatives. I have my doubts.
As an aside, and I apologize for the tangent, but I wanted to say that I am impressed that you are expressing your doubts. I don’t mean to sound patronizing, I simply appreciate your tone here far more than that I have come to associate with you.
Well, if you go back far enough the positions are flipped. Democrats spent a lot of time in the 1800s as the ‘conservative’ party, remember.
Just a historical point.
As for what the hell we do? Damfino. Any party willing to make large enough spending cuts (to entitlements, mainly) to zero out the deficit will only guarantee a devastating loss in future elections. I see no political means around this.
This leads to either a radical de-valuation of the currency of the possibility of the dissolution of the union. Call me crazy…but suppose California decided it could go back to zero by declaring independence and walking away from the ‘US Spending Problems’. Or New York. Or Texas. Or Florida. I can almost guarantee that some governors will be sorely tempted in the years ahead. And if the federal government is in severe enough financial straits it won’t have the ability to bring them back.
My (understandly optimistic) solution to the current problem:
- Means test all federal entitlements (There, I just lost re-election.)
- Raise taxes by all available means while controlling spending. Eliminate ‘baselining’ from the federal budget process.
- ‘Sunset’ all federal spending every 5 or 10 years requiring a positive act of congress (and Presidential signature) to re-authorize each program in turn.
- Make all spending and revenue ‘on budget’.
- Encourage divided government at all levels down to county and municipal.
- Not a Balanced Budget Amendment, per se. But require a supermajority for deficit spending. Have that Supermajority grow for successive deficit budgets.
- Institute mandatory, open-ended Press Q&A monthly for both the President and leaders of Congress. I love that the brits do these.
- Require the President to appear before a joint session of congress every month or so to answer questions. Anything that puts them on the ‘accountability’ hotseat is a gain for democracy.
Alternately, let’s all bail out and head for some nice other country where our skills will still be valued.
Right there with you on that one. No other choice. Wait until Medicare comes a’ knocking. The double whammy of Medicare and SS shortfalls is going to require massive tax hikes just to maintain the status quo unless something fundamental is changed.
Disagree. However, how about this: If there is a deficit, then whenever taxes are raised, there must be an offsetting number of spending cuts, to ensure that the tax increases are used to pay down the debt. You want to increase money to government programs? Fine, wait until your fiscal house is in order.
Not a bad idea. I would add federal regulations to that - a huge, unseen tax. There are still regulations on the books from the 1800’s that have zero applicability to today’s life. Even better, how about we mandate a reduction in the overall number of regulations, or at least freeze them at today’s level. You want to add a new regulation to the books? Fine, dig for an offsetting one you’re willing to cancel.
Yep. If Enron’s management can get thrown in the slammer for playing games with accounting, why can the federal government get away with it?
I don’t know how you ‘encourage’ divided government. The people will pick who they want. What you can do is change the rules to make it harder for government’s to do things unless they have a supermajority.
Another reasonable idea. Why not couple it with a balanced budget amendment? The government must balance the budget, and the only way around it is to get a supermajority or even a 3/4 majority to agree.
This will probably have little effect, however. Being addicted to spending crosses party lines. In fact, such a rule might even increase the amount of pork as politicians begin horsetrading like crazy to get their pet spending programs passed.
Ah, question period. Good idea. Let’s go even one better and set up a system whereby citizens can ask questions directly of politicians. Perhaps the internet could be used as a filter, with questions being submitted in an online forum and the weeks’ best questions as voted on by the online community must be answered by politicians. That would not only create better government, it would be a hoot.
Uh, I suspect that this would just be reduced to abject demagoguery that no one would take seriously after a time. We could use a little less partisanship, and this would create more of it.
Albertastan is nice this time of year…
Too damn cold for me. I was thinking of setting up a ‘Costa Rica’ magazine and working that angle. A nice little hacienda…some servants…
On the ‘raising taxes’ issue…two things:
-
It is clear to me that we will NEVER set things to rights without tax increases of some sort. And I most specifically don’t mean the half-assed transferring of costs to the states. If the feds want a program they should be prepared to pay for it and the numbers should be done honestly. None of this ‘will save $100,000,000,000 over 57 years’ nonsense. What’s the impact right now. Spare me the rest. Conditions change too fast for long-term projections.
-
Note my comment about ‘baselining’. For those not in the know…baselining is the concept that all programs go up each year by a set amount…the rate of inflation. So if inflation is 5% (to make the math easy) and a program costs $1,000,000,000 in year one then the DEFAULT budget for that program the following years is
$1,000,000,000
$1,050,000,000
$1,102,500,000
$1,157,625,000
$1,215,506,250
$1,276,281,563
$1,340,095,641
$1,407,100,423
$1,477,455,444
$1,551,328,216
Without it being considered an increase. Therefore in 10 years the program has increased cost 50%+ without appearing as an increase in the budget.
I hate that. Budget items remain the same unless clearly in need and approved openly.
What’s more, the gov’t also has a fudge factor for expected growth of a program that gets tossed into the mix every year. So you have that automatic 5% increase for inflation, plus perhaps another 5% for the expected increase in use.
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_Baseline_Budgeting
JC: *Note my comment about ‘baselining’. For those not in the know…baselining is the concept that all programs go up each year by a set amount…the rate of inflation. So if inflation is 5% […] Therefore in 10 years the program has increased cost 50%+ without appearing as an increase in the budget.
I hate that. *
Why? It seems perfectly reasonable to me, although I agree with several of your other points. The rate of inflation is just an estimate of how much the general cost of living is increasing. In real terms, a constant dollar amount in an economy with a positive rate of inflation is effectively being cut. An amount that is “baselined” to increase along with inflation is effectively staying the same.
Why shouldn’t the cost of a government program increase 50% over a period of ten years with a 5% inflation rate, since over the same ten years the cost of other things has increased 50% too? Would you be willing to take a job with no cost-of-living pay increases for ten years? No, right? Then why should you expect a government program to continue doing the same work for steadily decreasing amounts of money in real terms, when you wouldn’t be willing to do the same?
I’m all in favor of reducing waste and trimming fat out of government budgets and all that. And I can see the advantages in more frequently scrutinizing government programs in order to reduce or cancel them if they become less necessary or less effective. (Of course, then you have to pay for more bureaucracy to perform the more frequent evaluations, but that’s how it goes.)
But burdening government programs with the requirement that they have to work with constant, non-inflation-adjusted funding over long periods of time—in real terms, requiring them to do the same work with continually less money—is absurd, ISTM. If you tried to hire a private contractor to do the same work on the same terms, you can bet they wouldn’t sit still for it.
(In preview: On the other hand, the “expected program growth” increases above the rate of inflation that Uncle Beer mentioned do sound pretty porky. If a program is expected to grow over time for justifiable reasons, then that should be specifically planned and budgeted for. Otherwise, the program should be expected to carry out its tasks for the same amount of money, in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) terms.)
Are you suggesting we decriminalize pork?