The government through hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy, so it shouldn’t be too much of surprise that some of the money found it’s way into increased employment, at least temporarily. Your cite does not begin to prove that spending on infrastructure jobs has resulted in permanent private sector employment increases, which is what you were claiming.
As evidenced by the loss of 8 million jobsduring the most recent recession, there is no such thing as a permanent private sector job, so please stop holding that up as some sort of credible standard for the success of the stimulus.
That makes no sense. If things don’t last forever with no upkeep, you can hardly call them PERFECT, can you?
Uh, the stimulus money is spent. If the increase to employment were only the stimulus jobs, they’d be gone now. But employment is increasing.
And the cite talks about private sector job increases.
(bolding mine)
You have made the obvious argument in favour federal taxes in which all the other 49 states contribute in some form or another.
The OP asks specifically if the government should levy a tax only on the residents of Wyoming, to only fund infrastructure projects in Mississippi.
It should be obvious to anyone with a US road map that interstate development in Mississippi would would benefit Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado before Wyoming. Which would be an argument for taxing them in addition to Wyoming.
It’s funny that you brought up Manitoba, which shows a funny misconception about how places are economically linked. If anyone has a vested interest in the well being of the US economy it’s Canadians. If infrastructure development in Mississippi has that big a multiplier your argument should then include Canadians AS WELL AS Wyomans. Wyomites?
How do you take that rationalization and limit it to specifically people in Wyoming?
If that is true, then all states should contribute, not just Wyoming. How do you justify NOT taxing all the other states that more directly benefit?
Again, a good argument for states helping Mississippi, but not an argument that singles out Wyoming. Right now, Wyoming is in a good place to help out all other 49 states. Increasing their tax burden weakens that position until the infrastructure work actually pays off. It seems by this logic the other 48 have a vested interest in keeping Wyoming strong.
If you need to climb into a box to simply things for you I’ll happily do so. But no, I hadn’t considered this as an analogy to Germans vs Greeks. This situation is much similar to the Transfer Payment system in Canada that redistributes wealth from the Have Provinces to the Have-nots.
Well, I farted two years ago, so that must have caused the employment rate to increase.
You have not shown a causal relationship between infrastructure spending, demand, and employment.
Well that’s retarded. I gave you the benefit of the doubt.
Yes Canada and the United states do have an interest in working together, but they don’t share a government with which to enforce that. Further differing ideals about the order of things, and histories would make something like that unlikely, and not desired.
Also honestly, as the lumber terrifs incident showed, Americans can’t always be counted on for honest dealings with Canada.
Strawman.
“Investment is bad. It weakens your position until it pays off.”
Can I buy you a burrito?
Well, I’m not an economist. The cite with the nine different looks at the stimulus seem to suggest that it improved employment and GDP growth.
Of course they should. They should also give subsidies to farmers and the down-on-their-luck white crankheads in the solid, God-fearing Midwest. Sparing a few billion for infrastructure or welfare for brown people in the wrong-headed liberal California and New York is right out.
Certainly not. Everyone should pay for themselves. No reason on earth that I should have to pay for roads in Idaho, which I’ll never use. Or for border patrols in Arizona. Or for the FDA to test pregnancy-related medications, I’m male and so will never need them. And for that matter, I bet a lot of my taxes go to pay military stationed in Texas, thus supporting the infrastructure there: I want my money back. We need a fair tax system, that apportions every tax dollar so that each person only needs to pay for the services that they use. All this nonsense about paying for a police department, for instance, that I’ve never used: socialism, that’s what it is, socialism.
This is a ridiculous and inaccurate characterization of the case against. If you really don’t understand the difference between the federal government paying for a road in Idaho and the federal government paying for the military, then you probably are a socialist.
I must be a socialist then. Have you ever been on I80 going thru Il? All those massive trucks going thru the state on their way from the east coast to the west and vice versa. Do you really think that Il should pay for I80 maintenance all on it’s own?
One thing to keep in mind in a federalist system like the US, is that when you federalize something historically done by the states, you are more likely to get the lowest common denominator for everyone rather than bringing the states with lower standards up to those with higher ones. If you’re lucky, you’ll get regression towards the mean, but that still means the best managed states will slip backwards. It is extremely naive to think that all the states will be brought up to the standards of the best.
This sounds like wishful thinking on your part. It certainly doesn’t apply to the construction and maintenance of Interstate and U.S. highways.
The interstate highways were always a federal program, never “historically done by the states”, so there is no reference in the manner I was referring to. If you federalize the maintenance of Main street, the average Main Street will not be like best Main Street, but the best Main Street will being looking like the average Main Street. We already agreed on that issue.
In fact, we didn’t. What gave you that impression? Highway construction has historically been performed by the states. Federal involvement and funding has only improved things.
Interstate highway construction is 90% funded by the federal government, but is contracted out by the states. It is the same with U.S. highways, only with less in the way of federal funds. I’ve been everywhere, man, I know how much highways have improved with federal involvement.
Federal highways tend to run down main streets around here. Sturgis, Michigan had a beautification project of their main street.
They dug it up, and the project hit a brick wall. US 12 (also known as Old Chicago Road) runs through the down town area, and the town never cleared it with the highway department. The project came to a halt while the highway department showed up and they figured out how to proceed.
In fact we didn’t what? I don’t understand what you are saying in your first paragraph.
As for your second paragraph, that’s exactly what I’m saying. There never was a state funded interstate highway system.
Are you honestly going to tell me that you think if we federalized the entire road system of the country that the quality of roads in the best states is not going to go down? That all the states will be brought up to the level of the best states? If you actually believe that, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree, because you probably think we could do that with schools, too, and I don’t want Mississippi to have one ounce of influence over what the schools in California teach or how we teach it.
I agree.
No, it’s a very simple question, and the one posed in the OP.
I asked if there was a way to justify levying a tax on residents in Wyoming, that would be used to fund infrastructure projects in Mississippi. You had a very good argument for a federal tax used to fund federal projects–a point not in disagreement.
But as C K Dexter Haven sarcasm shows, when the issue of taxation comes up, few people are able to effectively separate who benefits and who pays. Your posts specifically highlight how easy it is to rationalize a way in which Wyoming benefits enough. GreasyJack’s post highlights how easy it is to demonize the group you want to tax.
I was under the impression schools receive some federal funding, even if not. I don’t think this is an either/or thing. Some national strength combined with local flavor. Setting text books probably isn’t something you’d want Texas to do for California, but Texas and California money is equally green.
Also there’s certain things the federal government does regulate, even in local schools. For example schools can’t violate Constitutional rights, and desegregation was a federally enforced program.