Fine, so administration of a government office is some very modest fraction of the cost. What’s it spent on? Well, salaries, for one. Salaries that people use to pay for cars and dishwashers, education and mortgages, the same as anyone who draws a non-government salary. The administrative charges go to paying rent for government office buildings, or to construction of buildings by the government, both of which immediately turn the money over to private hands. The administrative charges get spent on utilities, office supplies, and myriad other things that any office would require and which are all provided by private or quasi-private for-profit entities. What are you proposing happens with this money? Does someone eat it?
Is the statement I’ve underlined absolutely true, Will ? In another thread, someone wrote (I’m paraphrasing him ;)) that wanting to limit government was like being pregnant – you either were or you weren’t, no middle ground was possible. I was too flabbergasted to respond, but don’t want to miss the opportunity with you.
If the government confiscates 1 cent of your dining dollar and uses it for food safety inspectors, you have less to spend at your restaurant but you might “want” the security of regulated food preparation, and your “living standard” (if that’s defined broadly enough to include salmonella avoidance) might rise.
When the government confiscates money from a rich person – for definiteness, let’s assume it’s money he’d have spent on hookers and blow – and gives it to NPR, money has been reallocated, but is it now clearly allocated less efficiently?
If you answer this at all, are you going to exempt hookers and blow despite that those are “things folks actually wanted to purchase”? Answer the question as you wish, but be aware we are more interested in logic than philosophy.
My thought is that government spending isn’t a drag on the economy or job or wealth creation. Take the Mars mission WillFarnaby mentions. The money spent on that went to scientists, companies to make the rockets and landers, buildings, etc. That money wasn’t sent to Mars and burned.
In your example, you are right that not all the money made it to the homeless, so yes, they have lost out. But the economy has not. That money was spent and it enriched private individuals along the way. Those individuals will now have more than they would have so they can go spend the extra on other private things, along with giving some of it back to the government who will redistribute it again somewhere else. Inefficient? Yes. But it is not lost money. At least as far as I can tell.
I remember a friend of my wife’s who was having unprotected sex with her bf. Surprise! She ended up pregnant. She ended up with government subsidy. I found out her subsidy was as much as I paid in taxes. It ticked me off that I was working full time and a significant portion of my work day was because she and her bf were stupid. She didn’t work which pissed me off even more. But, the money that she was getting wasn’t “wasted” in the sense that it wasn’t helping the economy. It was. And that was my original question. Why are taxes called “lost” money? At the tax rate I was paying, I knew that the next dollar I made I would only get x% of it, but that was still incentive enough for me to try and earn more. And the money I wasn’t getting would help the economy, just maybe not also directly benefiting me.
Plus people seem to be forgetting that government programmes to help people out in times of trouble are in itself a form of insurance for the person paying the taxes in the first place lest they get into any difficulty themselves, by providing a net in which that person can become a contributor again rather than a net drain.
Interest on teh national debt, military/security spending, entitlements like social security, medicare/medicaid and veterans benefits account for almost 90% of the budget. non-securyt/military discretionary spending accounts for less than 11% of the budget. What level of spending do the conservatives think is in the realm of the possible?
When I hear conservatives get on the stump about saving money by cutting funding for big bird or federal employee pay (civilian federal payroll is about $100 billion/year) as a deficit cutting measure, it tells me that the fiscal conservatives have already WON the battle when it comes to discretionary spending.
So where do conservatives want to cut that will lead us to a balanced budget without ANY tax increases?
Democrats used to referred to as “TAX and spend democrats” not deficit spending Democrats.
Some tax cuts are more stimulative than others but tax cuts that reduce top marginal rates do not offer very much stimulus anymore.
When the top marginal rate is 90% and I drop it to 70% I have just tripled your after tax return on your marginal income. There are probably a lot of productive activity you would engage in now taht you wouldn’t before.
When I drop it from 70% to 50%, I just icnreased your after tax returns by 66%. There is probably a lot of stuff that people will do now taht they wouldn’t do before.
When you are talking about the difference btween 35% and 40%, there simply isn’t enough stimulitive juice to make up for the drop in revenue. No serious economist (including economists under Bush Jr) thinks that it would.
Bush Sr. got screwed, I voted for him four times. Twice for VP and twice for POTUS
Dole voted for tax increases several times under Reagan and Clinton. It was what responsible politicians do if there are structural deficits.
Not all tax cuts are equal. Some are more stimulative than others. Reagan’s early tax cuts and Obama’s early tax cuts were much more stimulative that either of the Bush tax cuts or the tax portion of the bush stimulus package. Frankly Obama should have repealed the Bush tax cuts and replaced them with more stimulative tax cuts.
Reagan’s first round of tax cuts were good for the country from almost every perspective. His tax cuts after that became less and less prudent.
Tax cuts are not ideal but it was what he could get through congress. And there is a different economic effect that comes from a broad based tax cut (such as the social security tax holiday versus reducing top marginal rates.
So? Discretionary spending is only 11% of the budget.
They forced him to raise taxes and cut the military?
Tax cuts can create an increase in federal revenue if the tax rates are confiscatory. See example of what happened when top marginal rates were dropped from 90% to 70%. It doesn’t work with historically low tax rates but it does with historically high tax rates. Think what would happen if we raised top marginal tax rates to 90%, no matter how satisfying that would be to some people, it would make me start providing US tax advice from the Caymans.
If the government wants to have food inspectors, let them tax prepared foods. That way the folks that are benefitting from the food inspectors are paying for this luxury.
Taxes should be reformed so that it’s almost like a fee for service. For example, the gas tax is fine. It’s not perfect, but generally speaking with the gas tax, folks that are paying the tax are benefitting from public roads. Property taxes should go to police and fire departments. They protect property, so the folks that own property should pay for them. This is roughly how it is on the local level. Taxes shouldn’t be confiscated from income and given to a certain group because that group has lobbied for government largesse. I find that immoral.
When you say NPR spending is more efficient than hooker spending you are making a value judgement. How can you tell if you are actually fulfilling a need? If the money went to hookers, you would be fulfilling the rich guy’s need for certain. If the money goes to NPR you are assuming there is a need, but since nobody chose to spend their money on NPR programming directly, you can’t be sure.
I think that individuals know best how to fulfill their needs. They may have to make sacrifices that may seem foolish to us, such as forgoing a medical check up for a t bone steak, but i think choices like that are best left to individuals.
What do you consider to be “prepared foods”?
And I must admit I’m chuckling a little at the idea that having food inspected for e. coli, etc., is considered a luxury.
Conservatives like to play to, what they feel, are stupid people who are easily impressed. Claiming that “Job Creators” would give your poor ass a job, if only their taxes weren’t so high, and such. Or that “The government is going to take less of your hard earned dollars.” So YOU have more money, ha ha. Nevermind that Republicans are going to scam you into a war in Iraq, that no one will ever admit
the monetary cost of. That shit just pays for itself, or Obama gets blamed for the debt of it.
“Conservatives”: How much money, in American dollars, did that folly cost? And how many generations of Americans will be paying for it?
(I understand that the REAL costs of that folly are lives, blood and families, but this is strictly concerning dollars, waste, inept spending, and political bullshit.)
Does this mean that since I have no intention of ever visiting Alaska I shouldn’t allow federal dollars to be spent in Alaska on roads and local government? Does this mean FEMA, Medicaid and social security should all be abolished? Should hospitals now be allowed to turn people away? Public education a thing of the past? Police forces now become private security?
OK, Shodan, we’ll end Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and SSI tomorrow. And we’ll stop insuring pensions and bank accounts. We’ll also stop all DoD and DoE purchasing. Granted, my hometown would dry up and blow away without money from the US Navy and NASA, and without Medicare or pensions. But hey, you’re right, it’s technically possible.
Now get people to vote for it.
The employer who isn’t losing productivity from a poisoned worker isn’t benefiting? Plus, inspectors also inspect unprepared foods - meat, vegetables, spinach, and the like.
I’d be willing to give a tax credit to anyone who doesn’t eat anything, though.
So, your feed the homeless program involves the government shoveling money into the hands of anyone who says they are homeless, no questions asked? No controls. I will concede that’s the way the Bushies did it in Iraq.
If you want some level of accountability, if you want to make sure that lots of that money doesn’t find its way into the pockets of the guy who is doing the shoveling, you need a bit of overhead.
Or do you think bank auditors are a waste of money also?
I can just hear IMM:
“I’d get a lab and test all my own food. Wouldn’t you?”
This is a bit of a stretch isn’t it? Who benefits from not being poisoned more, the worker or the employer? If the employer calculates that he benefits from his workers eating tested food, he can pay them a wage that reflects this. Your asking the employer to pay a specific amount for food inspectors when you can’t calculate if that amount is higher or lower than the benefit the employer receives from food inspectors.
.
Do people that earn more money benefit more from food inspectors than the people of Wal-Mart for example? Nope.
You were doing really well until this gaffe. Liberals consistently seem to not get the difference between “giving” and “not taking”. Gore literally lost my vote over that very issue, in the debate with Bush where he said, “You’d be GIVING money to the rich” regarding a TAX CUT. (I didn’t vote for Bush, either.)
If Democrats want to win the moderates, they need to stop making this big mistake. GIVING does not equal NOT TAKING. Repeat that until you’ve absorbed the lesson, if you want to appeal to social liberal fiscal conservatives like me. (Note: Republicans have a lot of work to appeal to fiscal conservatives, as well!)
Right. The counter-argument is that lowering taxes improves the economy enough to compensate and raise more revenues. This is arguable, but far from proven.
Sad but true. Unfortunately, only the Libertarians can make that claim, but that comes with baggage (such as abandoning public education) I can’t abide.
For those of us who are for fiscal responsibility AND social responsibility, there just hasn’t been anyone to vote for.
If taxes need to be raised, they should be raised for everyone. Everyone should have some skin in the game. This would also help avoid the “class warfare” claim.
In the private sector, anyone who gets paid is paid because they provide some type of productive service or produce something of value. In the case of taxes, this redistribution happens without the benefit of the productive service (or so goes the argument). Admittedly, many government functions are essential, and without them there would BE no viable economy (e.g., police and the courts, defense).
I wouldn’t have the federal govt building roads in Alaska or financing their local govts. FEMA, and social security should be abolished. I think Medicaid should be available only to people who can’t afford care on the free market. Hospitals could turn people away that were able to pay, otherwise Medicaid could cover expenses. I have no real problem with public education, but it shouldn’t be touched by the federal govt. I mentioned police could be funded by property taxes.
This is semantical nonsense. Change the word to something that doesn’t offend you, and I’d still be making the same point.
Let’s say I cut your taxes $1. Now I’m letting you keep your money. Let’s say instead I take that original dollar from you, but then I give you back $1 in some sort of tax credit or subsidy. Now I’m giving you money. And yet we’ve transferred the same amount of money between the citizen and the government. But to you, the first one is simply not taking someone’s money, and could never be confused with giving someone money, oh no, that’s worth going to ideological war over. You’re flipping out over something that’s almost a non-distinction.
Besides, when I say that historically low tax rates are a gift to the rich, I don’t mean that in the literal sense that the cash is a gift. I mean it in the figurative sense that their lowered tax rates aren’t because they make good public policy or because they’re somehow less responsible for their burden of financing society, they’re simply enacted by sympathetic and corrupt politicians as a way to increase the personal wealth of the wealthiest.
The idea that we’re running historically low tax rates at a time of all time high deficits is absolutely insane.
[/QUOTE]
The Laffer Curve is nowhere near where we are now. The fiction that the rich will work if they have to pay 19% overall taxes (including deductions etc, that’s the average) but if we raise those to 22% then fuck it, I’m just gonna go ahead and work at a starbucks instead so I get in a lower tax bracket because I’m being oppressed is fucking ridiculous. The Bush tax cuts decreased tax revenue relative to what would’ve happened without them just like any fucking sane person could’ve predicted.
News flash: Boehner just refused to consider any tax hikes as we approach the “fiscal cliff”. Looks like the Republican party realized their days are numbered anyway, so they might as well go down in flames quickly rather than die off slowly.
Where is the money for Medicaid going to come from in this scenario? I have no desire to pay for someone else’s hip replacement surgery, nor for their high blood pressure, cholesterol, and ED meds. As for schools, what if I don’t place an value in a free public education for everyone and instead want to take my family on a trip to Disney every year? Shouldn’t I be free to make that choice? Who in their right mind is doing to pay for their own insurance if, as you are advocating, Medicaid will pick up the tab if I can’t afford to pay? I might as well spend all my money on home entertainment systems and vacations if the government is going to be there to cover me if I get sick.
Even if you try to foist the responsibility for roads onto local governments, where will the local government get the money?
Same thing with police. It would probably be cheaper for me to buy a gun and a good home security system than it would be to pay the police, whose services I have never needed. Why should I have to pay property taxes (which, by the way, are being used for education around here, so you’ll need to find another way to fund the police if you think we still need public education or you’ll need to raise my taxes.. which you seem dead set against) if I don’t see the value in the services they are being used for?
“Conservatives”: ? … Nothing? (“That Folly” = War In Iraq)
So, fiscally “conservative” claimer , please admit the cost.
Of course George Bush, Rumsfeld, and the rest made sure that shit was paid for before they left office, right? Otherwise would have been to handcuff the next guy, before he even started, and no god fearing, lapel pin wearing charlatan would stoop so low.