If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
Do you really think this is the case? What I see is a lot of people saying: "Don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't raise my taxes, and balance the budget." Which is sort of a ridiculous position to take. Even if we're allowed to touch defense (which a lot of people don't want either) that's not enough room to maneuver. Hell a strikingly large percentage of Americans don't even seem to realize that Medicare and Social Security are tied to the federal government and the debt. Remember back during the health care debate when the nice old lady stood up to President Obama to say something along the lines of "I hate socialized medicine and don't touch my Medicare?"
I don't think people are stupid, but much like with technology they often lack the bandwidth in their daily lives to learn as much about politics as they probably should. People want more responsible government, and smaller government until they see how it's going to affect them personally. Everyone's happy with the idea that we should cut "stuff" out of the budget, but when the "stuff" gets personalized to "My Medicare", "My defense industry job", "My road project in my town" or whatever the happy starts to wane. Then you start hearing the "Well don't cut stuff like that, cut stuff like funding for research on the affects of cow methane on the local owl population (or pick your ridiculous government project of choice)" crowd starts up; blithely ignoring that fact that a) some of that research actually is valuable, just not in obvious ways, and b) it represents a really small portion of the federal budget.
We have among the lowest taxes in the developed world in this country, and we have the infrastructure to prove it. I'm not saying we should move to the European model of 40% taxes (yes, I pulled this number out of my butt, your European taxes may be higher or lower than this figure), but we can easily balance the budget with some prudent and moderate cuts to spending, along with very modest tax increases to say, where they were just 10 years ago. I know that real "small government" people like you probably understand the cuts that would be needed for true "small government", I'm not saying that you don't full understand your position. I'm saying that if most people truly understood what it meant to cut government this way, far fewer of them would support the idea.
The "lowest taxes in the developed world" isn't quite true when you take into account state and local taxes.
However, I would say that the real problems are in the "My road project in my town" group. While the states have broad powers to tax, for some reason the argument has stuck that only the federal government can come up with the money for certain things. The federal government should not be funding the states, and any such funding should be cut. The states should administer their own taxes. When the states have more power, state elections will be even more contested, and better representation will result.
Social Security should probably be in the federal realm, since plenty of people move after retiring (and thus there's an imbalance of retirees). Medicare/Medicaid is already 50% funded by the states. If individual states really need help with Medicare costs then we can implement a "transfer" similar to the system used in Canada.
Defense spending certainly does need to be cut. Britain ruled half the world with 125,000 troops. We've got 1.4 million active troops. However, the time would be best spent finding a few large defense projects that can be cut for quick savings, and leaving the rest to an independent committee.
The Social Security wage base should be removed, so that it applies to all wages, not just the first $100K.
My bet is that if all that was done, overall taxes would still go up, but federal taxes might actually go down. Some laws would also change, without the threat of losing federal funding, states might be less willing to implement federal programs (e.g. drinking age at 21, abstinence-only education, etc.)
Federal road tax shouldn't exist either. There are very few federal roads, even the interstates are maintained by the states. They can fund that themselves.
Direct Payment and Grants to the states total $2 trillion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_spending_by_state.php?year=2010&chart=Z0&units=b&rank=t
There are very few federal roads, even the interstates are maintained by the states. They can fund that themselves.
Part of the goal for the Interstate Highway System was to support land transportation for national defense. National defense shouldn't be something farmed out to the states.
It's not so much that people believe only the Federal Government can come up with the money for certain things as it is a subtle redistribution of wealth to make sure that low population states don't turn into bankrupt republics. Sure, if federal grants went away and the states had to fend for themselves, places like New York or California would just up the state tax rate by a few percent (after much political wrangling, no doubt) and be fine. Most people in those states would probably see little or no di
"Sure, if federal grants went away and the states had to fend for themselves, places like New York or California would just up the state tax rate by a few percent (after much political wrangling, no doubt) and be fine. Most people in those states would probably see little or no difference in their overall (state and federal combined) tax burdens, some might even see it lower. Places like Montana and Alaska would have a serious problem. "
Well, the ones that get more from the feds than they pay are mostly pla
Even if the practical stumbling blocks DrgnDancer pointed out could be overcome, there is still a very large political barrier. The highway system is a perfect example. You ever wonder why the drinking age in every single state is 21? B/c the Federal government came in years ago and said "You want funds for your highways? Drinking age needs to be 21". Giving states money is how the Federal government affects policies that they technically have no say in. They have no desire to reduce that influence by
I agree with both of you. By the way, I generally consider myself left of center, but I'm in Upstate New York. Basically, rather than cutting services wholesale I'd like New York to have a choice of keeping the services it wants, and keeping more of the tax money. Currently the federal government receives far more in taxes from NY than is spent here. If the federal government cut services and forced states to pick up the slack, NY could probably do it. Eventually federal taxes would go down as the debt cris
I agree with you in principle, but again must point out some practicalities. The reason it would expensive to live in some states is because they have low populations to begin with. Force people out with unreasonable tax burdens and those places will become truly abandoned. This is a) bad for our international image ("Yeah, we used to have 50 states, but after they abandoned Montana and Alaska we couldn't figure out a way to tax the bears") b) a potentially serious issue for agriculture. Remember that t
>>We have among the lowest taxes in the developed world in this country, and we have the infrastructure to prove it.
Infrastructure spending is a very small percentage of our budget. All of our transportation funding hovers around 2% or so. (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/)
The top rate is meaningless, particularly without mentioning what it actually applies to - what are the exemptions, what are the lower rates, what levels do they kick in, are they counting the "employer's side" of payroll taxes, etc. The meaningful number is what is the actual percent paid of profits. And even that can be gamed by adjusting executive salaries, perks, offshore entities, depreciation scams, etc. US corporations pay very little tax.
For 2009, for instance (latest available) the total federal co
Unless you're talking about capital gains tax being set lower than the normal income tax level, but there's a reason for that. You may disagree with the reason (it encourages investment-making which leads to growth), but it's not a tax-break per se. When Warren Buffet talks about paying less in taxes than his secretary, he's talking about 1) Percentages, not absolute amounts (which are quite high), and 2) The fact that he's p
The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the
expense of it.
-- Josh Billings
Well ... (Score:5, Funny)
Easy enough (Score:0, Insightful)
If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
Too bad government isn't voluntary, or t
Re:Easy enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you really think this is the case? What I see is a lot of people saying: "Don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't raise my taxes, and balance the budget." Which is sort of a ridiculous position to take. Even if we're allowed to touch defense (which a lot of people don't want either) that's not enough room to maneuver. Hell a strikingly large percentage of Americans don't even seem to realize that Medicare and Social Security are tied to the federal government and the debt. Remember back during the health care debate when the nice old lady stood up to President Obama to say something along the lines of "I hate socialized medicine and don't touch my Medicare?"
I don't think people are stupid, but much like with technology they often lack the bandwidth in their daily lives to learn as much about politics as they probably should. People want more responsible government, and smaller government until they see how it's going to affect them personally. Everyone's happy with the idea that we should cut "stuff" out of the budget, but when the "stuff" gets personalized to "My Medicare", "My defense industry job", "My road project in my town" or whatever the happy starts to wane. Then you start hearing the "Well don't cut stuff like that, cut stuff like funding for research on the affects of cow methane on the local owl population (or pick your ridiculous government project of choice)" crowd starts up; blithely ignoring that fact that a) some of that research actually is valuable, just not in obvious ways, and b) it represents a really small portion of the federal budget.
We have among the lowest taxes in the developed world in this country, and we have the infrastructure to prove it. I'm not saying we should move to the European model of 40% taxes (yes, I pulled this number out of my butt, your European taxes may be higher or lower than this figure), but we can easily balance the budget with some prudent and moderate cuts to spending, along with very modest tax increases to say, where they were just 10 years ago. I know that real "small government" people like you probably understand the cuts that would be needed for true "small government", I'm not saying that you don't full understand your position. I'm saying that if most people truly understood what it meant to cut government this way, far fewer of them would support the idea.
Re:Easy enough (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I would say that the real problems are in the "My road project in my town" group. While the states have broad powers to tax, for some reason the argument has stuck that only the federal government can come up with the money for certain things. The federal government should not be funding the states, and any such funding should be cut. The states should administer their own taxes. When the states have more power, state elections will be even more contested, and better representation will result.
Social Security should probably be in the federal realm, since plenty of people move after retiring (and thus there's an imbalance of retirees). Medicare/Medicaid is already 50% funded by the states. If individual states really need help with Medicare costs then we can implement a "transfer" similar to the system used in Canada.
Defense spending certainly does need to be cut. Britain ruled half the world with 125,000 troops. We've got 1.4 million active troops. However, the time would be best spent finding a few large defense projects that can be cut for quick savings, and leaving the rest to an independent committee.
The Social Security wage base should be removed, so that it applies to all wages, not just the first $100K.
My bet is that if all that was done, overall taxes would still go up, but federal taxes might actually go down. Some laws would also change, without the threat of losing federal funding, states might be less willing to implement federal programs (e.g. drinking age at 21, abstinence-only education, etc.)
Federal road tax shouldn't exist either. There are very few federal roads, even the interstates are maintained by the states. They can fund that themselves.
Direct Payment and Grants to the states total $2 trillion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_spending_by_state.php?year=2010&chart=Z0&units=b&rank=t
Re: (Score:2)
I shouldn't have included direct payments, as that probably includes Social Security.
The number should be $500 billion (grants) in 2008, I'm sure that's higher now.
Re: (Score:2)
There are very few federal roads, even the interstates are maintained by the states. They can fund that themselves.
Part of the goal for the Interstate Highway System was to support land transportation for national defense. National defense shouldn't be something farmed out to the states.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not so much that people believe only the Federal Government can come up with the money for certain things as it is a subtle redistribution of wealth to make sure that low population states don't turn into bankrupt republics. Sure, if federal grants went away and the states had to fend for themselves, places like New York or California would just up the state tax rate by a few percent (after much political wrangling, no doubt) and be fine. Most people in those states would probably see little or no di
Re: (Score:2)
"Sure, if federal grants went away and the states had to fend for themselves, places like New York or California would just up the state tax rate by a few percent (after much political wrangling, no doubt) and be fine. Most people in those states would probably see little or no difference in their overall (state and federal combined) tax burdens, some might even see it lower. Places like Montana and Alaska would have a serious problem. "
Well, the ones that get more from the feds than they pay are mostly pla
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you in principle, but again must point out some practicalities. The reason it would expensive to live in some states is because they have low populations to begin with. Force people out with unreasonable tax burdens and those places will become truly abandoned. This is a) bad for our international image ("Yeah, we used to have 50 states, but after they abandoned Montana and Alaska we couldn't figure out a way to tax the bears") b) a potentially serious issue for agriculture. Remember that t
Re: (Score:2)
>>We have among the lowest taxes in the developed world in this country, and we have the infrastructure to prove it.
Infrastructure spending is a very small percentage of our budget. All of our transportation funding hovers around 2% or so. (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/)
The "lowest taxes" thing is just a Democrat talking point. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world (second only to Japan in the OECD - http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/corptaxrates_usvsoecd_state&fed-2011 [taxfoundation.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The top rate is meaningless, particularly without mentioning what it actually applies to - what are the exemptions, what are the lower rates, what levels do they kick in, are they counting the "employer's side" of payroll taxes, etc. The meaningful number is what is the actual percent paid of profits. And even that can be gamed by adjusting executive salaries, perks, offshore entities, depreciation scams, etc. US corporations pay very little tax.
For 2009, for instance (latest available) the total federal co
Re: (Score:2)
>>those tax breaks for the rich
Ah, yes, the mythical tax breaks for the rich.
Unless you're talking about capital gains tax being set lower than the normal income tax level, but there's a reason for that. You may disagree with the reason (it encourages investment-making which leads to growth), but it's not a tax-break per se. When Warren Buffet talks about paying less in taxes than his secretary, he's talking about 1) Percentages, not absolute amounts (which are quite high), and 2) The fact that he's p