This again
Tom takes me to task for not demanding ways to cut spending for tax cuts I support, or something:
Nobody’s asking that you fall into the false dichotomy Uncle falsely attributes to us. That is to say, nobody says you must favor all taxes and spending, or that you must oppose all taxes and spending. What you must do, however, is at least make an effort to bring taxes and spending into balance, and you cannot put the cart before the horse in doing this.
Err, no. Actually, there is no requirement I do that. End of story. I can say something sucks and not offer an alternative. For example, abortion sucks but I have no better alternative. And neither do you. Period. Game over.
See, here’s the problem: the anti-tax crowd knows that it’s easy to get sympathy from people by railing against the “evils” of taxation and, at least in the general sense, of “excessive government.” The problem is, as soon as these folks start drilling down into the particulars (e.g., what specific programs would be cut in order to bring down spending and thus lower taxes), they lose. And they know this, so they expressly avoid drilling into the particulars. When pushed, they’ll gladly give a laundry list of those spending programs they oppose, and these programs generally fall into either of two categories: programs that are too small to make a noticeable difference (e.g., some half-million dollar local pork program), or programs that are wildly popular (e.g. Social Security and Medicare). But they never explain how they’re actually going to get the voting public to agree to such program cuts (because they can’t), much less how they’d actually implement them.
I was pretty particular when I said killing social security and almost any agency that starts with Department of. Tom apparently thinks I’m a politician. I am not and have no desire to become so. Therefore, there is no need for me to pander to any demographic to score votes. I’m not trying to convince the voting public. Just because something is popular, that doesn’t make it right or wrong.
When taxes and the programs they pay for are directly tied together, most people prefer to pay the tax and keep the program, rather than to lose the program and be spared the tax.
I think that depends on the program. The military budget would get more support than, say, international assistance.
Getting the types of tax cuts that they favor would require either cutting these large-but-popular programs, which simply isn’t going to happen
On that, I agree. But I’m not pandering to voters or popularity contests. Our politicians are and that is why the .gov is the leviathan it is today. They can take on person’s money and give it to someone else.
Bringing this back around to Uncle, this is why we find his position so frustrating and so irresponsible. It’s not that he supports reducing taxes but doesn’t support reducing spending. It’s that he (apparently, at least) supports reducing and eliminating various taxes even if spending isn’t cut to match, and even if doing so wrecks the budget and/or explodes the debt. In other words, it may be an overstatement to say that he doesn’t care at all whether or not the government is fiscally responsible, but it’s certainly fair to say that his aversion to taxation is more important to him than any sort of budget discipline or financial responsibility. If he can’t get the spending cuts he wants, he still advocates cutting taxes anyway. Maybe he’ll close his eyes, clap three times, and hope it all works out.
Well, that shit’s just made up. I support cutting all kinds of taxes and all kinds of spending. But to kill the leviathan, you have to cut off it’s food not it’s fingernails.
At the same time, the .gov does provide valuable services, such as roads and the fact I don’t currently speak Russian. Those items, I don’t mind paying for though some scrutiny is needed in those areas (particularly defense spending which is always very high). But telling me that taxes are all groovy and shit because they only waste a little bit when compared to the total they waste isn’t very convincing.
Ed note: This started out as a comment over there but since my blogging is light, I thought I’d put it here for you to read.
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:19 am
Nothing wrong with talking about a perfect world, even though it may never be.
May 3rd, 2006 at 11:56 am
Err, no. Actually, there is no requirement I do that.
Actually you’re right. You’re not required to do that. You can advocate any irresponsible policy you want to.
I can say something sucks and not offer an alternative.
Except that this isn’t what you’re doing in the case of taxes (not specifically the estate tax, but your positions on taxes in general). You’re not just complaining that “X sucks,” you’re actively calling for X to go away, and ignoring the consequences of doing away with X.
But in a larger sense, you totally missed the point. Complaining that you don’t like paying taxes is well and fine and good. Arguing for policies that would likely bankrupt the country and then pussying out and hiding behind the “I am not a politician” BS when you’re called on it is quite another.
And for the record, the “leviathan” you would wind up killing is not the US government; it’s the US.
As a side note, when the only way you can get what you want is to deliberately bankrupt the nation, maybe you ought to take second look.
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
[…] UPDATE: Uncle responds, essentially saying that since he’s not a politician, he can advocate any irresponsible policy he wants to without having to worry about whether or not it makes sense or has any consequences. […]
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:11 pm
As a side note, when the only way you can get what you want is to deliberately bankrupt the nation, maybe you ought to take second look.
Speaking of irresponsible accusations…..
There’s nothing wrong with forcing the citizens who make up the.gov to decide how best to distribute taxes. Happened to me quite often when I worked for the state. Our budget got cut, and we’d have big meetings and decide what would get cut out of our services/wishlist.
Nothing says we’ve got to decide now what to cut – the problem with that, as you’re depending on, as a fan of big government, is *someone* will always protest no matter what you’re going to cut. Hell, you’d have people protest if we were going to shut down the IRS.
So, as a result of never being able to get everybody to agree, the government keeps growing, you stay happier, until it encroaches upon you……
There’s nothing wrong with saying “We’re going to cut taxes by 15%. You guys (Who are supposedly working hard) get to figure out how to reduce costs by that.” (And that presumes that after cutting taxes, revenues go down, which isn’t a certainly, or a linear relationship.
Arguing for policies that would likely bankrupt the country and then pussying out and hiding behind the “I am not a politician” BS when you’re called on it is quite another.
Nonsense. If you get find that your income is going to be cut (increased insurance, less commission, whatever), you then have to find out where you can cut your expenses to stay within that new budget. It’s not the boss’s FAULT that you can’t say “Well, he’s got to tell me what I can cut out, or else, he’s got to give me more money”
Well, wait. You’re Liberal, of course you’ll say that. 🙂 OK, you can say it, but in the Real World, it ain’t his/her job, it’s yours.
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Tom:
Yes, I know. Fiscal restraint and conservatism is so irresponsible.
I did not. I know the consequences and like them just fine. Cut expenses or go broke.
And I can’t read your track back since the office system thinks you guys have a porn site.
Addison:
Beautiful. Or you can do what the .gov does and just go borrow money and then borrow more money to pay the people you just borrowed from.
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:30 pm
I have no better alternative. And neither do you. Period. Game over.
That’s the essence of this topic, your assumption that no one has better alternatives. Lots of people have better alternatives, but your ideological box is so tiny and your willingness to think outside that box so minimal that most alternatives are doomed before they start.
The absence of alternatives is your perception of the political landscape, but it is not the reality. You are more open-minded than many conservatives, more fair and respectful, but your ideology still constrains you. If you can get your mind around the concept that our government is ours, that it is of, by, and for us and we should strive to improve it, not destroy it, you might be pleased with the colors you start to see in the political landscape. Ideology and partisanship make politics sterile and gray. Tom is trying to get you to see a more interesting world where there are constructive solutions to problems like corpulent budgets and stifling tax burdens.
May 3rd, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Persimmon, so you have a better alternative to keeping abortion legal? Do tell.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Not to step on Persimmon’s toes, but perhaps making it largely redundant through better education, wider availability of contraceptives, and even an emphasis on the advantages of celibacy (note, please the ‘and’ not ‘or’). Abortion being legal or illegal isn’t really a problem; abortions happening is the issue.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:35 pm
I’m with Uncle. ANY reasonable, responsible person could cut the Federal government down to size in less than an afternoon while enhancing the competition/free market AND personal freedoms of all American citizens.
We are having a big debate in Texas about financing public education. I, or ANY other reasonable person could fund public education while enhancing its performance AND easily set up a system that would SELF finance starting ten years from now. We wcould cut the taxpayers loose completely, no sweat.
Instead, we are going to ad a layer of complexity, regulation, and obscurity on a maccavellian existing system.
You just can’t do it and pander, which is why we are going to hell in a handbasket.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Paul, I agree with that but it doesn’t make abortion suck any less.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Of course, what the argument between Uncle and tgirsh pretty much ignores is that the historical record shows that cutting taxes actually increases revenues in the long term.
You don’t have to cut spending at all. Just freeze it until the increasing revenue (from the faster economic growth due to lower taxes) catches up with outlays.
The biggest problem with spending is that so much of it is simply on autopilot and just increases mindlessly year after year.
May 3rd, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I don’t have a better alternative to keeping abortion legal. Yes, I plucked that quote out of context and put in the larger context. Get over it.
Regarding taxes and government spending, however, I can think of lots of better alternatives. None of them could be implemented in an afternoon, however, so I think Robert should share his plans first.
May 3rd, 2006 at 3:48 pm
HL – I don’t think the historical record shows any such thing, for two reasons. First, our political system means that tax policies never have a long term, so to attribute any change to a policy when three other policies have been implemented in the meantime is unfounded. Second, you’re stating as an absolute that which is relative. If the marginal tax rate is 99% then I agree that cutting taxes would almost certainly increase revenues. If it was 2% I think it almost certainly wouldn’t. So a better way of stating the argument is that there is a goldilocks range where you get the most revenue per percent of tax rate. Now we could argue about where that goldilocks range is, and also whether rates should be higher or lower than that even if revenue collection isn’t then nominally most efficient, but to say that cutting taxes raises revenues is not credible.
May 3rd, 2006 at 3:53 pm
SayUncle – I agree it doesn’t change the fact that abortion sucks, but that’s not the issue here as I understand it. The point is that ‘abortion sucks, hence we should make it illegal and hang the consequences’ isn’t a natural corollary from its basic suckiness. Complaining is fine on its own I guess, but leaping from complaint to action too often misses the stage where we identify a solution. “Taxes suck” – fine; “taxes suck therefore we should get rid of them” – well, there are other things that suck worse than taxes, so we need to do some thinking first.
May 3rd, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Paul, what you are referring to is what I believe is called the Laffer Curve. A lot of economists (including a recent Nobel Laureate {sp?}) would argue that we are way to the high side of the optimal rate. The recent Nobel winner in fact criticized Bush’s tax cuts as being too small to be decently effective.
The question, of course, is why should we choose a tax rate that maximizes gov’t revenue? The gov’t only needs as much revenue as is necessary to fulfill it’s function and no more.
Personally, I prefer a former blogger’s (Pile On, at The Ebb and Flow Institute) approach.
The Liberty Curve.
At 0% taxation, you have anarchy as there is no gov’t. This is by definition rule by those with the biggest and most guns as the strong can prey on the week at will. Hence 0 liberty.
At 100% taxation you have a completely totalitarian gov’t who control’s everything, Hence 0 liberty.
Given that currently we are at a non-zero level of liberty, there must be a level of taxation that yields maximum liberty.
It is this level of taxation that we should enact.
May 3rd, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Addison:
So, as a result of never being able to get everybody to agree, the government keeps growing
Who said anything about needing to get everybody to agree? All you need is a majority to agree. I didn’t think this would be asking too much in a democracy. And if you can’t get a majority to agree, then you’ve lost, and you either need to revisit your proposal or abandon it. That’s how it works.
There’s nothing wrong with saying “We’re going to cut taxes by 15%. You guys (Who are supposedly working hard) get to figure out how to reduce costs by that.”
You know, I honestly don’t even have a problem with that, provided we required the cost reductions. But that’s not what actually happens. More on this in my response to Uncle, below.
If you get find that your income is going to be cut (increased insurance, less commission, whatever), you then have to find out where you can cut your expenses to stay within that new budget.
Apples and oranges, dude. In your example, the entity that makes the budget (me) is a different entity than the one who cuts the funding (the boss). In the “real world” of government, you’re talking about the same entity. So the appropriate analogy is not you having your income cut; it would be you intentionally taking a lower paying job while simultaneously maintaining or increasing spending.
Tell you what: you support a proposal that requires tying funding to spending programs, and spending cuts to tax cuts, and I’ll get behind it 100%, even this may hurt programs I support; fiscal responsibility is more important. What I’m saying is that the anti-tax folks would oppose such a proposal because they know the spending programs they want /need to kill are too popular. So they have to sneak in through the back door. Again, more on this later.
Uncle:
Fiscal restraint and conservatism is so irresponsible.
They’re eminently responsible. Too bad they have little to do with your preferred approach. Cutting taxes without also cutting spending is neither conservative nor an exercise of “restraint.” It’s shitty accounting. I’d expect the accountant to recognize this.
I know the consequences and like them just fine. Cut expenses or go broke.
Even though anyone with half a brain knows that the latter is the far more likely outcome? Close your eyes and clap three times…
See, that’s the problem. If cutting taxes, and thus de-funding the government, actually led to the type of cost cutting you advocate, you’d have a point. But it doesn’t, and it never has, and as far as I can tell, you don’t care. Sure, you bitch about spending, but despite the fact that the majority of Americans don’t agree with you about most of the programs you want to cut, and despite the fact that your preferred starve-the-beast approach has never worked and probably never will work, you still continue your Quixotic quest, tilting at the eeeeevil tax windmills, with no concern for the consequences. (Or at the very least, with no concern for the fact that the actual consequences bear almost no resemblence to your desired consequences, apart from the Uncle-gets-to-pay-less-taxes part, which I’m sure is only a tiny fraction of your motivation here.)
And in a larger sense, this is where the GOP sold its soul. Even assuming that starving the beast ever could work, and assuming that the country would be a better place if these large prorams were eliminated, the anti-tax wing of the GOP in particular has never made any of this official policy. They don’t say that cutting taxes is the only way to kill off these government programs; they say we can afford to cut taxes while keeping those programs, with their ridiculous have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too “supply side” theory. Because they know that’s the only way they’ll ever be able to sell their precious tax cuts. In other words, the only way they can get what they want is to lie through their teeth, and to use misleading numbers when they aren’t outright lying (witness their citation of the “average” tax savings from their last couple rounds of tax cuts).
And that, I think, is what’s so frustrating about your position on all of this. You know that the way the cuts are sold is bullshit, but you don’t care, because it gets you what you want. And hey, if you have to mislead the masses to get it, so what?
I thought we liberals were supposed to be the condescending elitists…
I can’t read your track back since the office system thinks you guys have a porn site.
What you see here is all there is.
Or you can do what the .gov does and just go borrow money and then borrow more money to pay the people you just borrowed from.
Wow, Uncle you’re sooooo close. Why is the .gov having to borrow so much money? I’m sure you have no idea how these dots connect back to your beloved tax cuts.
On abortion, I’d say that it’s not so much that abortion sucks, and more that it sucks that there is even a need for abortion. That’s how you can tell there’s no “intelligent designer.” An intelligent designer would have either tied sexual appetite directly to desire to procreate, or would have provided both genders with a foolproof fertility on/off switch. 🙂
persimmon:
Ohhhh, SNAP! 🙂
Robert:
ANY reasonable, responsible person could cut the Federal government down to size in less than an afternoon while enhancing the competition/free market AND personal freedoms of all American citizens.
I wish it were that simple. When you talk about trimming the Federal government — meaningfully, anyway — you’re talking about three things: Medicare, Social Security, and Defense. I can’t imagine ANY reasonable person drastically cutting or eliminating these programs willy-nilly and without devastating economic repercussions. The budget problems that exist weren’t created overnight, and they won’t be solved overnight, either.
HL:
Of course, what the argument between Uncle and tgirsh pretty much ignores is that the historical record shows that cutting taxes actually increases revenues in the long term.
Bullshit. Sorry, but that’s a complete crock. If it were true, there would have been no need for Reagan to raise taxes three times after he cut them.
May 3rd, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Masked Menace:
Paul, what you are referring to is what I believe is called the Laffer Curve.
So named because it’s laughable. 🙂
May 3rd, 2006 at 5:18 pm
You want suggestions of things to cut?
The National Endowment for the Arts: If you can’t sell your “Art” it’s probably ’cause it’s crap to start with.
NASA: At one time it served as a vehicle for emotionally unifying the country. Now it doesn’t do much that private enterprise couldn’t do faster, cheaper, and safer.
At least 50% of research grants: “Homosexual Male Erotic response to Lesbian Pornography” isn’t exactly of national import. Most of what is, will also have commercial uses so the market will fill the resulting vacuum. It’ll also put the emphasis back onto what is most useful, not what is most likely to get Senator Y re-elected.
25-50% of the FDA: We don’t need scientists measuring the thickness of Ketchup and that pickles contain no more than x.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx% salt.
Check out PorkBusters: A lot of little insignificant local pork adds up real fast.
Corporate Welfare: If a business can’t make it on it’s own, perhaps it deserves to go away.
Farm Subsidies: The “family farm” is a nice picturesque image, but ADM can produce just as much food if not more on the same amount of land and pay the previous owners pretty much the same wages they were making before due to economies of scale.
Federal subsidies payed to local gov’ts for instituting federal guidelines on drinking age, speed limits, etc.
Need I go on?
May 3rd, 2006 at 5:29 pm
And SS does need to be phased out. It can’t be done all at once. But in the long run, getting rid of an “investment” that doesn’t even match inflation will not result in devastating economic repercussions. Even if everyone wasted all that money on TVs, iPods, etc it would be better put to use than SS.
May 3rd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
On that, I concur. But the .gov should be forced to reconcile the shortcomings. I mean, hell, clinton balance the deficit (though it was all accounting gimmicks and on paper stuff but it was a shot at it) but he did so by signing tax increases into law.
And I finally realized why we’re talking past each other. It’s quite simple: what i want is in no way going to happen due to political aspirations of those that gain power by taking money from one group to give to another. I’m fully aware of that but it doesn’t mean I like it or that my point is invalid just that it’s not going to happen.
May 3rd, 2006 at 7:32 pm
I like that maximization of liberty idea. How do we make that reality?
May 4th, 2006 at 8:16 am
All you need is a majority to agree. I didn’t think this would be asking too much in a democracy. And if you can’t get a majority to agree, then you’ve lost, and you either need to revisit your proposal or abandon it. That’s how it works.
Ehem.
So, when most of us say “We’re not going to pay a lot for this muf.. err. Government”, then we’re wrong, because we’ve got to get together beforehand, and all decide on what we’re going to CUT before we feel that way.. but, when it comes to your defense, it’s “it’s a democracy!”
Well, pick one. Either we have to advocate the spending cuts first, or we can insist on tax cuts and let the .gov decide where best to implement them.
You’ve got to pick, because now you’re arguging AGAINST your original point.
But it doesn’t, and it never has, and as far as I can tell, you don’t care. Sure, you bitch about spending, but despite the fact that the majority of Americans don’t agree with you about most of the programs you want to cut,
The _Majority_ thinks they pay too much for what they get. That’s pretty well established. But when you make the requirement of tax cuts tied to spending cuts (despite the fact that historically tax cuts leads to increased revenue – yeah, laff it up, furball. Unless you’d like to _counter_ Laffer’s research?), then *you* are playing ‘defense” of the bloated .gov.
you still continue your Quixotic quest, tilting at the eeeeevil tax windmills, with no concern for the consequences.
I dunno, can you toss in a few more ad-hom’s in there in your dismissal? I mean, you’re a evil commie pinko who loves to see fetuses torn apart by suction devices, surely you can fit ONE or TWO more in there, somewhere.
And I did that for effect. You’re the one being nasty here, accusing us of being liars, deceivers, and short-sighted. And then turning around and arguging against your original point, without admitting that.
There *will* be consequences. But what you’re saying is *any* consequences to cutting programs that the government is currently running is _absolutely unacceptable_. Nevermind the current bad consequences of those programs, you just say “Nope! Either it’s perfect, or you’re an idiot for wanting to stop the bloat of the .gov”. What about the ill-effects *OF* those programs?
*Not* to sidetrack onto drugs – but if we legalize drugs tomorrow – there *will* be bad consequences. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. There will be bad results. The *question* is “Are those bad results *worse* than our current Police empowerment in the “War on Drugs”. And amazingly, you can’t answer that. No more than you could have predicted ahead of time the degree of corruption the WoD would produce. Oh, wait, yes, the guys who wrote that silly Constitution pretty much saw that coming, but hey, it’s outdated.
*But* you see, that gets back to a bigger point. Right now, the government’s doing a LOT of thing’s that it’s not supposed to be doing, with that silly old piece of paper. Plenty of things to cut there, easily.
But:
You have to pick:
1) The Majority can decide on their tax rate
2) The Majority have to decide how to spend their taxes by referendum.
Those are your 2 points so far – and they’re contradictory (and hey, if we go with 2), there are lots of managers and elected officials who’s job just got taken over, so we can save a lot by dumping them!)
May 4th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Masked Menace:
Congratulations! By eliminating (not just cutting, but eliminating) everything you’ve identified except Social Security, you’ve just cut a whopping 1.9% of the budget. Now I dare you to tell me with a straight face that the American public would completely de-fund NASA and all scientific research for less than a measly 2% savings.
Uncle:
what i want is in no way going to happen due to political aspirations of those that gain power by taking money from one group to give to another.
Almost, but not quite. What you want is in no way going to happen because the majority of Americans don’t want what you want. Sure, some of them are just selfishly relying on the entitlements, but many of them recognize that the country is better off with them than it would be without them. We haven’t had a depression since the 1930’s, and I argue that this is directly because of “big government” social safety net programs, not in spite of them.
Addison:
So, when most of us say “We’re not going to pay a lot for this muf.. err. Government”,
Again, you miss the point. Most of us don’t say that. When large numbers of people get behind tax cuts, it’s for two reasons, both of which turn out to be bullshit: first, because they think they’re going to get a much larger cut than they actually do; and second, because they think that they won’t have to cut anything (or, at least, not very much) to get the cuts! Why do they believe this? Because that’s what the anti-tax talking heads and politicos tell them.
And that’s why my big beef with Uncle and his ilk. By supporting tax cuts in spite of all this BS, they’re enabling these assholes in government to keep doing it. I’m waiting for a prominent anti-government, anti-tax guy with some clout to grow a pair, stand up, and proclaim that a tax cut without a spending cut isn’t a cut at all. But it never seems to happen.
The _Majority_ thinks they pay too much for what they get. That’s pretty well established.
I don’t think it’s that well established at all. Of course, if you have evidence of this (preferably not from some anti-tax right wing think tank), I’d love to see it. Even if true, that’s not the same thing as saying “the _Majority_ would rather not pay at all.” As with so many other things, it depends a great deal upon how the questions are asked.
Unless you’d like to _counter_ Laffer’s research?
It’s not quite so much that Laffer’s research is bad per se, but that knuckleheads like you have misappropriated it. It’s not even close to being a universal principle, and generally holds true only at the extremes. Only in certain highly selective circumstances to tax cuts lead to revenue increases. I’ve linked to Wiki above, which links to other sources.
I mean, you’re a evil commie pinko who loves to see fetuses torn apart by suction devices
No, Kevin’s the evil commie pinko. I’m the bastard Godless heathen. Get your ad-hominems straight! And if you think they’re a problem, see here and here.
You’re the one being nasty here, accusing us of being liars, deceivers, and short-sighted.
Actually, that should be an “or” rather than an “and.” And I’d tack on another or: “or ignorant of recent history.” I don’t deny that I’ve been nasty, and I genuinely try not to be; but in this case, I just don’t know any other way to put it. You’ve got to admit that the “starve the beast” approach — a concerted effort to bankrupt social programs which are otherwise too popular to get people to give up willingly — is an incredibly damned cynical, not to mention uniquely undemocratic, approach. It frustrates me to the point of anger that people don’t recognize this, so yes, I do tend to lose my temper about it. I don’t do it terribly often (and I’m pretty sure, despite our differences, Uncle will vouch for me on that count), so I’m entitled every now and again. 🙂
But what you’re saying is *any* consequences to cutting programs that the government is currently running is _absolutely unacceptable_.
No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying that the likely consequences are absolutely unacceptable. If I had drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid and believed that the market would magically provide for those left behind by the elimination of the programs, I’d probably be right there with you (although I’d call for direct cuts to and/or elimination of the programs, rather than subversively killing them by bleeding them to death). But I just don’t buy it. As I said to Uncle above, the social safety net serves a vital purpose in protecting us from depression, and I think even those who don’t directly benefit from it still benefit a great deal, even if they don’t recognize it.
On the drug example, you’re looking at me through your “typical damn liberal” lens. Unlike Social Security, which I view as being largely a success (even if there’s a great deal of room for improvement), the “war on drugs” has been a disaster, and I’d love to see it end, or at least be dramatically scaled back. But again, until the majority agrees with me, all I can do is bitch. You don’t see me trying to kill it through the back door just because I can’t convince people to explicitly pull the plug. That’s entirely my point on the tax issue.
You also mischaracterize my understanding of the Constitution, but that’s another issue for another time. Suffice it to say, I don’t fit cleanly into any constitutional category. I’m not an originalist, I’m not a strict constructionist, and I’m not a “living constitution” guy, either.
Finally, as to your two options, I pick option 3) The majority selects representatives whom they entrust to work out these budgetary matters. They don’t always do a good job of this, but that’s how it works. Where this becomes a problem is when candidates and talking heads and other pundits deliberately mislead the electorate (which all of them, left, right, or center, do) — that subverts the electoral process, because people make decisions based on bad information (such as “you can have your cake and eat it too!”). I wish I knew how to fix that, but I don’t.
May 4th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
1.9% is a start. But since listing out the specifics of each department would take a really long time:
SS, National Defense, Medicare, Interest, and Employee services = 64%
Cut half of everything else and you have 18%. Hell, even a third of it get’s you 12%.
But make no mistake SS will end. It will either end as people realize the crappy ROI and that it largely takes from the young and poor and gives to the old and well off (Note: the young may have higher incomes, but generally negative net worth) or when the gov’t can no longer meet it’s outlays and the payer/payee ratio moves closer to parity.
May 4th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
http://www.fms.treas.gov/annualreport/cs2005/outlay.pdf
dammit, it killed my link
May 4th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Finally, as to your two options, I pick option 3)
Those 2 options were the *ones you proposed*. They’re exclusive. I’m pointing out that you’ve got to reconcile that. You can’t tossin option 3, without explaining which one of 1 or 2 you want.
And if you want to talk about “candidates and talking heads” and the like misleading, what about the simple problem of using Tax Dollars to buy support and votes? How would you head that off? Well, maybe by having.. less tax dollars.
I’m waiting for a prominent anti-government, anti-tax guy with some clout to grow a pair, stand up, and proclaim that a tax cut without a spending cut isn’t a cut at all.
First of all, taxes don’t directly relate to revenues. You want to mock Laffer (and it’s nowhere near as outlandish as you’re making out – notice the increase tax revenues after the Bush “Tax cut”). How much tax revenue came from the sale of Yachts after they got classed as luxury items and subject to extra tax?
Errr. None. (Closer to none than anything worth mentioning). Because the taxes were so high, people stopped *buying yachts*. So a (IIRC, 15% tax between one year and the next), didn’t produce a 15% jump in tax revenue. Instead, it nosedived to 0%. Oh, and then you had all the yachtworkers out of work. So, all told, that “tax increase” was a massive net loss.
And that’s the biggest problem, that you don’t understand that. Raise your rates 1%, you might *lose* money. Lower them, you might make *more*. If you owned a business, you might understand this more – you have to price your margin, and take a guess at what the prevailing rate will be.
Your insistance that anybody who wants to cut taxes MUST show where the proposed “cuts” would occur is just, quite simply, simplistic to the extreme. I can certainly imagine you get _very angry_ over those of us who say “It’s not that simple, kid”. Well, because it’s *NOT THAT SIMPLE, KID*.
You want to make the rules such that only “your side” can win. Well, that’s quite the human condition.
a concerted effort to bankrupt social programs which are otherwise too popular to get people to give up willingly
I don’t have to conceed any such thing. Additionally, the question, are they popular with VOTERS or with POLITICIANS. There’s a large and important disctinction between the two.
Unlike Social Security, which I view as being largely a success (even if there’s a great deal of room for improvement),
Well, I begin to see the problem, Houston. And it’s HUGE. Largely a success? For a _PONZI SCHEME_?
I think you’ve said this before, but.. you’re a lawyer, right? Yeah. That kinda does explain _a lot_.
the “war on drugs” has been a disaster, and I’d love to see it end, or at least be dramatically scaled back.
But, but, it’s so _popular_! Actually, it’s not. Most people are in favor of scaling it back MASSIVELY. But – guess what, you’ve got entrenched bureacracies (notice the -ies) so dependant on the WoD money that they *can’t* just give it up. It will take something _very_ overarching to fix it/get rid of it.
Like.. maybe… starving the beast? You *can’t* just get people to “pull the plug”. Well, I suppose it’s possible, but the way things work – it won’t realistically occur. Not when you’ve got Federal, local, and state – and at least 5 of them at each level – that have people who’s “job’s depend on it”.
You also mischaracterize my understanding of the Constitution, but that’s another issue for another time.
No, I don’t think that I do, because we had* that discussion.
No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying that the likely consequences are absolutely unacceptable.
Yes, that’s what I said. But at the same time, you absolve yourself of the _consequences of the programs you’re defending_. Nope, not at issue here! Can’t be mean!
Funny thing, this thread is pretty relevant. Saw it today in a reference elsewhere – look at the people trying to enable someone in a bad situation. Versus the guy “red_justice” who’s telling her _like it is_. Doesn’t matter that what he’s saying _might be hard_, it’s how it _is_.
Addison: The _Majority_ thinks they pay too much for what they get. That’s pretty well established.
TG: I don’t think it’s that well established at all. Of course, if you have evidence of this (preferably not from some anti-tax right wing think tank), I’d love to see it.
I can prove it rather easily, without any links to right wing anythings.
Tell me how much extra you paid in taxes over your required amount. (Other people, please chime in, too). How much did you _deliberately_ pay in addition to the taxes accessed against you, for your income, DMV, land tax, school tax, sales tax.
If the answer to that is somewhere in the order of “Zero”, then, well, you agree with me that you shouldn’t be paying _more_, which is pretty close to my claim that I’m paying _too much_. Additionally, did you involve any assistance in figuring out your taxes (including programs that calculate your taxes – they _maximize_ your refund, after all? If you hired someone, you hired them for their expertise to make sure you paid (we’ll be generous), your “fair share”. Not extra.
So, depending how many people sent in extra checks, we can quite easily deduce who thinks they should pay more, and who doesn’t want to.
May 4th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Ah, dammit. typoed on the . Sorry about that.
May 4th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Masked Menace:
I agree that social security will end, but not because people want it to; look at how negatively they reacted at the Bush plan to reform it. It will die because its opponents are successfully killing it through the back door. And talking about ROI with respect to Social Security illuminates a fundamental misunderstanding of what it even is. It’s not a retirement account like a 401(k) or IRA, where ROI is the driving factor, and where nothing is guaranteed, and where benefits vary greatly based upon market performance. It’s a pension, where benefits are fixed and are (supposed to be) risk-free. Trust me, there’s plenty of room for reform and cleanup, but turning it into an ROI-based deal is turning it into something it ain’t.
And as for the “half of everything else,” once again you ignore whether or not those programs are popular and/or supported by the people. Remember, that “everything else” includes stuff like the interstate highway system, air traffic control, and other such things that most people are probably willing to pay for. (And for big ticket items, you forgot to include the Iraq war — in large part because it’s not even a budgeted expense.)
Addison:
Those 2 options were the *ones you proposed*.
Really, when did I do this? I never advocated either of those options. I just looked — twice — and I don’t see where I said anything of the sort. Perhaps you intimated it from something I did say, but if that’s the case, I’d love to know just what that was, so I can clarify.
what about the simple problem of using Tax Dollars to buy support and votes? How would you head that off?
I already addressed this, if not here, back at my site. You do it by requiring funding to be tied to proposals directly. You can’t pass new spending without telling where the money’s going to come from; you can’t cut taxes without showing a surplus or explaining what you’re going to cut. That way, the representative accountability is essentially built-in: when your representative voted for program X, he also voted for this specific tax increase; when she voted for this tax cut, she also voted to cut funding to program Y.
At the local level, this generally works pretty well, where it’s done. It just needs to be done at the national level, too.
The problem with your yacht example is that it’s highly specific. In that particular instance (and ones like it), a large tax increase can reduce tax revenue. The problem is that you take the principle way too far. In the grand scheme of things, a small increase or cut won’t make much difference. An increase will only cause havoc when it’s extremely punitive, as in your example; a decrease will only work as you say if it actually results in an increase in the rate at which large investors realize unrealized (and thus untaxed) assets. But with a blanket tax cut, there’s no such guarantee. This is even more stark when it’s heavily weighted toward a relatively few individuals at the top end of the scale.
For the record, I have owned a business, and I do understand this. Again, the problem is you take “mights” and treat them as if they’re “wills.” It’s nowhere near that clear, nor that universal. It does a disservice to all involved to pretend that it is. In my business, 1% wasn’t going to make or break me (it was service-related, not retail), so it wouldn’t change my business practices much one way or the other.
Where the principle you’re talking about is far more effective is when those cuts are targeted. But that’s not what happened with the Bush tax cuts, and that’s not what anti-tax advocates generally argue for.
Your insistance that anybody who wants to cut taxes MUST show where the proposed “cuts” would occur is just, quite simply, simplistic to the extreme.
This, at least, is fair, but how is it any more simplistic than saying “let’s just slash taxes and hope the market fairy figures it all out?” That’s essentially what you’re arguing. And frankly, it strikes me as supremely odd that you would be so opposed to the idea of requiring that we demonstrate, at least to a reasonable level of confidence, that we can actually afford programs and/or cuts. Seems a lot more reasonable than shooting blindly and hoping some pinhead economic theory that hasn’t generally worked in the past starts working now.
You want to make the rules such that only “your side” can win.
No, I honestly don’t. I just want them open, honest, and fair. And if it’s abundantly clear that we can’t afford tax cut X without substantial cuts to government programs, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that this be disclosed openly and up front when such tax cuts are proposed; instead, we get BS accounting.
But at the same time, you absolve yourself of the _consequences of the programs you’re defending_.
Again, show me where in creation I ever do that. I think the positives outweigh the negatives; that’s far from the same thing as absolving myself of anything.
Regarding SS, it’s going to be exceptionally difficult to take you seriously if you’re going to parrot tired, old “Social security is a Ponzi scheme” talking points.
And no, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a lawyer.
Most people are in favor of scaling [the War on Drugs] back MASSIVELY
Actually, no, they’re not. It’s like people being “in favor” of tax cuts, or “in favor” of scaling down the government, or simplifying the tax code. If you ask them the open-ended, generalized question, yes, they support these things. But when you drill down into particulars, it all falls apart. “Sure, I support scaling back the War on Drugs! What do you mean it would be legal for the guy on the corner to run a crack house? No, we can’t have that!” “Sure, I’d like a simplified tax code! What do you mean I lose Deduction X? Forget it!” And so on.
Tell me how much extra you paid in taxes over your required amount. … If the answer to that is somewhere in the order of “Zero”, then, well, you agree with me that you shouldn’t be paying _more_,
Sorry, but that’s an asinine argument, not in any way relevant to the topic at hand. But for what it’s worth, since I don’t bother to itemize, I almost certainly do pay more in taxes than I’m legally required to. So :p 🙂
Oh, and on the constitution thing, how is what I’ve said here contradicted what I said there? I said there that OI and strict construction are crap, and I said here that I’m neither a strict constructionist nor an originalist. It’s all quite consistent.
May 4th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
“…supports reducing and eliminating various taxes even if spending isn’t cut to match…”
This is based on a famous and entirely incorrect assumtion of the “zero sum gain” theory. It assumes the national “pie” is X no matter what – that people do not change their behavior based on taxation. Using the zero sum gain assertion exposes a complete disconnection from reality. In fact, when people are taxed, they have less to invest in production, and production falls. This is why socialism never, ever works and never will.
Hence, it is perfectly reasonable to expect revenues to increase as a result of a tax cut, which in fact happens every time it’s tried. Now of course there is some point at which production ceases to increase as a result of a tax cut, but taxes would have to be extremely low already for that to be the case – like in the neighborhood of 5% overall or less.
Bottom line; only an uneducated socialist, or someone who hates people, would favor any form of socialism. Anyone who understands basic ecconomics and basic human behavior is a total capitalist, with guns I might add. Socialists take note.
May 4th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Regarding SS, it’s going to be exceptionally difficult to take you seriously if you’re going to parrot tired, old “Social security is a Ponzi scheme” talking points.
Yeah, this is where a ninja jumps out of your closet and decapitates you with a filet knife.
Or would, if there were any justice.
If you can’t comprehend that the SS system is the very definition of Ponzi scheme, then you are unqualified to be having this discussion.
May 4th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Really, when did I do this? I never advocated either of those options. I just looked — twice — and I don’t see where I said anything of the sort.
The 2nd was what this topic was about. The first was when you said (among others) All you need is a majority to agree. I didn’t think this would be asking too much in a democracy.
That’s 1.
Now, either the majority gets to agree on something (cutting taxes) (without line item cuts), or they have to do what you insist they do. You’ve called for them *Both*.
PDB pretty much summed up what I have to say about SS. It’s not *quite* a Ponzi scheme. But the differences are minimal – enough that almost every state outlaws SS – if you were to try and set it up as a private company program – under the laws passed after Ponzi.
The problem with your yacht example is that it’s highly specific.
Well, the *real* problem is it’s _highly effective_. It completely blows your tax cut MUST = spending cut argument out of the, well, water. :). You might say it’s an outlier – but the burden is on YOU to now show that is *is*. Just like you dismiss the Laffer curve out of hand – might want to explain why JFK, among others, was a strong proponent of it.
Taxes on a good were raised – and revenues DROPPED. Thus, it’s *not* a 1 to 1 correlation, and thus…..
I should have said that you should have been selling goods. I’ve had a business selling durable goods – computers – and believe me, I was *VERY* concerned about keeping inventory. You’ve got a matter of literally WEEKS before you have to sell at a loss, and after that, you can’t sell *at all*. On the other hand, price too low, and you’d get too many orders to fill, and then get dissatisfied customers. And – just like this – you couldn’t tell which was which when you had to make your decision. You also didn’t know if something was about to happen (in the government/tax discussion, say a natural disaster, causing large governmental outlays, with a total demolition of the tax base and tax income.
“let’s just slash taxes and hope the market fairy figures it all out?”
Who said anything about markets? I said the government would then have to prioritize (based on the same abovementioned _elected officials_, and they’d reallocate based on the input they received. You’re pushing the wrong talking points. 🙂 Check your notecards. 🙂
And no, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a lawyer.
Well, I’m very, very sorry for the offense of confusing you with a lawyer, and you have my utmost, and sincere apologies. I don’t know where I got the idea you were one. Nobody should falsely be branded as a barrister.
May 4th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Oh, and TG:
You again, didn’t like my point, but it still was *made* by what you said.
Sorry, but that’s an asinine argument, not in any way relevant to the topic at hand.
I explained why it was relevant, just to be CERTAIN. You’re just being insulting with that.
But for what it’s worth, since I don’t bother to itemize, I almost certainly do pay more in taxes than I’m legally required to.
So, you’ve itemized, determined that those deductions are greater than the standard, and still going with the standard?
Sorry, TG, but that’s a point to me, hate to score it myself. If you’re not sending MORE money to the DMV, to your state, to the Feds, then _you are saying that your taxation level is sufficient_.
Just because it’s a rather clever way of pointing out the obvious – that MOST people don’t send in extra money (Which they would if they truely felt the taxation wasn’t sufficient). heck, John Kerry, while saying exactly what you’re saying, doesn’t CHOOSE to have his state income taxed at the highest rate possible (He gets to choose, between 2 levels). Actually, I think less than 10 people? have chosen to be taxed at the higher level. For the state of Mass.
Yes, that *does* mean that *they* are paying enough (or too much) in taxes.
You said: [regarding majority feelings on taxation, they pay too much for what they get.] I don’t think it’s that well established at all. Of course, if you have evidence of this (preferably not from some anti-tax right wing think tank), I’d love to see it.
Well, that’s evidence. I can’t think of better than that. How do *you* behave? And.. *you*.. well, you behave in the same fashion as *most other people*. Who… don’t agree with your assertation of their beliefs. 🙂
May 4th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
You know what’s a bigger problem than tax rates or social safety nets? C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N. The GAO just put out a report saying the feds will lose $20 billion in tax revenues over the next 25 years that would be collected from companies pumping oil in the Gulf of Mexico but for “incentives” written into laws. Depending on the outcome of a court case, that number could rise to $80 billion.
That kind of crap distorts the supply-demand curves and prevents the market from working as well as it could, making crises more likely and reducing diversification. So we get decreased tax revenues and broken markets at the same time!
May 5th, 2006 at 12:56 am
tgirsch Says:
Well you pay into the system, your money gets co-mingled with other peoples money, and then spent by people on SS right now, with the surplus spent by the fed-gov, your SS payment, if any, will bee payed by your grandkids. Not strictly a ROI, but the point was that you could look at the money “invested”, and the money “returned” and compare the “effective ROI”. Don’t worry, none of us are under the illusion that it’s a type of mandatory savings program.
It’s tough to say it’s fixed, because congress has already rolled back the age when I can start taking full payments, and there’s no reason to think that they won’t do it again. Plus, there’s nothing stopping them from cutting the total monthly amount either. Finally even if they don’t do any of theses things, the yearly COLA is indexed to inflation, which is set by the government. It’s in their best interest to cook this number. I think that they have been understating inflation for years. Don’t believe me? Read this:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_04/paulos090904.html
It’s not a Pension . No way, no how.
Wait, people further down on the pyramid are paying in to the scheme, and that money is going to the people further up. How is that not ponzi-like? The surplus is skimmed by the fed-gov to pay down the national debt, except spending is so high that this never happens. Looks ponzi-ish Smells like a ponzi.
SS was hatched back when if you lived to 55 you were damn lucky to be breathing at 65. Where people still had tons of kids. But people started living longer and the birthrate went down. It still would be working, redistributing other people’s money had births and deaths not shifted. But the writing has been on the wall for years. People have seen this train wreck coming since before I was born.
May 5th, 2006 at 7:03 am
I’m not unsympathetic to TGirsch’s general idea that it’s irresponsible to bash a tax without proposing either an alternative tax or a corresponding spending cut to balance it out. However, if that is the rule, then what’s good for the conservative is good for the liberal. From now on, every time a liberal proposes any program that will result in any spending increases, he must also explain which government services will be cut to pay for it – or he can explain how the hell he’s going to persuade the American people to raise their own taxes, and why those taxes will be sufficient to generate the required revenue even after taking into account the changes in everyone’s behavior that will follow the tax.
May 5th, 2006 at 10:12 am
X:
The general idea is fine, and I agree with you. TG’s just taking it to the ultimate limit, with throwing insults if you disagree that specific, line-items MUST be identified before taxes are reduced.
I’d also ask that your plan have a following caveat: That when the increased spending program is proposed, that it’s cost be estimated, and a hard limit placed on it’s total cost.
Often, the cost that’s promised isn’t what’s delivered (Medicaid ‘prescription drug benefit’) anyone?
And that’s a logical outgrowth of tgirsch’s main point, as well. But it’s one that I suspect he would not agree upon.
(asides: Hope you didn’t mind the lawyer crack. 🙂 Congrats for getting out of CA. And I guess I owe Lambert a update next time we cross paths, unless he’s actually Hiltzik. (Since I said the only time I saw that was when Lambert was around))
May 5th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
pdb:
Uhh, no…
Addison:
Since I’m about to go away for a week, you’re right about everything, and I’m wrong about everything. That makes it easier. One thing, though:
If you’re not sending MORE money to the DMV, to your state, to the Feds, then _you are saying that your taxation level is sufficient_.
I voluntarily send extra money to the state of Tennessee for Great Smoky Mountains National Park plates. And I frequently contribute to the NPS. But I suppose those don’t count…
And you may get sympathy from a lot of people for my habit of “throwing insults,” but I seriously doubt Xrlq will be one of them. He’s got entire categories dedicated to insults on his blog. 😉 (Although I’m sure he’d protest that they’re merely accurate descriptions.)
Xrlq:
However, if that is the rule, then what’s good for the conservative is good for the liberal. From now on, every time a liberal proposes any program that will result in any spending increases, he must also explain which government services will be cut to pay for it – or he can explain how the hell he’s going to persuade the American people to raise their own taxes
This may surprise you, but I’m on record supporting exactly that. And why just the liberals WRT spending increases? In case you haven’t been paying attention, the vast majority of spending increases we’ve been getting lately haven’t been ones proposed or championed by “liberals.”
May 5th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
tgirsch, regarding:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme#Are_national_retirement_programs_Ponzi_schemes.3F
I agree. This seems to be fairly evenly balanced article showing how some parts of SS is like a ponzi scheme and some parts are not.
So from here on out I will refer to Social Security (Socialist Insecurity) as a Ponzi-like Scheme
May 8th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Tell it to the ninja in your closet.
So, lemme get this straight: A ponzi scheme ceases to be a ponzi scheme if the victims are told how the scheme works, and their ‘investments’ are stolen from them under threat of violence and imprisonment?
Gotcha.
May 8th, 2006 at 11:38 am
pdb:
Well, you’re missing that the return on investment is pathetic (as opposed to going in expecting to get rich, apparently). You did correctly ID that instead of offering great deals to get investors, that they’re forced under threat of violence to particpate.
(So, in other words, they’re in some ways, _less successful than Ponzi schemes_, but with the same failure at the end).
Mischief: Good call.