I agree that inflow and outflow SHOULD match, but choices have to be made. Bush cut taxes prior to 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan - going back afterwards and raising taxes would have hurt our economic recovery or putting all of the domestic agenda (which I would have been all for) on hold would have angered many people, could do "damage", or could have have been some sort of moral victory for the terrorist. Tax cuts help the economy and we were in what was supposed to be one the are largest recessions in history. It would have been irresponsible to not cut taxes. Edited to add: The Billionares for Bush along with the Communist for Kerry were the best part of the election season. I love the photos of Secretary Chow (the cheap labor caption is great) and Newt on the Billionare's website.
i think if we started with the following premise we would always be better off. i didnt make it up, but for the sake of discussion i will call it the martin principle: the martin principle: any given country's economic success is directly proportional to the extent of their unfettered capitalism. there is a reason we are richer than canada, or russia, or europe. we are more economically free. they would be richer than us if they had lower taxes and less government invention. and this should be the guiding principle for all economic decisions. i am aware that a country that cannot defend itself will not be rich. so i accept that we have to put a damper on pure capitalism to forcibly take money to pool for defense. and i am willing to accept that public education might be ok, and roads should probably be built by local governments. but that is pushing it. we shouldnt go very far beyond that. so any cent that gets taken from people, it should damn well be important, because it should be hard to justify taking something by force from the people, and taxes only restrict the economy and kill jobs. the way i see it, it is very hard for the collective to justify taking money from individuals. but i am not seeing things so blindly in black and white that i think it is totally unjustified to tax at all. but the government, by its nature will grow and grow, because leaders love money and power. so we should always be struggling to lessen the size of government. look at a country like hong kong, they have no natural recources and little land, but by having more economic freedom than the US, they are incredibly successful. and why do we worry about spending? sure, it hurts us because government money has an unfair advantage against private companies who could provide the service more efficiently, and that is terrible. but to see how much we are spending and think that the solution is to raise taxes? crazy, because that only makes things worse by making us all poorer. maybe the government will go bankrupt. so what. good. everything i need i can buy from private companies. it would be good if the government could no longer afford to do lots of what it does. billions and billions and billions wasted already, i hope the government runs out of cash and credit and has to cut services so much that they can no longer afford to crush free trade with farm subsidies. so what if we can longer afford to have the agriculture department, or the labor department, or health and human services, good riddance, i didnt need that anyway. why cant we look at the problem of overspending and see it for what it is, overspending. you do not solve overspending with taxes. you solve it by spending less. i dont want a budget whereby the government takes in as much as they spend, until they are spending a whole lot less. that would crush the economy. i would rather crush the government than the economy. the government is a limiter (or "governor" in the mechanical/restrictor sense) of freedom. it should only limit us to the point where we no longer have lawless chaos, and not much more.
AHH! "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Martin again" I don't completely agree with you, but I still think we need more people like you. Being 20 and making a measly $7/hour - it kills me, absolutely kills me to see hundreds of dollars taken out of each of my paychecks. For what? For the thousands we pay in taxes, how much of it effects us? Only the things martin mentioned: education, military, roads. You can even ask homeless/poor people - "How much does the government help you?" I guarantee they get more help from organizations like Redcross and even companies like Goodwill than they ever get from the government. Medical attention? Medicare & Medicaid are both a joke. Let's face it - the government is a beauracracy that is pathetically under performing. I say, we have a little more faith in people to help out there fellow man and stop relying on the government so much. Give great tax breaks for giving to charities - for every dollar I give to the tsunami cause - that's a dollar the govt shouldn't take from me to give to them.
martin, great post! I agree 1000% although along with the military we do need local taxes to support Police, border patrol and fire Dept.
in another example of how crazy the government is, new york has recently revised its kosher laws and enforcement policies. this is almost beyond comprehension it is so stupid. the government has taken it upon itself to use our tax dollars to decipher this insane BS kosher crap. last year there was a big controversy and the system that certifies foods as kosher broke down. it was all over the local news. jews were in a terrible situation, unable to know if jesus approved of their chili dogs. apparently the new laws and procedures are meant to weed out dishonest rabbis who might falsely represented food as kosher. unbelievable. the new dept of agriculture actually has a kosher enforcement dept, with a rabbi at its head, making sure the magicmen approve of the food prep techniques. this is an example of two things: 1. how terribly stupidly afraid people are to be critical of other's beliefs, and they let things go way too far, and 2. how eager the government is to spend our money in ways that are unimaginably stupid. this is why taxes should be lowered much much further, because if governments (local or federal) have enough money to fund this BS, then they need to be reduced by a massive amount before taxes are raised a dime. http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AD/release.asp?ReleaseID=1396 this is what the new york state government calls "consumer protection". that is insane and stupid and paternalistic and wrong in so many ways. (i was kidding about jesus)
