21 Dec 08
Originally posted by KazetNagorraRoads are rationally supported by the users of them, via user fees and fuel taxes, but these taxes are inefficiently collected at the Federal level, where most of the maintenance is done at the State and local level. Besides that, once government gets their hands on funds, they get diverted from the rational original targets, and become fodder for patronage, and bribery.
I already explained: if goods are consumed collectively (e.g. a road, the police, etc.) and/or there is a collective interest in having them (health care, education), they are more efficiently produced through goverrnment funding. The facts support this.
Police are another story of the same thing. 100,000 cops under the Clinton administration were to reduce crime, but crime was already on a downward trend at the time, and there is no data indicating a link between lower crime and more cops. Indianapolis, IN and Detroit, MI are almost identical in population, but the Indiana city has about half as many cops and half as much crime. This is admittedly anecdotal, but illustrative of the faulty notions about more cops, less crime. More cops often just make cops into criminals, or makes for more oppression of normal law abiding citizens.
Does anyone want to argue that since the Federal involvement in education in the '60s that public education in the US has been improved. Local services are better funded by local taxes, where while abuses can occur, they are less likely to be as massive, and less subject to as much excess administrative costs, and other negatives.
Increasing taxation to fund more federal programs is demonstrably throwing good money after bad. Why? The first job of any bureaucracy is to sustain and protect itself. It has no motive to do its job, solve the problem for which it was formed, and disband! So the bureaucracy grows and grows, the demands come for more funding regardless of success or failure. The grandiose goals are too vital to admit failure.
However when the private sector fails, there are stockholders, employees, and customers that must be answered, as well as self righteous government types who never examine their own failures.
21 Dec 08
Social liberalism is socialism is Marxism. It is communism with the heat turned down, and the appearance of some capitalism and free markets so there is someone to produce the funds for the government to confiscate.
There are moral, questions about this and they are even more important than the pragmatic issue.
The principle moral issue is whether the government has a moral right to steal from a productive citizen to benefit a less productive one. Taking money by force or fraud is theft.
21 Dec 08
Originally posted by KazetNagorraIt's unfunded liabilities will consume 100% of US GDP in the next 50 years if left unchanged.
Ah, so you don't understand what elasticity means. Health care is relatively inelastic, because people will pay any amount they can not to die. This is another reason why the free market is inefficient in the case of health care, since providers can ask almost any amount they like. The surging costs of US health care reflect this.
[b]It's unfunded li ...[text shortened]... ged.
The US barely has any social security, what do you base this bizarre statement on?[/b]
The US barely has any social security, what do you base this bizarre statement on?[/b]
It is common knowledge in the US that with the influx of baby boomers, Social Security goes from a small surplus to an ever increasing deficit in just a couple of years. There used to be as many as 15 workers paying the benefits of each retiree, but in a very few years it will be down to just 2 or 3. Regardless of the impending train wreck, Congress continues to expand benefits, and makes futile symbolic gestures, like pushing elegibility age back, but not as much as the expected increase in life span. The whole thing from the very beginning has always been actuarilly unsound.
The Heritage Foundation might be a good place to look for data on the subject, but it has been widely written on in the Wall Street Journal and other financial papers.
21 Dec 08
1 edit
Originally posted by normbenignSocial liberalism is socialism is Marxism.
Social liberalism is socialism is Marxism. It is communism with the heat turned down, and the appearance of some capitalism and free markets so there is someone to produce the funds for the government to confiscate.
There are moral, questions about this and they are even more important than the pragmatic issue.
The principle moral issue is whether t ...[text shortened]... a productive citizen to benefit a less productive one. Taking money by force or fraud is theft.
I laughed.
The principle moral issue is whether the government has a moral right to steal from a productive citizen to benefit a less productive one. Taking money by force or fraud is theft.
Since anarchy doesn't seem to work, the question is not if taxes are good or not, the question is how much the people should be taxed and what the tax should be used for. What is "just" is a pretty pointless criterion for this, because it's practically impossible to determine how much income someone deserves. You might reply that the free market determines this, but not really. Some silver spoon kid who has a certain job clearly didn't work as hard for it as someone who worked himself up from the ghetto, yet they receive the same salary for the same job.
The level of tax should not be determined by who deserves what, but simply by what's best for all people collectively. Empirical evidence and economic models all suggest the US should raise taxes.
21 Dec 08
Originally posted by normbenignIt's not common knowledge. Many European countries have far more social security than the US, and even with the aging population they can still afford it.
[b]It's unfunded liabilities will consume 100% of US GDP in the next 50 years if left unchanged.
The US barely has any social security, what do you base this bizarre statement on?[/b]
It is common knowledge in the US that with the influx of baby boomers, Social Security goes from a small surplus to an ever increasing deficit in just a couple of ...[text shortened]... bject, but it has been widely written on in the Wall Street Journal and other financial papers.[/b]
Although I agree the retirement age should be increased, not because it's not possible to afford it but simply because there is no reason healthy people should be at home freeloading.