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[Heron TSG]

Lowering wages or firing usually doesn't solve much. Then you're adding to the recession. Simplifying existing procedures so that they use four sheets of paper per person instead of sixty would help, for example.

[Bauglir]

A lot of people also have an interesting bit of dissonance where, on the one hand, they'll decry government spending as wasteful, and on the other, defend their pet programs by pointing out that the money being spent goes back into the economy by creating or maintaining jobs. As if there was any significant government expenditure that didn't. When your nation is suffering economically, the correct course is absolutely to spend more money (but to do it in ways that prioritize job production over everything else - not all programs are equal in this regard) and to raise taxes (but do it in a way that doesn't hurt the people who can't take the additional burden as badly). Of course, that's redistribution of wealth, and people seem not to like that. Which puzzles me, really, since a healthy economy is necessarily one in which wealth has been redistributed from an unhealthy arrangement.

Blah, hopefully I'm making sense. I'm kind of tired.

[GSD]

"People whine about government excess but don't realize it's not "excess" in some people's minds."

I asked a question, that was hardly whining.

I realize that government spending is usually justified by whatever group benefits from it. But when a country such as the US is (at last count) 15 trillion in debt, at some point tough decisions have to be made, and people are going to be upset.

To wit, 'eventually you run out of other people's money'.

"When your nation is suffering economically, the correct course is absolutely to spend more money... "
That's the Keynesian view, there's also Hayek's option which is gaining popularity these days.

[Truean]

Yeah it's me again.

"The answer shouldn't be paying public workers less it should be paying private workers more so they can live decently."

If the problem is massive government debt, your solution isn't to reduce government spending, but to make the private sector spend more? That still leaves the problem of massive government over-spending unsolved.

It isn't a problem and billionaires like Buffet are literally writing the government checks because they are taxed too little. Overspending? No, undertaxing.... We now have some of the lowest taxes in US history,especially on capital gains and high incomes, and we still have people saying we should lower them. Lowering taxes is not the magic "cure everything" pill.

If there is overspending, it's from two wars we've decided not to fund and to cut taxes during. This is unheard of in human history. War is expensive. The Tea Party was elected off the notion of "government overspending," but once they got there and actually looked at the books, they found there really wasn't that much to cut. It's all defense, social security, medicare, medicaid, emergency social services in this economy, interest payments or government departments who have already had their funding cut.

There isn't some specially marked piece of the government budget marked "fat to be cut." Though I truly see many people today seem to think that there is. Budgeting for an entire nation is incredibly hard, but the slogans today can be summed up as "just stop spending." Not ... simple.

More taxes on the highest income earners and companies. If they can afford to buy massive lobbying efforts, then they have too much cash. Hire some people or quit hiding behind the "job creators" thing. I fully support the IRS kicking them.

If "corporations are people with free speech rights," then I want corporate income taxed as a person's income is taxed, and I know that means they'd be in the highest bracket. Good.

[GSD]

Some levity for the debate. Forgive me if this has been posted before.

A Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem (parts 1 and 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

[kaijyuu]

I wasn't (directly) accusing you of whining. Just that most people who do talk about government excess are indeed, whining

I'm not an economist but I do know that a "healthy" economy has money changing hands. A LOT. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that every rich bloke out there is Scrooge McDuck hoarding money in their bank and never using it, but I do believe that money would be better used to boost the economy in the hands of consumers. So in other words, redistribution of wealth.

As for government debt, if you look at the countries in the world without it, they all have huge exports. Mostly oil. And mostly exporting to the USA. Government debt is something that will probably always exist for any country not living off of someone else's excess. Curbing it is important, of course, but you can't rely solely on cutting expenses to do that. You have to boost your income too. "Not raising taxes" is not a positive thing when we live in a country with an incredibly low tax rate already.



Fake Edit: Yeah I've seen that movie. Again I'm no economist but I sincerely doubt either economic theory is sound. An economist, regardless of what economic theory they subscribe to, is about as good at predicting the future as the weatherman. Decent at predicting tomorrow, but after that it gets increasingly less likely.

[GSD]

In a healthy economy money absolutely changes hands a lot. The 'redistribution of wealth' that people object to is specifically wealth redistributed by the government, according to the government's rules, and through the use of the government's power.

And my only objection (for the sake of this discussion) to raising taxes is that there comes a point where raising taxes actually produces less overall income for the government. (I can discuss the Laffer curve at greater length if need be). I'm not saying American tax rates are there yet, but if taxes only ever increase, eventually that point will be reached.

[Heron TSG]

Well, the main problem I see with cutting government spending is that most spending happens because someone thought there was a pretty good reason to spend it. I've looked at a few budget summaries of the programs that people keep trying to cut, and I just don't see how they could do it without crippling the program. For an example, Social Security might need some reform, but I don't have the know-how to fix that. From my not-economist perspective, it looks to me as if there's no particular section we don't want there.

[Nadaka]

In a healthy economy money absolutely changes hands a lot. The 'redistribution of wealth' that people object to is specifically wealth redistributed by the government, according to the government's rules, and through the use of the government's power.

And my only objection (for the sake of this discussion) to raising taxes is that there comes a point where raising taxes actually produces less overall income for the government. (I can discuss the Laffer curve at greater length if need be). I'm not saying American tax rates are there yet, but if taxes only ever increase, eventually that point will be reached.

No. I object to the deification of the free market redistributing the wealth of the entire world into the gilded coffers of a few hundred  plutocrats and the economic oppression of billions.

[ChairmanPoo]

It isn't a problem and billionaires like Buffet are literally writing the government checks because they are taxed too little

.
I suspect it's a sign of how bad things are. If a man life Buffet is willing to give more cash to the state like that, it's because he's genuinelly worried that the whole thing might come crashing down (which would render his accumulated wealth meaningless.

[GSD]

I agree that cutting government spending is probably very difficult and many beneficial programs would suffer for it. Unfortunately, at some point the US government just can't collect enough income through taxes to pay for them all. And with a debt of 15 trillion dollars and growing, painful cuts are going to be inevitable.
It's not an optimal outcome, but it's going to have to happen regardless.

[Frumple]

Absolute largest problem, that I know of, with American taxes is that the upper brackets, where most of the money is, is effectively not paying taxes in a lot of cases. They're doing what they can do to get write offs and tax breaks and so on, but they're not actually giving the money to the government.

If the bastids with the actual wealth would start actually paying their damn taxes it would help things out quite the freaking lot. Instead they complain about high taxes (that they're not paying) and then go and funnel millions into lobbyists to try to make it so they can not-pay even more and screw over the folks actually giving money to the government to yet another degree of magnitude.

The majority of the (genuinely) wealthy in the US just needs a serious and solid kick right to the ass, repeatedly, until they start doing shit straight. We (the collective population) just need to figure out a way to do that that doesn't involve violence. Still working on it!

[kaijyuu]

In a healthy economy money absolutely changes hands a lot. The 'redistribution of wealth' that people object to is specifically wealth redistributed by the government, according to the government's rules, and through the use of the government's power.

Ah, but who does the government answer to? Corporations, mostly, but ideally? You.

If the government is out to get you... stop oppressing yourself?


I'd love to hear about methods to close the gap between the rich and the poor without government force. Organized consumer groups only marginally work when they're up against stuff with a hell of a lot more disposable income than them.

And my only objection (for the sake of this discussion) to raising taxes is that there comes a point where raising taxes actually produces less overall income for the government. (I can discuss the Laffer curve at greater length if need be). I'm not saying American tax rates are there yet, but if taxes only ever increase, eventually that point will be reached.

Certainly. But unless we wanna go into a crazy discussion about the details and nuances of taxation, I think it's save to just say "we need more." Maybe a step further and say "we need to tax people with money more, largely by closing loopholes and exceptions that only benefit the rich."

[Nadaka]

I agree that cutting government spending is probably very difficult and many beneficial programs would suffer for it. Unfortunately, at some point the US government just can't collect enough income through taxes to pay for them all. And with a debt of 15 trillion dollars and growing, painful cuts are going to be inevitable.
It's not an optimal outcome, but it's going to have to happen regardless.

Prove, or at least produce evidence that the government can not collect enough taxes to cover current expenses. The problem is that you are making assertions that are all too simplistic and unjustified by the preponderance of evidence. If you want to be taken seriously and convince us that you are correct, you are going to have to back it up with actual numbers and references.

[GSD]

Rushing to google here, forgive me if my sources aren't rock solid.
From the wall street journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704621304576267113524583554.html

"If you took all the income of people over $200,000, it would yield about $1.89 trillion, enough revenue to cover the 2012 bill for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security"

That's taking *all* their money, and it still would pay only a tenth of the overall current debt, which is still rising.

Raising taxes may well be a part of the solution, but it's not the entire solution.