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What's the ratio of new roads to drone strikes that kill civilians? Cost of pervasive surveillance versus cost of quality schools? Etc, etc. My opinion is that,

by geomark 11y ago

What's the ratio of new roads to drone strikes that kill civilians? Cost of pervasive surveillance versus cost of quality schools? Etc, etc. My opinion is that, given the vast and expanding evil of an already huge and highly immoral government, advocating paying more taxes makes one also highly immoral.

gizmo 11y ago
The US is leading in child poverty, with 16 million kids (20%) on food stamps. Poverty alleviation requires government action. Raising taxes so money can be given to people who clearly need it isn't "big government" in any meaningful sense. Some of the money flows just get redirected and millions of people get lifted out of poverty. This doesn't contribute at all to the problems of unaccountable and unchecked power. We should of course oppose Drone strikes (and all other forms of aggression). But don't use Drone strikes as a boogeyman to oppose all taxes. Without sufficient taxation government becomes underfunded and incapable of providing the services needed for the country to function. Where government falls short other groups will take over. When underfunded government institutions get replaced with unaccountable for-profit organizations the citizens are far worse off. It's a permanent struggle to keep the powers that be in check. However when it comes to the government there are many checks and balances in place, and there is a lot of transparency so the citizenry can figure out what the government is doing if they care enough. All things considered, that's pretty good.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  > Raising taxes so money can be given to people who clearly need it isn't "big government" in any meaningful sense Huh, I know a lot of people who would disagree with you on that one - big time. All civilised countries need a welfare state. But it's hard to argue that this is not "big government" because unless you have a basic income (which nowhere does), all welfare systems require enormous bureaucracies to manage the flow of money, find and fight fraudulent claims, try to get people who are on welfare back off it again, follow up individual cases, gather statistics on the systems performance and so on. They need this because "people who clearly need it" is an unusably vague standard. In practice, the standard figures I've seen for overheads of welfare spending are about 5-20%. According to this article, the USA Medicaid program has overheads of about 5% and food stamps is closer to 17%: http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/09/21/limbaugh-dramatically-overstated-administrative/133859 http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/09/21/limbaugh-dramati... > This doesn't contribute at all to the problems of unaccountable and unchecked power. The welfare state is pretty much the embodiment of unaccountable and unchecked power! The only time you can ever hold it to account is during elections and then it's competing with many other issues. The rest of the time it's run by unelected and often rather opaque bureaucracies! Look, I am not arguing that welfare is bad. All countries need a safety net (although I note that most welfare spending, in the UK at least, is actually on pensions and not the safety net). But just because we may like having such a thing doesn't mean we should be blind to its costs. Final comment: > When underfunded government institutions get replaced with unaccountable for-profit organizations the citizens are far worse off. The vast majority of organisations I deal with in my daily life are for-profit organisations held to account through market power. Most things in my life (food, home, water, energy, heat, furniture, internet, etc) are provided by such organisations. There have been countries that tried it the other way around - all such things were provided by the state. That was called communism and it collapsed.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  There's a spectrum of how "big" government should be and what its proper function is. Not everyone agrees that redistribution of wealth, even for the purpose of poverty alleviation, is a function of the smallest feasible government.
- geomark 11y ago
  I frequently donate directly to needy children. Other worthy causes as well. I don't have a choice when it comes to taxes - a large fraction of them are used for highly immoral purposes. As a moral person I do not support paying more taxes. In fact, I have made major life changes in order to minimize the amount of taxes the government can force me to pay. It's really the only way to bring such a huge out of control government under control - starve it.

by geomark 11y ago

gizmo 11y ago

The US is leading in child poverty, with 16 million kids (20%) on food stamps. Poverty alleviation requires government action. Raising taxes so money can be given to people who clearly need it isn't "big government" in any meaningful sense. Some of the money flows just get redirected and millions of people get lifted out of poverty. This doesn't contribute at all to the problems of unaccountable and unchecked power. We should of course oppose Drone strikes (and all other forms of aggression). But don't use Drone strikes as a boogeyman to oppose all taxes. Without sufficient taxation government becomes underfunded and incapable of providing the services needed for the country to function. Where government falls short other groups will take over. When underfunded government institutions get replaced with unaccountable for-profit organizations the citizens are far worse off. It's a permanent struggle to keep the powers that be in check. However when it comes to the government there are many checks and balances in place, and there is a lot of transparency so the citizenry can figure out what the government is doing if they care enough. All things considered, that's pretty good.

mike_hearn 11y ago
> Raising taxes so money can be given to people who clearly need it isn't "big government" in any meaningful sense Huh, I know a lot of people who would disagree with you on that one - big time. All civilised countries need a welfare state. But it's hard to argue that this is not "big government" because unless you have a basic income (which nowhere does), all welfare systems require enormous bureaucracies to manage the flow of money, find and fight fraudulent claims, try to get people who are on welfare back off it again, follow up individual cases, gather statistics on the systems performance and so on. They need this because "people who clearly need it" is an unusably vague standard. In practice, the standard figures I've seen for overheads of welfare spending are about 5-20%. According to this article, the USA Medicaid program has overheads of about 5% and food stamps is closer to 17%: http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/09/21/limbaugh-dramatically-overstated-administrative/133859 http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/09/21/limbaugh-dramati... > This doesn't contribute at all to the problems of unaccountable and unchecked power. The welfare state is pretty much the embodiment of unaccountable and unchecked power! The only time you can ever hold it to account is during elections and then it's competing with many other issues. The rest of the time it's run by unelected and often rather opaque bureaucracies! Look, I am not arguing that welfare is bad. All countries need a safety net (although I note that most welfare spending, in the UK at least, is actually on pensions and not the safety net). But just because we may like having such a thing doesn't mean we should be blind to its costs. Final comment: > When underfunded government institutions get replaced with unaccountable for-profit organizations the citizens are far worse off. The vast majority of organisations I deal with in my daily life are for-profit organisations held to account through market power. Most things in my life (food, home, water, energy, heat, furniture, internet, etc) are provided by such organisations. There have been countries that tried it the other way around - all such things were provided by the state. That was called communism and it collapsed.
sokoloff 11y ago
There's a spectrum of how "big" government should be and what its proper function is. Not everyone agrees that redistribution of wealth, even for the purpose of poverty alleviation, is a function of the smallest feasible government.
geomark 11y ago
I frequently donate directly to needy children. Other worthy causes as well. I don't have a choice when it comes to taxes - a large fraction of them are used for highly immoral purposes. As a moral person I do not support paying more taxes. In fact, I have made major life changes in order to minimize the amount of taxes the government can force me to pay. It's really the only way to bring such a huge out of control government under control - starve it.