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> will never pay any taxes > and how we are going to have free schools, free medical care, police, etc? Am I over thinking this? Well it isn't free if you ha

> will never pay any taxes > and how we are going to have free schools, free medical care, police, etc? Am I over thinking this? Well it isn't free if you have to pay for it. Here in France we pay 80% taxes and then we like to brag about having free school, free healthcare etc. It's not free if 80% of your hard earned money goes to these institutions and the bureaucracies that manage them. Worst thing is that we still need a private insurance on top of that because our welfare system is going broke and can't even pay for anything despite the 80% taxation. So yeah, it is not free after all, it is even super expensive. Here is the thing that people do not understand: quality healthcare or quality education are expensive, there is no way around that, no magic welfare taxes will fix it. Whether private or public, it will cost you an arm and a leg. Only thing that could fix it would be innovation but unfortunately these sectors are highly regulated and this is a barrier to innovation so things will progress very slowly.

tormeh 10y ago
>Here in France we pay 80% taxes It's 44.2% tax burden and 56.1% government spending. Percentages are fractions of GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending It's not atypical for a western country. You still pay less than the Danes.
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  That's an average. This is not taking into account VAT and the other gazillions insults (also known as public services) that are forced on you because state monopoly, healthcare which is mandatory and public here and is more like a tax than insurance (you don't pay according to risk but according to how much your earn, and you still need a private insurance on top), and then there are of course tariffs that helps colluding and failing industries, employment taxes that makes up already 50% of your salary pre-income tax, ridiculous gazillions regulations that make everything more expensive and so on and so forth.
Daishiman 10y ago
> Here is the thing that people do not understand: quality healthcare or quality education are expensive, there is no way around that, no magic welfare taxes will fix it. Whether private or public, it will cost you an arm and a leg. Only thing that could fix it would be innovation but unfortunately these sectors are highly regulated and this is a barrier to innovation so things will progress very slowly. Everyone complains about regulation in health care until you get faulty medical equipment or contaminated pills and a couple dozen people die. It is a tired and irrelevant complaint.
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  > Everyone complains about regulation in health care until you get faulty medical equipment or contaminated pills and a couple dozen people die. As usual there are the deaths you see and those you don't. How many people died because a new medical equipment required years to get approved and many people who could have benefited did not and died? It is very shortsighted to only mention and count deaths caused by approved medicines and not by unapproved yet working ones.

tormeh 10y ago

>Here in France we pay 80% taxes It's 44.2% tax burden and 56.1% government spending. Percentages are fractions of GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending It's not atypical for a western country. You still pay less than the Danes.

patrickaljord 10y ago
That's an average. This is not taking into account VAT and the other gazillions insults (also known as public services) that are forced on you because state monopoly, healthcare which is mandatory and public here and is more like a tax than insurance (you don't pay according to risk but according to how much your earn, and you still need a private insurance on top), and then there are of course tariffs that helps colluding and failing industries, employment taxes that makes up already 50% of your salary pre-income tax, ridiculous gazillions regulations that make everything more expensive and so on and so forth.

Daishiman 10y ago

> Here is the thing that people do not understand: quality healthcare or quality education are expensive, there is no way around that, no magic welfare taxes will fix it. Whether private or public, it will cost you an arm and a leg. Only thing that could fix it would be innovation but unfortunately these sectors are highly regulated and this is a barrier to innovation so things will progress very slowly. Everyone complains about regulation in health care until you get faulty medical equipment or contaminated pills and a couple dozen people die. It is a tired and irrelevant complaint.

patrickaljord 10y ago
> Everyone complains about regulation in health care until you get faulty medical equipment or contaminated pills and a couple dozen people die. As usual there are the deaths you see and those you don't. How many people died because a new medical equipment required years to get approved and many people who could have benefited did not and died? It is very shortsighted to only mention and count deaths caused by approved medicines and not by unapproved yet working ones.