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Sure this is nice, but other European countries enjoy equal or better public health services with a fraction of taxes. You're delusional if you think your 40%

Sure this is nice, but other European countries enjoy equal or better public health services with a fraction of taxes. You're delusional if you think your 40% base tax is being mainly spent on education and the health system.

thirdsun 9y ago
Yes, you're right, there's certainly some middle ground - I was rather thinking about the other extreme, like the US.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  Taxes aren't that much lower in the US - it's just that what Germany are spending on social programs, the US spends on estabilishing and maintaining world domination (via the military). What is the bigger problem is that gross dev salaries are maybe half of what they are in the US.
  - jpttsn 9y ago
    I think the two might be linked. Maintaining world domination via the military effects the demand for engineering talent. It's not always direct; consider what Silicon Valley today would be if there hadn't been a DARPA etc.
  - cko 9y ago
    Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Tomahawk missiles and F15s aren't cheap, but I thought Medicare + Social Security chew up a majority of our tax dollars.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      They do, along with other entitlements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget EDIT: Keep in mind that this is just the budget of the national government. Each state has its own budget that barely goes to military spending at all, instead focusing on entitlements, especially healthcare costs.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      >Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Those $600+ billion have to come somewhere, don't they? And that doesn't even account for the unaccountable [0]. It doesn't look that bad in % of GDP because of the US's massive GDP, but in pure numbers, the US spends more money on it's military than the next 8 countries on the list combined. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1... [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on-defence-than-all-of-these-countries-combined/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on...
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        Everyone recognizes that. They don't agree that the problem is the U.S. being war hungry as much as the other countries not being willing to chip in. Here's Obama on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-oba... """ “Free riders aggravate me,” he told me. Recently, Obama warned that Great Britain would no longer be able to claim a “special relationship” with the United States if it did not commit to spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. “You have to pay your fair share,” Obama told David Cameron, who subsequently met the 2 percent threshold. Part of his mission as president, Obama explained, is to spur other countries to take action for themselves, rather than wait for the U.S. to lead. The defense of the liberal international order against jihadist terror, Russian adventurism, and Chinese bullying depends in part, he believes, on the willingness of other nations to share the burden with the U.S. """
        freeflight 9y ago
        That's a narrative that works in the US and only in the US. What are countries supposed to "chip in" for? The deterrence of a future alien invasion like in Independence Day? Why should the world chip in for US Ambitions that result in massive destruction, like destabilizing the Middle East, while dealing with most of the brunt of the blowback of such US foreign policy decisions, in the form of refugee waves? Nobody asked you to be "the world police" no matter how much you keep telling yourself that, "the people there asked for US interventions", is a tale many US Americans keep telling themselves to keep the "We are the good guys" narrative intact, but it has little to nothing to do with reality. Because reality knows no "good guys" or "bad guys", in reality such terms are purely subjective. As much as I like the US as a country and it's people, there's a huge difference in perception in how US Americans see their country vs how the rest of the world perceives their country's actions.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      Going down to (relative) German level of military spending would free up around $350b (per year). That could go a long way towards improving various social programs. The other issue is that health care in the US seems ridiculously expensive (with doctors making 20x minimum wage and various insurance companies profiteering from a broken system), so in the end this money would buy less health care than in Germany. The same is true with higher education - it's free in most of Europe, but the conditions aren't nearly as lavish as in the US (so again, the money wouldn't improve the situation as much as it could).

thirdsun 9y ago

Yes, you're right, there's certainly some middle ground - I was rather thinking about the other extreme, like the US.

taway_1212 9y ago
Taxes aren't that much lower in the US - it's just that what Germany are spending on social programs, the US spends on estabilishing and maintaining world domination (via the military). What is the bigger problem is that gross dev salaries are maybe half of what they are in the US.
- jpttsn 9y ago
  I think the two might be linked. Maintaining world domination via the military effects the demand for engineering talent. It's not always direct; consider what Silicon Valley today would be if there hadn't been a DARPA etc.
- cko 9y ago
  Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Tomahawk missiles and F15s aren't cheap, but I thought Medicare + Social Security chew up a majority of our tax dollars.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    They do, along with other entitlements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget EDIT: Keep in mind that this is just the budget of the national government. Each state has its own budget that barely goes to military spending at all, instead focusing on entitlements, especially healthcare costs.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    >Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Those $600+ billion have to come somewhere, don't they? And that doesn't even account for the unaccountable [0]. It doesn't look that bad in % of GDP because of the US's massive GDP, but in pure numbers, the US spends more money on it's military than the next 8 countries on the list combined. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1... [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on-defence-than-all-of-these-countries-combined/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on...
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Everyone recognizes that. They don't agree that the problem is the U.S. being war hungry as much as the other countries not being willing to chip in. Here's Obama on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-oba... """ “Free riders aggravate me,” he told me. Recently, Obama warned that Great Britain would no longer be able to claim a “special relationship” with the United States if it did not commit to spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. “You have to pay your fair share,” Obama told David Cameron, who subsequently met the 2 percent threshold. Part of his mission as president, Obama explained, is to spur other countries to take action for themselves, rather than wait for the U.S. to lead. The defense of the liberal international order against jihadist terror, Russian adventurism, and Chinese bullying depends in part, he believes, on the willingness of other nations to share the burden with the U.S. """
      - freeflight 9y ago
        That's a narrative that works in the US and only in the US. What are countries supposed to "chip in" for? The deterrence of a future alien invasion like in Independence Day? Why should the world chip in for US Ambitions that result in massive destruction, like destabilizing the Middle East, while dealing with most of the brunt of the blowback of such US foreign policy decisions, in the form of refugee waves? Nobody asked you to be "the world police" no matter how much you keep telling yourself that, "the people there asked for US interventions", is a tale many US Americans keep telling themselves to keep the "We are the good guys" narrative intact, but it has little to nothing to do with reality. Because reality knows no "good guys" or "bad guys", in reality such terms are purely subjective. As much as I like the US as a country and it's people, there's a huge difference in perception in how US Americans see their country vs how the rest of the world perceives their country's actions.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    Going down to (relative) German level of military spending would free up around $350b (per year). That could go a long way towards improving various social programs. The other issue is that health care in the US seems ridiculously expensive (with doctors making 20x minimum wage and various insurance companies profiteering from a broken system), so in the end this money would buy less health care than in Germany. The same is true with higher education - it's free in most of Europe, but the conditions aren't nearly as lavish as in the US (so again, the money wouldn't improve the situation as much as it could).