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Some food for thought: Congress just passed a tax cut bill costing $1.5 trillion over ten years, or $150 billion. That's enough to build a California HSR ever y

Some food for thought: Congress just passed a tax cut bill costing $1.5 trillion over ten years, or $150 billion. That's enough to build a California HSR ever year for the next ten years, accounting for 50% budget overrun, and still have $500 billion or so left over.

gfodor 9y ago
It's a peeve of mine when analysts refer to a tax cut "costing" the government money. This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing (not your invention, but I blame those who invented it as trying to mislead people.) One could equally frame is as the taxpayers "recovering" $1.5 trillion that would have normally been taken from them. A better framing is "is expected to reduce tax revenues by XXX amount." Not to mention that projecting tax cut "losses" is a game of prediction anyway. Taking that projection, and then backing out "how many HSRs will we have saved" makes even less sense than taking the projection itself as gospel, because the HSR is also a projection, and also paid out over time, and also subject to inflation, etc etc. IOW this kind of analysis has the surface qualities of pointing out an interesting comparison but I don't feel it's conveying anything meaningful.
- wwweston 9y ago
  >This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing "Dishonest" is a massive overstatement at best. It's completely reasonable to state that the government has lost $1.5 trillion in revenue, no matter what frame you choose. "Cost" would be one way to refer to that. I suppose I can imagine someone nitpicking that "cost" should refer to only expenditures, but that's an uphill battle against colloquial speech and even some formal usage (an opportunity cost is not an expenditure). The general argument that taxation itself is theft is stronger than the argument that reduced revenue is only referred to as a cost dishonestly. And that's not saying much. > Not to mention that projecting tax cut "losses" is a game of prediction anyway. IIRC, the $1.5 trillion figure is among other things the prediction of the legislators who created the policy when playing by the required legislative rules.
  - shard972 9y ago
    > It's completely reasonable to state that the government has lost $1.5 trillion in revenue Unless you don't really believe the state owns that money.
- dkural 9y ago
  Usually when X "loses" money Y "gains" money. The verb itself is relative. A tax cut means the government collects less tax; so it has less money. That sounds like a loss to me. I think it is deliberately dishonest to re-frame this well understood verb in any other way.
  - bmmayer1 9y ago
    It depends on whether you think the government should have that money.
    - jachee 9y ago
      I'd trust the government to do useful-at-large things with it long before the top 1%.
      - bmmayer1 9y ago
        Why?
    - dkural 9y ago
      I don't follow. A tax cut is called a cut because the gov looses some tax income. This is simply a fact & does not at all depend on anything you/I think about who should have money. Our politics depends on that, but not the facts.
- megy 9y ago
  Oh, I bet you are one of those guys who love the fact that the US has tax added at the til, not on the prices.
savanaly 9y ago
When you spend X dollars on a goverment project, materials and labor worth approximately X dollars are eliminated from the face of the earth. When you give a tax break of X dollars nothing is removed from the face of the earth, the X dollars are now in the pockets of people who may save or spend them. This is a CRITICAL difference.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  This critical difference is compensated by another critical difference - that X dollars in the hands of Y people (where Y is comparable in magnitude to Y) are much less effective than X dollars pooled in the hands of a single actor.
- marcell 9y ago
  That's an odd way to look at it: > materials and labor worth approximately X dollars are eliminated from the face of the earth They aren't eliminated from the face of the earth. The materials exist, just in a new and more useful state state (as tracks, trains, etc.). The labor I suppose doesn't exist, but it never existed as it's not a physical object. > When you give a tax break of X dollars nothing is removed from the face of the earth, the X dollars are now in the pockets of people who may save or spend them Well sort of--those X dollars are presumably spent on something, either immediately or (if saved) some years in the future. When they're spent, the functionality is similar to government spending, in that resources are taken from the earth and transformed into some other good. I'll grant that there's reasonable debate about whether a HSR is a better way to spend $100B than a tax cut, but I don't think "eliminating" things is a valid argument for/against either side.

gfodor 9y ago

It's a peeve of mine when analysts refer to a tax cut "costing" the government money. This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing (not your invention, but I blame those who invented it as trying to mislead people.) One could equally frame is as the taxpayers "recovering" $1.5 trillion that would have normally been taken from them. A better framing is "is expected to reduce tax revenues by XXX amount." Not to mention that projecting tax cut "losses" is a game of prediction anyway. Taking that projection, and then backing out "how many HSRs will we have saved" makes even less sense than taking the projection itself as gospel, because the HSR is also a projection, and also paid out over time, and also subject to inflation, etc etc. IOW this kind of analysis has the surface qualities of pointing out an interesting comparison but I don't feel it's conveying anything meaningful.

wwweston 9y ago
>This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing "Dishonest" is a massive overstatement at best. It's completely reasonable to state that the government has lost $1.5 trillion in revenue, no matter what frame you choose. "Cost" would be one way to refer to that. I suppose I can imagine someone nitpicking that "cost" should refer to only expenditures, but that's an uphill battle against colloquial speech and even some formal usage (an opportunity cost is not an expenditure). The general argument that taxation itself is theft is stronger than the argument that reduced revenue is only referred to as a cost dishonestly. And that's not saying much. > Not to mention that projecting tax cut "losses" is a game of prediction anyway. IIRC, the $1.5 trillion figure is among other things the prediction of the legislators who created the policy when playing by the required legislative rules.
- shard972 9y ago
  > It's completely reasonable to state that the government has lost $1.5 trillion in revenue Unless you don't really believe the state owns that money.
dkural 9y ago
Usually when X "loses" money Y "gains" money. The verb itself is relative. A tax cut means the government collects less tax; so it has less money. That sounds like a loss to me. I think it is deliberately dishonest to re-frame this well understood verb in any other way.
- bmmayer1 9y ago
  It depends on whether you think the government should have that money.
  - jachee 9y ago
    I'd trust the government to do useful-at-large things with it long before the top 1%.
    - bmmayer1 9y ago
      Why?
  - dkural 9y ago
    I don't follow. A tax cut is called a cut because the gov looses some tax income. This is simply a fact & does not at all depend on anything you/I think about who should have money. Our politics depends on that, but not the facts.
megy 9y ago
Oh, I bet you are one of those guys who love the fact that the US has tax added at the til, not on the prices.

savanaly 9y ago

When you spend X dollars on a goverment project, materials and labor worth approximately X dollars are eliminated from the face of the earth. When you give a tax break of X dollars nothing is removed from the face of the earth, the X dollars are now in the pockets of people who may save or spend them. This is a CRITICAL difference.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
This critical difference is compensated by another critical difference - that X dollars in the hands of Y people (where Y is comparable in magnitude to Y) are much less effective than X dollars pooled in the hands of a single actor.
marcell 9y ago
That's an odd way to look at it: > materials and labor worth approximately X dollars are eliminated from the face of the earth They aren't eliminated from the face of the earth. The materials exist, just in a new and more useful state state (as tracks, trains, etc.). The labor I suppose doesn't exist, but it never existed as it's not a physical object. > When you give a tax break of X dollars nothing is removed from the face of the earth, the X dollars are now in the pockets of people who may save or spend them Well sort of--those X dollars are presumably spent on something, either immediately or (if saved) some years in the future. When they're spent, the functionality is similar to government spending, in that resources are taken from the earth and transformed into some other good. I'll grant that there's reasonable debate about whether a HSR is a better way to spend $100B than a tax cut, but I don't think "eliminating" things is a valid argument for/against either side.