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I always think when I see criticisms of the failure of the US system to solve problems like this that maybe you should all get together and make some sort of co

I always think when I see criticisms of the failure of the US system to solve problems like this that maybe you should all get together and make some sort of collective system, lets call it a 'government' and then everyone should pay some money towards it, we could call it 'taxes' and see how that works. I'm Australian though, we all pay taxes and things are funded, people still complain but seems to work. Granted perhaps some of the tax money is wasted, and maybe we pay more than we should if it was all farmed out to private enterprise but it seems the alternatives are worse. IMHO if you pay less and less taxes then social systems will fail, you may call it socialism, or communism or whatever but personally I'd prefer paying just a little bit more and have those systems work. I prefer it to extreme capitalism, or whatever the current US system is called.

austhrow743 8y ago
Australian here. The US government spends more than ours by gdp percentage and we have very similar tax burdens. Your comment reads like you think we live in Sweden.
- chadcmulligan 8y ago
  Yes I did think that when I said it (re sweden), but if they spend more by gdp why does it seem their systems have so many troubles? I find that very confusing, maybe the flaw is the amount of privatisation? I've worked in a few corporate and government positions and the idea that private enterprise is efficient I find a bit of a giggle, maybe its just BS? Edit: it is strange, here's the US breakdown https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... and the australian breakdown https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/node/131/take https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/node/131/take. The US spends a bit more on defence, but not as much as I thought it would and spends more on health than aus does (as % of GDP). Though not sure if this includes state taxes, maybe someone more knowledgable in these things can explain

austhrow743 8y ago

Australian here. The US government spends more than ours by gdp percentage and we have very similar tax burdens. Your comment reads like you think we live in Sweden.

chadcmulligan 8y ago
Yes I did think that when I said it (re sweden), but if they spend more by gdp why does it seem their systems have so many troubles? I find that very confusing, maybe the flaw is the amount of privatisation? I've worked in a few corporate and government positions and the idea that private enterprise is efficient I find a bit of a giggle, maybe its just BS? Edit: it is strange, here's the US breakdown https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... and the australian breakdown https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/node/131/take https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/node/131/take. The US spends a bit more on defence, but not as much as I thought it would and spends more on health than aus does (as % of GDP). Though not sure if this includes state taxes, maybe someone more knowledgable in these things can explain